Exposing Folly

Amen. Please turn in your Bible to Isaiah 31. We'll continue today in Isaiah 31.

And once again, this whole section is about the folly of trusting in the nations, and particularly the folly of trusting in Egypt to save the people from Assyria.

When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. Begin in verse 1 and read down to verse 5.

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong.

But do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord. And yet He is wise and brings disaster.

He does not call back His words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

The Egyptians are man and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the

Lord stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

For thus the Lord said to me, As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him, he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise.

So the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on his hill. Like birds hovering, so the

Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will spare and rescue it.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for its guidance, and yet at the same time we acknowledge your own weakness in understanding the things that you have clearly said.

We pray that you would mitigate the effects of sin in our hearts and minds. We might receive your word with clarity and with eagerness.

God, we pray that by your Spirit we might understand your truth. In Jesus' name, amen.

Last week we looked at the first half of this section, ending halfway through verse 3.

Today we're beginning halfway through verse 3. The Lord stretching out his hand. This previous section was talking about the wisdom of God, the wisdom of God being greater than the wisdom of man, and the wisdom of man being foolishness.

Today we'll be looking at how the wisdom of man is demonstrated to be folly by the judgment of the

Lord. Now I have in the bulletin here a title called A Reversal of Roles.

I'd like you to scratch that from your mind and go ahead and title this in your mind, An Exposing of Folly.

This is about God exposing the folly of man. Now he exposes the folly of several different parties in this passage.

There's the Helper, that is Egypt. There's the Helped, that is Judah. And there is the

Hostile, that is Syria. So each one of these parties, the

Helper, the Helped, and the Hostile, their folly is shown. Each of them, as they do not trust in the

Lord, as they think they can best the Lord, or that another might be a better help than the Lord, each of them is foolish.

And so God exposes the folly of each of them in turn. I'd like us to consider all three of those parties as we go through this passage.

So beginning here in this first half of verse 3, it says, When the Lord stretches out his hand, the

Helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together. See, God, by his judgment, he demonstrates the folly of man.

It is said in the previous part in verse 2, And yet he is wise and brings disaster.

I mentioned last week, Alyssa's sarcasm. Man has called himself wise.

He has counseled together and decided that Egypt will be a good ally even though the Lord has commanded against building for himself an ally with Egypt, specifically with Egypt, specifically gathering many horses, and decided that he is wiser than the men of Judah have.

And so the Lord will expose all their folly. We see that it was said also in Isaiah 29, verse 14,

Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder.

And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.

God is all wise. He is wiser than man. In fact, he is the source of all truth, and as such, it is impossible for man's wisdom to even really compare to God's wisdom.

He is far wiser, and because of that, he must demonstrate all other things to be foolish.

Now, a lot of people consider God's actions and judgment to be petty. If he is so great and so wise, why does he need to demonstrate such things?

Wouldn't it be enough for him just to know that he is wiser than all else? Well, you see, just as parents bring children in the world to teach their children what is good and to expose their children to the good things of the world, that their children might experience good things, it takes steps to correct their children to know what is good.

Likewise, it is only through judgment that God shows his children what is good, shows his children what wisdom is.

And I'm not speaking of judgment towards his children. I'm speaking judgment on all those who raise their wisdom up above the wisdom of God, those who think that some other helper is going to be better than him.

And he must, for their own good, that they might see the true wisdom of God, he must dash all folly that raises itself up as wiser than him.

This is necessary. In fact, the Bible frequently says that God tolerates evil.

He tolerates evil in order to demonstrate to his own people his wisdom.

Genesis 15 -16 says, and they will come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet complete. In other words, God took the people out of the land of Canaan, left them in Egypt for a while, so that four generations later, 400 years later, he would bring them back to Egypt in order for them to destroy the

Amorites. In other words, the Amorites would have an opportunity to grow in their folly that God could demonstrate to his own people what the consequences of that folly is.

And likewise, we see in Romans 9. In Romans 9, verse 22, it says,

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, in other words, he could instantly punish that which is foolish or punish that which is evil, but he tolerates it, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

In other words, his own people benefit by that growing of evil, by that growing of folly, that God destroys it and shows the people how glorious he is, how much greater his wisdom is, on full display, rather than just saying that it is true.

