Explore "works righteousness" with insightful episodes like "That should work . . .", "Episode 148: United Pentecostal Church - Is It a Cult? with Dr. Ed Dalcour [Part2]", "152 - Does Wisdom Literature Lead to ‘Works Righteousness’?", "God Saves His Stubborn Children from Plans of Self-Salvation (Isaiah Sermon 32 of 80)" and "God Saves His Stubborn Children from Plans of Self-Salvation (Isaiah Sermon 32 of 80) (Audio)" from podcasts like ""For You Radio", "Apologetics Profile", "Christian Formation", "Two Journeys" and "Two Journeys Sermons"" and more!
We are obligated to do the good works of God. We must never rely upon our good works for our salvation. Good works are evidence of salvation. Did we just say three things that contradict each other? Craig and Troy work to resolve the paradox of good works that is created by our wrong thinking.
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Many aberrant religious movements which identify as Christian will twist the Gospel of grace making their followers partially responsible for saving themselves through legalistic, works-righteous doctrines and practices. If Jesus is not enough for salvation, if our salvation depends even in the slightest degree upon something we must do it is not finally the true Christian doctrine of justification by grace alone. As we will see again this week, such a concept of saving ourselves, even in part, is heretical. Our guest this week, theologian Dr. Edward Dalcour, shares with us more about the errors of modalism and works-righteousness doctrines and reminds us of the power of the Gospel in reaching the lost for Christ and His kingdom.
Dr. Edward Dalcour is the president and director of Department of Christian Defense (Christiandefense.org), an educational and apologetic ministry based in Los Angeles, CA. He is Mentor of Theology at Greenwich School of Theology (London). He serves as Vice President of Grace Bible University based in Bagdad, FL. Dr. Dalcour holds a Master in Apologetics from Columbia Evangelical Seminary and a Ph.D. in Theology from North-West University (Potchefstroom, SA). He is a published author of several apologetic and theological books including A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology (https://uhop.me/Oneness). He is a prolific speaker, evangelist, apologist, and contributor to various theological journals.
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This episode looks at what wisdom literature is, how to read it, and common stumbling blocks for people when interpreting wisdom literature.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 30:1-33. The main subject of the sermon is how God interrupts our absurd plans to acquire salvation apart from Him.
Open in your Bibles, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 30. Looking this morning, at this magnificent chapter. One of the hardest parts of the Christian life, I think, is waiting. God is calling on us to wait as he does. That I can prove it's part of the Christian life is not difficult. You can think about the end of 1 Thessalonians 1, where Paul celebrates the conversion of the Thessalonians. And the report that came back to him of what God had done in those people. He says, "They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from Heaven, Jesus Christ who rescues us from the coming wrath." Do you see those two verbs? To serve and to wait, that's what we're called on to do. We're called on to wait on the Lord. And so there are many verses in the New Testament that celebrate, that command, patience, the need for perseverance or patience. That we must wait under the hand of God. That we must humble ourselves and array ourselves under his mighty hand. That in due time, he may lift us up.
And that waiting is hard, but it's absolutely essential to our salvation. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Patience. What's that for but waiting? Perseverance must finish its work so that you'll be mature and complete, not lacking anything. So the journey from immaturity to maturity is a long one, it doesn't happen quickly, and you must have patience. And you must have patience during trials, that's the hard part. Waiting is hard, but it's essential to our future inheritance. It says in Hebrews 6:12 that we are to, “Imitate those who, by faith and patience, inherit what has been promised.” You won't inherit without patience, so you must wait. You must wait day after day, it's just a central part of the everyday Christian life, but it's also a unique challenge for some people who are going through extreme trials.
I think about the Parishes, they have been waiting for Andy's healing since the accident happened, and they continue to wait. It's a severe trial of waiting. I think about our brothers and sisters in persecuting parts in the world. I think about pastors that are incarcerated for their faith, and they're waiting for their release, they're waiting for God to answer their prayers, so are their wives and their children and their churches, waiting that God would set them free. There's some under chronic pain, severe pain, and they're just waiting for deliverance, just waiting to be set free. God is just saying, ‘No, not yet. You just need to wait.’
And the gist of this text here is that if we don't wait under God's hand, we are displaying faithlessness, a sinful faithlessness. We need to wait, as one pastor put it, “In God's place and at God's pace.” It's good to remember that, isn't it? Wait where God has you, and wait there as long as God wants you to stay there. Let him choose the pace and in many cases it’s gonna be a lot slower than you want. God wants us to wait. To wait on him, because that's what he's doing, he's waiting. And I know it's not easy, but it's of the essence of faith. And what I wanna do in this sermon today is to teach you how to wait. To teach you how to wait on the Lord. To teach you how to let God's word speak hope into your heart so that you wait well. Because we're so impatient.
Do you see that in your own life? I see it in myself, and I wouldn't say every time I drive, but many times that I drive. I must know that when everybody ahead of me is driving too slowly, something's wrong with all those people. Sooner or later, the Spirit says, ‘No, it's you.’ [laughter] Driving home just the other day, and one slow driver turned off and the next one turned on right in front of me. And I said, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I said that out loud. Didn't I? Some kids who were with me. Didn't I say that out loud? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I was impatient that day. Now, it's funny we laugh, but this is a plague to my soul. It is unbelief to not wait under God's hand. It's unbelief. And in our text, God calls it out. He calls his stubborn children out for not waiting for him and waiting on him, for making plans of their own, going their own way. 'Cause here's the deal, when you are on the highway of life, and God's providence calls on a mudslide, like happened to us in Nepal, and you're stopped. There are two ways to show unbelief in that situation, two different ways. The first is to grow overwhelmed with discouragement and quit the journey. It happens in divorce, it happens in a lot of settings. To just give up the ministry, people turn their backs and say, ‘This is just too hard,’ they give up the mission field. They give up the ministry, and I'm not saying that it's wrong to leave the mission field, or to even leave the ministry of God leads to do something else. But there are some situations in which it's done by unbelief because the people aren't willing to wait. So they quit, 'cause it's hard, they quit. That's one way. The other way, again, to stay with the bumper to bumper, traffic stop analogy, is to pull off on the shoulder and go four wheeling. You know what I'm saying? To go across someone's front lawn, ‘Now I have got a four-wheel drive, let's see what it can do.’ Take matters in your own hands and go in a way God has not told you to go, not by his Spirit, to go solve the problem yourself and get rolling again. And we do that, we do both of those. We quit or we just take matters in our own hands and go when God is telling you to wait on him.
So that's what Isaiah 30 is about. The context here is, again the southern kingdom of Judah, King Hezekiah and Assyria, that vicious conquering nation is coming, they're coming. They're probably already there. They are probably already fighting and coming. And Judah has basically four choices: they can go out and meet them in battle, they can fight them, and then retreat to the fortress of Jerusalem and fight them there. The problem with that is they're gonna lose. The Assyrians are far stronger than they are, and they're gonna lose, they've won everywhere. They can submit to them, they can surrender. The problem is with that is that many of the men are gonna die, women ravished and the whole nation enslaved, 'cause that's just who the Assyrians were. They can send emissaries with gold and silver to some powerful nation nearby, to ally with them and come help them militarily. Or they can repent from their sins and wait on God for supernatural deliverance. And what they choose to do is that third option. It's just regular habit pattern of that little southern kingdom of Judah, they do it again and again and again, you just have to trace it out. Maybe I have noticed the pattern. But when the northern kingdom of Israel threatened them militarily. They were enemies, they were not allies, they were enemies. When the northern kingdom of Israel threatened them, they made an alliance with Syria, Damascus. When Israel and Syria threatened them together, they made an alliance with Assyria, the vicious northern empire. One commentator said that's very much like a mouse being threatened by a larger mouse asking a cat for deliverance, ‘Sure, I'll come help you. I'll be happy to. I'm coming right your way.’ Devours in both. Now threatened by Assyria, what do they do? Turn to Egypt and make the same kind of mistake, the same kind of alliance. When God was calling on them to repent and to wait.
