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The Worthless Vineyard
Isaiah 5:1-7
March 5, 2023

This morning we come to the 3rd sermon of Isaiah.

I always think it is good to give you a “bird’s eye” view
Of what is going on to help better understand the pieces.

In this 3rd sermon of Isaiah
A terrifying and tragic announcement is being made.

In the first 2 sermons Isaiah spoke of GOD’S DEFINITE DISPLEASURE with Jerusalem and Judah.

• We’ve seen their bloody hands and lack of care for the helpless.
• We’ve seen their lack of justice and unwillingness to reprove the ruthless.
• We’ve seen their impotent religion which did more to irritate God than pacify
Him.
• We’ve seen their pride and propensity to trust in idols and men and even their
own beauty.

And in all these instances we’ve listened to God tell this people
That the only way redemption would come is through justice.

That is to say, there is only ONE OPTION for these people if they are to satisfy God and appease His anger: THEY MUST REPENT.

The first 2 sermons have both ended on the same note of redemption.
And both of them point out that redemption
Only comes through the justice of repentance.

Isaiah 1:25-28 “I will also turn My hand against you, And will smelt away your dross as with lye And will remove all your alloy. “Then I will restore your judges as at the first, And your counselors as at the beginning; After that you will be called the city of righteousness, A faithful city.” Zion will be redeemed with justice And her repentant ones with righteousness. But transgressors and sinners will be crushed together, And those who forsake the LORD will come to an end.”

Isaiah 4:4-6 “When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.”

God is expecting His people to hear of His displeasure
And to repent of their bloody hands, their empty religion,
And their persistent arrogance.

God is expecting His people to repent and return to Him
That they may once again enjoy His favor.

BUT THE PEOPLE HAVE REFUSED TO REPENT
The warnings of God have gone in one ear and out the other.
They are not listening.

And while God has spoken generically of a coming TRIBULATION
Or time of peril which will purify and smelt away the dross of Israel,
In this 3rd sermon God is about to get specific.

This 3rd sermon comes with a bone-chilling announcement.
EXILE IS COMING.

Isaiah 5:13 “Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; And their honorable men are famished, And their multitude is parched with thirst.”

Isaiah 5:26 “He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation, And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; And behold, it will come with speed swiftly.”

God has repeatedly offered redemption through repentance.
God has repeatedly offered redemption through turning from sin.

But when a people won’t repent
God brings about redemption through judgment.

The KEY PHRASE of the entire sermon is found in:
Isaiah 5:16-17 “But the LORD of hosts will be exalted in judgment, And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness. Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, And strangers will eat in the waste places of the wealthy.”

That is what this 3rd sermon of Isaiah is about.
It is a message from God regarding
How He will deal with the sin of unrepentant Jerusalem.

MORE THAN THAT IT IS A TRAGEDY.
It is a sermon about WASTED GRACE.
• It is a sermon which first recalls all the benefits which God had done for Israel
• And what little return He had received from them for His investment.

They are a waste!

And if Israel continues to refuse repentance
There is only one option on the horizon.
REMOVAL FROM THE LAND.

Isaiah 5 reveals to us that God will whistle for a distant nation
To come and lay waste to Jerusalem, burn that city with fire,
And thus purify this land from her sin.

It is certainly a drastic message,
But if you learn nothing else from this 3rd sermon of Isaiah
Then know that with God it is: RIGHTEOUSNESS OR BUST.

His grace is poured richly upon His people with the expectation that
They will return with an offering of justice and righteousness.

There is no compromise on the part of God
When it comes to righteousness or holiness.

God has said it:
Leviticus 11:44-45 “‘For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. ‘For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

Jesus confirmed it:
Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The apostles preached it:
1 Peter 1:16 “because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”

I realize that much of our world seems to think
That God grades on the curve and that when push comes to shove
We’re all sinners and God won’t care.

THAT SIMPLY ISN’T TRUE.

This entire ministry of Isaiah was built off a vision that he had of God.

Isaiah 6:1-3 “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Isaiah tells the people that “I saw the Lord”
• What was He like?
• What did you see?
• How would you describe Him?

And Isaiah has but one answer
Which overwhelmingly described who God is to the people.
“Holy, Holy, Holy”

And nothing less than that will be accepted.

WE SAY IT ALL THE TIME,
If you’re not holy as God is holy you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Psalms 15 “O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor takes up a reproach against his friend; In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honors those who fear the LORD; He swears to his own hurt and does not change; He does not put out his money at interest, Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.”

It is RIGHTEOUSNESS OR BUST with God.
Here we are reminded just how serious God is with that expectation.

THAT IS THE 3RD SERMON OF ISAIAH.

Well, this sermon begins in a unique fashion.
• It begins with a parable of sorts.
• It actually begins with a song.

It is the first of 4 points to be made in this sermon.
#1 THE SONG OF THE VINEYARD
Isaiah 5:1-7

Here you see clearly that
We are dealing with a poem or song of sorts to begin.

(1) “Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.”

Here we see Isaiah speaks of a friend who had a vineyard.
“My well-beloved has a vineyard on a fertile hill.”

So we are entering a simple story from Isaiah
Regarding this friend and his vineyard.

Let’s break this song down into 4 parts.

1) THE DISAPPOINTING HARVEST (1-2)

So we already saw that his friend acquired a vineyard
And we see that he was very devoted to making this vineyard productive.

(2) “He dug it all around, removed its stones,”

We call that PLOWING.
• This man worked the soil well.
• He prepared the ground.

“And planted it with the choicest vine.”

He didn’t just throw random seed into his vineyard,
He selected what he thought to be the best seed.

He gathered seed from a choice vine
And was going to use that here in his vineyard.
He is not cutting any corners.

“And He built a tower in the middle of it”

This speaks to the PROTECTION of the vineyard.
• This is where the guard would sit so that he could see the entire vineyard and protect it from those who might threaten it or ruin it.

“And also hewed out a wine vat in it;”

He has an expectation of gathering a grape harvest and making wine.
• He has done everything he needed to do,
• The expectation is that if all goes according to plan he’ll soon have wine.

Which is what we see:
“Then He expected it to produce good grapes,”

WHY WOULDN’T HE?
• He did everything he was supposed to do.
• He did what other farmers have done.

And so now he sat back and waited for the harvest.

But we read something SHOCKING:
“But it produced only worthless ones.”

This is clearly NOT what Isaiah’s friend had expected.

Throughout the Bible farmers are analogous of hope.
All that they do is done in hope of a coming harvest.

2 Timothy 2:6 “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.”

But here that was NOT the case.
• The vineyard failed.
• He was left only with worthless grapes.
• The Hebrew word actually suggests “stinking grapes”, they are rancid.

No mention of drought.
No mention of insects.
No mention of any other outside problem.
HE JUST DIDN’T GET GOOD GRAPES.

It was a disappointing harvest.

2) THE DISCERNING QUESTION (3-4)

So after presenting the problem of his friend and the disappointing harvest Isaiah now looks to the congregation for insight.

It’s as though Isaiah is saying, “I’d like to go back and give some insight to my friend as to why his vineyard failed. Would any of you like to weigh in?”

(3-4a) “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard. What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?”

• Did I not do something I should have done?
• What more could I have done?
And what is the answer to that question? Nothing.

If we are to judge the farmer here we have to find him innocent.
• He plowed, he planted, he protected, he prepared.
• He did everything he should have done.

Well that brings up a second question.
“Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?”

What are we to discern was the problem?
It had to have been bad seed.

In fact, the farmer said, “Judge between Me and My vineyard”

He gives you the two options.
It was either my fault, or it was the vineyard’s fault.
Which one?

It has to be the fault of the vineyard.
You cannot lay the blame of fruitlessness
Upon the back of the vineyard owner.

So Isaiah has outlined the disappointment of his friend
And the congregation has rendered a verdict against the vineyard.

So let’s look at the response.

3) THE DECISIVE ACTION (5-6)

And this only makes sense.
(5-6) “So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. “I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it.”

Why would you continue to PROTECT a vineyard that won’t produce?
Why would you continue to PLOW a vineyard that won’t produce?
Why would you continue to WATER a vineyard that won’t produce?
YOU WOULDN’T.

Hebrews 6:7-8 “For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.”

If you plow ground and plant ground and water a field and get produce then that’s one thing. You’re prone to continue.

But if you do all that work and receive no fruit for your labor, then you won’t keep putting yourself through all that labor.

So no one here can blame the vineyard owner for His decision.
In fact, his decision makes perfect sense.

And EVERYONE in Jerusalem and Judea who heard Isaiah’s song
WOULD AGREE that this is the proper course of action.

But Isaiah has one more thing to say regarding this vineyard.
He has yet to identify the friend, or identify the vineyard.

4) THE DIRECT APPLICATION (7)

Now we know who the vineyard owner is, it is “the LORD of hosts”
And we know who the vineyard is, It is “the men of Judah”
And we know what the preferred fruit was, it was “justice” and “righteousness”

And so when we look back over the song, it makes perfect sense to us.

• “my well-beloved” is the LORD.

• He “had a vineyard on a fertile hill” which is the Promised Land and even more specifically Jerusalem.

• “He dug it all around, removed its stones” – that is to say he removed all the nations from that land and gave it to Israel.

• He “planted it with the choicest vine” – which is of course the descendants of Abraham, the chosen one.

• He “built a tower in the middle of it” – which is His temple

• And He “expected it to produce good grapes” – which is righteousness and justice.

All of those are expressions of God’s grace upon Israel.
All of those are things which God did for Israel
That He did not do for other nations.

• It is the beauty of election
• It is the beauty of providence
• It is the beauty of CHECED or loyalty or lovingkindness
• It is the beauty of sustenance and protection and provision

God poured His grace richly upon the nation of Israel
With the expectation of a harvest of “justice” and “righteousness”

IT IS THE EXPECTATION OF GRACE.
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

God does not pour out the riches of His grace upon a human being
With the intention of leaving them in sin.
He expects that His grace will produce righteousness in their lives.

HE EXPECTED THAT FROM ISRAEL AS WELL.

So we return to the questions we again ask:
What more could God have done to prepare for the success of Israel?

NOTHING.
• He delivered them from Egypt with a mighty hand,
• He cleared out the nations before them,
• He planted them in the Promised Land,
• He protected and blessed them as He waited for them to honor Him with
righteous living.

BUT THEY DIDN’T

They did not respond as they should have.
“Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce only worthless ones?”

And the answer again can only be – IT IS A BAD VINEYARD.

Paul teaches us:
Romans 9:6 “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;”

These people may have a physical lineage which can be traced back to Abraham, but they are not true sons of Abraham.

• Abraham was a man of faith.
• Abraham became a man of righteousness and justice.
• These men are nothing like their father Abraham.

AND THE QUESTION NOW IS
Could anyone fault God for destroying this vineyard?

Could anyone fault God for bringing in a demolition crew to tear down the walls, destroy the tower, rip up the vine, and throw it away?

And of course the answer is again “NO”.
God demanded righteousness & justice and the vineyard didn’t produce.

“Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”

Do you remember the “bloodshed” He spoke of?

Isaiah 1:15-17 “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.”

God wanted them to walk in justice.
• He wanted them to “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

But they oppressed the widow and the orphan, they neglected the poor
And God attributed that to their bloody hands.

He wanted “righteousness” but all He received was “a cry of distress” from those widows and orphans who were neglected by the people.

When you read in the Mosaic Law what I think is the greatest passage on benevolence in Scripture we read:

Deuteronomy 15:7-9 “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. “Beware that there is no base thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,’ and your eye is hostile toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry to the LORD against you, and it will be a sin in you.”