He puts it on full display, that his people might know it more deeply than they would if they were just told it as some propositional truth that they had never seen or never experienced.

And so this should give the Christian great comfort, great comfort when you see evil in the world and you wonder why evil continues, you wonder why false teachers are allowed to continue and why false

Christians are allowed to continue and wonder why a world that is hostile to God is allowed to continue. The answer is that he has his purposes.

Now, he has not disclosed each one of his purposes, but some of them he has, and some of that is in order that we might know his glory, specifically his glorious wisdom being greater than man's wisdom that would hold itself above God's wisdom.

So it starts here with the helper. It says, when the

Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble. So who is the helper?

Well, in this context, the helper is Egypt. Egypt is coming along to help

Judah as they are being attacked by Assyria. God has told them not to trust Egypt because he is strong enough for them.

There is no reason they need to trust someone else. Rather, it is enough to trust in him.

And consider the way that this is pictured. It's very surprising. It's very counterintuitive given the way the

Bible usually pictures God and pictures his people. It says in verse 4,

For thus the Lord said to me, As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him, he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise.

So the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill. So what is

God in this metaphor that's being given? God is the lion coming down to Zion.

And who are the helpers in this case? They are the shepherds of Israel. They are the ones who are going to, by their benevolence, by their generosity, protect the people of Israel, the sheep of Israel.

And so God, who is usually often described as a shepherd, is now described as the enemy of the shepherds.

You know the psalm, The Lord is my shepherd. We're used to thinking of God as a shepherd. Well, here the people have decided that they can be a better shepherd than God.

Egypt can be a better shepherd than the Father. And so they set themselves up as such in Jerusalem.

And God says, fine, if you are going to be the shepherd, then I will be the lion. And my appetite will not be satisfied until I have destroyed you.

God will show the folly of these false helpers that they think that they can do a better job, that they will not suffer for this.

And indeed, Egypt does end up suffering as they go against Assyria. Assyria trounces them so that their forces are greatly, greatly weakened.

The fact that they come and try to help Jerusalem does not work out well for them.

And consider how this applies to the Christian today. You know, there are many people who try to help the people of God, who try to offer other helps that draw them away from the

Father, from trusting in Jesus Christ. These are false teachers. They are false shepherds who come and they offer other things.

They say, yes, God is good, but here is what you need in addition to him. You know, think about this.

Egypt, what they are bringing is the help of additional false gods. And this is the nature of a false teacher.

The false teacher sets himself up as someone who is a shepherd, someone who is good, and they offer something in addition to God.

They would never claim or rarely claim to supplant Jesus, to supplant the

Almighty God. They just offer something in addition to him. This is what you see with so many false religions.

They offer just something else in addition. You know, trust in addition to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, this one extra work that you have to do, or membership in this particular church that will save you.

No, all such things add to Jesus, and they, the helpers, will be shown to be false.

You know, and consider how devious this is, to set yourself up as a shepherd, as so many do.

And so few people fail to recognize false teachers because they never look like false teachers. Wolves in sheep's clothing never look like wolves.

They always look like sheep. And so one time I was talking to someone who was very much taken with the teachings of William Paul Young.

I don't know if you are familiar with William Paul Young, but he wrote the book called The Shack. Later on he wrote another book called, I think it was called

Ten Lies We Believe About God. And the lies are, almost all of them, I can't remember if it was all of them, but almost all of them were true things about God.

Like, for example, that God is in control, or that not all will be saved.

You know, these are things that he considers lies that are not true. And I had someone in a

Bible study who was very taken with his teaching, and he was coming and giving a talk here in this area. So I went to the talk and I asked him a question about the demons, whether or not they would all be saved as well.

And after dancing around the question for a little while, he finally answered yes, that that was also possible, that even the demons could all be saved.

The scripture is very clear to the contrary. And I thought that this young woman who was in my

Bible study, I thought that this would reveal to her that this guy is a false teacher. But she had been so helped, you know, given such an emotional peace from his other writings, that she wouldn't consider this something that would mark him as a false teacher, the fact that he is saying that you can have peace with God through some means other than trusting in Jesus Christ.