God gives timeless, unchanging counts, and look at verse 15, Isaiah 30, and verse 15, “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength.”" That's his advice through the prophet, ‘This is what I'm telling you to do, you wanna be delivered? Do that.’ And then in verse 18, very, very sweetly, very beautifully, he says this, and this is really for me, verse 18, the centerpiece of the chapter. I'm gonna translate a little bit differently than NIV, "The Lord waits to be gracious to you; he exalts himself to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" So at the beginning of verse 18, the Lord is the one waiting, at the end of the verse, he speaks a word of blessing to all of those who will join him in waiting. God waits. It's mysterious, the Sovereign God, “All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” He's a waiting God, and yet sovereign over people's hearts, it's a mystery to me, but he waits. He waits for the right time for everything in the fullness of time, he does all things. And at end of that verse, verse 18, he promises a blessing to you if you'll wait on him. But in this chapter, these people were seizing control, taking hold of the situation and moving out, four-wheeling, if you know what I'm saying, going across people's lawns and fields of corn to get where they wanted to go.
So look at verses 1-7, you see that, “"Woe to those", says the prophet, "Who make plans to save themselves." God speaks a word of prophetic judgment. A prophetic woe. In verse one, "Woe to the obstinate children," declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin."” So he speaks his prophetic word of woe to Judah for doing this. He calls them obstinate children, stubborn children, stubborn in their own ways. They are his children. Isaiah 1:2 says, "Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me." So these are the stubborn children, the obstinate children, he's talking to them. And what is their sin? Well, making and trusting in and acting on plans that don't come from God. ““They're carrying out plans that are not mine,” declares the Lord, “Forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit.”” They are moving out, away from God, doing it their own way. And God is able to give wisdom and counsel, he's able to send godly messengers, prophets who will speak the truth. We'll talk about them a little bit later. But God is able to tell you the truth, he's able to speak to you, he's able to direct you. Look at verse 21, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" God is able to give counsel, He's able to give advice, but they're not listening, they're not asking, they'd already made up their mind what they're gonna do. They were not waiting under God's mighty hand. And so in verse two, "Who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge." Do you see that phrase? Without consulting me.
Convicting for me is the simple question: How many prayerless decisions do I make in a day? How many times do I decide weighty things and don't even ask God? It's convicting. It's convicting. They didn't even ask me. They just went to Egypt without consulting me. And he said, "Heaping sin upon sin." What that means is there was sin that was bringing the Assyrians, now they're adding to the sin. And what was the sin? The violation of God's laws. Their sexual immorality, their idolatry, their false religions, their drunkenness, their love of luxury, all of these things. These are the sins, that's the sin, and now they're heaping sin upon sin by seeking to remedy the problem themselves, saving themselves. Instead of falling on their faces and asking God's forgiveness, they send emissaries down to Egypt with gold to form an alliance, "But not by my Spirit," says the Lord.”
"Convicting for me is the simple question: How many prayerless decisions do I make in a day? How many times do I decide weighty things and don't even ask God? It's convicting."
This is the essence of my problem and yours as well, isn't it? Moving out, not consulting God, not asking his wisdom, not moving by the power of the Spirit, doing your own thing in the flesh? And why Egypt of all places? Why go back to Egypt? Have we forgotten our history? Centuries before God beat them, badly, remember? They were your captors, you were enslaved by them. 400 years. And God sent Moses and God bared his holy arm and poured out wrath on Egypt, 10 dreadful plagues. And then when Pharaoh pursued with his army, God destroyed the whole army in the Red Sea. Egypt is nothing. So why would you go to a defeated enemy like that that enslaved you? Why go back to Egypt? Why would you do that? And God had said specifically, in Deuteronomy, right before they entered the promised land, ‘Don't go back to Egypt. Don't ever go back there again.’ It says in the instructions to the king in Deuteronomy 17:16, "The king moreover," he says, "Must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You must not go back that way again.” No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of heaven. Don't look back, remember Lot's wife. Don't look back. Why are you going back to Egypt for help? Have you forgotten who crushed Egypt? He's the one you ought to be dealing with. And he says very plainly, the prophet says, ‘It's not going to help you. It will not help you.’ Look at verse three, "But Pharaoh's protection will be your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace." Shame and disgrace follow that kind of bad decision making. Shame and disgrace follows, moving out, four-wheeling, so to speak, pulling out on the shoulder and going across someone's yard because you can't wait on God and ask him what to do and wait for his timing. It brings shame and disgrace. It's not going to help you. Verses four and five, "Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace." I don't think Isaiah could have said it any more plainly. It will not help you, don't send the money. Don't do it.
Actually, in verses six and seven, Isaiah takes a bit of a humorous look. He says I wanna speak in oracle about the animals of the desert between Judah and Egypt. Let's talk about the animals. So it's a little, “oracle about the animals of the Negev:” he says, “Through a land of hardship and distress,” it's almost like a little vignette, like a mini motion pictures. You get to this picture in your mind, “Through a land of hardship and distress, desert land, picture deserts, and lions and lionesses and adders and darting snakes. The envoys are moving through, the envoys carrying their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on humps of camels to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore, I call her Rahab, the do-nothing.” So just picture in your mind's eye, these poor beasts of burden, carrying precious metals that are inevitably dense and heavy, those poor animals, those poor donkeys and camels, and all of it for nothing, as they go down to Egypt. The envoys will certainly welcome them gladly and take their money, but nothing good is gonna come from it. Verses 1-7, God speaks a word of woe to Judah for even doing it. The fact that they add sin to sin, and they will not deal with God, who is the real issue, instead they're making their own plans and moving out in their own direction.
In verses 8-17, he speaks a word of woe to those who want prophets to speak pleasant lies to them. And it's interesting, Isaiah in verse eight was commanded to write this prophecy down. Thank God he did, that's why we're here today, looking at his words, 'cause God told him to write it, write it down. And so, the writing prophets, they have left for us a record of God's word, and it's timeless, He's speaking to us today. God intended to speak to us today, because he commanded Isaiah to write it down. So look at verse eight, "Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness." So, they had the word and even more written down, but they didn't listen. They're not listening to it. The hardness of their heart is exposed, verse nine, “These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction.” Again and again in Isaiah, it's "Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth!" again and again, God speaks and we must listen. But these are rebellious children, and they are not willing to listen. God again and again sent, what he called, my servants, the prophets, ‘I sent my servants, the prophets to you and you just didn't listen.’
So whenever there was this external threat, God would send a message telling them what to do. Go out and surrender, stand and fight, go out, but don't bring any weapons, just go and sing and I'll destroy them. I mean, he'll tell them, it's something different every time, but ‘Just listen to me and I'll tell you what to do.’ But the people didn't wanna listen. Now, that doesn't mean they didn't want preaching, oh, they want preaching, they want a certain kind of preaching. They wanted some people to come and tell them some things, they were eager for that. Look at verses 10-11, "They say to the seers," prophets, ““See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”" Oh, is that powerful. They didn't want God, they didn't want the consuming fire, they didn't want the Holy One of Israel. So they're talking to Isaiah and to other true prophets saying, Stop doing this, stop it. Stop talking to me about God's holiness. Stop talking to me about God as the consuming fire. I don't wanna hear it anymore. Stop it. Leave this way, get off this path. Stop preaching like that. Tell us pleasant things. Funny or happy things. Lie to me. Just make me happy. It's the regular tragic history of the Jewish nation as recorded in Scripture. Stephen nailed them for it in Acts seven, "You stiff-necked people," he said to the Sanhedrin, "With uncircumcised hearts and ears! You're just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?" Is there even one? Jesus said the same thing, "You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we wouldn't have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.”" But Jesus said, ‘So you testify against yourselves that you're the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the sins of your forefathers, go ahead and do it, kill me,’ which they did.
