The End Of Fury

Our scripture for today is found in Isaiah 10, I suppose we could get reading in verse 20 while we get off the end of the chapter.

In that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the

Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty

God. For though your people endure against the flames of the sea, only a remnant of the

Lord will return. Destruction is decreed overflowing with righteousness, for the

Lord God of hosts will bring a full end as decreed in the midst of all the earth. Therefore says the

Lord God of hosts, O my people who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike at the rod and lift up their staff against you as the

Egyptians did. For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction.

The Lord of hosts will wield against them a whip as when he struck a man at the rock of the

Lord, and his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. In that day his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be broken because of the bath.

He has come to Ayah. He has passed through Micron. At Micbash he stores his baggage.

They have crossed over the pass. At Kippah they watch the night. Rahman trembles. Gibeah of Saul has fled.

Cry aloud, O daughter of Galilee. Give attention, O Elisha. O poor Anathod.

Macminah is in flight, the inhabitants of the Kippah. Flee for safety. This very day will have hooded him up.

He will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Solomon, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold, the

Lord God of hosts will lock the bounds with terrifying power. The great and height will be hewn down, and the wall he will be proud of.

He will cut down the bits of the forest in the past, and the Lebanon will fall like a deathly cloud.

You may be seated. Dearly beloved, I pray that as we consider this passage, that you would show us the truth that you have for us here.

I pray that you would be with all the hearers of this word, and that you would open your hearts, and that you would receive your truth with joy.

And I pray that you would be with me, and that you would give me words that clearly expose what you have provided for us here.

In the mid -late 1800s, there was a Spanish writer in the Philippines. His name was

Alonso Lujave. Alonso Lujave was a fairly typical

Spanish writer. He went about doing Spanish writer duties, writing Spanish writer prayers.

And then one day, that all changed when he received a very valuable gift. A captain of a ship that had come in the port of Manila gave him a

Bible. Now, there's little doubt in my mind that Lujave had seen a

Bible before. However, this was a special Bible because it was actually in Spanish. You see, at the time in the

Philippines, because of Roman Catholic rule, they were not allowed to read the

Bible in any language other than Latin. So Alonso Lujave had never read the Bible before himself.

And so as he read the Bible, and he began to see the true gospel, and he realized that salvation came by grace through faith, not a verse, he began to teach this to the people of the

Philippines, a little more than Manila. But as other friars found out, they told him to stop.

And he refused to stop, and he continued preaching the true gospel. And so they arrested him and sent him to Spain where he tried and executed it.

Now, I've often wondered what that voyage would be like on the ship going to Spain, going to a certain island.

I don't know exactly how long the trip took back then, between the Philippines and Spain. I imagine it was at least weeks, if not months.

And so there he is on the ship, headed to a certain island. And what is he doing?

He must be praying to God asking him to stop going out. And as he's coming, he gets closer and closer and closer to Spain.

But this trial doesn't let up. The oppression of those who would seek to execute him for reading the

Bible, for preaching the gospel, none of that is letting up. But then, finally, when he made it to Spain, he received wonderful news.

Spain had become a republic. And so the wedding between the monarchy and the

Roman Catholic papacy had dissolved. And that power to execute him no longer was there in Spain.

So if he's a free man, freer than would have been if he had remained in the Philippines. And then he used that freedom to begin translating the

Bible into one of the native Philippine dialects. I feel that this voyage that he was on is a good analogy for a lot of the trials that we go through.

We're in this trial for a long period of time, when they pray, and yet there's no letting up until the last moment.

I've gone through many trials in my life, the last few months, even years, and I don't know if I can bear it.

But God always provides a way of escape for his children. I know many of you are going through difficult things right now, especially because of the pandemic.

It imposes all kinds of financial concerns, all kinds of job concerns. And these, of course, are not the only sorts of trials of depression that get to us.

We as a church are going through a difficult time right now. A difficult time in figuring out how to go about worshiping

God as we ought to. In the midst of the pandemic, in the midst of governments deciding what kinds of restrictions are in place on us.

And sometimes I wonder, how are you going to make it through this? And we know that if we are

God's children, he will provide a way of escape. If we are his children, these trials will end.

And there is a world of difference between being in a trial that will let it end, and being in a trial knowing that it will let it end.

The former is a miracle, it's a miracle. The latter is a perfectly great miracle. And this is what is addressed in this passage here in Isaiah 10.

In Isaiah 10, and in the previous passages, if you remember, Assyria is coming toward land of Judah.

They have destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, and now they are threatening

Judah itself. And the people don't know whether or not they will be able to make it through.

As they see God refraining from protecting them, handing them over to Assyria, it doesn't appear that they will escape.

And then God assures them that for those who are his children, he will find a way of escape.

That he will end the trial. So, as we look at this passage,

I would like to see that God's trial will all have an end. And that knowing that end is there, makes the trial a perfectly great miracle.

So we're going to see God's fury, we're going to see an end, we're going to see it be reversed against the enemies of God's people, and then we're going to see the freedom that results from that.

So let's go ahead and begin here in this first verse. We see Assyria becoming more and more of a threat to Judah, and God is going to assure them of this whole end on the basis of his character.

On the basis of his sovereignty and his care for his children. Therefore, thus says the

Lord God of hosts, O my people who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the

Assyrians, for they strike with their rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. For in a very little while, my fury will come to an end.

And this is my day of end once again. So it speaks of God's fury.

God's fury is that power by which sin is revealed. And in this world, all the pain and suffering that we endure is

God's fury. Now it might not be God's fury against our particular sin, if we're experiencing something, it might be a fury against someone else's particular sin.

However, anything in this world that is pain and suffering is God's fury against sin.

And so what end can there be to this? God assures the people that they are his children and they will live.