You know, this is the nature of false teachers, once again. They never look like wolves, they always dress in sheep's clothing.

You have to be ready to identify false teachers as those who are pointing to something other than Jesus, saying

Jesus isn't necessary, saying that Jesus isn't sufficient. Either one of those. In that case, you have a false teacher.

And you have to be ready to speak out against false teachers. You know, in this time that we live, it's not considered very nice to speak against false teachers.

It's not well received. But you have to be ready to do that. Now it continues on, and it speaks of the one who is helped.

So it's not only the helper that stumbles. It says, he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

You know, the helped in this circumstance is Judah. Indeed, those who trust in Egypt, God says that their judgment is coming.

And so Judah ends up suffering greatly, having trusted in Egypt. And we can only assume that many of those rulers who were responsible for such judgments, for such counsel, they fell in that as well.

But this is surprising, once again, because one would think that there would be special treatment for one of the party.

Maybe you might think it would be for the helper. The helper is not a part of God's people, and so they should get some special pass.

You not be held as accountable for knowing what they shouldn't know. Or maybe you see that, well, false teachers, obviously, they would be judged much heavier.

It's the one who is helped that will get a free pass because they were not as evil as the helper.

You know, they were among God's people. But what this says here is that when it comes to the matter of judgment, both fall, they will perish together.

There's no special treatment. The false teacher and the one who is led away by the false teacher to fail to trust in God alone, both of them have the same end.

Both of them end up in judgment. There's no special treatment. Now, in California law, and I assume the law of many jurisdictions, what is the penalty for aiding and abetting a crime?

You know, if you aid and abet a murder, what's the penalty? It's the exact same as the crime.

Now, I don't know whether or not that's often how it happens in court or if in court the judge ends up treating the one who aids and abets differently.

But as far as the law goes, aiding and abetting a crime, the penalty is exactly the same as committing the crime itself.

And so it is here, both the helper and the one who is helped, both the one who pulls someone away from trusting in God Almighty and the one who ceases to trust in God Almighty, both of them meet the very same end.

And once again, this is foolishness being exposed. You know, it is foolish to think that you can offer some kind of help that's greater than God, and it's foolish to think that you can find some kind of help that's greater than God.

It says here, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.

In context, that's a very meaningful title for God, the Lord of hosts.

Hosts means armies. This speaks of God as commanding armies of angels.

And why is it that the people trust in Egypt? It had said in verse 1, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong.

Now, what is stronger, horsemen or angels? I would guess it would be the angels of God. In fact,

I know it is the angels of God. Which are more numerous, chariots or the angels of God?

Once again, the Bible speaks of myriads and myriads of angels. Myriad meaning 10 ,000, and this just being the largest number that the

Bible has available. You know, they didn't have billions and trillions the way we use those numbers so frequently, given that we live in a world where frequently you need that kind of large numbering system.

All they had was myriads, and so it speaks of myriads of myriads. And so we might speak of trillions of trillions of angels.

God has far more than there are chariots. So, as the Lord of Hosts, given that title, it shows just how foolish it would be to trust in less of something weaker.

Fewer horses over far more angels? Obviously, the Lord of Hosts is strong enough.

He should be trusted, and he should be trusted completely. You know, the one who fails to trust in God, but rather trusts in something else, adds something else in addition to that.

It is a great, great foolishness. You know, this is what the

Reformers called the doctrine of Solus Christus, that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, in Christ alone.

But so many people add to that. You know, so many people, we've been talking about Roman Catholicism in our

Sunday school. You know, when I talk to Roman Catholics, I talk about the importance of trusting in Christ alone, and they all assure me, well,

I do trust in Christ. But do you trust in Christ alone? If you add, in addition to that, the work of Mary, the work of the saints, your own works, if these things are necessary in order to inherit eternal life, are you trusting in Christ alone?

The answer is no. Galatians 5 .4 says that you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by law.

You have fallen from grace. If you are trusting in your own works in addition to Christ, it doesn't matter how necessary you think

Christ is. And you know, you think back to that informal debate we had several weeks ago with a

Mormon, and he was saying that Jesus Christ is necessary after all you can do.