This is a tragic thing. Again and again, think of the examples, think of wicked king Ahab. Remember that, when he's gonna go out to fight Ramoth-Gilead, and he's got godly king Jehoshaphat next to him, remember? And they got all these false prophets saying, ‘Go and succeed, you're going to win. It's gonna be awesome.’ I don't think they said awesome, but anyway, ‘You're just gonna be great. You're gonna be victorious.’ And Jehoshaphat with that sensitivity from the Lord, he's like, ‘Isn't there a prophet of the Lord that we could inquire of? I don't care if you've got 5000 of these guys, they're worthless. Are there any prophets of the Lord?’ Do you remember what Ahab said? ‘Well, there is one, but I hate him, because he always says bad things about me.’ [chuckle] Well, I think you might wanna listen, King Ahab to Micaiah, son of Imlah. Remember Jehoshaphat said, ‘The king should not say that.’ I don't know how he said that, but that's what he said. Or in Jeremiah's day, they wanted “priests and prophets alike. To treat the wound of the people as though were not serious. To say ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” That's what they wanted. But then when Jeremiah told the truth, they put him in a miry pit, they put him in prison. And Jonathan, in the secretary's house, they put him in prison, they persecute him. And so, Paul gave a clear warning about all this, this phenomenon here in verses 10-11. He says in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a large number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
So, the fundamental test of a true prophet of God then and a true teacher, pastor, teacher, now is the willingness to bring the whole counsel of God's word, no matter what the people think, no matter what the people say, to tell the truth. This was the little boy, Samuel's test, that he had to go tell Eli that his house was going to be destroyed because of his sin. Every pastor faces the pressure of shaping his message to suit the taste of the people. Everyone does. Every proclaimer of God's word has to make this fundamental choice that Paul talks about in Galatians 1:10, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Flannery O'Connor put it this way, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." So we're not going to change it based on whether it's palatable, or as Paul said later in Galatians 4:16, "Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" But apparently, back in Isaiah's day, that's exactly how it was. He became their enemy by telling the truth.
So what pleasant things did the people want to hear? Well, the 21st century version would be, ‘I'm okay, you're okay. The future is bright, God's happy with us. Everything's just how it should be. Let's eat.’ Something like that. Or, ‘It's not time to eat yet, I'll tell you some fun stories, I'll entertain you until the time's up.’ This will make them very popular with their hearers. But Jesus said, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that's how they spoke of the false prophets." I meditate on that. It's like, what is it about these guys that everyone likes what they say, because they say things that everyone likes? Moralistic diatribe, fun stories, different things that we could all agree on. But they stay away from those things that confront people with the Holy One of Israel, put it that way. Well, in verses 12-14, the future for this people who turn away is dark indeed. “Therefore,” do you see the word therefore in verse 12, because you want the tickling ears, because you don't want to be confronted with the Holy One of Israel, I love what it says, ‘Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says.’ In other words, he's not going away. [chuckle] This is his universe. We're in his living room, he's not going anywhere. So, “Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, and relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces, not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern." So they're telling lies, they see a seer is coming, they need a wall of protection, right? So they build up a wall of lies, and he says ‘It's poor construction, don't you see it's leaning over, the mortar isn't setting. There's cracks in it. It's coming down. I wouldn't stand under this wall if I were you, 'cause it's coming down.’
Reminds me of when we want to visit Haiti after the earthquake, and we saw a school that had been condemned and the construction there would not have been accepted in the US, there was no rebar, there were some other things, and it was just dangerous. And so, there are already broken pieces of cinder block all over the place, but many of it hadn't fallen yet, and they just condemned it, 'cause they can see what's gonna happen. And that's what Isaiah's saying here, it's the same thing, this bulging wall of lies, and it's just gonna come down on your head. It's going to destroy you.
But here we come in verse 15 to the text I've already read, God's beautiful, central invitation stands. This is our hope. This is the joy. "This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says, 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.'" So God speaks, this Holy One of Israel, speaks a word of grace, he speaks a word of blessing to us, the word of counsel. "In repentance and rest, in quietness and trust," that's where your salvation is. Repentance is literally turning in: turning away from your sins, and rest means don't venture forth on some path God didn't tell you to go on. Stay here, stay put under the mighty hand of God. Submit yourself unto God's mighty hand, rest under his hand, rest under it. In quietness is: be at peace under God's hand. The opposite I think of impatience is quietness based on faith, you're quiet under God's plan, trusting Him to work it out. And your heart is not murmuring, you're quiet. So quietness, and you're accepting what's happening as the sovereign will of God. And then ultimately, as always, trust faith, ultimately it's faith. Trust in me, believe in me, and I will save you. He says it again and again, By faith alone, “The righteous will live by faith," Habakkuk 2:4, it's what he gives them. It's his timeless counsel, repentance, rest, quietness and trust.
But look at the people's reaction, "But you would have none of it." It's just the pain, the pathos of that statement. ‘I told you what to do, but look what you're saying to me, but you would have none of it. You said no.’ Do you see that word right in the text, ‘You said no.’ Who are they saying no to? To God who said in repentance, rest, quietness and trust. They said, no, not that. We have a better plan. We have a better plan. We're gonna flee on horses, we got some good horses. God says ‘Fine, I'll give your enemies better horses.’ ‘Oh, we're gonna be swift, we're gonna ride swift,’ ‘Therefore your pursuers will be swift, 'cause they're not your issue, I am.’ I mean, do you feel the tragedy of that? God told them repentance, rest quietness, and trust. And they said, ‘No, no, I don't want it.’
And so, this section makes plain the key issue, how people respond to the word of God spoken by the prophets. They rejected the words of warning and judgment and woe. They rejected those words, they wanted pleasant things, they wanted illusions, they wanted sweet, happy things. They didn't wanna hear any more about the Holy One of Israel. And so, judgment is going to come on them. God told them that repentance and rest, quietness and trust would be their salvation, but they said, ‘No, they're going to run.’ God said, ‘Okay, then you're going to run.’ And in the end, the end result will be total desolation, there'll be no and left. Now, that didn't get fulfilled with Assyria, that got fulfilled with Babylon over a century later, when Lamentations begins with these words, “How desolate lies the city once so filled with people.”
Well, aren't you glad the chapter doesn't end there? Aren't you glad that there's words of grace, there's words of forgiveness and mercy? And so, in verses 18-26 God gives transforming grace to those who will simply wait on the Lord. Verse 18, "Yet the Lord waits to be gracious to you; he exalts himself to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" So God is waiting for us so that we will wait for him. And the wheels of redemptive history are turning, God's providential sovereign controller is turning, and his plan is unfolding and he's waiting for it to all happen. And he's waiting, so he can show us compassion. And he exalts himself, he makes much of himself through the miracles of Jesus and through the preaching of the apostles and of the church for 20 centuries, and all of God's mighty works, he exalts himself so that he can show you compassion, isn't that incredible? So that you'll call in the name of the Lord and be saved, “For the Lord is a God of justice.” Huh. Justice that produces salvation. How can those be put together? Well, you know, what's the answer? How do justice and our salvation come together in the cross of Jesus Christ? That's how it all comes together. We'll get to in a minute, but justice, God is a God of justice and he will do what is right, and he longs to show you compassion. So, I have a blessing to give you, blessed are all you people who wait on him. Salvation comes to those who wait on the Lord, God will give us grace. And he's gonna work it step by step, verse 19, God works in his people to cry out to the Lord, “For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry, As soon as he hears you, he will answer you,” “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Cry out to me, he's gonna work a change in their hearts, they're not going down to Egypt with gold anymore, they're done with that, they're done with the side shows, and they realize now they are getting what they deserve for their sins. They have turned away from their sins and wickedness. They've turned away from that and they have turned in faith, in quietness, in trust to God, and they are now crying out to God, ‘Oh God, would you deliver us? Save us.’