And here we see how dangerous that poor man’s cry is
For you if you have not helped him.

But all in all there is a simple point here.
GOD DEMANDS FRUIT FROM HIS PEOPLE
AND THAT FRUIT IS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

“You are to be holy, as I am holy”

Now, let’s take what Isaiah said and run to the New Testament
Because Jesus sang a very similar song to the people of His day.

TURN TO: MATTHEW 21

Now the chapter begins in the first 17 verses with one of the most despicable demonstrations of hypocrisy in the Bible.
• These people who are today shouting “Hosanna” will be in a few days shouting “Crucify!”
• It is phony worship and phony religion.

Following that demonstration we get a brief object lesson from the Lord.
(18-19) “Now in the morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, “No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered.”

• What you should know about fig trees is that they put on figs before they put on leaves, so if this fig tree had leaves it was declaring, “I have fruit!”

The problem was, like Israel, it was a liar, and it had no fruit
So Jesus did the same thing God did to His vineyard.
He cursed it and it immediately withered.

From there Jesus enters the temple
And begins teaching where He again exposes a people who are phony.

And what I want you to see is that to this phony crowd of hypocrites Jesus gives a parable.

(READ MATTHEW 21:33-41)
You recognize the story don’t you.
Jesus references that same vineyard that Isaiah spoke of.

Only here Jesus gives us more information than Isaiah had given us.
• Here we find that when it was time for harvest our vineyard owner had hired hands whom He sent to gather the produce.

• But there were vine-growers in that vineyard who had corrupted the vineyard and started to beat the slaves and ultimately kill them, even the son of the landowner.

• It wasn’t just bad seed, it was also bad leaders.

But again, notice the main thrust of the vineyard.
(41) “They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

What did he expect?
FRUIT! (“the proper proceeds”)

But there is ONE MORE POINT to be made by Jesus here.

(42-44) “Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’? “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. “And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

So immediately following that new telling of Isaiah’s parable
Jesus immediately takes it to this new direction.

He says, “Did you never read in the Scripture, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER STONE; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’”?

• You are aware that Jesus is “the stone which the builders rejected”
• You are aware that He is “the chief corner stone”
• And you are aware that this was all the plan of God.

So Jesus just spoke of a fruitless vineyard, but He DOESN’T blame the failure of the vineyard on a lack of work or a lack of effort.

Jesus blames the failure of the vineyard
On the fact that the vine-growers rejected the Son.

That is where He puts the massive failure.
• You rejected God’s corner stone.
• You rejected the One God sent.
• This is why your vineyard failed.

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. “And he who falls on this stone (repentance) will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls (judgment), it will scatter him like dust.”

SO JESUS SAYS
Those who rejected Him and refused to repent at His preaching
• Will be excluded from the kingdom as fruitless vines
But those who trust in Him
• Will be given the kingdom because of their fruit.

DO YOU SEE THAT?

NOW, WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THIS?
There’s one more passage we must read an then we’ll fully understand this song of Isaiah.

John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”

Pay special attention to this famous “I am” statement of Jesus.
“I am the true vine”

What does that mean?
• What did God expect from Isaiah’s vine? FRUIT
• What was the fruit God expected? “righteousness” and “justice”

But He never received it.
They were a bad vine.

But notice what Jesus says, “I am the true vine”
I am what God expected from His vineyard.

I have the righteousness and justice which God demands of His people.

That’s all well and good, but how does that affect us?
“Every branch IN ME that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”

You must be IN HIM

John 15:5-6 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”

Now you understand why those who rejected this chief corner stone
Lose the kingdom and are tossed out of the vineyard.

Because the ability to satisfy God’s righteous demand
Only comes through Jesus.

Only He can clothe you in the righteousness which God demands.

ISAIAH TAUGHT US OF A VINEYARD
Which God expected righteousness from and that vineyard failed.

In response to their failure God annihilated that vineyard.
• He would send in Babylon to tear down its walls and towers and God would eradicate that faulty vine from His vineyard.

The only hope would be that He might find a “true vine” a “good seed”
• That was Jesus.
• He showed up and was everything God expected from His vineyard.
• He was the epitome of justice and righteousness.
• And He offered to make anyone who fell upon Him in repentance acceptable to the Father.

But Israel was so consumed with their own goodness
That they saw no need for the Son and they killed Him
Thinking they could seize the inheritance on their own.

BUT IT DID NOT WORK.

God promised to once again eradicate that bad vine.
Matthew 21:40-41 “Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”
• Which God did again in AD 70 when this time Rome burned the temple.

And then in a shocking move, God offered this righteousness which comes through His Son to a wild vine of which you and I are a part.

Romans 11:19-21 “You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.”

It is yet again the same warning.
First given to Jews and now extended to Gentiles.

There is only one way to be the fruitful vineyard which God demands.
You must be in Christ Jesus.
• He is the only “true vine”
• His righteousness is the only acceptable righteousness.
• He alone can make you satisfying to God.

Romans 3:21-24 “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;”

BUT LISTEN FURTHER.
WE AREN’T just talking about justification here.
WE ARE talking about producing righteous fruit in your life.

In order to do that, you don’t just come to Him once,
You must remain in Him.

John 15:3-6 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”

The problem with Israel is two-fold.
• It is a failure to receive Him
• And it is a failure to abide in Him

Church, the only way we will produce the fruit of righteousness in our lives is if we believe in Christ and abide in Christ.

HE IS OUR CONSTANT NEED.

And that is why we come now to partake of this Lord’s Supper.

We see here the symbolism of His body in which He lived a righteous life.
We see here the symbolism of His death in which He atoned for sin.

He came to satisfy our righteous requirement.
He came to satisfy our sinful debt.

AND WE EAT THIS SACRIFICE CONTINUALLY
BECAUSE ONLY IN HIM ARE WE RIGHTEOUS
AND ONLY IN HIM CAN WE LIVE RIGHTEOUS.

• Have you believed in Him?
• Have you been grafted into the vine?
• Are you remaining in the vine?

We’re going to see in the rest of this chapter all the worldly allurements
That have kept Israel from remaining.

Being fruitful before God is directly linked to your devotion to Jesus.
• Are you devoted to Him?

Let this Lord’s Supper be your declaration of devotion.

Maybe it is taken this morning in repentance.
• Jesus, I haven’t been devoted, but here today, I am confessing that and coming home.

Let this ordinance be a time of worship.
Let this ordinance be a time of repentance.
Let this ordinance be a time of commitment.

We’re going to have a time of preparation and then we’ll partake.

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Making Christ Beautiful
Isaiah 2:1-4:6
February 26, 2023

Tonight we are going to finish the second sermon of Isaiah.
I told you that this second sermon contains chapters 2,3, & 4.

• We have not yet looked at it in it’s entirety to sort of put it all together,
• Rather we have just examined parts and pieces of it,
• But tonight I want to show you the flow of the sermon.

Because we have already worked our way through much of it,
We won’t have to hit it all in detail, but I do want you to understand the sermon as a whole, so tonight let me outline the entire thing for you.

The thrust of the sermon is how God will make Christ beautiful
To a world who does not see any attraction in Him.

We read Isaiah 53 often enough.
Isaiah 53:1-4 “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.”

That sums up the world’s attraction to Jesus.
• To the world Jesus is a weak and broken man who died on a cross as a criminal.
• Paul reminds us that to the Jews the cross is a stumbling block and to Gentiles it is foolishness.

The world naturally gravitates to the rich or the famous
Or the movie star or athlete or conquering general.

But before the world’s eyes Christ was none of those things.

• Christ commanded you to forsake the world…
• Christ commanded you to die to self…
• Christ commanded you to embrace persecution…
• Christ commanded you to endure insults…

And all of that would be true of your life if you follow Him.

So a world which is ambitious to get ahead sees no value in Christ.
• They aren’t interested in His commands.
• They aren’t interested in His ideals.

And so, WE DO NOT SEE a world that flocks to Christ
To learn from Him and obey Him as God spoke of will happen one day.

But God has a plan by which He will drive the world to Christ.
God will make His righteous branch beautiful and glorious to the world.

AND HE WILL DO THAT THROUGH TRIBULATION.

That is what this second sermon if Isaiah is about.
• So now, having looked at much of it already let’s zoom out
• And let me show you the outline of the sermon,
• And perhaps this will make these 3 chapters clearer to us before we move on in our study.

It is probably best to identify this sermon
As Isaiah speaking to you of 4 different days.

#1 THE DAY OF REVERENCE
Isaiah 2:1-4

We looked at this last Sunday night
But it is a picture of the future millennial kingdom.

There is much more that will be said of this day in future sermons by Isaiah.

But the main point Isaiah revealed here is that
• All the world will flock to Christ.
• And it will not be a token appearance, they will genuinely want His instruction and they will follow His commands.
• And the result of the entire world seeking Christ and obeying Christ is that the world will finally enjoy world peace.

(2-4) “Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.”

That is the day of reverence.
And Isaiah interjected in verse 5 that we should seek for that day now!

(5) “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

But that is not what people do.
It is not what Israel did.

We do not currently see a day of reverence.
We see a different day.

#2 A DAY OF REVELRY
Isaiah 2:5-11

Again, we already examined this text so we don’t have to dwell long here,
But what we SEE IS NOT men seeking God.

Rather we see men who seek the wisdom and logic of men.
(2:6) “For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with influences from the east, And they are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.”

Their desire is not for holiness.
They are following the pattern of the world.

We know that because of how they live:
(2:7-8) “Their land has also been filled with silver and gold And there is no end to their treasures; Their land has also been filled with horses And there is no end to their chariots. Their land has also been filled with idols; They worship the work of their hands, That which their fingers have made.”

And what we pointed out is that these two days
Are on POLAR OPPOSITE ends of the spectrum.

• We don’t have men seeking and obeying Christ.
• We have men seeking the world which has produced corruption and idolatry.

• The poor have been squashed so that man might obtain wealth and keep it.
• They don’t love God, they love their worldly idols.

• They worship silver and gold and the things of the world.
• It is totally backward of what God expects from the world.

So we do not have a day of reverence.
We have a day of revelry.

Now, to remedy this situation we see the third day God will bring.

#3 THE DAY OF RECKONING
Isaiah 2:12-4:1

We have obviously STARTED looking at this day,
But have not yet finished looking at all of it.

You see it clearly stated in verse 12.
(12) “For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.”

It is God’s day of reckoning
And though several things are mentioned specifically,
God’s bullseye is most definitely fixed upon the PRIDE of man.

There are things that man loves and things that man trusts and things that man boasts in and GOD IS ABOUT TO REMOVE IT ALL.

Now, as I said, some of these things we have already discussed, but it’s easiest to see God’s day of reckoning as focused on 3 specific targets.

1) THEIR LOVE FOR IDOLS (2:12-21)

The world taught God’s people to love the things of the world.
• Israel was not seeking the things of God.
• They didn’t care about the poor or the widow or the orphan.
• They wanted to keep their gold and silver and live extravagantly.

They had their idols and they wanted to keep them,
So the FIRST TARGET of God’s day of reckoning is on
The idols of silver and gold that God’s people had acquired.

And we saw a day of such fury and wrath that men would gladly throw away their idols if it would subdue the anger of God which was pointed at them.

(19-21) “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.”

From Isaiah’s vantage point there is both a near and far fulfillment.
• For Israel will most certainly offer any gold or silver trinket they have if it will appease the wrath of Babylon and save them from exile (which it won’t).

• But also in the end, when God’s wrath is revealed from heaven we read in Revelation 6 how men will cry out to the mountains and hills to fall on them and cover them from the wrath of God.

