Return To Him – Part 2
Isaiah 31-32 (31:7-32:8)
November 12, 2023
This morning we started looking at Isaiah 31.
We mentioned that Isaiah is still in the midst of that invitation from the father to his prodigal son.
In chapters 31 and 32 Isaiah reveals
Exactly what the sin of that prodigal is.
It is that he has DEFECTED from his father.
Isaiah 31:6 “Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.”
The sin of Israel is that they had defected from God.
And we begin to ask exactly what that defection looked like.
We saw one element in the first 5 verses.
#1 FAILURE TO TRUST
Isaiah 31:1-32:8
We saw that when Assyria threatened,
Instead of looking to the Holy One and instead of seeking the LORD,
The children of Judah ran to Egypt.
• They saw Egypt as wise.
• They saw Egypt as able.
• They saw Egypt as trustworthy.
So they abandoned God and ran to Egypt.
Isaiah noted both the defection and the foolishness in this.
(3) “Now the Egyptians are men and not God, And their horses are flesh and not spirit; So the LORD will stretch out His hand, And he who helps will stumble And he who is helped will fall, And all of them will come to an end together.”
God doesn’t look kindly upon defection.
We warned ourselves about even those subtle defections in our lives.
While God may certainly use men to bring about deliverance,
We must never seek men instead of Him.
• It offends God
• It harms us since we are rejecting the best plan for a lesser one.
But Judah had not sought that plan.
So the simple request of Isaiah was seen again.
(6) “Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.”
It is that same invitation we’ve seen over and over.
The God whom you have offended is gracious and compassionate
And He bids you to return to Him in spite of your defection.
That is the call.
• Stop neglecting Him and start seeking Him.
• Leave your sin
• And “look to the Holy One of Israel”
Well that is where WE LEFT OFF THIS MORNING.
Simply with Isaiah calling these defectors to come home.
They had failed to trust God; Isaiah wanted them to start.
And if they will,
Isaiah will show them what God has in store.
And that is where we come THIS EVENING.
(31:7-32:8) is again,
Isaiah’s explanation of what a returning prodigal can expect from God.
This segment is what a defecting son can expect when they come back.
AND VERY SIMPLY PUT,
They can expect a Living King whom they can see.
(32:1) “Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly.”
God asks us to walk by faith, not by sight.
HOWEVER we are also promised that when we walk by faith,
It will eventually become sight.
Let me read to you again Peter’s parallel sermon to the Jews in his day.
Acts 3:19-21 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”
Peter reminded, just as Isaiah has done,
That if Israel would only “repent and return”
THEN GOD WOULD SEND THEM THEIR KING.
I would take a moment here then and explain to you
WHY REPENTANCE is such an important part of this process.
We’ve noted recently that many people
Just prefer God to be gracious without every demanding repentance.
We read:
Isaiah 30:18 “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.”
We know God longs to be gracious.
But men wonder why He waits to have compassion.
• Why don’t you just go ahead and do it?
• Why must I repent first?
• Why don’t you just go ahead and show compassion and leave me as I am?
And I would point out to you that
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN GOD DID DO THAT.
There was a time
• When God did just go ahead and show grace even without Israel’s repentance.
• When God just went ahead and sent the King even though Israel had still not sought Him.
It’s what we’ll celebrate here shortly at Christmas.
God sent Jesus to this earth.
And He was the very embodiment of God being gracious.
John 1:16-17 “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
God sent Jesus in hope that Israel
Would see their King and then repent and return.
BUT WHAT HAPPENED?
John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
John 1:9-11 “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”
God sent His Son; God sent His King and the people rejected Him.
Their hearts were still hard.
Their eyes were still blind.
Their ears were still closed.
Jesus even said it.
Matthew 13:14-15 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’”
And again:
Matthew 15:7-9 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’”
Jesus said, “It’s just like Isaiah said.”
• These people don’t want the truth.
• These people hate the Holy One of Israel.
Sending the King before repentance
Did not lead to the salvation of the people.
It certainly wasn’t a mistake for God to send Christ,
For it was their rejection of Christ
That led to the cross and the atonement for our sin.
BUT YOU SEE THE POINT.
REPENTANCE IS NECESSARY.
If they don’t repent before He comes,
They most certainly won’t repent afterward.