Secondly, God transforms the hearts of his people to heed his word, to listen to his counsel. Verses 20-21, "Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction," it's one of the strangest meals that God feeds his people. You go overseas, go on the mission field, you're gonna eat some strange food. Remember Elizabeth Elliot said, "Where he leads, I will follow, what he feeds, I will swallow." [laughter] And she ate some strange things in the jungles of Ecuador, very strange foods. This is the strangest, why would God feed his own beloved children the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction? Because He's sanctifying you, and He's saying, ‘Here, eat this.’ And you say, ‘Yes, Lord,’ and you eat it. You eat it because it's good for you, even though it's bitter in your mouth, it's good for you, and you patiently chew it and you swallow every bit of it until God is done showing you adversity and affliction. You wait, wait under his mighty hand. Wait under the affliction, wait under the pain, wait under the unknowing of what's gonna happen. Just wait under him and let him guide you. Says, “Your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" That of course, is ultimately fulfilled in the indwelling Holy Spirit, isn't it? The spirit of truth, who will live with you and be in you, and he will guide you, it says, into all truth.
‘So he will direct you to turn neither to the right nor to the left,’ that's Deuteronomy language of complete obedience to the law. "So be careful," Deuteronomy 5:32-33, "So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” Now, your ears will hear a voice behind you, and God will transform you and you will walk in that straight and narrow way, and turn neither to the right nor to the left. God will transform also the hearts of the people to despise their idols that caused all the trouble and throw them away. Hate them. Genuinely hate those idols. Verse 22, "Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you'll throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, 'Away with you!'" What you used to love, you now hate 'cause God hates it, and you throw it away.
It's transformation, complete transformation. And then God pours out transformation on the whole land, though it was cursed, it was under the curse of Deuteronomy and the curse of the law of Moses, it had become like a desert. It's going to flourish. And the curse will be removed. Verse 23-26, "He will send you also rain for the seed you sow on the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. And in that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows, and the oxen and donkeys at work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight would be seven times brighter like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted." It's the land flowing with milk and honey again. And better than ever before, brighter than it ever was before, shining like the light of seven full days. Oh, how beautiful is that?
Final section of Isaiah 30 is God's wrath against his enemies. Says ‘You don't need Egypt, you need me. [chuckle] I can take care of Assyria, I can crush Assyria in ways that you will never forget.’ These are terrifying verses dear friends, terrifying. But listen to them, verses 27 and following, "Behold the name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire. His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the people a bit that leads them astray. And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people go up with flutes to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. The Lord will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging fire, with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudbursts, and thunderstorm and hail. And the voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria; with his scepter, he will strike them down. And every stroke the Lord lays on them with his punishing rod will be to the music of tambourines and harps. As he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm." Verse 33, "Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze."
Final act of this drama in Isaiah 30 is the wrath of the Lord poured out on his enemies. The Assyrians are mere mortals, you don't need Egypt, you need God. God can handle them easily. And the images of wrath here are powerful, God's name comes from afar. God is zealous for his namesake. He's gonna move out powerfully to defend his name, he's gonna come with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke with raging torrents of fire. A lot of the anthropomorphic images here of God having body parts is powerful, his lips filled with wrath, his tongue, a consuming fire, his breath like a rushing flood, drowning all his enemies. It's by the mouth of the Lord. You see it? By how he speaks, he speaks, and they are judged. It's that simple. And he does it to the nations that are against him, puts them in a sieve of destruction, and leads them by the jaw where he wants them to go. The Assyrian army will be destroyed instantly, and we'll talk about that in Isaiah 37. The people of God will celebrate wildly as they are delivered and God gets the glory. And Topheth, a place where they burned garbage outside of Jerusalem, New Testament version is Gehenna, is a picture of hell. A picture where all of this wreckage of the nations is gathered and it's burning with sulfur coming from the mouth of the Lord forever and ever.
So, how does Isaiah 30 preach the gospel of Jesus? Well, I already hinted at it, couldn't hold back. Only in the cross of Christ are justice and grace coming together, only in the cross of Christ does God deliver sinners like us from his wrath with grace and mercy and compassion. Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world to be our sin bearer. He came to stand under Topheth for us, to take the stream of burning sulfur into himself and absorb it completely, so that we would not suffer in hell forever and ever, that's what Jesus came to do.
And in the double exchange of the Gospel, that he came to take our wickedness on himself and extinguished the wrath of God forever, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And to give you his perfect righteousness and to restore you beautifully, like these verses say, and to pour out grace and to give you a heart of supplication, so you cry out against your idols and throw them away, 'cause you hate them and you yearn for righteousness and you hunger and thirst for it, 'cause you have a new nature now, and you yearn to walk in the straight and narrow, not turning aside to the right or left, and you now have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Spirit tells you where to go. In conjunction with his written word and not separate from it, please don't misunderstand, and do not elevate that voice inside you telling you where to go to the word of God. Test everything you hear in your heart by the word. But the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us, 'cause he is the spirit of truth. And how beautiful is that?
And so, final word for you is the same faith that saves your soul, will also teach you how to get through the trials God has planned for you. He's going to throw some boulders in your highway. He's going to put a mudslide across your path. Don't cut and run, don't give up, and don't go four-wheeling, don't pull off on the shoulder and go over someone's lawn. Wait under God's mighty hand, and in due time, he will lift you up.
"Don't cut and run, don't give up, and don't go four-wheeling, don't pull off on the shoulder and go over someone's lawn. Wait under God's mighty hand, and in due time, he will lift you up."
Now we're coming to a time of the Lord's Supper, it's a time for us to prepare ourselves. If God has spoken to you today, if you're convicted of your sins, go to him in grace. If you've never trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, you came here to hear the Gospel, you just heard it. All you have to do is believe in Jesus, trust in him. Don't come and take from the Lord's Supper. This is for people who have already testified to their faith in Jesus by water baptism, so if that's you, please come. But if you trusted in Christ, been baptized, but you know you're a sinner, it's for sinners. Jesus shed his blood for sinners like you and me, so come. And it's also for us as the family of God to draw together around the table and love each other and realize we're going to heaven together because of the grace of God.
Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for the word of Isaiah. Thank you for this sermon, thank you for what Isaiah 30 tells us about the power of God to deliver us from the true danger that faces us, not the Assyrians, but your own justice and wrath expressed on Judgment Day and in hell, you've come to deliver us if we'll just listen to you, tell us the truth, we will turn away from our sins in repentance and turning and rest and trust is our salvation. Thank you for this message, in Jesus name, Amen.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Isaiah 28:1-29, calling attention to futile human attempts to attain salvation and the sure salvation that comes from God through Christ.
The greatest preacher of all time is Jesus Christ, to him we give first place and all glory. And he is the greatest preacher, and perhaps his greatest sermon ended with these words, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains came down and the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice, like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rains came down and the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash". So ends the Sermon on the Mount. And it is our joy to proclaim to a lost, and a dying world, that there is a solid foundation, there is a rock on which you can build your life and it will not collapse. It's an immovable rock, and his name is Jesus, and he's proclaimed right in this text today, Isaiah 28-16, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone a tested and precious cornerstone for a sure foundation, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame."
The text also mentions as Jesus's parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount mentions the testing of the house, and Jesus's parable to individuals, both of them building, building a house, both of them making a selection, but one of them is wise and one of them is foolish, the wise man selects the rock, and the foolish man selects the sand. But both of the houses get tested, the rains come down, the streams rise, the wind beats against the house, both of them tested. And so also in Isaiah 28, "an overwhelming flood is coming, a devastation is coming", And in this chapter, people try to make a separate peace with that, what they call a covenant with death, they try to make a separate arrangement, what I call self-salvation. They try to find a way to get through what's coming, and they cannot. There is only one Savior, there is only one safe refuge from the onslaught that is coming, and we are facing not what the Jews in this chapter were facing, invasion by a gentile army, the Assyrians are gonna sweep in like a flood. We're not facing that, we're facing something far more serious, we're facing death and judgment and hell. And there is only one refuge, and His name is Jesus, and there is such a refuge. And that is the joy of the Gospel that we can proclaim that.
