Desiring Heaven – Part 2
Isaiah 26:7 – 27:13 (26:12-19)
September 17, 2023
We want to pick back up tonight with the text we began this morning.
It is the conclusion to Isaiah’s heavenly vision.
1. He has completely understood that heaven awaits God’s people.
2. It is a glorious place with no death or tears or sorrow or reproach.
3. He also knows that no unrighteous will enter that place.
And the burden of Isaiah’s heart is how to get
The unrighteous Israelites he lives with into a place like that.
How will God transform the unrighteous to fit them for heaven?
And as we introduced this morning, the answer is through DISCIPLINE.
I gave you two statements to ponder this morning:
1) Sin is worse than suffering
2) Discipline is better than apathy
And we saw how the message of Scripture bears this out.
• Jesus said it would be better for you to cut off a hand or gouge out an eye than
to go to hell.
Isaiah believes that,
And it is the driving force behind the final leg of this message.
We saw the first point this morning:
#1 ISAIAH’S PETITION
Isaiah 26:7-11
Here we saw Isaiah
• Recognizing that the path of the righteous ends better than the path of the wicked
• And asking God to produce that righteousness in His people.
“O Upright One, make the path of the righteous level”
• And we even saw Isaiah recognizing that God often does this through judgment.
(9b-10) “For when the earth experiences Your judgments The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Though the wicked is shown favor, He does not learn righteousness; He deals unjustly in the land of uprightness, And does not perceive the majesty of the LORD.”
When God brings discipline the fruit is righteousness.
When God shows only favor and no discipline
Righteousness is very rarely the result.
It was just a fact of life and so Isaiah is petitioning for God
To do what is necessary to bring righteousness to His people.
We ended this morning contemplating this truth.
We challenged our doctrine of sin (our hamartiology)
• Do we see sin as that bad?
• Do we see sin as something that must be eradicated at all cost?
• Do we see suffering as a better condition than sin?
If sin isn’t allowed in heaven,
Just how much of it can we tolerate in our lives?
You’re getting the idea.
Well tonight we continue on in Isaiah’s closing message.
Isaiah’s Petition
#2 ISAIAH’S PERCEPTION
Isaiah 26:12-16
Isaiah is still building on his belief that suffering can be a good thing,
Especially if it produces the righteousness that God blesses.
And here Isaiah turns to A HISTORY LESSON.
• Isaiah is recounting what God has done in the past for Israel.
What you’ll eventually see from Isaiah is that
He wants God to do it again.
Let’s look at verse 12, “LORD, You will establish peace for us,”
Now this is Isaiah’s confidence going forward.
That God will produce peace for Israel.
And please understand when Isaiah speaks of peace
He is NOT focused on national peace or peace with other nations.
He is talking about PEACE WITH GOD.
The kind of peace that does not exist for the wicked.
Isaiah 48:22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.”
We heard the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day:
Jeremiah 6:14 “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.”
But here Isaiah is CONFIDENT that God will do whatever is necessary to “establish peace for us”.
That is a good reminder that God, even in discipline is not working to harm us, but to bring us to a position of peace with Him.
WHY IS HE SO CONFIDENT that God will establish peace for them?
“Since You have also performed for us all our works.”
I love that statement.
• What an affirmation on Isaiah’s part.
• What a perception on Isaiah’s part.
Isaiah is well-aware that in the grand scheme of things
We have actually done nothing to help our cause.
Everything good about us
Is only that which God has accomplished for us.
ISN’T THAT TRUE?
There is such a GOSPEL recognition here.
WE BEING THOSE WHO
• Do not stand before God in our own works, but rather we stand clothed in the
righteous works of Jesus.
• Have not paid for our sin, but rather we stand justified in the payment of Christ
for our sin.
• Are too weak to secure our own salvation, but rather we stand secured in the
intercessory work of Jesus.
• Can’t even fully sanctify ourselves, but rather we are washed and cleansed
and sanctified by God’s Spirit in our lives.
The reality is that it is God who does His work in us and on us.
Even Isaiah recognized that.
The fruitful and peaceful times of Israel’s past
Are not a testimony to the greatness of a previous generation,
They are a testimony to God’s work on their behalf.
In fact, Isaiah gives a little HISTORY LESSON about the previous generations of Israel.
(13) “O LORD our God, other masters besides You have ruled us; But through You alone we confess Your name.”
Isaiah speaks of Israel’s history
And recounts that on numerous occasions Israel has been prone to defect and worship other gods.
Think back to the period of the Judges alone.
Psalms 78:54-58 “So He brought them to His holy land, To this hill country which His right hand had gained. He also drove out the nations before them And apportioned them for an inheritance by measurement, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents. Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God And did not keep His testimonies, But turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers; They turned aside like a treacherous bow. For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.”