So you have Peter,
• After Jesus died, rose, and ascended
• Basically preaching the sermon of Isaiah all over again.
“Repent and return…so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”
IN SHORT,
• God is waiting for repentance.
• God is waiting for His people to return to Him.
• BUT WHEN THEY DO, He will send His King
• And you will love the changes His King will make.
You actually see those changes in verses 31:7-32:8.
YOU SEE AGAIN THE BENEFITS OF THE KING.
These are the blessings of the King.
There are 4 of them here.
1) HE WILL REMOVE IDOLS (7)
“For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin.”
“in that day…”
• It is the day Israel returns.
• It is the day Israel repents.
• It is the day God sends His King.
And on that day there will no longer be the need nor desire for idols.
FOR ONE,
When the glorious King arrives,
Men will be too terrified to cling to their faulty idols.
Isaiah 2:17-21 “The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, But the idols will completely vanish. Men will go into caves of the rocks And into holes of the ground Before the terror of the LORD And the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble. In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats Their idols of silver and their idols of gold, Which they made for themselves to worship, In order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs Before the terror of the LORD and the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble.”
It won’t be considered a trivial thing
In that day to keep an idol around.
We read in Zechariah about the day Israel returns to the LORD and how the mindset towards idols completely changes.
Zechariah 13:2-6 “It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land. “And if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of the LORD’; and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies. “Also it will come about in that day that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not put on a hairy robe in order to deceive; but he will say, ‘I am not a prophet; I am a tiller of the ground, for a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’ “And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will say, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’”
• You have there men who formerly prophesied falsely, even by their idols, and if
they try to do it in that day even their own parents will kill them.
• And every former pagan prophet is going to be utterly ashamed that he ever
tried to lead the people astray.
• There will be a wholesale abandonment of the office of prophet and when
people ask about their pagan scars and their pagan tattoos which were in
accordance with their idols they will deny it totally.
You will see men run from idols as fast as they can.
It was “sin” and it was made by “sinful hands”.
Men did that in rebellion against God.
They were men with sinful hands who sought to do sinful things.
But on the day of the King such practices will be over.
But that’s NOT THE ONLY REASON men will abandon them.
They’ll also be gone because they will have been totally exposed.
What use will your idol be on the day when it is proven to be a fraud?
When this King comes all competition will be removed.
THERE WILL BE A GREAT CLEANSING OF THE LAND.
And incidentally, this is what CHRIST COMES TO DO IN YOUR LIFE
When you return to Him.
When you repent of your sin and you return to Him,
He will enter your life and work that same cleansing in you.
It is an interesting passage in the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians 3:14-19 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
Paul is praying for the Ephesians believers.
• He prays that God would grant that they would “be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;”
THAT IS AN INTERESTING STATEMENT.
Often times modern day evangelistic lingo speaks of salvation as,
“Jesus coming into your heart.”
So when Paul is praying that God’s Spirit would work on the inner man of the Ephesians so that Christ would dwell in their hearts, is he saying that he is praying that they’ll be saved?
Is he saying, “I’m praying for the Spirit to work on you so that you’ll let Jesus come into your heart”?
NO
If you’ve read Ephesians 1,
You know he is talking to believers, not non-believers.
So what does he mean?
• The key is in the word “dwell”
• It is KAT-OY-KAY-O
And it means “to dwell”, but it means ultimately “to settle down”
• KATA = down
• OYKAYO = to settle
• It can even mean “to govern”.
When someone enters our house we would tell them,
“Have a seat” or “Take a load off” or “Make yourself at home”.
SO WHAT IS PAUL SAYING?
That upon salvation the Holy Spirit moves into your life
And begins do His sanctifying work so that Christ
May settle down in you; so that Christ may be at home in you.
• He is talking about removing your idols.
• He is talking about cleansing your sin.
• He is talking about making you the type of temple Christ can comfortably dwell in.
This is what the King does when He comes.
He cleans house.
He removes the competition.
He does it in our lives upon salvation
And Isaiah says that when He returns to rule in Israel
He will do it in their land.
He will make that land a place where He can settle-down and govern.
He will remove idols.
2) HE WILL ROUT ENEMIES (8-9)
(8-9) “And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man, And a sword not of man will devour him. So he will not escape the sword, And his young men will become forced laborers. “His rock will pass away because of panic, And his princes will be terrified at the standard,” Declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.”