God will unleash such terror on the idols of men
That men will drop them like a hot potato.

AND WE SAW THAT LAST WEEK.

We also see a second target of God’s wrath which will be attacked during God’s day of reckoning, and we actually started looking at it this morning.

2) THEIR DEPENDENCE ON MAN (2:22-3:15)

It really starts with God’s outburst in chapter 2 verse 22
(2:22) “Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

It’s not just the idols that Israel loved.
They also loved the approval and power of man.

Israel looked to their worldly leaders and worldly allies
As their saviors in times of calamity.

IT IS SIMILAR TO like when there are times of war or times of economic hardship and someone says, “Don’t worry, the government’s going to take care of us.” Or “Our military will defend us.”

God sees a world that arrogantly trusts in itself instead of in Him.

So, as we saw this morning,
God will orchestrate the removal of those in whom you trust.

(3: 2-5) “The mighty man and the warrior, The judge and the prophet, The diviner and the elder, The captain of fifty and the honorable man, The counselor and the expert artisan, And the skillful enchanter. 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.

We actually saw Him do that during the Babylonian invasion
When Nebuchadnezzar deported everyone who had any skill or insight at all.

But it will happen again in the end when during the great tribulation
God will remove men of honor as leaders
And replace them with a psychotic world leader named Anti-Christ.

Men will beg for someone to step up and lead.
Men will beg for someone to help them against his tyrannical reign.
But no one will be able to help.

It will be a terrible and devastating day when God removes all help.

And as we saw this morning,
It will be such a terrible day that even God grieves and moans over the plight of His people.

(3:12) “O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.”

AND THAT IS WHERE WE LEFT OFF THIS MORNING.

We stopped in this sermon of Isaiah
With God outlining how He will remove every noble and capable leader
And leave men in a state of peril
Where they are oppressed by their incompetent rulers.

AND AS WE NOTED, this is a common judgment of God on a nation.

How many bad kings did Israel and Judah have to endure?
Do you suppose it is simply because God wasn’t good at picking kings?

OF COURSE NOT.

Those bad kings were a judgment of God
On a people who would not seek or trust Him.

IN JESUS DAY, you see a similar judgment falling on the people.

Do you remember what Jesus had to say about the rulers of Israel in His day?
Matthew 23:13-15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

Jesus said that the leaders of the people
Were not those who would lead them to life,
But rather were leaders who would lead them to hell.

He would continue:
Matthew 23:16-17 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ “You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?”

Jesus went on to call their leaders “blind guides” and we know from other passages that if “a blind man leads a blind man they both fall into a pit”.

Those bad leaders were a judgment from God on a nation
That had rejected Him as their source of wisdom and truth.

AND WE CAN CLEARLY SEE SUCH JUDGMENTS IN OUR DAY.
• We see corrupt and incompetent leaders.
• We know that our government messes up everything it touches.
• Our elections are corrupt
• Our leaders are immoral

WHY IS THAT?
If you see that as anything other than the judgment of God on our nation
Because of our love of the world and unwillingness to seek God
Then you have no understanding of the sovereign prerogative of God.

ISAIAH SPOKE OF A DAY
When God will completely remove our dependance on man.

In fact, ISAIAH GOES ON regarding this subject.

Look at verses 13-15
“The LORD arises to contend, And stands to judge the people. The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses. “What do you mean by crushing My people And grinding the face of the poor?” Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.

There is another reason why God will remove the leaders from the land.
• It is NOT JUST because the people have rebelled against Him.
• God will also remove the leaders because of their corruption.

Notice who bears the brunt of the blame for the oppression of the poor.
God puts that at the feet of “the elders and princes of His people”

He says, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses.”

And God even gives them a sort of:
“Who do you think you are?” confrontation.

(15) “What do you mean by crushing My people And grinding the face of the poor?” Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.”

God will remove the good leaders and ultimately judge the bad ones.
• He will strip the world of those whom we trusted in to save us
• And then He will judge the corrupt ones that took their place.

We are reminded here again of
What we have said many times regarding civil leaders.

They dabble in a lot of areas that are not within their jurisdiction
And they try to take the lead in several areas that are not their business.

But they do have some legitimate functions from the LORD.

Romans 13:4 “for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

The civil government has the legitimate function
Of being the one who rewards good and punishes evil.

• It is their job to bring wrath on those who practice evil not promote it.
• It is their job to do good to those who do what is right not discriminate against
them.

• They should care for the poor they should care for the widow and the orphan.
• They should punish the evil doer and offender.

But as Isaiah pointed out, this not what they have done
And therefore God is judging them.

But in the grand scheme of things you see again
God removing every possible savior.

In His day of reckoning He attacks man’s love of idols
And He attacks man’s dependence on man.

There is a third thing God attacks during His day of reckoning.
3) THEIR EXTRAVAGANT ATTITUDE (3:16-4:1)

Here the focus is on the women of the culture.

(16) “Moreover, the LORD said, “Because the daughters of Zion are proud And walk with heads held high and seductive eyes, And go along with mincing steps And tinkle the bangles on their feet,”

God specifically addresses the issue of women’s dress.

J. Vernon McGee said:
“Women’s dress is the barometer of any civilization. When women’s dress is modest it tells something of the nation as a whole.
In these last few verses twenty articles of women’s wear are mentioned by name. These certainly is nothing wrong with a woman dressing in style – if the style is not immodest. I feel that all of us should look the best we can with what we have, even though some of us don’t have too much to work with. God is not condemning the women of Israel for dressing in the style of their day. He is talking about the inner life. They were haughty and brazen. Real adornment is beneath the skin, not from the skin outward. Women’s dress is the key to a nation’s morals.”
(McGee, J. Vernon [Thru-The-Bible Commentary Series; The Prophets; Isaiah Chapters 1-35; Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, TN; 1991] pg. 47)

I certainly agree with him.

On one hand we can all agree that the immoral dress code of our land has become down right sinful.

• There is no other word for it.
• The dress of women in our culture is provocative and brazen and immoral in so many cases.

What is interesting here is that Isaiah actually critiques the women of his day because they “tinkle the bangles on their feet.”

• You’re familiar with the dress of the ancient world.
• Women covered everything.
• About the only skin you might see on a woman was her face, her hands, and her feet.

But here you have women wearing ankle bracelets with apparent bells on them to attract attention to what little skin they had showing.

Isaiah would have a conniption fit today!

The dress of our day is downright immoral, but it wasn’t in Isaiah’s day.

The issue in his day, as McGee stated, was their heart.

They “are proud and walk with heads held high and seductive eyes”

It wasn’t their fashion that Isaiah took issue with,
It was their prideful heart.

The New Testament agrees.
1 Timothy 2:9-10 “Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.”

1 Peter 3:3-4 “Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.”

The key word in both of those passages is “adorn” or “adornment”
The idea is what you are using to make yourself attractive?

Sarai was in her late 70’s when Abram took her into Egypt and told her to say she was his sister so men didn’t kill him on behalf of her beauty.

The problem is PRIDE and ARROGANCE and HAUGHTINESS.
You can certainly include INDECENCY to the list.

But it was just another indicator of a culture
That had totally abandoned their care of what God thought.

• They loved idols
• They trusted in themselves
• They flaunted an extravagant arrogant attitude

And God is going to deal with that too.

Look at God’s plan for dealing with a culture of women who pride themselves in their physical appearance and seductive abilities.

(17-24) “Therefore the Lord will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, And the LORD will make their foreheads bare.” In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, headbands, crescent ornaments, dangling earrings, bracelets, veils, headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, amulets, finger rings, nose rings, festal robes, outer tunics, cloaks, money purses, hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans and veils. Now it will come about that instead of sweet perfume there will be putrefaction; Instead of a belt, a rope; Instead of well-set hair, a plucked-out scalp; Instead of fine clothes, a donning of sackcloth; And branding instead of beauty.”

THAT IS EVERY WOMAN’S DREAM!

FIRST, God is going to take these women with their beautiful hair and SCALP them.

“the LORD will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, and the LORD will make their foreheads bare.”

We call it the mange.
And it’s hard to make your hair look right
When you have such a condition.

And look at what God is going to do
With all their BEAUTY PRODUCTS and ADORNING JEWELRY.

Very simply in verse 18, “the LORD will take [it] away”

He is going to STRIP these women of all their accessories.

And regarding their PERFUMES and LOTIONS and BATH BOMBS and BODY WASHES?

(24) “Now it will come about that instead of sweet perfume there will be putrefaction;”

God is going to SOUR these women and they won’t smell good anymore.

A rope instead of a belt.
A plucked scalp instead of a hair doo
Sackcloth instead of fine clothes
Branding instead of beauty

It is every woman’s dream.

She’s going to lose everything external by which she adorned herself.

In short, if she has no inner beauty she is going to be sunk
Because she certainly will not have any outer beauty.

And then God will bring upon the women exactly what you would expect.
• If she is ugly both inside and out,
• She’s going to have a tough time finding a man.
• God will SECLUDE her.

(25-4:1) “Your men will fall by the sword And your mighty ones in battle. And her gates will lament and mourn, And deserted she will sit on the ground. For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!”

AND SO YOU SEE WHAT GOD IS DOING.

• We have a sinful culture that is living in absolute revelry.
• They are filled with influences from the east.
• They love the world’s idols.
• They trust in men as their deliverance.
• They are arrogant as typified by the behavior of the women.

And in God’s day of reckoning, He is going to put an end to all of it.

Think about some of what you know to be true of the Great Tribulation.
• The third and fourth seals bring famine and plague. That’s certainly good for eliminating worldly leaders and fine adornment.
• The sixth seal is when the heavens are pealed back and men try to hide in the mountains and caves from God’s wrath.
• With the first trumpet a 1/3 of the earth is burned and you have not only death but many burn victims which certainly affects the outward appearance.
• The 5th and 6th trumpets bring demonic oppression accompanied by plagues which kill and mutilate the body.
• The first bowl creates loathsome and malignant sores.
• The fourth bowl causes the sun to scorch men with fire.
• The fifth bowl produces pain and men gnaw their tongues.

You see how God will accomplish all of this.

Certainly He will do these things in part when Babylon invades Judah,
But the truest fulfillment will be the day of God’s great tribulation.

His day of reckoning will put an end to man’s love of idols,
His dependance on man, and his extravagant attitude.

God is going to break the pride of man.

You have a DAY OF REVERENCE which is we do not currently see.
You have a DAY OF REVELRY which is happening all around us.
You have a coming DAY OF RECKONING when God will break man’s pride.

#4 THE DAY OF REDEMPTION
Isaiah 4:2-6

Just as we saw at the end of Isaiah’s first sermon,
So we see again at the end of his second sermon.

THERE IS A SAVIOR!
There is a Redeemer.

And here He is referred to as “the Branch of the LORD”

We know who this is.
Jeremiah 23:5-6 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land. “In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The LORD our righteousness.’”

Jeremiah 33:14-16 “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ‘In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. ‘In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the LORD is our righteousness.’”

Zechariah 3:8-10 “‘Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you—indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch. ‘For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. ‘In that day,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree.’”

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”

God has promised the coming of His righteous Branch
• He is the One who will come from David’s line
• And He is the One who will be our righteousness.
• It is a picture of His imputed righteousness which He will earn and impute to us by faith.

But as we said, the world is not currently interested in Him.
They don’t want righteousness and so they don’t want Jesus.

But after God unleashes terror on the world
And men realize that it is in response to their sin,
Then righteousness will become increasingly more important.

And when it does there is only one place to go to look for it.
They will go to God’s Branch.
They will run to Jesus.

(2) “In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious”

Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”

Revelation 1:7 “BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.”

