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.