This is what we discussed last Sunday night.
• That when this King returns not only will He cleanse your life,
• But He will eradicate those who have afflicted you.
We saw how God would trample them and terrify them
And ultimately cast them into “Topheth”
“Where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”.
And Isaiah reminds them of that yet again.
Israel is running to Egypt because they want deliverance from Assyria,
But Isaiah reminds that the true deliverer
Comes in the form of the King they have neglected.
When He comes, “the Assyrian will fall by the sword not of man, And a sword not of man will devour him. So he will not escape the sword, And his young men will become forced laborers.”
Now this is a prophetic picture.
• For on one hand we know that God did come and deal with the Assyria of their day.
2 Kings 19:35 “Then it happened that night that the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead.”
• That scene was a picture of what Isaiah was talking about.
But that scene was also a foreshadow
Of the second coming when Israel’s King returns.
What He did to 185,000 Assyrians in that day,
He will do to all of Israel’s enemies on the day He returns.
Isaiah speaks of it later:
Isaiah 63:1-6 “Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? “I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment. “For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come. “I looked, and there was no one to help, And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; So My own arm brought salvation to Me, And My wrath upheld Me. “I trod down the peoples in My anger And made them drunk in My wrath, And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
We read:
Revelation 19:11-16 “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
Judah wanted deliverance from Assyria so they ran to Egypt.
Isaiah reveals that if they had just run to Him,
He would send His King who would deliver them from everyone.
It is what Israel today does not understand.
• Right now the nation of Israel is at war.
• They have been attacked by the terrorist regime known as Hamas
• We heard that Lebanon fired missiles into Israel as well.
• And Israel is fighting back and at the same time soliciting allies.
What they don’t understand is that
They have the greatest Ally of all times waiting in the wings.
If they would just repent and return to Jesus Christ
He would come and totally deliver them.
When He comes, He comes to save.
Does He not do that for us when we come to Him?
Does He not deliver us from our sin and from the powers of Satan?
Does He not promise us security of soul to dwell with Him forever?
When this King comes He will rout their enemies.
That Assyrian battle in the days of Hezekiah, was but a foretaste of that.
3) HE WILL REIGN RIGHTEOUSLY (1-2)
(1-2) “Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land.”
We saw this mentioned already too.
Isaiah 11:3-5 “And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.”
And Isaiah reminds of it again.
The most obvious question to be asked here to the Jews of Isaiah’s day would be: Do you really think Pharaoh is going to reign righteously?
But the King whom God will send will.
There won’t be an ounce of corruption in Him.
And incidentally that is true for HIS ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION.
HIS “princes will rule justly.”
Who is that?
Matthew 19:27-28 “Then Peter said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
And the wording used for their type of rule is extremely comforting.
Words like:
• “refuge”
• “shelter”
• “shade”
• Also compared to “streams of water in a dry country”
Everything mentioned there is relief and protection and blessing.
Gone will be the days of a King who will exploit and use his subjects.
• This King will protect them.
• This King will rule them righteously.
• This King will rule them justly.
They want lament His reign, they will love it.
And again, while we wait for the total fulfillment of this promise at the return of Christ, is this not how Christ has come to reign in your heart?
• Has He not come to subdue your rebel will?
• Has He not come to lead you into righteousness?
• Has He not come to free you from the one who exploited you?
Christ never does that.
Christ never takes advantage.
Christ never uses or exploits.
Matthew 12:17-21 “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “BEHOLD, MY SERVANT WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN; MY BELOVED IN WHOM MY SOUL is WELL-PLEASED; I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT UPON HIM, AND HE SHALL PROCLAIM JUSTICE TO THE GENTILES. “HE WILL NOT QUARREL, NOR CRY OUT; NOR WILL ANYONE HEAR HIS VOICE IN THE STREETS. “A BATTERED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK OFF, AND A SMOLDERING WICK HE WILL NOT PUT OUT, UNTIL HE LEADS JUSTICE TO VICTORY. “AND IN HIS NAME THE GENTILES WILL HOPE.”
He comes to save and protect and deliver.
He comes to lead in righteousness.
He is a righteous King for all those who will repent and return to Him.
There is such a benefit in returning to Him.