That entire period is one idolatrous defection after another.
So how did it happen that Israel settled on the God of creation and actually built Him a temple and started calling Him their God?
• Did a generation just decided that He was the best God and turn to Him?
• Was there a group of men just smarter than the rest?
No, God did it.
Psalms 78:59-72 “When God heard, He was filled with wrath And greatly abhorred Israel; So that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, The tent which He had pitched among men, And gave up His strength to captivity And His glory into the hand of the adversary. He also delivered His people to the sword, And was filled with wrath at His inheritance. Fire devoured His young men, And His virgins had no wedding songs. His priests fell by the sword, And His widows could not weep. Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, Like a warrior overcome by wine. He drove His adversaries backward; He put on them an everlasting reproach. He also rejected the tent of Joseph, And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which He has founded forever. He also chose David His servant And took him from the sheepfolds; From the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him To shepherd Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them with his skillful hands.”
• God intervened.
• He intervened with judgment.
• He worked a cleansing in Israel.
That whole segment is a testimony to what God did.
It’s all how God delivered them over to judgment
And then chose for Himself a people
And shepherded them to become His inheritance.
Isaiah recognized that.
“through You alone we confess Your name.”
The only reason we are Christians now
Is because You have intervened and caused us to be.
We would have loved other things,
But You intervened and crushed those idols.
(14) “The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise; Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, And You have wiped out all remembrance of them.”
It is the testimony to how God intervened in judgment
To purify the nation He chose from their idolatry.
Is that not God’s sovereign work?
To accomplish for us what we could not
And would not accomplish on our own.
And what was the end result of God’s work?
(15) “You have increased the nation, O LORD, You have increased the nation, You are glorified; You have extended all the borders of the land.”
The only reason we are a glorious nation today
Is because You have done it.
• It is You who chose us.
• It is You who saved us.
• It is You who called us back to You.
• It is You who gave us this land.
• It is You who increased our borders.
YOU HAVE DONE IT ALL
NOW WE KNOW ALL THAT.
We know that as believers today.
We all live under such a state of grace.
We love those DOCTRINES OF GRACE that we often refer to.
MAN’S TOTAL DEPRAVITY – we understand that we were dead in our sin and were therefore incapable of even responding to God.
But the truth is that even if we could have, we wouldn’t have.
Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
We were dead.
We didn’t need to be persuaded to call on Jesus.
Lazarus couldn’t decide to come out of the tomb.
That was us.
In our sin we had no ability to recognize, seek, or obtain salvation.
We also love.
GOD’S UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION – that the only reason we are saved is because God chose for us to be saved.
Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
We didn’t choose God, He chose us.
• Lazarus didn’t volunteer to be raised, Jesus chose to raise him.
And God did that for us when we absolutely had no reason to deserve it.
We were sinful and foolish and chased after carnal things,
but God intervened by grace in our life.
HE CHOSE US.
GOD’S ABSOLUTE ATONEMENT – Not only did God choose to save us but He then sent Christ to pay the penalty for all our sin.
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace”
On that cross Jesus DIDN’T POTENTIALLY pay the penalty for sinners
Who may or may not choose to trust Him later.
No, on that cross Jesus said, “It is finished!”
On that cross Jesus paid the full price
For all the sin of all the elect for all time.
We didn’t do that, Christ did that.
GOD’S IRRESISTIBLE GRACE – that chose whom God chose and redeemed He called with a calling so effective that they came.
In short, not one of those whom He has chosen to be saved
Will reject that calling.
John 6:37-39 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.”
It is God who regenerated our heart.
• Why did you all of a sudden hate your sin?
• Why did you all of a sudden desire Christ?
• Why did you all of a sudden want to deny yourself and follow Him?
It is because you literally had a change of heart.
Only you didn’t change it, God did.
He effectively called you.
GOD’S ETERNAL PROTECTION OF THE SAINTS – that now God is eternally securing all those whom He has chosen, called, and atoned for.
No one can snatch them out of His hand.
We are His and His forever.
WE SEE THAT WORK IN OUR LIVES.
We recognize, as Jonathan Edwards said, “The only thing we contributed to our salvation was the sin that made it necessary.”
GOD DID IT ALL.
Isaiah recognized that for Israel.
God did it all.
“You have increased the nation, O LORD, You have increased the nation, You are glorified; You have extended all the borders of the land.”
IF YOU’LL THINK ABOUT IT,
That’s the same way Paul described our salvation.
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
That’s what Isaiah just said too.
Throughout Israel’s history all we have is a track record of treachery and defection and betrayal and denial.
And yet, in spite of our complete unfaithfulness,
You have managed to make a people out of us.