Men come to love Jesus when they feel the weight of their sin
And the judgment that accompanies it.

God’s day of reckoning will drive them to a day of redemption.

“and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.”

After they run to Him (as we saw in the first 4 verses of chapter 2) this world will reap the benefits of His righteous rule.

• War will cease, but so will the curse.
• This world which languishes under sin will finally know blessing and the earth will produce fruit.

And what Christ produces on the earth
Will be the pride of man and the adornment of the survivors.

In other words
• Men will no longer boast about what they have made or done.
• Men will no longer adorn themselves in the extravagance of the world.

Men will boast in what Christ has done
And they will adorn themselves in His righteous works.

That is the gospel!

(3) “It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy – everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem.”

After God’s wrath spreads through the only ones left standing will be His.

We call it THE REMNANT
• They are those who have been “recorded for life in Jerusalem”
• They are the elect.

Matthew 24:21-22 “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

Isaiah will speak of them again in chapter 6.
Isaiah 6:11-13 “Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people And the land is utterly desolate, “The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. “Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, And it will again be subject to burning, Like a terebinth or an oak Whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.”

So you understand what God is doing.
There is coming a day when redemption will occur through judgment.

Is this not what Isaiah said at the end of his first sermon too?
Isaiah 1:27 “Zion will be redeemed with justice And her repentant ones with righteousness.”

Remember we talked about
• How God will purify and wash His people.
• He will burn away the dross and melt away the impurities.
• And what will be left will be the righteous remnant.

This is why we call men to repentance
Because there is no redemption without the removal of sin.

God will unleash fury on this world and men will have two options.
THEY CAN REPENT OR THEY CAN PERISH.

Those who repent will survive
And they will be called the remnant who were chosen by God.

Look at the parable of the wheat and the tares; same thing.
Matthew 13:41-43 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”

IT IS THE REMNANT.

And you see that same terminology again here in this second sermon.
(4) “When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning,”

See again what He will do.
There is no scenario where men get to keep their sin.

God will redeem this world.
God will draw men back to Jesus.

And Jesus will baptize either with the Holy Spirit or with fire.
But in the end those standing will be those who are holy to the Lord.

(5-6) “then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.”

It reminds us of God’s covering those in the days of Moses as they wandered through the desert.
• He covered them with a cloud from the heat
• And guided them with fire through the dark.
• His glory was their covering.

That is the same protection seen here.

It is God’s plan to be the supreme leader of His people.
• He sees A Day Of Reverence when men look to Him and trust in Him for all things and on that day the world will be glorious.

• But we live in A Day Of Revelry when men don’t seek the things of God but rather the things of the world

• So God is planning A Day Of Reckoning in which He will crush the pride of the world in every form.

And when the fires of judgment are finished
The only ones left standing will be those who have trusted in the LORD.

This world will have been purified by fire and washed with judgment and will finally be the world God intended.

THEREFORE THE CALLING IS CLEAR.
It is what Peter preached to the Jews after they crucified Jesus.

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.”

You certainly don’t want Him coming to find you in pride
Refusing to repent of your sin.

Download Here:

The Folly Of Trusting Man
Isaiah 3:1-12
February 26, 2023

LAST SUNDAY NIGHT we began what is now
THE SECOND SERMON in the book of Isaiah.

This sermon spans chapter 2 through chapter 4
And the main point of the sermon
Is to move Judah from idols to worshiping God.

It is actually a sermon that runs a full circle.
• It starts with the reality of the millennium (1,000 year reign of Christ) in 2:1-4
• And it ends with the reality of the millennium in 4:1-6.

And the purpose of the sermon is to show Israel WHAT IS COMING
And what is GOD’S METHOD TO GET THEM THERE.

In chapter 2 we looked at a CONTRAST.

We saw what the world will look like SOMEDAY
When all the world seeks and trusts Christ.

On the day when all the nations (not just Israel) will approach the Lord to hear His will and do it, the consequences will be nothing but shear blessing.

Isaiah 2:4 “And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.”

If everyone just sought and obeyed Jesus this world would be fixed.
Someday they will.

The reality was beautiful enough to cause Isaiah to interject in verse 5:
Isaiah 2:5 “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Isaiah wanted them to do it now.
Why wait?

But as we said, Israel was stubborn.

What is more, they love their sin and have no desire to leave it.
Isaiah 2:6 “For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with influences from the east, And they are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.”

God had promised a day when all the nations would come to Him
For wisdom and would obey Him resulting in peace.

But the CURRENT DAY was exactly opposite.
Instead of listening to God, Judah was filled with worldly influence.

They followed worldly logic.
They followed worldly thinking.

AND THE MEANS of God to break this cycle
And lead His people to a place where they will seek Him and Him alone
Was simple: TRIBULATION.

Isaiah 2:11-12 “The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.”

God is going to bring a day upon Israel
• Which will cause them to no longer trust in themselves or in their idols or in the logic and wisdom of man.
• In which He is their only hope and will use that day to drive His people back to Him.

Incidentally, like much of what we read in Isaiah,
We can see an IMMEDIATE and DISTANT fulfillment.

Much of what Isaiah spoke of was seen in the Babylonian invasion
• In which all of Israel’s faith and trust in man proved pointless
• For Babylon annihilated them and carried their few survivors into exile.
• The result of this exile was that Israel did once again start seeking God and
never again fell into such blatant idolatry.

However, the truest fulfillment of the promise
Is not seen fulfilled until the very end.

We read in Revelation of God’s great tribulation which will cover the earth and the horrific realities that accompany it.
Those realities will ultimately drive Israel to Christ, whom they crucified,
And will usher in His millennial reign.

So we see both a near and far fulfillment.

Now chapter 2
Ended with a direct command from the LORD.

That statement is a main point of God
And one that He is not finished addressing.

Isaiah 2:22 “Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

God looked at His people
Who were more prone to listen to the advice of the nations
Than they were to listen to His advice and God ordered them to stop.

Well the sermon is not over.
Isaiah continues.

And THIS MORNING we build off of that statement by Isaiah
And we ask the question: “Why is trusting man such a bad thing?”

And that is where Isaiah 3:1-12 comes into play.

What we are going to see this morning is the end result
Of when a people determine to look to man as their salvation.

It is a real issue among humanity.
It is the very essence of pride and arrogance that MAN HAS BELIEVED

That the problems that plague humanity
Can be fixed by the knowledge and effort of man.

Because we have read our Bibles
We know that the problem that plagues this world is sin.
• When Adam sinned in the garden, God cursed this world.
• We saw toil, enmity, pain, and ultimately death.

They are all enemies that man has never been able to defeat
Or deliver themselves from.

In short, man has always proven to be an inadequate savior.
And yet, it is the propensity of man to continually look to himself to save.

We already saw in Isaiah’s day
• How they listened to influences from the east and were soothsayers like the Philistines.
• We are aware of their propensity to trust in their political rulers as deliverers.

All of this amounted to arrogant idolatry in the eyes of God
And He is going to fix it so that He alone is exalted.

So God told His people to stop exalting man.
Here in chapter 3 we see WHY.

We’re going to break these 12 verses down into 5 points.
#1 THE REMOVAL
Isaiah 3:1-4

In 2:22 God said to “stop exalting man”
Now we start to see why.

(1) “For behold, the Lord GOD is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah Both supply and support, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water.”

It will begin with A COMMON TRIAL
Which comes directly from the LORD.

It is famine and drought.
God is going to bring upon His people a severe hardship.

It is the type of thing that will cause the people
To begin to clamor to their leaders to fix for them.

And just STOP THERE and pay attention lest we overlook the
SOVEREIGN PREROGATIVE OF GOD over things like drought and famine.

If I were to tell you that the United States is suffering a recession, would you agree?

If I were to say that the prices of groceries and goods has greatly increased, would you agree?

And if I were to ask you who caused it, what would the knee-jerk reaction be?

Well typically if you’re a Republican you’d say, it was caused by the Democrats
And if you’re a Democrat you’d say, it was caused by the Republicans.

We have this propensity to see all the workings and fate of the world
As circumstances which we bring about by our own doing.

And we have this propensity to overlook
The sovereign prerogatives of God in all these things.

What if I were to tell you that it WASN’T a Republican or Democrat that caused it?
What if I were to tell you that the rise in gas prices and grocery prices and the struggling economy was NOT CAUSED by a political party?

What if I were to tell you that such things are the result of the hand of God?

When “Jerusalem and Judah” were promised to struggle for food
Isaiah was extremely clear who was behind it.

And WHY DOES IT MATTER whether or not you see the hand of God behind it?

Because if drought and famine or recession is the fault of a political party then you will blame that party for the problem and you will look to the other party to fix it.

But if drought and famine or recession comes from the hand of God
Then the only one to blame is us
And we must seek repentance and the forgiveness of God to fix it.

It is important to Isaiah that Israel understand where this will come from.

But not only does it begin with this trial.
But notice also that God will remove any and every potential savior that men might be tempted to look to for deliverance.

Not only will God remove “the whole supply of bread And the whole supply of water;” but THERE’S MORE He will remove.

(2-3) “The mighty man and the warrior, The judge and the prophet, The diviner and the elder, The captain of fifty and the honorable man, The counselor and the expert artisan, And the skillful enchanter.”

WHAT IS THIS LIST?

It is a list of the people that Israel might be prone to look to
For salvation from their problem.

• Can it be fixed by “the might man”?
• Can it be fixed by “the warrior”?
• Can it be fixed by “the judge”?
• Can it be fixed by “the prophet”?
• Can it be fixed by “the diviner”?
• Can it be fixed by “the elder”?
• Can it be fixed by “the captain of fifty”?
• Can it be fixed by “the honorable man”?
• Can it be fixed by “the counselor”?
• Can it be fixed by “the expert artisan”?
• Can it be fixed by “the skillful enchanter”?

WE MIGHT ADD IN OUR DAY:
• Can it be fixed by “the politician”?
• Can it be fixed by “the movie star”?
• Can it be fixed by “the athlete”?
• Can it be fixed by “the general”?
• Can it be fixed by “the musician”?
• Can it be fixed by “the scientist”?

You get the idea.

We’re NOT SAYING that God didn’t use their foolish ideas or their corruption to put us in this mess,
But it is naïve to think God didn’t have a hand in it.

And it is even more ridiculous
To suppose that any one of them can fix the problem.

GOD MAKES THAT CLEAR HERE.
He removes every potential savior and deliverer.

Incidentally God will do this exact thing.
Under the reign of Jehoiachin, Nebuchadnezzar will lay siege to Jerusalem and Jehoiachin will surrender.

Listen to what will happen.
2 Kings 24:12-16 “Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants and his captains and his officials. So the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign. He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, just as the LORD had said. Then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land. So he led Jehoiachin away into exile to Babylon; also the king’s mother and the king’s wives and his officials and the leading men of the land, he led away into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. All the men of valor, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, one thousand, all strong and fit for war, and these the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon.”

The day Isaiah speaks of is coming.
God will bring drought and famine
And then remove every seemingly capable savior from the scene.

Hosea 13:11 “I gave you a king in My anger And took him away in My wrath.”

(4) “And I will make mere lads their princes, And capricious children will rule over them.”

Ecclesiastes 10:16 “Woe to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning.”

This is the type of judgment Isaiah speaks of here.

God says “I will make mere lads their princes”.
• One could read it as though God will actually let children rule over them,
• But based on the coming history of Israel it is probably better to see that as men who think like children.

So listen to Isaiah here:
• When you face famine and drought and tribulation…
• And when all your qualified leaders are carried away…
• And when you are stuck with leaders who have no wisdom or ability to lead…

You should not see that as anything less than the judgment of God.