One more thing He will do.
4) HE WILL RESTORE DISCERNMENT (3-8)
This is one of the major themes that gets repeated over and over in Isaiah.
• Isaiah loves to talk about the word “Woe”
• Isaiah loves the phrase “the Holy One of Israel”
• Certainly both of those coming from his temple encounter.
And Isaiah also loves to reference the blindness and deafness of God’s people, which he also learned that day in the temple.
Isaiah 6:9-10 “He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.’ “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed.”
And ever since that day in the temple, Isaiah has found that to be true.
• When Isaiah preached they mocked him as though he were speaking to a baby in the nursery.
• When Isaiah prophesied they told him to speak no more about the Holy One of Israel.
They have proven themselves to be exactly what God said there were.
But on the day they repent and the King comes
The ignorance of Israel will be removed.
(3-5) “Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the hasty will discern the truth, And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly. No longer will the fool be called noble, Or the rogue be spoken of as generous.”
Paul tells us in the New Testament that right now a veil remains over Israel and they are prevented from seeing the glories of Christ.
2 Corinthians 3:14-16 “But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
Romans 11:8 “just as it is written, “GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT, DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.”
We heard Isaiah tell them how God would speak to them
“Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue”
As a punishment for their refusal to listen.
AND THAT CONFUSION REMAINS.
But on the day that they come to their senses and return to the Lord,
• Not only will He come and remove their idols.
• Not only will He come and rout their enemies.
• Not only will He come and reign righteously.
• He will come and restore their discernment.
He will open their eyes.
Remember what Jesus did for the disciples in the upper room?
Luke 24:45 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,”
That is what He will do for Israel.
• They will finally understand.
• They will finally get it.
• Christ will open their eyes.
Is this not what happens to us when Christ moves in?
Paul says
1 Corinthians 2:12-16 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”
What more could be said about our salvation
Than the fact that God opened our eyes?
He opened our ears.
He softened our hearts.
OUR KING DID THIS FOR US
And He will certainly do it for them when they return to Him.
In Isaiah’s day and on into our day
• You have men who are fools but they are considered wise.
• You have men who are fools who are considered to be noble.
Remember this was part of their curse.
Isaiah 3:4-5 “And I will make mere lads their princes, And capricious children will rule over them, And the people will be oppressed, Each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; The youth will storm against the elder And the inferior against the honorable.”
They suffer under foolish leaders.
God did that as a punishment for their refusal to trust in Him.
And the consequences of foolish leaders is easy to understand.
(6-8) “For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD, To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty. As for a rogue, his weapons are evil; He devises wicked schemes To destroy the afflicted with slander, Even though the needy one speaks what is right. But the noble man devises noble plans; And by noble plans he stands.”
It is a horrible thing to live in a land with foolish leaders.
• They speak “nonsense”
• They love “wickedness”
• They “speak error against the LORD”
• They oppress the poor
• They “devise…wicked schemes”
• They “destroy…with slander”
It is a horrible thing to live in such a land.
But the ironic thing is that we have foolish leaders
Because that is what the people want.
• People vote for them!
• People elect them!
• People will get on social media and fight for them!
Foolish people elect foolish leaders.
It is all a consequence of rejecting Christ.
But on the day they return to Christ, (5) “No longer will the fool be called noble, or the rogue be spoken of as generous.”
God will open their eyes and they will reject what is evil
And Christ will come and rule in righteousness.
• He will open their eyes and they will know fully.
• The mysteries of His kingdom will become clear.
• They will delight in the knowledge of God.
And the obvious point to all of this information is to ask:
CAN EGYPT DO ANY OF THAT?
Then why in the world would you ignore God to run to Egypt?
• Why would you look for a human savior?
• Why would you trust in a human deliverer?
• Why would you lean upon a human helper?
WHY ARE YOU DEFECTING FROM GOD?
That is a foolish decision.
But what glorious benefits will be gained when you return to the LORD!
How He will swoop in in an instant and change your fortunes.
He will be everything that you were missing.
That was true for Isaiah’s congregation.
That was true for Peter’s congregation.
It is true for this congregation.
You were never intended to trust in anyone else
Other than the God who created you.
If you do, then you have defected from Him.
Return to Him and find the joys of the king when He approaches your life.