You have given us this land.
You have become our God.
You have established a temple.
You have taken us from a pagan idolatrous people
Into a people for Your own possession.
YOU DID THAT.
And we all recognize that in our lives.
But that is NOT ALL that Isaiah PERCEIVES.
Isaiah also perceives THE METHOD
By which God often times did this work in their lives.
(16) “O LORD, they sought You in distress; They could only whisper a prayer, Your chastening was upon them.”
What was the method that God often used in order to pull these people out of idolatry and into His service?
The answer: “distress”
“they sought You in distress”
Can any of you affirm that reality in your past?
Can you affirm or deny that if you were to look back over the course of your life the times where you most likely sought God the most were the times of distress?
I don’t have to wait for your answer because I know that is true.
It was times when God’s “chastening” was so heavy
That perhaps you “could only whisper a prayer”.
Can you see that God used that time in your life to cause you to draw near to Him and to seek Him?
Of course you can.
AND THAT IS WHY ISAIAH HAS PERCEIVED.
That throughout the ages God has used a tool that is so effective
That it can even cause pagan idolators to leave their idols
And come and seek Him for salvation.
That tool is “distress”.
Isaiah has perceived that in Israel’s history.
And now you understand why he is seeking it in her present.
Incidentally, Isaiah is not alone in this understanding.
A century later, when God will exile Judah into Babylon, God will actually explain why He is bringing such a horrible fate to the land.
Jeremiah 29:10-14 “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’”
It’s amazing how a little distress can suddenly turn sinners into seekers.
But it’s not just sinners.
That works even in the lives of the redeemed doesn’t it?
Listen to Paul
2 Corinthians 1:8-10 “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,”
• That is NOT TO SAY that Paul had not previously sought God.
• NOR IS THAT TO SAY that Paul had somehow denied the resurrection.
But it is amazing how strong our faith can become
And how clear our perception can become
Through the furnace of distress.
You may theologically know that God is a healer, but when you get sick that reality may take on a whole new precedent in your life.
You may theologically know that God is a provider, but when money is tight that reality may take on a whole new emphasis.
Distress has been a continual tool of God throughout the ages
To cause His people to seek Him.
It has worked on the vilest of sinners
And it has worked on the most seasoned of saints.
Isaiah has perceived that.
His Petition, His Perception
#3 ISAIAH’S PERSPECTIVE
Isaiah 26:17-19
It is interesting that Isaiah referenced a time in the past when God’s people were under such distress that they could only whisper a prayer.
Because Isaiah says that we are currently under that kind of distress.
(17) “As the pregnant women approaches the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her labor pains, Thus were we before You, O LORD.”
Isaiah wants to discuss their current suffering
And he immediately goes to the pinnacle of all suffering illustrations.
The Bible talks about suffering a lot,
• But when it wants to bring to you the greatest agony of all suffering it always goes to the same place: THE WOMAN IN LABOR.
• It is pain that originated at the fall and it is God’s perpetual example of intense pain.
And Isaiah says, that’s were we are.
WE ARE SUFFERING INTENSELY.
(18) “We were pregnant, we writhed in labor, We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth, Nor were inhabitants of the world born.”
Now it is true that Scripture does routinely go to a woman in labor
As the ultimate pain of suffering.
But Scripture also likes to immediately go to the follow up to a woman in labor and that is the immediate joy she feels when a child is born.
John 16:21 “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.”
And you understand that reality as well.
But here Isaiah says, we have experienced the first, but NOT the second.
• We have felt the labor pains.
• We have agonized in our suffering.
• What we have not experienced is the joy that comes after the suffering.
When we gave birth, “it seems only to wind”
• “We could not accomplish deliverance” –we never delivered a baby.
• “Nor were inhabitants of the world born” – we never received a child.
In short, we suffered, but so far it has been to no avail.
We’re like a woman who delivered a still-born child.
• Our pain has been followed with more pain.
• Our grief has been followed with more grief.
Our suffering has not resulted in a great deliverance.
And here is a VERY IMPORTANT POINT to recognize.
It is NOT suffering that is innately powerful to change lives.
There are some people who suffer their entire lives
And die just as sinful and bitter as when they started.
And in your suffering,
If your only objective is to survive it or to overcome it,
Then you run the risk of suffering for no benefit.
Wouldn’t that be terrible?
Wouldn’t it be terrible to go through all the labor pains of giving birth but not receive the benefit and joy of the newborn child?
Does that happen?
YES IT DOES.
There are people who do not have the proper perspective in suffering.
• Some end up blaming God.
• Some end up falling away from Him.
Remember the warning of the writer of Hebrews when he quoted Solomon in the passage we looked at this morning?
