Desiring Heaven – Part 3
Isaiah 26:7 – 27:13 (26:20-27:6)
September 24, 2023
If you weren’t with us last week for the first two legs of this sermon,
The recap is pretty simple.
In chapter 24 Isaiah saw that God was going to judge the earth because of the sin that is upon it.
In chapter 25 Isaiah saw the heaven that is awaiting those whom God has redeemed.
And of all the great realities Isaiah recognized about heaven
There is one reality that rose quickly to the top
And that is that it is ONLY FOR THE RIGHTEOUS.
Isaiah 26:2 “Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter, The one that remains faithful.”
And this reality brought Isaiah to a great dilemma.
• Certainly Isaiah desires heaven for all those God has called him to.
• We even saw him grieving over the prospect of sinners in judgment.
• But Isaiah dwells among a sinful and idolatrous people.
• The only means of righteousness for them is if they will repent of their sin and seek God.
• We know that only Jesus Christ can provide the righteousness which is necessary for salvation.
• But the people of Isaiah’s day aren’t interested in seeking God.
So what is the plan for taking the obstinate sinners of Isaiah’s day and causing them to start seeking God that they might receive the righteousness which is necessary for entrance into heaven?
And the answer is: DISCIPLINE
God’s discipline is the means
Through which He will draw His people back to Himself.
And that is what Isaiah 26:6 – 27:13 is all about.
As we have talked about this text over the last 2 sermons
I GAVE YOU TWO STATEMENTS TO PONDER.
I told you that they are convictions that Isaiah clearly holds.
I’ll give them to you again this morning.
1) Sin is worse than suffering.
2) Discipline is better than apathy.
What we have seen over the first 3 points of this sermon is that
Isaiah has endeavored to change our perspective on sin and suffering.
We’ve seen the first 3 points.
#1 ISAIAH’S PETITION
Isaiah 26:7-11
• Isaiah recognized that the path of the righteous ends smooth.
• It may not be easy today, but it definitely ends well.
And so Isaiah boldly asked the LORD
To do whatever it takes to put His people on that path.
And most notably Isaiah spoke of suffering.
He could see the benefit in his own life.
(9) “At night my soul longs for You, Indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently; For when the earth experiences Your judgments The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.”
Isaiah had become keenly aware that
His intense desire to seek and know God
Was the direct result of having walked through God’s judgments.
We can only wonder
• What Isaiah’s life might have been like if he had never entered the temple,
• Been confronted with the holiness of God,
• And become terrified at the reality of his own condemnation.
It was a terrifying scene in his life, but how valuable it turned out to be.
And now Isaiah is asking for nothing less than that for his people.
#2 ISAIAH’S PERCEPTION
Isaiah 26:12-16
Here Isaiah took us on a walk through history
Were he reminded us that all the greatness which Israel has achieved:
• Becoming a people
• Possessing the land
• Increasing the borders
All of that is merely because God has done it.
(15) “You have increased the nation, O LORD, You have increased the nation, You are glorified; You have extended all the borders of the land.”
In fact Isaiah reminded (13) “through You alone we confess Your name”.
The only reason they were a people
Who trusted God and lived in the land with enlarged borders
Is because God accomplished it for them and through them.
AND HOW DID GOD TO THAT?
THROUGH DISCIPLINE.
(Even extreme discipline)
(16) “O LORD, they sought You in distress; They could only whisper a prayer, Your chastening was upon them.”
When we discuss Isaiah’s perception we see what Isaiah recognized.
He saw that the greatest advances in Israel’s history,
And the greatest revivals they experienced
Were typically during times of their greatest discipline.
ONE OFTEN CAME WITH THE OTHER.
That is perceptive.
#3 ISAIAH’S PERSPECTIVE
Isaiah 26:17-19
Having recognized that God often brings revival out of times of suffering Isaiah now lifts up Israel’s current dilemma.
He compared them to a woman in labor
Who had not enjoyed the joy of childbirth.
Isaiah said that “We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.”
• In other words, we have are still in the middle of our trial.
• We have yet to see anything good come out of it.
But that is where faith comes in.
Isaiah believes that God will use this time of distress
Just as He has used every other time of distress.
(19) “Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.”
We ran out of time before we could fully discuss this last week,
But if you’ll notice Isaiah has just MADE A COMPARISON.
Back up in verse 13 Isaiah confessed that Israel served other masters.
“O LORD, our God, other masters besides You have ruled us…”
• And Isaiah recognized that the END RESULT of serving them was only death with NO HOPE.