And afterward, they were telling me this story that's apparently common in Mormonism, where someone who wants to buy a bicycle, a child, pays one dollar, and then their father pays the rest.

That's what salvation is like. We pay down our one dollar, God pays the rest. If you are trusting in your one dollar of works, the

Bible says you are severed from Christ. God does not help those who think that they are helping themselves.

Rather, God helps those who trust in Him alone, who have trusted in His Son alone, that He might receive all the glory, that He might be counted as all wise.

Not us as wise, not us as glorious, and Him as more glorious, but rather, He the

One who is only wise above all. It continues here, and speaks of God like birds hovering in verse 5.

Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will spare and rescue it.

And so God protects His people. Who is He protecting them from? Assyria. And what is

Assyria in this? They are the hostile. So the helper, the helped, and the hostile. God defeats all of them.

He shows the folly of all of them. Assyria is foolish for thinking that they can come against the Lord. You see the dialogue later in Isaiah.

Assyria is aware that Yahweh is protecting Israel, and yet they think that they can come against Him and defeat

Him. That their gods will be greater than Him. But this is not the case, because He will protect

Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will spare and rescue it. So the only ones who are saved in all this circumstance are the people of God.

Those who are truly the people of God, who have truly trusted in God. All others end up being destroyed.

That their folly might be made known to those who are truly God's people. It is God's people who are ultimately the ones who benefit from watching this destruction happen.

They might appreciate their God as fully as possible. Now, considering all these things, and as we've seen time and time again in Isaiah, and as the

New Testament even quotes Isaiah to say that these truths apply to Jesus Christ, I'd like to give you several reasons why

I think you should be thinking immediately of Jesus Christ in all this. Not just as a similar passage, a similar passage of salvation, or an analogous thing.

But consider these several things. First of all, who is speaking? It says, For the Lord says to me.

And who does he speak of? The Lord of hosts. The Lord says that the

Lord of hosts will come down to Mount Zion. Now, who is the Lord speaking of? Who is the Lord? Is this not the

Father speaking of the Son? That the Son will come and rescue His people. Addition to that, it speaks of Mount Zion.

And as I've pointed many times, the New Testament interprets Mount Zion to ultimately be a precursor for the church.

It says in Hebrews 12, 22, that you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living

God, to heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering. The church is the

Zion of God. And so, who is it ultimately that is protected? Eventually, Jerusalem gets destroyed.

Later on, beyond the New Testament, Jerusalem is destroyed in 70 AD. But, the church of God is protected forever.

It is protected by the Lord Almighty through the work of Jesus Christ. In addition to this, consider also that when it speaks of these birds, when it speaks of Him sparing and rescuing, this language of He will protect and deliver,

He will spare and rescue, what it says in some translations is that He will pass over it.

And the reason why is because it is the exact same words that are used in Exodus to speak of the Passover.

He passes over His people. So, just like in the

Exodus, where the people planted the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts, and they were spared while all others were judged, so God passes over those who are

His people. And how are we made His people? On the night when He was betrayed, during the Passover, Jesus instituted the

Lord's Supper to demonstrate that it is by His blood that we are passed over. And so, this passage intentionally evoking the

Exodus, the New Testament telling us that the Exodus is ultimately pointing forward to Jesus, this whole passage speaks of the salvation that we have in Jesus.

Folly will be exposed. Trusting in anything else other than the Lord, trusting in anything else other than His Savior, Jesus Christ, that folly will be exposed.

It doesn't matter if you're a false teacher, pulling people away. It doesn't matter if you are one who is pulled away.

It doesn't matter if you are an enemy of God. Any kind of such foolishness will be exposed, and God's people will benefit as they see that foolishness exposed.

It doesn't matter if you are helper, helped, or hostile. All such folly will be exposed, and God's people, being passed over, will benefit and enjoy the presence of Jesus Christ forever.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this great salvation we have in Jesus Christ.

We thank you for that judgment that is coming, and though it is something that should sober us, though it is something that should give us a great concern for our neighbors, we thank you that you have this in store for our benefit.