And so we look at Isaiah 28, and we find in this chapter some strange words, perhaps as Ron was reading, you're like, What is this chapter about? What is going on here? And I think the mystery would perhaps only deepen if we heard all the words of this chapter. It's my privilege today to do my best with the spirit to explain this chapter and to try to apply it to our lives so many centuries later. This chapter is ultimately about a difference between an effort at self-salvation in the face of the coming onslaught versus the only secure refuge or salvation there is that provided by Almighty God. Now, this is the beginning of a new section in the book of Isaiah, chapters 28-35, a series of woes one chapter after another, begins with the word woe, this is the first of that string. And the big picture is Isaiah the prophet, in the days of godly King Hezekiah was preparing the Southern Kingdom of Judah for the onslaught of the Assyrians. The Assyrians were coming and they're coming as an instrument of wrath in the hands of Almighty God, they were coming as a judgment for sin. And they were going to sweep away the northern kingdom of Israel called Ephraim in our text today. And they're gonna come after Judah as well. And the reason for that is the sinfulness of the people, because of the sins of the Jews, the Assyrians were coming.
And God through his prophet Isaiah, was calling the people to repent of their sins and to find refuge in God alone, to build their house on the solid rock, the immovable rock, to find refuge in God. And so chapter after chapter begins with the word ‘woe’. But Hezekiah and his counselors, we're gonna see this chapter after chapter, were seeking to find another refuge, another way of escape, specifically, they wanted to reach out to Egypt, another powerful nation and hire them to fight for Judah when the Assyrians came. And so they were being tempted to serve two masters, they'd be divided in their affects and say, "Yeah, there's God, but we're really hoping in Egypt, that Egypt would come and rescue us". And so, chapter after chapter deals with this, beginning with woes, look at this, one 28:1, “Woe to Ephraim”, we'll get to that, 29:1, “Woe to you, Ariel”. Ariel, that's the city of Jerusalem, and he's going to encamp against them and judge them for their sins. Chapter 30 begins, "Woe to the obstinate children. To those who carry out plans that are not mine. Forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, keeping sin upon sin to those who go down to Egypt Without consulting me and who look for help to Pharaoh's protection and to Egypt's shade for refuge".
And then 31 begins with the word woe as well. Same thing, 31:1, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, and they do not seek help from the Lord". And the last of this series of woes in 33, amazingly, against those that are going to destroy the people of God, those who are gonna destroy Jerusalem, He says, "Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed. Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed, when you stop destroying, you will be destroyed, and when you stop betraying you will be betrayed". So there he gives a word of judgment against the very same gentile powers that he's going to use to discipline his own people. It's a string of ‘woes’ one after the other. And we'll look at them each of them in turn. The word ‘woe’ is a word of prophetic warning. Basically, bad times are coming, danger is coming and you need to address it. You need to deal with it.
So in verses 1-6 the woe is spoken to the Northern Kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel, called Ephraim here. Look at the verses, “Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, to the fading flower, His glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley– to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine. Behold, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm, and the destructive wind like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground. That wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards will be trampled underfoot. That fading flower, his glorious beauty set on the head of a fertile valley, will be like a ripe fig before harvest– as soon as someone sees it and takes it in his hand, he swallows it. In that day the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath, for the remnant of his people. He will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate".
This is a warning to Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom, but it's spoken to the southern kingdom of Judah, that's where Isaiah was ministering. The northern Kingdom was not listening. They haven't listened for centuries, they're not listening to some Judean prophet. And so basically the people of Judah, the Southern Jews are needing to learn from what's about to happen to the northern Jews, what's about to happen to Ephraim. They're supposed to learn. So this is really a message of warning to Judah, the devastating fall of Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
And it speaks there of the pride of Ephraim, the beauty of Ephraim. Samaria, their capital city, was set up high on a hill and it looked down over fertile valleys, it was a beautiful thing to behold. And they were very proud of it. And it's called a wreath, set on the head of the nation, so it's the capital city of Samaria, and it's beautiful, and it's fertile, it's on the head of a fertile valley. Again, in verse 3 and 4, speaks of it that way, that wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards will be trampled under foot, that fading flower, his glorious beauty, etcetera. So it's a beautiful thing, it's this beautiful wreath, but it's fading. It was more beautiful before now, it's not so beautiful. Because all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field. And the grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.
And so here is Ephraim and at one point they were beautiful, but not so much anymore, they have been laid low, their beauty is fading now, their glory is fading, it's evanescent, it's trend, it's temporary. And why? Because of their wickedness, their sin. Here the focus is on their drunkenness. It's mentioned multiple times in verse 1, those laid low by wine, it speaks of that. That wreath, verse 3, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards. So these were people that were laid low by wine, they were drunkards, And so we see the debauchery of Ephraim, you know the fertility of the land produced abundant harvests. The abundant harvests produced luxury, the luxury led to self-indulgence. The self-indulgence led to immorality and wickedness, and that's brought on the judgment of God. And so we have this warning about drunkenness, Proverbs 20 and verse 1 says, "Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler, whoever's led astray by them is not wise". And again, in Proverbs 23, it says "Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly in the end, it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper".
“The abundant harvests produced luxury, the luxury led to self-indulgence. The self-indulgence led to immorality and wickedness, and that's brought on the judgment of God.”
So we have the fading beauty of what could have been glorious, but no longer was. What could have been for the glory of God, a light shining in a dark place, a city on a hill to be seen by the surrounding region, but instead it was fading, it was debauched. It was wicked. I often think that the great tragedy, the great sorrow of judgment day for all of us is to have a sense of what we could have been if we had been more faithful, but we weren't. What sin robbed from us, if only we had been more faithful, it would be like torture to see some kind of a display, maybe a video of our lives, what could have been if we had only been more faithful or if we hadn't committed that pattern of sin, if we had not been unfaithful in that area, this is the fruitfulness that would have come. How grievous that is.
And so this Northern Kingdom of Israel is about to be deported, and what could have been for the praise of the glory of God, instead was going to be thrown down and crushed, this fading wreath of dead flowers. And so he says in verse 2-4, "Behold the Lord has one who is powerful and strong", he's speaking of the invader, of the Assyrian who's going to come. And it's his servant, the Assyrian is an axe in the hands of God, and God's gonna chop down that beautiful flowering tree. The Lord has one who is powerful and strong like a hailstorm and like a destructive wind, like a driving rain and like a flooding downpour. He, this one, the Assyrian, will throw it forcefully to the ground, that wreath will be trampled underfoot and that fading flower will be swallowed up.
So the Assyrian invasion is coming and there's nothing that the people can do to stop it. And it's the Lord's doing, it's something that's an act of sovereign judgment, that's the key in some ways to understanding the whole chapter. When God is the one who's bringing the judgment, you can only seek refuge in God, any other covenant you make with death or any other arrangement you make will not avail. Running off to Egypt will not help. You have to go deal with God directly. He's the one that's bringing this judgment, but Israel would not. And so the Lord is bringing the Assyrian. Now, the Assyrian thinks he's doing it on his own, he's just adding to his empire, he doesn't think anything about Yahweh, about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it doesn't mean anything to the Assyrian, he's just taking over another small country. But he doesn't know who he's dealing with, and we'll get to that story later. But this invasion will be devastating. It will be like a hurricane, it'll be like a plague of locust, it will be like a tidal wave sweeping over the land, all kinds of images are used of the gentile invasions, like a flood of water sweeping away all the crops and flattening houses. Ephraim will be cast forcefully to the ground and adding insult to injury, not only will it be cast to the ground, but then by the hand of the Assyrian, then their boot will trample it, it's just gonna be completely crushed. Gobbled up like an early fig.