This is the LORD’S doing to bring Israel to her knees and back to Him.
Do not overlook the sovereign prerogative of God.

That is the removal, and it is by the Lord’s hand.
#2 THE RESULT
Isaiah 3:5-7

What happens when the LORD removes qualified leaders and replaces them with foolish ones?

IT’S NOT PRETTY.
(5) “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.”

In short you get a backward society and a totally corrupt culture.

“oppression” is NOT a sign of the blessing of God.
• Neither is a culture where the young disrespect the old
• Or the foolish shame the wise.

When God removes wise leadership from a nation
You are stuck with backward and depraved thinking.

When God allows men to throw off the restraints of a wise government
Then the basest carnal impulses of sinful man begin to run riot.

And the result is always oppression.
Men never throw off restraint and become more holy as a result.

Jesus spoke about it in the tribulation.
Matthew 24:12 “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”

And men should look to God,
• But Israel is not there yet.
• They are still looking to man to solve all their issues.
• “Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?” (2:22)

They should look to God, but they continue to look to man.

(6-7) “When a man lays hold of his brother in his father’s house, saying, “You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler, And these ruins will be under your charge,” He will protest on that day, saying, “I will not be your healer, For in my house there is neither bread nor cloak; You should not appoint me ruler of the people.”

My how the standards are lowered.
• The only criteria they are using to determine whether or not a person should be king is if he has a coat.

“You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler”

That’s not much criteria.

And that man will refuse.
“in my house there is neither bread nor cloak”
• I can’t feed my family let alone you.
• I’m no savior.

You have here now total desperation.
• Can anyone save us?
• Can anyone deliver us?
• Can anyone provide bread?
• Can anyone provide water?
• Can anyone fix the recession?

It is a sad reality.

You have people who are struggling under oppression
And they cannot seem to look anywhere but to man
To fix their problem.

WHY IS THAT?

Because they are NOT SEEING the real problem.
(And Israel has been notorious for this throughout the ages)

They DON’T SEE what has caused the drought and famine.

They think it’s poor leadership, so they look to better leadership to fix it.
If they would see that it is their sin then they would repent and look to God.

So, Isaiah seeks to point them in the right direction.
#3 THE REASON
Isaiah 3:8-9

“For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen,”

That much we see, BUT WHY?

“Because their speech and their actions are against the LORD, to rebel against His glorious presence.”

They AREN’T struggling because they have bad leaders (thought they might)
They ARE struggling because they have offended God.

• God removed the bread.
• God removed the water.
• God removed the qualified leaders.
• HE DID THAT!

Because Israel offended Him.

HOW?

We have read it over and over already.
Isaiah 1:15b-17 “…Your hands are covered with blood. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.”

Isaiah 2:6-9 “For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with influences from the east, And they are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners. Their land has also been filled with silver and gold And there is no end to their treasures; Their land has also been filled with horses And there is no end to their chariots. Their land has also been filled with idols; They worship the work of their hands, That which their fingers have made. So the common man has been humbled And the man of importance has been abased, But do not forgive them.”

We’ll see it again later in this sermon:
Isaiah 3:13-15 “The LORD arises to contend, And stands to judge the people. The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses. “What do you mean by crushing My people And grinding the face of the poor?” Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.”

DO YOU SEE THE SIN?
• They love the world, they love money.
• They have abandoned the poor in order to keep their money.
• They have disregarded the orphan and the widow.

These were direct violations of God’s Law and yet they didn’t care.

This is why the trials have come.
They have offended God.

But they don’t see it, they think it’s someone else’s fault
So instead of repentance they look for new and better leaders.

But sin is the issue:
(9) “The expression of their faces bears witness against them, And they display their sin like Sodom; They do not even conceal it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.”

WHAT A VERSE!

First of all “the expression of their faces bears witness against them”

Isaiah has several times now revealed their sin,
• But the very look on their face reveals that they don’t agree with him.

Isaiah told them they had bloody hands
• And their very facial reaction showed that they didn’t agree with him.

But that’s not all. “they display their sin like Sodom”

• Do you remember how Sodom displayed their sin?
• Do you remember the angelic messengers staying at Lot’s house?
• Do you remember the men of the city approaching to have sexual relations with them?
• Do you remember Lot begging them not to?
• Do you remember the angels casting blindness on the men of Sodom?
• Do you remember the wearying themselves trying to find the door?

They were men committing sin and they didn’t even see it as sin.
They weren’t ashamed of it, they were proud of it.

When you told them what they were doing was sinful they made a face like you are out of your mind.

And they did it right there in public for the world to see because they saw no problem with it.

It’s not just a people who are sinning,
It’s a people who no longer even see their sin as sinful.

“They do not even conceal it”

Jeremiah 6:15 “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says the LORD.”

And Isaiah says the same thing here.
“Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.”

You have here a nation under the judgment of God
And from God’s estimation they deserve everything
They are getting and are about to get.

THEY HAVE A MASSIVE PROBLEM.

• You have men in sin, and they won’t even recognize it as sin.
• When God does bring judgment they don’t see it as coming from God
because they don’t think God has any reason to judge them.
• And since they don’t see the judgment as coming from God they don’t run to
God for salvation from it.
• They run to men in hopes that man will fix it.

It is a corrupt and clueless and backward culture.

It is no wonder God is pouring out judgment on such a culture.

“Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils;
For why should he be esteemed?”

Jeremiah 17:5-8 “Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD. “For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.”

The LORD alone will be exalted.
The LORD alone is the savior.

But the nation of Israel has instead decided to look to themselves for salvation.
• We can fix it ourselves.
• And God has stepped in to prove otherwise.

And if you sit here in the pew in the United States of America
And have begun to think, perhaps the Lord’s hand is against our nation
I THINK YOU ARE TRACKING ACCURATELY.

Allow me to remind you again what it looks like
When God’s judgment is resting on a nation.

There are clear Biblical explanations so that you can know when God’s wrath is abiding.

Romans 1:24-32 “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

That’s what it looks like.
When a nation is given over to idolatry, homosexuality, and depravity;

You shouldn’t blame the radical left and you shouldn’t blame the liberal media,
And you shouldn’t blame whoever else you think is causing this.

When a nation is given over to such sin
It is because that nation has failed to honor God.

Romans 1:18-21 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

You can’t see it any other way.
It’s not another election that America needs, it’s repentance.

I HOPE YOU SEE THAT.

Isaiah speaks of a nation under judgment and it feels eerily similar.

But what does that say for us?
What does that say for God’s people in the midst of such a nation?

#4 THE REASSURANCE
Isaiah 3:10-11

We see the obvious contrast between the righteous and the wicked.
It is important here to distinguish the two
And understand what Isaiah means by each.

Based on the context of the sermon
We know who the RIGHTEOUS are, they are those who trust God.
• They seek God, they trust God, they cry out to God, they obey God.

And we know who the WICKED are, they are those who trust men.
• They seek men, they trust men, they are influenced by men, they follow men.

So you have the righteous God-trusters
And you have the wicked man-trusters.

Here we have a wonderful promise from God.

(10) “Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, For they will eat the fruit of their actions.”

Now don’t misread that.
THAT DOESN’T MEAN that the righteous won’t suffer the drought or famine.

Isaiah and Jeremiah were right there in the midst of those hard situations
And they got hungry just like everyone else.

This doesn’t mean that the righteous
Are going to be saved from every hardship.
No, the righteous may be right there in the middle of it.

It means that the righteous don’t have to fear the outcome.

And the flipside is also true.
(11) “Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him, For what he deserves will be done to him.”

Listen, the famine is bad and the drought is bad,
But NEITHER of those are the FINAL JUDGMENT.

The removal of bread and the removal water
And the removal qualified leaders that is a WARNING SHOT.
That is God’s way of calling men to repentance.

The final judgment is WAY worse!

WHAT IS THE POINT?
Just because the righteous and the wicked
May endure the same temporal misfortune
Does not mean they will share the same ultimate fate.

John Calvin wrote:
“Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him. He brings forward this clause as a contrast to the former one; from which it may be easily inferred what was the design of the Prophet, namely, to comfort the godly, and to terrify the wicked by the judgment of God. For when an uncommonly severe calamity occurs, which attacks all without discrimination, we doubt whether it be by the providence of God, or, on the contrary, by blind chance, that the world is governed. On this account godly men fear and dread that the same destruction which overtakes the wicked will ruin them also. Others think that it is of no importance whether a man be good or bad, when they see both classes visited by pestilence, war, famine, and other calamities. And hence arises the wicked thought, that there is no difference between the rewards of the good and of the bad; and in the midst of these gloomy thoughts carnal appetites lead many to despair.
Accordingly, the Prophet shows that the judgment of God is right, that men may continue to fear God, and may be aware that those who, in the expectation of escaping punishment, provoke God, will not pass unpunished.”
(Calvin, John [Calvin’s Commentaries Volume VII; Isaiah 1-32; Baker Publishers; Grand Rapids, MI; 2005] pg. 137-138)

Listen you righteous, who are seeking God!
Just because you endure the same recession as the wicked
Does not mean you will share their fate.

This trial is a wakeup call to the nations that they may repent.
And it is a wakeup call to you as well, that you should warn them!

Look at the final point:
#5 THE REMORSE
Isaiah 3:12

This comes from God’s heart.
He has afflicted these people and yet look at His heart in their affliction.

(12) “O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.”

God DOESN’T lament their famine…
God DOESN’T lament their drought…
God laments that they trust in faulty saviors
Who will not be able to deliver them.

• He sees them as men about to swing over a canyon with a frayed rope.
• He sees them as men about to climb in a life raft with a hole in it.

He laments the pitiful saviors they have trusted in.
He laments that in their trials they run to those who cannot save.

And here we find our heart in the midst of such circumstances.
IT IS ONE OF GRIEF AND WARNING.

We may endure temporal trials which God has designed primarily to call the wicked to repentance.

• And when we do endure them, we do so with the promise that for us these trials are temporary.

But we must also endure them with the knowledge that
For the wicked this is as good as it’s ever going to get.

And we must be motivated with the grief and urgency of God
TO WARN THEM.

Is this not the heart of Jesus?
Luke 19:41-44 “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

And who did He weep for but for those who were about to condemn and crucify Him.

Was this not the heart of Paul?
Romans 9:1-3 “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,”

And for whom was Paul grieved, but for those who would falsely accuse him, see him arrested and carried to prison in Rome.

Was this not what the angel told John on Patmos?
Revelation 10:10-11 “I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And they said to me, “You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”

Even if you are one who trusts God and seeks God and looks to God for salvation
• You may indeed live in the filthy mess of this fallen world.
• You may indeed feel the sting of the punishments God pours out upon the wicked.

Christian people suffer under natural disasters
And under droughts and famines.

• We live in the same fallen world the wicked live in.
• Jesus came and lived in the same fallen world that the wicked live in where He also experienced hunger and thirst and storms and trials.

But even though we endure we have hope of a better day
For unlike the world, our Savior can actually save.

But the world doesn’t have such hope. This trial is to teach them that.

And we are the messengers; we are the Isaiah’s called to show them.

It does Christians no good to get into political fighting and debates about leaders as though any of them could save anyone.

Our job is to make sure the world understands
That such hardships come to us from the hand of God
And only He can deliver us from them.

We are His messengers.
We are His ambassadors.

And we must grieve with God and warn with Isaiah.

Because this world must leave their idolatry
And learn to seek the living God.

Download Here:

Exalting The LORD Alone
Isaiah 2:1-22
February 19, 2022

Tonight we move into the SECOND SERMON of Isaiah in this book.
This sermon actually covers chapters 2-4.