Hebrews 12:5-6 “and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
Remember, “do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD”
“regard lightly” is a compound word in the Greek
That means “to care little”
You go through it, but you don’t learn anything from it.
When a child gets disciplined,
One of the things the parent does is make sure they understand the purpose behind the discipline.
Often times I’d come home from work and Carrie would just say, “That one and that one need a spanking”.
And we’d go into the bedroom and get the paddle and that is when the appeals process would start.
No one tried to plead their case like Zech. He always wanted to lay out for the facts that Carrie had seemed to fail to understand which would explain why he did not deserve the spanking.
That is when I got to explain to him that I was not interested in the facts of the event that led to the spanking. I was not spanking him for that. I wasn’t spanking him for hitting Abigail or throwing a toy at Zek or whatever he did.
He was getting a spanking because he upset the peace of my home and offended my wife. And rather it was one event or 1,000 little events that eventually pushed her over the edge, he was getting a spanking for disrespecting my home.
And the point is that he needed to understand the root of the problem.
• He needed to learn something from this discipline.
• He needed to learn to respect his mother,
• Which is why after the spanking he had to go and apologize to her for pushing her to such a point that she would actually desire for her offspring to put in a place of extreme physical pain.
And the point of the writer of Hebrews is that you should do that.
When God places you in a point of pain
Do you consider what things you are to learn?
(NOT – what to do to get God to stop. “Job’s friends”) But what to learn.
Don’t think of your suffering as coincidence or unlucky.
• See it as providence from a Father who loves you
• And who is furthering your education.
But don’t go through the pains of labor and not receive the benefit from it.
The writer of Hebrews also gave the warning:
“nor faint when you are reproved by Him”
It is also not appropriate to receive God’s discipline
And fail to see the love and purpose behind it.
Don’t get a spanking from God and then run away from Him.
He loves you and He is working on your behalf.
Can it be severe? Yes
Can it be painful? Absolutely
But don’t regard it lightly and don’t faint.
Understand your suffering has a purpose
And it is God who is accomplishing that purpose.
And this is the NEXT PART of Isaiah’s PERSPECTIVE.
It comes by way of A CONFESSION.
(19) “Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.”
What is Isaiah saying?
• You may have killed us, but “Your dead will live”
• You may have turned us into corpses, but “Their corpses will rise.”
• We may lie in the dust, but “You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy”
In short, the dead will rise.
“the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.”
What is his point there?
• We can trust God in our suffering.
• We can trust God in our discipline.
• We know that He is at work doing something on our behalf.
Where can you find a story where God ever disciplined His own and it ended up worse for them than before?
Never.
Hebrews 12:11 “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
So do you see what Isaiah is doing now?
He is working on YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
This morning we wanted to change your view of sin and see it as a terrible thing that must be eradicated.
TONIGHT we want to change your view on the discipline of God and see it something redemptive and not destructive.
Don’t reject God’s discipline – it is good.
Reject sin – it brings death.
AND SO THE POINT IS
That when suffering occurs,
• It should drive you to God and not away from Him
• For just as He has always done, God will use it for your good.
• He will make you more righteous…
• He will give you life from the dead…
• He will draw you to Himself…
James said it very concisely a number or times.
James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
There James reminded that your suffering has a purpose.
• At the very least, if nothing else, it is teaching you endurance which is a necessary attribute if you are to be perfect.
James will say later:
James 1:12 “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
There we get the element of testing
• We learn that trials are necessary to prove perseverance
• And perseverance proves to us that our faith is real.
Paul said that too:
Romans 5:3-5 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
But perhaps James’ best teaching on dealing with suffering
Comes in the final chapter of his letter.
James 5:13 “Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray.”
What a great point!
• Don’t regard it lightly, don’t faint.
• Let your suffering drive you to God not away from Him.
And when we see suffering from that perspective
We understand what a good thing it can be in our lives.
So let me now return to our two statements.
1) SIN IS WORSE THAN SUFFERING.
• I hope you are being won over to that statement a little more now.
• Sin will send you to hell but suffering will produce in your sanctification.
2) DISCIPLINE IS BETTER THAN APATHY.
• And I hope you are being won over to that statement too.
Isaiah can see nothing but good
Coming from the disciplining hand of God
And he sees the definite need of it in the lives of Israel.
That is why he is even petitioning for God to bring it to Israel.
That is:
• Isaiah’s Petition
• Isaiah’s Perception
• Isaiah’s Perspective
Next Sunday morning now we are ready for the sermon.
We are ready for ISAIAH’S PROPHECY.
• He has shown us why discipline is necessary
• Next he’ll show us what God is going to do to this world
• In order that He might prepare His people for glory and heaven.