Season for figs was somewhere between August and through October, but sometimes in June, there might be a single fig for some reason that was ready to eat. It was an early fig, and they were delicious, especially if you had a taste for figs. I think this is what Jesus was looking for when he saw a fig tree, that had leaves on it, but no figs, looking for one of those early figs, and there was nothing there. And so, Ephraim, this fertile, beautiful, luxurious place will be like an early fig in the hands of the Assyrian invader. As soon as he sees it, he's gonna pluck it and gobble it up, it's gonna be that quick and it won't take long. And Israel will be gone. So it will be with Samaria, plucked by Assyrian, gobbled up. And so we have this fading crown of beauty laid low by wine, laid low by drunkenness, laid low by immorality, by idolatry and wickedness. What could have been glorious, was now fading and ugly. By contrast, though you have the glory of God on the head of the remnant. Look at verses 5 and 6. "In that day, the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of His people, and He will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate".
So Samaria, the capital city, was the crown of the people of Israel, but it was fading and it was made ugly by their drunkenness and by their sin. But by contrast, God has a remnant, a godly remain of people, survivors of the onslaught, who will be for the praise of his glory. And God's glory, God himself will be a diadem on their heads. God himself will crown those people with his own presence and with his glory. And he will transform them, and to the judge who must render judgment, God will be a spirit of justice, and he will enable the judge to render right judgments for the glory of God. And God will be a spirit of strength to the warrior, even to the point of turning back the battle at the gate, and so God will be with his remnant. And he will protect them and they will be his choice possessions, his survivors. The beginning of this prophecy in Isaiah chapter 1:9, Isaiah speaking for the people of God, the Jews, saying, "Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, a remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah. And in fact, we're no different than they are, we're just as wicked and just as sinful, but by the sovereign grace of God, he has chosen out for himself a remnant to love him and serve him, and he will crown that remnant with glory, and he will transform them and they will live for him". Again, in Isaiah 10:22, "Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand by the sea, only a remnant will return. So God has chosen his remnant and he will be for them a crown of glory, and that glory will last forever.” So what a contrast here we have a contrast between the fading glory of Ephraim, of human achievement, of human pride versus the eternal glory of God on the head of his remnant, verses 1-6. Now in verses 7-13, Isaiah brings it home to the southern kingdom of Judah.
Now he's talking to his own people, he's talking to them and he's saying, “You have the same problems that the northern kingdom did just a little bit further down the line.” Look at these verses, he's speaking, God speaking, to the people through the prophet Isaiah and through godly prophets, but the people aren't listening. So God has another word to speak to them because they will not listen to the prophetic word. Listen to Verses 7-13, "And these also stagger from wine and reel from beer: Priests and prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All the tables are covered with vomit, and there is not a spot without filth." Verse 9, "‘Who is he trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk to those just taken from the breast? For it is: do and do, do and do, rule and rule, rule and rule, a little here, a little there.’ Very well then.” By the way, those words just bring a chill to me. “Very well then.” Okay. “With foreign lips and with strange tongues, God will speak to this people, to whom he said, ‘This is the resting place, let the weary rest’; and ‘This is the place of repose’– But they would not listen. So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: ‘Do and do, do and do, rule and rule, rule and rule, a little here, a little there– so that they will go and fall backward; be injured and snared and captured.”
Can I say to you, the key moment in your life every day, is the moment you hear the word of the Lord, and what you do with that? It's a key moment in your life. We've already seen it in the book of Hebrews again and again. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. It's a key moment. When God speaks to you through his word, maybe he uses a human intermediary, a preacher, in this case, a prophet speaking the word, or maybe you're just reading the scripture, which you have the privilege to do. When you hear God speak to you, do not harden your heart and certainly don't mock it as these people were doing here, but take it very, very seriously. The priests and the prophets, the false priests and false prophets of the southern kingdom of Judah were themselves given over to drunkenness. They were degraded also through wine. What a shameful thing that is.
The priests should have been speaking God's word. Malachi 2:7 says, "For the lips of the priest ought to preserve knowledge and from his mouth, men should seek instruction because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty." The prophet should have been the one saying, "Thus says the Lord…” and speaking the true word of God. But it's so bad in verse 8 that the things coming out of their mouth is nothing but vomit, it could be taken metaphorically for their teachings, or it might be literal at the end of their drunken feasts, but it's so bad that there's not a clean place on the table, vomit everywhere. And the fundamental problem is these people were not listening to God as he was speaking, they were mocking it actually. Speaking of Isaiah, “Who is he trying to teach? We're the experts, we're the ones that know God's word very well, and he's speaking a baby message, like we're just children weaned from the breasts.” And then they say this, "Do and do, do and do, rule and rule, rule and rule, little here, little there." Well, that's the best we can do with a rhythmic kind of Hebrew that sounds like... I don't usually pronounce Hebrew, but it sounds like this “Sav lasav sav lasav, kav lakav, kav lakav”. That's literally what the Hebrew says. It's similar to “blah, blah, blah, yada, yada yada.” Okay, that's the 21st century version. That's what they were saying Isaiah was saying, “Oh, here we go. Some more, blah, blah, blah. Yada, yada, yada. Lots of talking.” That's what you get at church week after week, it's going on all around the world. People get up just like me and they talk. They talk God's word. And if the word of God to you is blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, then this passage speaks directly to you.
And here's how it works, God says, "Very well then, I tried to speak to you through the prophets. I tried to warn you and tell you what was going to come, but you wouldn't listen. So I'm gonna talk to you again, and it's gonna sound kinda like that. Blah, blah, blah. Like that, it's gonna sound like that. I'm gonna speak to you through a foreign language, I'm gonna bring some people to your town, they'll come right to your hometown, and they'll speak a foreign language in your streets, and then the word of the Lord will be to you, do and do, do and do, rule and rule, rule and rule, a little here, a little there. And while you're hearing it, you'll go and fall backward and be injured and snared and captured.” So this is a very key moment for all of us. Fundamentally, here's a thing, God speaks a word of warning, and if we don't listen, then he speaks a word of judgment. So it's like a parent saying to the toddler, to the young person "That stove is hot doesn't look hot, but it is. Don't touch it. Okay? You understand, don't touch." But the child has to find out for him or herself, and so over they go and they touch it, and they learn. You learn by word, or you learn by life. It's so much sweeter to learn by word, friends. It's so much sweeter. Like God said through Moses, "These are not idle words for you, these are your life.” We don't disregard this message, we take it very, very seriously, and we certainly don't mock it. And what's so tragic is that in that prophetic message that Isaiah was giving, he wasn't just speaking judgment, he said, "Judgment's coming, but there is a refuge. There is a place of rest, there is a place where the weary can rest. I will carve out for you in the midst of this God ordained storm of judgment, I will carve out for you a resting place. Here it is." But they would not listen. Is that you? Oh, I pray not.
“God speaks a word of warning, and if we don't listen, then he speaks a word of judgment.”
This reminds me very much of what Jesus said when he said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30] Here is the place of rest of Isaiah 28:12, it's, his name is Jesus. There is the place of rest, there's the place of repose. But they would not listen, are the next words, how tragic is that? The gospel is preached, the place of refuge is clearly identified, but the people just won't listen. Oh, is that you? I pray not. I pray that you're running to God's ordained place of refuge, because the storm is coming. Storm of judgment is coming, and Jesus is the refuge.
But these people sought to find their own refuge, they wouldn't listen to God's place of refuge, so they set out for themselves a different refuge, they sought to save themselves. So look at this in verses 14-15, it says, "Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule these people in Jerusalem, you boast, we have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us. For we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place." Well, he's speaking directly to the political leaders of Judah, and I think as you keep reading the chapters, you find out what their covenant of death is, they made a separate arrangement for this coming judgment, they didn't deny it was coming, they really thought the Assyrians were going to come, but they thought that they could deal with it by putting silver and gold on the backs of camels and donkeys and sending the money down to Egypt and hiring an army.