• (14) “The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise;”
But now Isaiah speaks of serving God.
And even though the present seems bleak, when you serve God
It does not end in death, it ends in resurrection.
(19) “Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise.”
You see the comparison and the contrast.
THE POINT Isaiah is making is that when God brings discipline
It is not for the purpose of destruction it is for SALVATION.
Consider Job for a moment.
TURN TO: JOB 19
(READ 1-22)
• Without even seeking to really exposit what Job says there
• It is clear that Job is suffering greatly under the hand of God.
• Sometimes God’s discipline can feel just that severe.
But with God’s discipline there is always hope.
(READ 23-29)
You see the same mindset here in Isaiah.
• We may be suffering at the hand of God today,
• But it is only that God may save us tomorrow
• For God uses suffering for the salvation of His people.
And these are the points Isaiah has been driving home to us.
SIN IS WORSE THAN SUFFERING.
• I mean Jesus told you to cut of your hand or gouge out your eye.
• Sin sends you to hell, but God often uses suffering to save you from hell.
Isaiah shifted our focus.
Every one of us, if given the choice between sin or suffering
Should choose suffering every single time.
Isaiah was working to shift our doctrine of sin.
DISCIPLINE IS BETTER THAN APATHY
• It is far better to have a heavenly Father who will discipline us in our sin than one who will turn a blind eye to it.
• A father who withholds discipline from his son does not love his son and does not care how he turns out in life.
• God loves us and He disciplines us so that we may share in His holiness.
That is the point Isaiah has been driving home to us.
He shifted our doctrine on suffering.
But all of that was MERELY THE INTRODUCTION to Isaiah’s sermon.
Why has he been so adamant to make sure we see that sin is worse than suffering?
Why has he been so adamant to make sure we see that discipline is better than apathy?
Well, it’s because Isaiah has seen what is coming.
God has shown Isaiah what He is about to do
And Isaiah wants his people to be ready for it.
1. He wants them to view it rightly.
2. He wants them to understand God’s purpose.
3. He wants them to respond correctly.
What did Isaiah see?
Isaiah saw the discipline that God has in store for His people
In order to cleanse them from sin and draw them back to Himself.
#4 ISAIAH’S PROPHECY
Isaiah 26:20 – 27:13
Obviously this is now a longer segment than the previous 3
So we’re going to break this prophecy down a little further to make it easier to handle.
We can divide this prophecy up into 4 points.
1) THE COMING PUNISHMENT (20-1)
Isaiah reveals a coming day and it is NOT initially a vision of COMFORT.
(20) “Come, my people, enter your rooms and close your doors behind you; hide for a little while until indignation runs its course.”
Isaiah tells his people that there is a day coming
In which they are going to want to run and hide.
Incidentally, as Jesus spoke of this coming day His advice was very similar.
Matthew 24:15-22 “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. “Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house. “Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! “But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. “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.”
What both of them revealed to us is that
There is coming a day on the earth of such great tribulation
That the only real response is to run and hide.
WHAT IS GOING ON?
(21) “For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain.”
In short, there is coming a day when the patience of God will end.
There is coming a day when the age of mercy & grace will come to a close.
God will no longer restrain His fury,
But will rise up from His place
And descend upon this earth in furious wrath.
Now that’s NOT NEW information.
Isaiah already told us:
Isaiah 24:1-3 “Behold, the LORD lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken this word.”
• Isaiah went on to tell that mankind had polluted the earth with their sin and God was going to judge it.
Here Isaiah spells out specifically what that pollution is.
“the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover her slain.”
When Cain murdered Abel God said:
Genesis 4:9-10 “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”
When Noah exited the ark God told him:
Genesis 9:5-6 “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.”
Numbers 35:33 “So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.”
Psalm 106:37-38 “They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, And shed innocent blood, The blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with the blood.”
There was even a special ritual God commanded in Israel.
If you were walking out in the country and found a dead body
And there was no explanation for how the person died.
Deuteronomy 21:1-9 “If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has struck him, then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. “It shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke; and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. “Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; and every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them. “All the elders of that city which is nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; and they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. ‘Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O LORD, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be forgiven them. “So you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD.”
I just read those to you to point out to you that
The shedding of innocent blood is a big deal to God.
And there is coming a day when God will force the earth
To give an account for all the innocent blood that has been shed.
Revelation 18:21-24 “Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer. “And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters will not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer; and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery. “And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.”
THERE IS A COMING PUNISHMENT ON SINNERS.