The chief point of the sermon is God’s plan
For removing Israel’s dependance on idolatry
And restoring their dependance on Him alone as their Savior.

That is really the issue, and certainly one of importance to us.

When we closed our study of 1 John that book closed with one final statement.

1 John 5:21 “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.”

The very way John states that warning reminds us that
There is a threat in this world from which we must be guarded.

We live in a world
• Full of demonic influence.
• Full or rebellion against God.
• With much faulty logic.

And that means that we are constantly being bombarded with options
Of things that we can love more than God, trust more than God,
Depend on more than God, etc.

When you go out into this world
When you listen to the news
When you sit in a classroom.

You will be given all sorts of wisdom and advice
Regarding what you should do or whom you should listen to.

But the advice of the world is never, “Trust God”.
We live in a world that tells you to trust doctors and trust politicians and trust financial advisors and trust scholars and trust experts, but never is the message to trust God.

In short, you are being introduced to new idols on a daily basis.

IT IS A THREAT.
Israel had fallen prey to that threat.

But you know that God is a jealous God.
He does not tolerate idolatry.

So while His people may fall into idolatry you can rest assured
That God always has a plan to pull them out of it.

That is what this second sermon of Isaiah is about.

Tonight we start looking at it.

And tonight I really just want us to focus on sort of the first leg of this sermon, which I have entitled “Exalting the LORD Alone”

That is really the focus

(2:11) “The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.”

(2:17) “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,”

(2:22) “Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

You get the idea.
It is God’s design that He alone should be your trust,
And He alone should be the object of your exaltation.

And here we see how God brings that about.

Let’s work through this chapter together.

What you’re going to see in this chapter is a contrast.
• It’s going to begin with God revealing the way things will be someday.
• Then it’s going to show how far things are from that way now.
• And then it’s going to show God’s plan for getting us from here to there.

So we’re going to break it down into 3 points.
#1 THE LAST DAYS
Isaiah 2:1-4

Here God outlines for His people where this world is headed one day.
You and I know it as “The Millennium”
Or the 1,000 year reign of Christ after He returns.

This is where the world is headed.
It’s what we might call: A DAY OF REVERENCE

(1-2) “The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.”

Obviously we are referring here to “the last days”

And on that day “the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains.”

In other words, it will be the highest high place.
It will be the chosen worship site.

Right now Israel is littered with high places
Where people go into the mountains and hills and worship other deities
But it won’t always be this way.

There is coming a day when there will be
1 worship site and it will the LORD’S house.

“And all the nations will stream to it”

You are witnessing the end of idolatry and pluralism.

And that’s not all.
(3) “And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

Not only will idols be eliminated and the LORD alone worshiped,
But the worship there will be LEGITIMATE, SINCERE, and TRUE.

• They won’t be coming to given token worship.
• They won’t be coming just to say they came.
• They won’t be there in hypocrisy like the worship of chapter 1.

They will go to the LORD’S house
Because they will genuinely want to know the LORD.

“That He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.”

It will be the type of worship Jesus spoke about when He said
People will worship “in Spirit and in truth”

People will want to hear from God and they will want to do His will.

So a Removal of Idols is followed by a Revival of People.

And still that’s not all.
(4) “And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.”

It’s amazing how well everything is going to go
When people stop sinning and start listening to the LORD.

When they quit worshiping idols and start seeking Christ and His will
Then it’s quite amazing what the world will become.

In short, there will be peace; real peace.
They won’t need swords anymore.
They won’t need basic training anymore.

The LORD will judge and because people will follow His judgments
The world will be a place of peace and harmony.

A REMOVAL OF IDOLS
A REVIVAL OF PEOPLE
A RESTORATION OF PEACE

THAT IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED.
That is the coming day.

Now there are many other passages, even in Isaiah, where we could talk more about this day, but here we simply point out the basic generalities of what that day will be.

Idols are gone, People will genuinely seek the LORD,
And the world will enjoy peace.

That is the last days.

But as I told you, this sermon opens with a contrast.
#2 THE PRESENT DAYS
Isaiah 2:5-9

We must notice right off the bat that Isaiah is so enamored with the glory of that day that he immediately stops and asks his fellow man to start seeking God now.

Wouldn’t it be great if we all just did it now!

(5) “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Isaiah would love for them to start seeking God like,
For as you will see, they aren’t even close to that right now.

Here we DON’T see A Day of Reverence

Here we see: A DAY OF REVELRY
We see a people who are drinking up the world.

Instead of a people who have the instruction of the LORD,
They are a people who have sought the logic of the world
And therefore He has abandoned them.

(6) “For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob”

In those first 4 verses we saw a beautiful reality where
God’s people sought God and God gave them perfect instruction.

But that is NOT what we see today.
Today, people don’t seek God and God has abandoned them.

WHY?
“Because they are filled with influences from the east, And they are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.”

What does that mean?
THEY ARE WORLDLY

They aren’t influenced by the word of God
They are influenced by the word of man.

A “soothsayer” is one who supposedly can see the future.
Today they are referred to as psychics or palm-readers, etc.

And men are getting guidance from them instead of from God.

ALSO they are making covenants with foreigners.

Paul reminds us that we should not be unequally yoked.
2 Corinthians 6:14-16 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.”

But this is the problem with Israel.

Instead of taking their instruction from God they take it from the world.
• They are learning from the world.
• They are listening to the world.
• They are following the world’s advice.

And WE need to pay attention to this very deeply in our lives.

Our world is full of advice.
Our world is full of logic.
So much of that runs absolutely contrary to the teachings of Scripture.

Think about topics like:
MARRIAGE
• What are the world’s views vs the Bible’s views?
• Living together?
• Divorce?
• Roles?
• Even Genders?

MONEY
• What are the world’s views vs the Bible’s views?
• Storing?
• Giving?
• Loving?
• Trusting?

PARENTING
• What are the world’s view vs the Bible’s views?
• Discipline?
• Instruction?
• Purpose?

And we could go on and on.
Our world is full of bad advice, but often we accept it and follow it
Because the majority thinks it to be true.

We are filled with influences from wall-street.
We are filled with influences from social media.
We are filled with influences from Hollywood.
We are filled with influences from our culture.

God sees that as idolatry!
It is to seek and trust and follow the wrong advice.

Now here God gets specific with Israel
About THE EFFECT OF LISTENING too much to the world.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE WHEN A PERSON STARTS LISTENING TO THE WORLD MORE THAN THEY LISTEN TO GOD?

Well look at Israel.
(7a) “Their land has also been filled with silver and gold And there is no end to their treasures;”

You’ll know when someone listens to the world more than God
When the build a preoccupation with having the world’s stuff.

If you read what the LORD has to say,
• He speaks of sharing with widows and orphans and not storing away your treasures.
• He tells you to give and give freely.
• He tells you to share with those who don’t have enough.
• Being rich is never looked upon favorably in the New Testament.
• James talks about those who fatten their heart for a day of slaughter
• We are told you can’t serve God and money
• We read about men like the guy who tore down his barns to build bigger ones

Perhaps the greatest rebuke of wealth is that
“It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The Bible is constantly warning of the dangers of wealth.
If you listen to the Bible you’ll learn to pray for “daily bread” and to “be content”

The Bible says:
1 Timothy 6:17-19 “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.”

But the world will NEVER tell you it is foolish to hoard wealth.
The world will encourage you to get more and tell you how to keep it.

The world will not teach you to forsake this life for the next,
The world will tell you to get all you can out of this life.

Israel had forsaken God’s commands to follow the world’s logic.

THERE’S MORE INDICATORS
(7b) “Their land has also been filled with horses And there is no end to their chariots.”

This spoke of their power and military might.

You’ll know when a person listens to the world more than God
When they security becomes more important than service.

• We think of all the instructions of God about helping those in need.
• We think of all the instructions about seeking His kingdom, not ours.
• We think of all the instructions about how this world is passing away.

Think of Abraham, a man of faith who never even owned the land:
Hebrews 11:13-16 “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

Or those in the book of Hebrews who truly forsook this world:
Hebrews 10:32-34 “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.”

But that’s not what you’re going to do if you listen to the world.
• Jesus tells you if someone wants to take your coat, give them your shirt too.
• The world says if they want your coat, shoot them and protect your property!

Israel was following the world’s logic, not God’s.
They were hoarding the world
And their chief concern was protecting what they collected.

THERE’S MORE
(8) “Their land has also been filled with idols; They worship the work of their hands, that which their fingers have made.”

You’ll know when a person listens to the world more than God
When they start trusting the same things the world trusts.

• IT CAN BE SYSTEMS like our medical field or political leaders.
• IT CAN BE IDEOLOGIES like the new WOKENESS or critical race theory or evolution or global warming threats
• IT CAN BE HERESIES like pluralism

It’s just any time you see the people of God
Mimicking and spouting the jargon of the world.

• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to believe in evolution.
• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to condone gay marriage.
• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to endorse critical race theory.
• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to pursue women pastors.
• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to balk at gender roles in marriage.
• There is no reason for a Bible believing Christian to not believe in a young earth, a literal six day creation, a global flood, etc.

The reason so many “Christians” believe those things
Is because they are following the pattern of this world.

They bow to the world’s because they don’t want to be Shadrach, Meshack, and Abed-Nego as the only ones left standing refusing to bow.

So we live in a day when God’s people,
Who want to be regarded as intellectual by the world,
Will bow to the world’s idols and seek to salvage their reputations.

THAT IS NOT CHRISTIAN!!
1 Corinthians 3:18-20 “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”; and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.”

Israel bowed down on the high places because that’s what the nations did
And it was foolish!

DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE END RESULT OF SUCH CONFORMITY?
(9) “So the common man has been humbled and the man of importance has been abased”

Here you see the TWO EXTREMES.
• You see “the common man” which would be the low man on the totem pole.
• And you see “the man of importance” which is obviously the top.

But what do they have in common?
“humbled” and “abased”

THEY ARE BOTH END UP HUMILIATED.

Romans 1:22 “Professing to be wise, they became fools,”

• Do you know how foolish men are going to look someday who believed in evolution?
• Do you know how foolish men are going to look who rejected creation?
• Do you know how foolish men are going to look who endorsed gay marriage or any other of the world’s ideologies?

When the righteous Judge reigns and worldly logic passes away,
All those who proposed such things will be “humbled” and “abased”.

The advice of the world is foolish and it will lead you to ruin.

And it is one thing when the world follows her own foolish logic,
But when God’s people, who have God’s word, ignore God
And follow the world’s logic – IT IS AN ABOMINATION.

In fact, at this point Isaiah lets out AN OUTBURST.
“But do not forgive them.”

Isaiah is so frustrated with what he sees from God’s people
And how worldly they have become
That he doesn’t even what God to extend mercy to them.

So let’s just look at THE CONTRAST.
These two days are far apart.

God envisions a day
• When His people have no other gods but Him,
• And not only they, but even the nations stream to Him
• To learn from Him and do His will.

But what we have today
• Are nations who follow their own gods
• And God’s people are listening to them instead of God.

In short, Israel is a long way from where God wants them to be.
That is clear enough.

The question is: HOW DO THEY GET FROM HERE TO THERE?

#3 THE COMING DAYS
Isaiah 2:10-22

The simple answer of how they get from here to there is: TRIBULATION

Have you ever wondered why the horrors of the first chapters of Revelation are so severe?

It is because God is breaking His people
From their dependance on the world.

Tribulation and suffering has a way of doing that.

God longs for A Day of Reverence
Israel lived in a A Day of Revelry
To fix that we get: A DAY OF RECKONING

(10-11) “Enter the rock and hide in the dust From the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty. The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.”