We'll get to that in due time, I won't talk about it fully today, but that's what it means why we have made a covenant with death. “We've made some arrangements. Okay? Death's coming. I know, I know, but we've made some arrangements. We're gonna be just fine.” So I've made some kind of a separate piece, but Isaiah shreds this thing completely, the refuge, he calls it a lie, and their hiding place is a falsehood. And he says, “God's judgment is gonna sweep it away, hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled, your agreement with the grave will not stand, and when the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it, as often as it comes, it will carry you away. Morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep through. The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror, the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.” Okay, what God is saying here is your separate deal will not stand up, it will not save you, your covenant with death will be annulled, your arrangement with the Egyptians to come rescue you from Assyria will not work. And when this judgment comes, you're gonna get swept away in it, you're going to get crushed by it.
And yet in the middle of all that, God shows again a refuge, a safe place, and this is the key verse in the whole chapter. Look at verse 16, Isaiah 28:16-17. So this is what the Sovereign Lord says, "Behold, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation, and the one who trusts will never be dismayed." Verse 17, "I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line." Now, I love the word "behold.", the NIV translators do not, they give us "see." Friends, “see” and “behold” are not equal. Amen. Talk to me later. Alright, if you agree, that's fine. I just like “behold”. Well, they're saying, "We don't say behold anymore." Well, let's save behold for special, awesome things that God does. How about that? So when God does something special and awesome say, "Behold…" something like that. It's not a word we use every day. Let's save it for when God's doing something awesome. And God does lots of "behold" things in Isaiah. But this is the greatest of them all, friends. This is, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” That's what this “behold” is about. “Behold, a rock set in Zion on which you can build your whole eternity, you can build your house here and it will not move, it's a tested and sure precious cornerstone, and behold, I'm laying it there in Zion for you. And nothing will sweep it away.”
Everything man-made, all the man-made refuges will be swept away by this coming judgment. But the stone that God lays in Zion is a tested stone. It's tested, it's been proven. And it will work. It's a precious stone. It's valuable and precious, infinitely precious. It's a cornerstone, it's the base stone on which everything else finds its orientation, and it's a sure foundation stone, everything is built on this stone. And I keep saying "this stone," but it just says, “The one who trusts in him will not be put to shame.” So we know that Isaiah was talking about a man, he was talking about Jesus. Jesus is the tested stone, the precious cornerstone for the sure foundation. And, “Whoever trusts in him, whoever believes in him will not be in haste” is one of the translations. That's probably the simplest coming from the Hebrew. “I don't know what that means, all I can do is guess like a chicken with the head cut off, running around like a maniac, having no answer to the coming judgment, frazzled, annoyed, irritated, frantic”, as opposed to this is the place of rest, this is the place where the weary can rest, this is the refuge place where if you're in there, you're at piece, you're safe, you're secure. But if you have made a lie your refuge, then when it starts getting swept away, you'll be like that. You'll run around in haste. You'll run around like a maniac.
Three times in the New Testament, this text is quoted in reference to Jesus, three times. This is Jesus. New Testament writers tell us it is. Peter speaks of Jesus as a living stone rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to him. And says that we're like him, we Christians are like him, we're like living stones built into a royal, royal priesthood. A structure and the priesthood alike. For in Scripture, it says, 1 Peter 2:6-8, "Behold, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." It says. Now to you who believe the stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, that's Psalm 118. And a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, that's Isaiah 8. So generally Isaiah 28:16 is quoted with Psalm 118, and Isaiah 8 brought in with the stone image, so we have the precious cornerstone set, and then we have the bad reaction of Jewish unbelievers do that stone, the builders reject him and people stumble over him. “They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for”, Peter says.
Paul quotes it twice in Romans, in Romans 9, and then again in Romans 10. Speaking of the Gentile believers, that's us. Who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it a righteousness that is by faith. But Israel, which pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it, why not? Because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone.", that's Isaiah 28. "That causes men to stumble.", that's Isaiah 8. So, Paul puts them together, “and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame”, he goes back to Isaiah 28 again. In Paul's mind, that Jesus is the precious stone set in Zion, and that all we have to do is trust in him and we will never be put to shame. It’s immediately connected with the rejection of Jesus by his own people, the builders rejected him, but he's become the cornerstone, and he is the rock of stumbling and they stumble because they can't deal with the fact that God's messiah would be dead on a cross. They don't understand why it had to happen. And that their own righteousness is not enough. They're pursuing their own righteousness, but they couldn't find it in the cross, and they hated that message. And they turned from it.
“Jesus is the precious stone set in Zion, and that all we have to do is trust in him and we will never be put to shame.”
He does the same thing in Romans 10, quoting this same text. Sweet verses. And there he says, "If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame’” that's Isaiah 28. “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Oh, how sweet are those words, “Never be put to shame.” Not be ashamed now, you'll not be ashamed for the rest of your life, you'll not be ashamed in death, you'll not be ashamed on judgment day, and you'll not be ashamed for all eternity, and why? Because you're so righteous? Not at all, but because all of your shame and your wickedness and your sin were put on Jesus, that solid rock, and he shed his blood for you, and you are clean now and will be forever.
So are you trusting in him so that you will not be put to shame? Because if you're not trusting in Him, you will be put to shame. Your refuge will be swept away. Death is surely coming our way. Hebrews 9:27 says, "Man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment." Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, "Death is the destiny of every man." As death's coming. The overwhelming scourge of Isaiah 28 is coming our way. What is your refuge? That's the question of the text. Are people seeking a kind of a separate covenant with death? Make a deal with death. There are different ways to do that. People may be aware of death, may fear it in some way, aware of the death threat, they've seen others die, and so they want to, as the psychologist tell us, come to terms with death, will come to terms. Us and death will sit down at the negotiating table and we'll come to terms. We'll make an agreement. Alright? A covenant – death and I.
I mean there are a lot of different ways to do this. An atheist can do it by just facing the facts, square on, as they see it from their evolutionary slant. Okay? Just face the facts square on. Like Australian atheist Keith Cornish, quoting him, I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him, he's on the internet, so I think it's probably okay. He says this, "The simple fact is that all life forms end in death, and the elements of which they are composed return to the air and to the earth to be taken up and recycled in some new organism. This natural process is universal and is beyond dispute, what is challenged by atheists and free thinkers is the claim made by purveyors of religion," that's me. "Purveyors of religion, that humans alone of all living forms have a soul or a spirit, which survives death and carries the essential characteristics of the person to some supernatural existence in a supernatural realm." That's denied by Atheist and free thinkers. He continues. "Anyone weighing the evidence has no trouble in discarding the notion of the everlasting soul and accepting that death is the natural end to every human life. By accepting this, by accepting that life is only for a finite period short or long, the atheist is confronted by the question of how best to spend the available time, and therefore, if suitably informed, will most likely spend the time worthy of a human person."
How optimistic is that? We can debate that optimism and other time. But he's confident that if the atheist could just manfully or woman-fully face death, you will be able to live a good life and then become a worm, a part of worm anyway, or a plant or whatever as your elements breakdown, and then you're gone. So face facts and live a good life. That, friends, sounds like, I'm thinking, a covenant with death. Come to terms with it, understand it and don't fear it. And he goes on, “It would be difficult to imagine a more useless waste of time than that spent in the worship of an imaginary God or preparing for a non-existent everlasting life in some mythical supernatural realm of eternal bliss.” You, friends, according to him, are all wasting your time here today, listening to me talk about some mythical supernatural realm and the existence of the soul. So it's a Covenant, death, I have no fear of death because death is natural, it's what happens to every living organism, I don't fear it.