You and I know this time as: THE GREAT TRIBULATION
And we certainly don’t have time to go through all the realities of that day, but a brief description will help.
There is coming upon this earth a 7 year tribulation period.
(Read Revelation and Daniel)
The last 3 ½ years of that period is known as “The Great Tribulation”
It comes following the rise of a man known as Anti-Christ.
Anti-Christ is also called “the man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians.
• He is a Satan empowered evil man
• Whose one objective will be to destroy God’s people
• And keep the Lord from ever reigning upon the earth.
• You’ve read all about his “mark of the beast”
• And the way he beheads those who hold to their faith in Jesus.
But the reality is that despite his wickedness, it is God who lets him loose
It is God who allows him to come to power and terrorize the earth.
WHY?
As a punishment for sin.
And you are familiar with the Revelation.
You’ve seen all the SEALS being opened
• False peace, world war, famine, plague, death, rage.
You’ve seen the TRUMPETS blowing
1/3 of the earth burned, 1/3 of the water turned to blood, 1/3 of fresh water turned bitter, 1/3 of the sun darkened, Locusts and demonic armies
You’ve seen the BOWLS poured out
Malignant sores, the sea dies, all water turned to blood, the sun scorching men, intense pain, the battle Armageddon, the Second Coming
God has a day in which He will pour out His wrath on sinners
Who have polluted the earth by shedding innocent blood.
IT IS PUNISHMENT ON SINNERS.
But it is NOT ONLY sinners which God will judge.
(1) “In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.”
I don’t think it’s necessary to get mythological here.
• I don’t think it’s necessary to even see Isaiah’s reference to some sort of imagery of his day.
• The Bible started talking about a serpent in the 3rd chapter of Genesis
• And the serpent or dragon has always been about the same one: SATAN.
God will not only judge sinners he will judge the author of their sin.
This is what we call a total house cleaning.
Even the reference to the dragon living “in the sea” is not hard to understand.
Revelation 13:1-2 “And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.”
1. God is going to put an end to sin.
2. God is going to put an end to sinners.
3. God is going to put an end to their father, the dragon and serpent of old.
It is a coming day of peril and judgment.
And Isaiah sees that God will bring it upon the whole earth.
There is a coming punishment.
But let’s discuss Why.
2) THE COMING PRODUCTIVITY (2-6)
Isaiah now begins to reveal
What the effect of that day will be on God’s people.
And if you’re familiar with Isaiah so far THIS IS REMARKABLE.
(2) “In that day, “A vineyard of wine, sing of it!”
What in the world is he talking about?
Do you remember the song of the vineyard?
TURN TO: ISAIAH 5:1-7
• Do you remember that song about this vineyard that God had done everything
possible for but it still produced bad grapes?
• You remember how He plowed it and planted it and protected it, but it just
wouldn’t produce.
• And you remember what the fruit He wanted was:
Isaiah 5:7 “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”
So there was a song of a vineyard but it was a sad song.
But as a result of this horrible day of punishment on the earth,
Isaiah says THAT SONG WILL CHANGE.
“In that day, “A vineyard of wine, sing of it!”
FINALLY!
• Finally that vineyard starts producing!
• Finally that vineyard starts yielding grapes!
• Finally that vineyard produces righteousness and justice!
And God isn’t abandoning it anymore, now God is taking care of it.
(3-4a) “I, the LORD, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day. I have no wrath.”
• He’s no longer angry at the vineyard.
• He’s no longer laying it waste.
• He is now protecting it.
IN FACT, even when someone offers him a barrier to put around His vineyard He doesn’t want it.
(4-5) “Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely. “Or let him rely on My protection, Let him make peace with Me, Let him make peace with Me.”
Those “briars and thorns” are a type of fence that you built around your vineyard to keep out thieves and foxes and other things that would destroy it.
But God says, No, I don’t want it!
• Just let men “rely on My protection”
• Just let Israel “make peace with Me”
I’m not leaving them, I will protect them.
This vineyard is FINALLY the vineyard that I’ve always wanted.
(6) “In the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and sprout, And they will fill the whole world with fruit.”
So all of a sudden, this once worthless vineyard
Has suddenly started producing fruit.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Stay within your GOSPEL PERSPECTIVE and it’s easy to see.
When we got to the New Testament Israel was still that worthless vine Isaiah spoke of.
But we heard a promise.
John 15:1-5 “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. “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.”
Jesus told us that He was “the true vine”
• He was everything God ever wanted Israel to be.