Does that sound familiar?

Revelation 6:14-17 “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?”

You’ll see it again in verses 19-21

God has had enough
• Of these arrogant men who follow their own logic instead of His word.
• Of these lofty men who think they know so much that they can ignore the wisdom of God.

They exalt themselves by following their own logic
AND GOD WON’T STAND FOR IT.

God is going to bring such a day that men will “hide…from the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty.”

Andwhen the dust clears and the battle is over:
“the LORD alone will be exalted on that day.”

You won’t trust worldly logic by the time God is finished.

So let’s look at His day of Reckoning.
1) THE PREY (12-16)

That is to say: Who is God going to be firing at?

You see how many times the word “against” is used. (10x)

1. “Against everyone who is proud and lofty”
2. “Against everyone who is lifted up”

That is the arrogant who think they are smarter than God
And who think they can ignore God’s commands.

3. “Against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up”
4. “Against all the oaks of Bashan”
5. “Against all the lofty mountains”
6. “Against all the hills that are lifted up”

It speaks to their high places and the idols which they carve.
God will have a day of reckoning with them.

7. “Against every high tower”
8. “Against every fortified wall”

These are their false securities
And the things they trusted in to keep them safe.

9. “Against all the ships of Tarshish”
10. “And against all the beautiful craft”

Tarshish was the Amazon of Israel.
It is where all their stuff came from.
It is the stuff Israel coveted and loved more than God.

God sat in heaven watching people love and trust in worldly things.

He saw men follow the influence of the world
And on this day God has had enough.

• He attacks those who worship idols.
• He attacks the idols they worship.
• He attacks the stuff they love.
• He attacks the stuff they trust.

He won’t put up with people who love or seek or trust anything but Him.
And on His day of reckoning He will bring it all to an end.

That’s the prey.
2) THE PURPOSE (17-18)

“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.”

Do you see the issue?
It is God taking out all competitors.

Exodus 20:1-6 “Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.”

Isaiah 45:5-7 “I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”

When God says you can’t worship anyone or anything else, He means it.

(18) “But the idols will completely vanish.”

• Worldly wisdom and logic will no longer be passed along.
• You won’t be able to find an evolutionist anywhere.
• Money hoarding will be no more.

God’s day of reckoning is for the purpose of securing
That He alone receives glory.

3) THE PANIC (19-21)

Here we see that familiar scenario spoken of again.

Incidentally, notice that verses 19 and 21 are Nearly Identical.

(19) “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.”

(21) “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 is that same reality we just read about in Revelation 6 where men will be so afraid of the LORD that they will try to run under the mountains to get away from Him.

Why does Isaiah repeat himself?
It is a literary trick to get you to focus on the verse between them.

(20) “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,”

WHAT IS THE POINT?
That men will be so afraid of God
That they will be looking to get rid of anything
They think might be offending Him.

They have loved their idols of silver.
They have loved their idols of gold.
They have loved their money.

But on this day someone tells them that God is angry because of the gold you’ve hoarded and they won’t be able to throw it away fast enough.

Men have such a nonchalant view of idolatry today
As though God doesn’t really mean it
When He tells you not to love the world.

But there is coming a day
When men won’t be able to get rid of the world fast enough.

They will throw away anything that incites the wrath of God.

And then we get to the final point of this day of Reckoning
And the FIRST MAJOR POINT of this second sermon if Isaiah.

4) THE POINT (22)

“Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

God is tracing back their idolatry and their foolishness
To one major problem.

They have too much regard for man.

• They trust too much the wisdom of man.
• They follow too much the advice of man.
• They love too much the approval of man.
• They seek too much the camaraderie of man.

• They want man to esteem them.
• They want man to love them.
• They want man to honor them.

So they follow man’s logic and worship man’s idols
And join in man’s sinful behavior.

If man says to do it, they do it.
IT IS SO DANGEROUS!

John 12:36-43 “While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them. But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?” For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.” These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”

Do you see the problem?

We could talk about it in ministry.
• Seeker Sensitive
• Culturally Relevant
• The need to be intellectually acknowledged

We can talk about it in our personal lives.
• Things we’ll participate in
• Things we’ll tolerate
• Things we’ll agree to

ANY TIME WE FOLLOW THE WORLD’S LOGIC OVER GOD’S,
WE ARE REGARDING MAN MORE THAN GOD.

SO OUR QUESTION TONIGHT IS EASY:
• In what ways am I more concerned with what man thinks than with what God thinks?
• In what areas is my decision making based on human logic rather than submission to God’s word?
• In what areas do I trust man instead of God?

God says it plainly: “Stop regarding man”

His “breath of life is in his nostrils”
He won’t last

“For why should he be esteemed?”

Why should you care what man thinks?
And yet we so often do.

Someday this world will be devoted to God and Him alone.
And you can either start doing that now
Or you can wait for God to bring such tribulation into your life
To force you to do that.

All of a sudden Isaiah’s advice looks pretty good.
(5) “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Download Here:

The State Of The Union – Part 4
Isaiah 1:1-31 (18-31)
February 19, 2023

As you know we’ve begun a new study of the book of Isaiah
And this prophecy begins with what “The State of the Union”

God is speaking through Isaiah to His people
Regarding their spiritual state from His perspective.

You know by now of their comfort and security.
• They have enjoyed 52 years of peace and prosperity.
• They will enjoy 16 more years of the same.
• The comfort and security they have enjoyed has led them to be less focused on their need for God.

In steps Isaiah.
• His name means “The LORD is Salvation”
• His ministry is to remind Judah and Jerusalem that He is their only Savior.

This opening address from God reveals that
GOD IS FRUSTRATED WITH HIS PEOPLE.

As we have said God’s address covers 3 topics:
Rebellion – Religion – Redemption.

We have seen the first 2.
#1 REBELLION
Isaiah 1:1-9

Here we learned that there was an INSURRECTION occurring in Judah.
God’s sons were rebelling against Him.

Specifically they were abandoning Him.
Instead of trusting Him and seeking Him they were seeking the world
And trusting in the pagan deities of their high places.

Because of this rebellion God has already planned a severe judgment
Which will see Judah punished swiftly and severely.

In fact, the only reason any will survive it at all
Is because of God’s mercy to preserve a few.

But God spoke of their rebellion.
#2 RELIGION
Isaiah 1:10-17

We saw this last Sunday night.

As God spoke of Judah’s rebellion their immediate response would be,
“No we haven’t, we still participate in all the feasts and sacrifices.”

But God has a different perspective of their religious participation.

Asking:
(11) “What are your multiplies sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD.”

God pointed out that
• He had enough of the fat and blood they routinely bring.
• He spoke of their attendance as a trampling of His courts.
• He said their offerings were worthless.
• He said their incense was an abomination.
• He couldn’t stand all their assemblies.
• He hated all their festivals.

As a result He had determined to no longer hear their prayers because “Your hands are covered with blood.”

THE SIMPLE POINT WAS THIS:

You have convinced yourself that you are not rebels because you are religious, but I’m telling you that your religion is worthless.

What did God desire?
(16-17) “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.”

IT WASN’T CEREMONY THAT GOD WAS AFTER,
It was a life of obedience which cared for the things that mattered to Him.

It meant nothing to Him for someone to attend church or give offerings
If they failed to rebuke the ruthless or care for the helpless.

GOD WASN’T INTERESTED IN THEIR TOKEN RELIGION.

THEREFORE:
• The REBELLION is real, and judgment is coming.
• The RELIGION hasn’t helped, if anything it has made matters worse.

That is the opening of this State of the Union address.

This morning we conclude it with the final thing God wants to speak about.

#3 REDEMPTION
Isaiah 1:18-31

After addressing their sin and even God’s expectation,
Now God comes to His offer and promise of redemption.

This information is so valuable to our understanding of redemption.
It is a segment that every believer ought to consider and understand.

Let’s break this final segment down into 4 parts to help us grasp it better.

1) TERMS OF SURRENDER (18-20)

The announcement that comes here from God is
NOTHING BUT PURE GRACE.

I WOULD REMIND YOU THAT
• Israel was under the Mosaic covenant of the Law.
• That covenant was very much a performance based covenant.

Consider these realities:

Deuteronomy 24:17 “You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge.”

Deuteronomy 24:19-21 “When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. “When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.”

Deuteronomy 26:12 “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.”

Deuteronomy 27:19 “‘Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

But if you fail to keep that stipulation or break any of those commands,
Then God is well within His rights
To punish severely because of your breach of the contract.

Deuteronomy 28:15-20 “But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. “Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. “The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me.”

And the LIST GOES ON and on and on regarding all the punishments God is legally obliged to bring upon you.

Things like:
• Pestilence (28:21)
• Consumption (28:22)
• Drought (28:23-24)
• Military defeat (28:25-26)
• Boils, Blindness, Bewilderment (28:27-29)
• Your wife and children stolen and defiled (28:30-32)
• Your land will be stolen (28:33)

And many more things ultimately including being carried away into exile.

Based on what God has already revealed in this opening chapter,
It was WELL WITHIN GOD’S RIGHTS to now turn away from Israel
And bring every bit of those consequences straight down on their head.

BUT…
GOD OFFERS REDEMPTION.

(18) “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as a scarlet, They will be white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”

• DESPITE their clear and obvious guilt.
• DESPITE the fact that their sins are compared to a blood covered cloth.

God has an offer which will wipe away their sin
And the guilt and the consequences that come with it.

God is offering a plea bargain.
He is offering them a deal.

“I’ve got every right to totally annihilate you this very moment because of your rebellion against Me and My covenant.”

“But before I do that, I would offer you an opportunity to have your sins and your guilt washed away.”

WOW! That’s a great offer!
Any criminal in any courtroom who has just been found guilty and sentenced to death would jump at the chance to do something to have his crimes wiped away.

WHAT IS THE DEAL?
(19-20) “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword.” Truly the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

The offer is simple.
“consent and obey”

TO WHAT?
The covenant; the agreement; the deal you signed up for.

It’s what we read last Sunday night:
(16-17) ““Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.”

We call this a SECOND CHANCE.

• You have failed to keep up your end of the covenant
• Therefore I am within My rights to totally annihilate you.

• However, if you’ll stop your rebellion
• And start keeping your end of the bargain
• Then I’ll wipe your record clean and will eliminate your judgment.

Suppose your murdered someone
• And then were sentenced to execution by the court,
• But the judge said, “I’ll tell you what, if you’ll stop murdering then I’ll go ahead
and forgive you of this crime.”

Does that sound like a deal you’d want to take?
Of course it does.

WELL, THESE ARE GOD’S TERMS.

The PROBLEM is that we are dealing with a people who love their sin.
• The Rich Young Ruler was offered forgiveness and eternal life if he’d just quit loving his money, but he walked away sad.

And it is apparent that
Even though God has laid out for them the danger they are in,
They are not quite ready to take the deal.

They still aren’t convinced they’ve done anything wrong.

So following the terms of surrender,
God must remind them again of just how much trouble they are in.

2) TESTIMONY OF GUILT (21-23)

God once again lays out for them
The level of their great atrocity before Him.

“How the faithful city has become a harlot, She who was full of Justice!”

She wasn’t always like this.
There was a day when Jerusalem was a “faithful city”

• Under David and Solomon worship of God reigned supreme in this city.
• We remember the mighty Passover celebrations and what great love David had for God.
• We remember Solomon building His temple and sacrificing more oxen than could be counted.

This city was once devoted to God, but my how she has fallen.

She is compared to a woman
• Who was once faithful to her husband and household,
• But decided to leave and pursue a career as a prostitute.