There are other covenants of death you can make, or seek anyway. Ponce de Leon was looking for the fountain of youth. He never found it, but he's looking for, according, if you drink the waters of youth,you can return to your youth and death can be at least deferred, I guess. So he discovered Florida, looking for the fountain of youth. There are actually a number of Ponce de Leon medical centers down in Florida, believe it or not. I ran out of time on research, maybe they do plastic surgery, I'm not sure what they do to defer aging. But at any rate, there is an effort to avoid death to make a covenant with death to defer it. We Americans are in love with youth, and we esteem it and we worship it to some degree.
Other religions have their own version of what I think Isaiah 28 would call a covenant with death. Friends, this is my world view, anything that's not Christianity is a false religion. False religions come from Satan. Satan tries to get people to make covenants with death. Generally, the recipe is: use your good works to pay for your sins and then heaven will be open to you. Could be an Islamic version of those good works, could be a Buddhist or Hindu version of the good works. Could even be a nominal Christian version of the good works. All of those things, covenant of death.
Practically, people knowing that death is coming, seek to amuse themselves. The word literally means to not think about it. To divert themselves with hobbies, all of these things stratagems. Can I give you a better answer? Find the true refuge from this coming onslaught. Don't deny that the onslaught's coming, it's coming. It is appointed to each one of us to die once, and after that to face judgment. It's coming. And it will be like a storm. There is a refuge, and his name is Jesus. If you build all of your hopes on Christ, you will survive the onslaught. That's what this text is saying. Final warning comes in verses 21-22, “The Lord will rise up as he did at mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon – to do his work, his strange work and perform his task, his alien task. Now stop your mocking, or your chains will become heavier; the Lord, the Lord Almighty has told me of the destruction decreed against this whole land.” So it's a final warning saying, the storm is coming, the destruction is coming, God has decreed it. It is coming. And nothing will stop it, stop mocking the word, or it's gonna get even worse for you. And he says, “The Lord will rouse himself up back as he did at Mount Perazim in the valley of Gibeon.” Those were times when God delivered the Jews from their enemies, from the Philistines through David. But this time God's gonna rouse himself up and fight, but he's not gonna be fighting for the Jews; he's gonna be fighting against them. And therefore it calls it his work, his strange work and his task, his alien task, he's going to be behaving in a way that seems strange to his nature. Alien to his nature, and it'll be confusing to people who don't know what's going on. Now, the chapter ends with a parable of the farmer, which I'm not gonna go into it all today, I've reserved it for next time that I preach. So I'll just defer all comments about that to next week.
By application. Simply, I've already applied it to you: Come to Christ, trust in Him, build your life on the solid rock that God has established, it's the sure foundation. The storm is coming, it's coming. Both houses in the Sermon on the Mount were tested by the rains coming down, and the streams, rising and the wind, blowing and beating, they were both tested. The storm is coming. Death is coming, Judgment Day is coming. And there are two images of Christ in our text. And there are two invitations right in those images. The first image in verse 12, Jesus is the resting place. Let the weary repose. There's the invitation. Verse 16, this is the solid rock. Anyone who trusts in him will not be put to shame. So trust in him, come to Christ, that's the first and greatest application of this. Can I just urge? Don't leave this place unconverted. Don't walk out of this door and take your chances.
The text says, your covenant with death will be swept away, it will not work. Flee to Christ. But there are other applications in the text, and I just wanna say a few things. First, let's understand as Americans the danger of luxurious success. The Ephraimites, those that lived in Samaria, they were surrounded by some really fertile land. Really, really fertile land and the crops were good and the living was easy and comfortable, and there was luxury, and there was sin, there was indulgence, self-indulgence and corruption. It's not a bad thing to have wealth, it's not a bad thing to have land that produces abundant crops, that's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. But 1 Timothy 6 says,
“Command those who are rich in this world, not to put your trust in wealth, which is so fleeting, but to be generous and willing to share and live for God, even with your money.”
Secondly, understand the dangers of drunkenness, it speaks about those laid low by wine, they're staggered, staggering with wine and tables covered with vomit. I did not say a specific word against wine itself. Some would go that far. And here's the thing, as with so many things in teaching, you've got a safe center zone and you've got ditches on either side, and frequently those ditches have these names, legalism and license. This chapter is a warning against license. Others would be a warning against legalism, but in a chapter in which there's a warning against license, we must preach that way. And there's a clear warning here of the devastation of drunkenness. Do not take your license, saying Jesus drank wine which he did, and Jesus made wine for other people to drink, which he did, to be a license to over-indulge and corrupt your life. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. So it's a clear warning there, a slippery slope and the danger of alcoholic beverages without turning to the other danger of legalism and saying that anything for men, it is intrinsically wicked, which puts Jesus in a very bad way.
Third, application, respect the prophetic, the preached word. Respect the word of God. Respect the Bible, don't mock it. These people mocked the word, and they made fun of it. God has two ways of speaking. I would say this, God is bilingual to the human race. They're over 5,000 languages. You guys, Drew and Emily Maust... How many there are? I don't know what Wilckliffe is saying. God speaks them all. He's fluent in all of them, perfectly. I remember my Japanese language instructor being surprised when I said that to her. I said, Do you know that God speaks Japanese better than any Japanese person? She was surprised by that. She said, I think it's probably true. No, it's definitely true. Not probably. God speaks every language. He speaks right to the heart. He speaks heart languages, but essentially, he speaks two languages bilingual to the human race. He speaks by the written word or he speaks by the word of his judgments. And if you don't listen to the warning, you get the judgments. You get, life. You get it acted out in life, if your parents tell you don't touch the hot stove, you might get burned, if you then touch the stove, you're going to get burned. And so when the word of God warns you, against, certain things and you think that you're immune and you go ahead and do it, God will speak to you a second way.
So, let's say, like young people, there're warnings in the Bible about sex, about fornication. You may think you're exempt, you're not. God is giving you clear warnings against sexual immorality, you may think you're exempt, but it says, "Can you scoop coals into your lap and not get burned?" If you don't listen to the word of warning, then you get spoken to in the second language. And that's why I said it brings me chills when it says there, "Very well then, very well then." And God is patient, he doesn't immediately speak that second language, the language of judgment. He is patient, but he's patient for you to hear his word and bring your life through repentance to him. So don't mock the word. God has told us who he esteems, this is the one I esteem, the one who is humble and contrite, and who trembles at my word, not the one who mocks it like these people did in this chapter.
“God is patient, he doesn't immediately speak that second language, the language of judgment. He is patient, but he's patient for you to hear his word and bring your life through repentance to him.”
And forth, your covenant with death. You know what your covenant with death is? I hope it's the new covenant, amen? I hope it's the New Covenant in Jesus's blood. I hope that. I hope that your only trust is in the blood of Jesus. And I think the best hymn that I could sing, but I'm not gonna sing it. And you'll all thank me for that. Actually, I have an okay voice, but I don't start on the right pitch, I start too high, or too low. Ask the members or our home fellowship, alright? Way up high, giving the ladies a chance to sing solos. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Say it again. All other ground is sinking sand. So when you face trials in your life, short-term trials, financial, medical, relational, whatever, those are, just practice for the big trial coming, death, judgment etcetera. In those smaller trials, trust in Jesus the way you trust him for the big one. Okay? Like this, we're having financial troubles, having trouble making ends meet financially, the same God who gave his son, the same Jesus who shed his blood. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. He will also enable us to handle this financial struggle. Link the two. The blood of Jesus to the storm that you see coming in your life.
And finally understand that God's judgment and wrath are his strange work. It's not his homebase. God is love, God is mercy, he is tenderness. He will do his work, his strange work, he will perform his task, his alien task, and he'll do it to clean up the universe of the toxic filth of sin, he'll do it. Everything that causes sin and all those who do evil will be weeded out of his kingdom. But it's his strange work. It's not homebase. God, is love, he is mercy, he is tenderness. Flee to him and trust in him. Close with me in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you for Isaiah 28 and the things we have to learn from it. And I pray, oh Lord, that we would not make some separate covenant with death or some arrangement. I pray instead, we would build our lives entirely on the solid rock, Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.
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