• And we were told that the only way to produce the fruit God desired was to be
“in Him”.
So what has occurred now in Isaiah’s vision is that Israel,
This once worthless vineyard has obviously been driven to Christ.
He’s the only way to produce fruit.
They have run to Jesus.
And we see now that the purpose of that great day of punishment
• Was NOT ONLY to destroy sinners,
• But that IT IS ALSO a day of severe punishment on Israel to force them to run to Jesus.
This is the best way for you to understand the tribulation.
I know there are a lot of views regarding the tribulation and the timing of the rapture and all of that stuff.
But if you study what the Old Testament has to say about it,
it’s really not all that confusing.
The tribulation is a period of God’s punishment toward His people Israel.
It is a period in which God will discipline them severely
So as to bring them to repentance.
Daniel spoke of it as Jacob’s 70th week.
Daniel 9:24-27 “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. “And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”
Daniel was shown that God had allowed 70 – 7’s for His people.
And the purpose of this period was to accomplish 6 realities.
• “to finish transgression”
• “to make an end of sin”
• “to make atonement for iniquity”
• “to bring in everlasting righteousness”
• “to seal up vision and prophecy”
• “to anoint the most holy place”
Those are God’s purposes in these 70 – 7’s
Daniel said there would be “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks”
• He was referencing the rebuilding of the temple after the exile
• And then he said, “after sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off”
If you want to see the math go find the sermon from that text on our website,
But Daniel predicted to the day when Jesus would be rejected by His people.
Those were the first 69 – 7’s
There is one “7” left and that is the coming tribulation.
God will use it to punish the earth and purify His people.
Jeremiah saw the same thing.
TURN TO: JEREMIAH 30:1-11
Jeremiah called it the time of “Jacob’s distress”
SO HERE’S SIMPLY MY POINT.
• There is coming a day in which God will judge sinners.
• On that day He will also bring severe discipline upon His people Israel.
• The purpose of that day is not to destroy His people, but to save them.
• It will be a day of terrible judgment and hardship.
• It will be a day in which Satan himself will seek to destroy them.
Jesus said if that period lasted any longer than no one would survive it.
It will be a terrible and painful day.
The purpose of that day is not only to destroy sinners
But also to save (through suffering) his people Israel.
TURN TO: ZECHARIAH 12:1-14
All of that is what Isaiah is talking about.
The reason Isaiah was so adamant to convince his people
1. That sin is worse than suffering
2. And discipline is better than apathy
Is because he saw the day coming when God would break out in fury.
It was important to him to alert Israel
Not to take lightly the discipline of the LORD
Nor to faint when they were reproved by Him.
He wanted them to UNDERSTAND that the terrible coming day
IS A DAY MEANT FOR THEIR SALVATION.
IS IT A TERRIBLE DAY?
ABSOLUTELY
WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO TERRIBLE?
THAT IS WHAT IT WILL TAKE
If I might give you just a brief amount of perspective here.
Israel didn’t even turn to Christ during the Holocaust.
As bad as that was, they still reject Jesus.
This day that is coming will be bad.
It apparently has to be.
• God is going to the full extent to break His people so that they will finally look on the One they pierced and mourn for Him as an only Son.
• God is going to break them so that they will run to Jesus and abide in Him and begin to produce the fruit that God intended all along.
No one is saying that discipline is a cake walk.
No one is saying that suffering is fun.
But clearly: Isaiah’s conviction is also God’s conviction.
God would rather put you in suffering than leave you in sin
God would rather discipline you severely than leave you in unbelief
AND PRAISE GOD FOR THAT!
He is working to produce fruit in you.
If you don’t produce fruit you are cut away and burned.
God is working to make you fruitful.
Hebrews 12:11 “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
As for Israel that discipline must be extremely severe because they are extremely stubborn.
• I don’t want to jump too far ahead
• But in Isaiah 28 he’s actually going to tell them not to be such a tough nut to crack.
• He’s actually going to tell them, don’t make God beat you so hard before you come around…because He will.
We’re going to stop here this morning and we’ll finish up this text tonight.
But now you are aware that those two statements I gave you
Are not just Isaiah’s convictions, they are God’s convictions.
And I would encourage you
• Not only to change your view on sin (worse than suffering)
• Not only to change your view on suffering (a necessary tool)
• But also to stop and praise God that He will do whatever it takes to save
His people.
GOD WILL LOSE NONE OF THOSE HE HAS CHOSEN TO SAVE.