She “has become a harlot”

When we started studying this sermon a couple of weeks ago
We read that account of Ezekiel 16 and how God adopted that baby that was thrown into the field.

• How he rubbed it with salt, washed it and adorned it with fine clothes.
• How he married that rejected child and caused her beauty and fame to spread
throughout the world.

But how did that baby repay God?

Ezekiel 16:15-22 “But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing. “You took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen. “You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them. “Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them. “Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord GOD. “Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? “You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. “Besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.”

This is what God is referring to.
You were once faithful to Me but you turned to other lovers.

The explanation here is of IDOLATRY.
• They were going to the high places and bowing down to other gods.
• They had lives filled with idols and things that took precedent over God.
• They had new passions and new desires and new priorities.

They no longer loved God, now they loved other things.

That was PART of her sin.
But that wasn’t all.

(21b) “Righteousness once lodged in her, But now murderers.”

Not only were they harlots but they were also murderers.

God had already told them back in verse 15 that “your hands are covered with blood.”

WE TALKED ABOUT how they were guilty of murder.
• No, maybe they didn’t physically swing a sword at someone, but they condemned the poor man to starvation by not feeding him.
• They condemned the widow to death by not caring for her.
• They failed to pay their laborers.
• They failed to help the helpless and the orphan.

And the fact that they neglected such mercy caused God to hold them just as guilty for their death as if they had stabbed them with a sword.

So just to remind Judah of her sin:
You have been convicted of HARLOTRY and MURDER.

And still that’s not all.
You can add HYPOCRISY to that list.

(22) “Your silver has become dross, Your drink diluted with water.”

In other words, you are simply putting on a corrupt show.

• To say their silver is no longer pure is a testimony to have little value their
offerings have.

• To say their wine is diluted with water is a testimony to how weak and empty
their religion has become.

You are not holy people or righteous people,
You are merely a people who cover their sin in religious garb.

You are Pharisees
• Who broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments
• While they at the same time devour widow’s houses.
• They wash the outside of the cup and of the dish but inwardly are filled
with robbery and self indulgence.

God sees all that they are.
Harlots, Murderers, Hypocrites

And they are CORRUPT
(23) “Your rulers are rebels And companions of thieves; Everyone loves a bribe And chases after rewards. They do not defend the orphan, Nor does the widow’s plea come before them.”

It reminds us of that unrighteous judge in the New Testament who time after time refuses to give justice to the widow who pleads with him.

And when he finally does give justice it is only because she won’t leave him alone.
By his own testimony he “does not fear God, nor respect man.”

And God says that is what Jerusalem has become.
IT IS A CITY OF CORRUPTION.

Widows and orphans get no justice
Because they can offer no money to bribe the judge.

It is a system where only the wealthy are rewarded
And the poor are trampled.

And God reminds Judah that this is their guilt.

You may not realize the severity of your crime
Or the punishment that it has earned

But you have been convicted of:
• Prostitution in the first degree
• Murder in the first degree
• Hypocrisy and the offering of counterfeit religion
• Bribery and Corruption along with spiritual neglect

The list is long and the punishment is severe.
They are a nation in need of redemption
Even if they have thus far failed to realize it.

And rest assured, God will not leave things as they are.

Terms of Surrender, Testimony of Guilt
3) TIMELINE FOR REDEMPTION (24-26)

Here God outlines His plan to rid the streets
Of prostitutes, murderers, hypocrites, and the corrupt.

And notice how serious this is to God.
“Ah, I will be relieved of My adversaries”

God speaks as one who has been terribly burdened and grieved and frustrated by the continual presence of such sinners in His land.

And now God contemplates the relief He will feel when they are all gone.

But not only relief, God is seeking VENGEANCE.
“And avenge Myself on My foes.”

Here we run right up against the holiness of God.

And this is very important to understand
In any conversation regarding redemption.

A holy God cannot simply overlook your sin.
A holy God cannot simply forgive your sin.

A holy God demands relief.
A holy God demands vengeance.

So any conversation we have regarding redemption
Must include God’s plan for what He is going to do with sin.

This also means that the offer being made back in verses 18-20
Where God promised to take their sins and make them white as snow

Does NOT mean that God is just simply going to forget about it.

I told you then to imagine you had committed murder and the judge said, “Stop committing murder and I’ll wipe your record clean.”

Now that is good news for the criminal, but what about the victim?
What about the victim’s family?

If you are the murderer that sounds awesome,
But if it was your brother the murderer killed
You wouldn’t be happy with that decision at all.

IT WOULD BE MERCIFUL BUT IT WOULDN’T BE JUST.

God is offering redemption to the murderer,
But it is not without justice.

(25) “I will also turn My hand against you, And will smelt away your dross as with lye and will remove all your alloy.”

FIRST OF ALL, here we see who God’s adversaries and foes are.
It is YOU.
• God wasn’t speaking about Philistines or Assyrians,
• His adversaries are the children of Israel.
• His foes are the people of Jerusalem.

And God is going to be “relieved of [His] adversaries, and avenge [Himself] on [His] foes.”

WHAT IS GOD’S PLAN?
He is going to purify the sinful people.
• All of those impurities…
• All of that hypocrisy…
• God is going to deal with it.

He is going to put His people through the fire to “smelt away your dross”
He is going to “remove all your alloy.”

SIN IS NOT BEING OVERLOOKED, IT IS BEING DEALT WITH.

And not only that.
(26) “Then I will restore your judges as at the first, And your counselors as at the beginning;”

After God purges away their sin they then get new leadership.
• Their corrupt leaders had allowed them to fall into sin,
• Once God purges the sin He is not going to put them right back under those old leaders.
• God will raise up new leadership to lead and guide in holiness and purity.

AND THEN WE SEE THE END RESULT:
(25b) “After that you will be called the city of righteousness, A faithful city.”

So when God speaks of redemption
Are you better understanding what He means?

He DOESN’T MEAN just forgetting your sin ever happened.
He DOESN’T MEAN just agreeing to overlook it forever.
He DOESN’T MEAN just forgoing justice for the sake of mercy.

God’s redemption is NOT
A redemption that leaves sin unpunished or in place.

If you think you’ve been redeemed but your sin has not been dealt with
You have not experienced the redemption of God.

His redemption includes A PURIFYING FIRE
And A NEW COUNSELOR to guide you from here on out.

Now, we can stop there for a second and talk about THE GOSPEL.

How does God deal with your sin according to the gospel?

You say, He pours it on Christ and Christ pays the debt.
That is true.

Christ works to grant God relief in His holiness.
Christ propitiates the wrath of God.

Romans 3:23-25a “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.”

1 John 2:1-2 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”

We understand that in order to satisfy His righteousness
God could not and would not simply overlook sin.

Punishment had to be made.
Appeasement had to be purchased.
CHRIST DID THAT.

BUT DON’T STOP THERE.
That is what Christ did.

WHAT DOES GOD EXPECT FROM YOU?

Did Christ die to pay for your sins and then to just leave you in them?
Certainly not!

Romans 6:1-4 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

The calling for our lives is that we die.
• Namely that we die to self.
• Namely that we forsake our old sinful life and walk in the new life of Christ.

Remember Paul speaking to the Corinthians?
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Paul says “you were washed”

What is that?
It is that same smelting away that Isaiah speaks of here.

When God redeems you from your sin,
No part of that redemption allows you to remain in it.

Christ Jesus came to “save His people from their sins.”

We are called to die to self and leave our sin
And be purified into a new life by God.

Yes Christ pays the debt.
Yes Christ satisfies the wrath.
But we are also called to leave the sin behind.

AND THEN, just like Isaiah said, we get a new counselor.
WHO IS THAT?

It is the Holy Spirit.
• He moves in and takes ownership of our life.
• He facilitates our cleansing and guides us in this new life.

Titus 3:4-6 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,”

So are you understanding a little more
About this redemption we are talking about?

It is NOT God’s decision to just overlook your sin and move on.

REDEMPTION IS THE PROCESS BY WHICH
God atones for your sin through Jesus,
And then bids you leave your sin
And purifies you through the working of His Holy Spirit.

ALL OF THAT IS THE PROCESS OF REDEMPTION.
You see here God’s timeline and how He works.

Now there is ONE MORE POINT God makes here in regard to this redemption.

Terms of Surrender, Testimony of Guilt, Timeline for Redemption
4) TRUTH ABOUT THE FUTURE (27-31)

Pay special attention to verse 27.
“Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant ones with righteousness.”

Two things you need to see here.

1) Redemption is a fact.
“Zion will be redeemed”

God made promises to Abraham and He will not forsake those promises.
Redemption is coming.

God WILL atone for their sin, God WILL purify them,
God WILL place new judges and counselors over them.

Redemption is a fact.

2) Redemption comes through justice and righteousness
“Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant ones with righteousness.”

And again we see the same point.
• REDEMPTION IS NOT TOLERANCE
• REDEMPTION IS NOT FORGETTING

Redemption is when God deals with sin and saves you from it,
Not when He overlooks sin and leaves you in it.

Many in our world seem to think this is what is meant by redemption.
“I’ve been redeemed!”

And they think that means their sin is overlooked,
And they are free to live however they want now without penalty.

This has never been what God’s redemption does.

Redemption is not done with mercy alone,
Redemption is also done “with justice”.

God EXACTS PAYMENT for your sin through Christ.
God EXPECTS PURIFICATION from your sin.

And if you are noticing this is what the whole segment has pointed to.

Go back to verses 18-20
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; “But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Those verses didn’t offer you a pardon to return to your sin.
Those verses offered you mercy if you left your sin.

REPENTANCE IS REQUIRED

“Zion will be redeemed with justice AND HER REPENTANT ONES with righteousness.”

Do you understand this about redemption?

Do you understand now the preaching of John the Baptist?
Matthew 3:2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Do you understand now the preaching of Jesus?
Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Do you understand now the preaching of the apostles?
Acts 2:38 “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

You cannot atone for your sin.
Eternity in hell will not atone for your sin, only Christ can accomplish that.

But you are expected to repent of your sin.
• You are expected to leave your sin.
• You are expected to submit your life to the Holy Spirit of God who will sanctify you and cleanse you.

We talked about it Wednesday night with the youth.
We saw how God commanded Abraham to be circumcised.

• The idea was symbolize the necessity of no longer living by the flesh.
• Now Abraham and all his household were to be holy
• Circumcision was the outward symbol of that.

In the New Testament we are baptized
Which symbolizes death to our old life and new life in Christ.

But this is God’s expectation.
Titus 2:11-12 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,”

SO HERE IS GOD’S CALL TO END HIS STATE OF THE UNION

REDEMPTION IS AVAILABLE!
IT COMES THROUGH REPENTANCE!

• Do you want to have your sin washed away?
• Do you want to be forgiven?
• Do you want to enjoy atonement?

Then “consent and obey”

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

This is the path to redemption that we must follow.

Otherwise, God will judge and none will escape.

(28-31) “But transgressors and sinners will be crushed together, And those who forsake the LORD will come to an end. Surely you will be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, And you will be embarrassed at the gardens which you have chosen. For you will be like an oak whose leaf fades away Or as a garden that has no water. The strong man will become tinder, His work also a spark. Thus they shall both burn together And there will be none to quench them.”

• God will crush sinners.
• God will put an end to those who forsake Him.
• God will make it so that all sinners live in eternal regret for their sin.
• And all unrepentant sinners will burn.

There is no scenario where you get to keep your sin and enjoy blessing.

God is willing and eager to redeem
And YOUR PART in that redemption is repentance from your sin.

Isaiah 1:18-20 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; “But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”