He says, O my people, to be God's people is to have his name attached to you.

You see, at the time people imagined there are various different gods, and these different gods have their different people.

And so if the people is defeated, that means that God is defeated. And so if God is assuring the people that you are my people, that means that I will not be defeated, and therefore you will not be defeated.

And though the people may experience great destruction, they will not be defeated because they are his children.

And he says, you belong to Zion. Zion being a rough setting in the

Jerusalem, but particularly referring to the temple, to God's house. Not only is it God's name with the people, his house is with the people.

And he would not see his house destroyed. So he assures people, because of the relationship with them, because of their status as his children, as his people, they can be assured that this trial will end.

But that's not how it often feels when we're experiencing God's fury. When we're experiencing God's fury, it's very difficult to see that he still loves.

When you feel God's fury, and you imagine that as anger directed directly towards you, it doesn't seem like God loves you, it doesn't seem like he has a good plan with what he is doing.

But yet the Bible says that if we are his children, that fury ultimately works for good.

It's not ultimately directed against us. It will be reversed against the enemy. And it's not ultimately to harm us, but for the good.

He also appeals to his proven character. He says, do not be afraid of the

Syrians when they strike at the rod and their staff against you as the Egyptians did. The Egyptians were one of the people's greatest enemies throughout their history.

The Egyptians had enslaved people, and it seemed impossible that they would ever be taken away from them.

And yet God, out of his love for his children, out of his commitment for them, delivered them from the

Egyptians to the great city. Indeed, he appeals, beyond his appearance of proven character, he appeals, perhaps most importantly of all, to his sovereignty, to his power over all things, to control all things.

Just at the very beginning, he calls himself Lord God of hosts. Now we've spoken about this many times throughout the video, but as a reminder, be the

Lord of hosts. Hosts refer to armies. A host is an army. A host is multiple armies.

He is a great power of God, a God with many armies. Armies of angels, greater than any human army that might be threatened.

Greater than this army of the Syrians. And we also see God's sovereignty in his condition of the rod and staff.

It says, when they strike with the rod, they lift up their staff against you. Now someone, for some of you this past week, might say, well that doesn't sound like God's sovereignty, that sounds like Assyrian sovereignty, that sounds like Assyrian power.

Isn't that terrible? Assyria has power to conflict with people. Yet in context,

Isaiah has already explained that that is not properly Assyrian power, that is God's power.

If you look back at verse 5, we covered this several weeks ago.

Verse 5 says, Woe to Assyria! The rod is my anger. The staff in their hands is my fury.

Think about that for a minute. This is not Assyria's power, the power by which they assault and threaten.

That is not their power properly. That is God's power that he has given on loan to them.

If you think of this as Assyria's power proper, that is perhaps less than God's power, but on an equal playing, contending, competing with God's power, you might incline to fear.

However, if you understand correctly, that this is not a distinct power outside of God that contends with him, but is instead his own power that is on loan, well, that could be a great comfort.

That could be a great comfort to you. Consider this.

In the 23rd Psalm, David was willing to say, Yea, though I go through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

But what rod and what staff was David experiencing in the valley of the shadow of death? In the valley of the shadow of death, you are not experiencing a wonderful blessing before God, like he describes later in the psalm.

You are experiencing power at the hands of the enemies. He is describing being afflicted in the valley of the shadow of death.

The way David experiences that rod and that staff is indirectly from God, through his enemies, and comfort, knowing that all power is ultimately

God's. Just like in this passage, the same rod and the same staff being wielded by Isaiah is ultimately

God's. And that can go from being something that puts us in great anxiety to something that assures us great comfort, because every time we see great power used against us, we see some oppression used against God's people, we can be assured that is just a taste of God's own power, because it is

His power, on loan from the enemy. Whatever trials you have in your life, you might look at a relationship that seems so difficult and so impossible, because you can't do anything about it.

It's the other person who needs to change. But yet, whatever powers are at play in that relationship, the key things are being amended, the key things are being harmonized.

These are not powers that are outside of God containing within them, these are His powers on loan.

Whatever oppression you may be going through, financially or work -wise, because of the current crisis, any of those things are not ultimately powers outside of God, but His powers on loan.

Understood rightly, understood from God's perspective, where you are seeing His sovereignty at work, trusting in Him, knowing that He has some purpose behind it.

Those powers can go from being a great cause for anxiety, to great comfort, and you can say what they did.

God walked through the valley of shadow and death, and fear and evil. You are God, and you are stuff, and you can't break it.

God's fury has an end for His children. And if you do that and embrace it, you may make your child perfectly bearable.

Not only is God's fury an end, but His fury will also be reversed when it ends, and it will turn away from His people, towards His enemy.

Continuing verse 25, For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction, and the

Lord will be lifted against them a minute, as when they struck their enemy on the rock of the world, and instead of having to go to the sea,

He will lift it, as He did in Egypt. His fury will come to an end, and His anger will be directed to their destruction, and will be turned out of Assyria's hand, and then back on Assyria itself.

And then he describes, he offers a couple of examples to explain what it will be like. He says it will be like India, it will be like Egypt.

I just spoke of Egypt, the people who were enslaved, the Egyptians, were led to safety by the

Red Sea, but this is not just talking about the people being led to safety, this is talking about the destruction of the enemies.

Remember, Moses lifted his hand twice, right? Moses lifted his hand once, so that the sea would part, but then when we were on the other side,

Moses lifted his hand again. And God, working through that sign, swallowed the

Egyptians up into the sea, defeated their opponents. And then with Gideon, this refers to Gideon's army of 300 men that defeated the

Midianites. If you're not familiar with this story, what happened is

Gideon had a large army, which he was going to fight the Midianites with, and God, through various means, told

Gideon to whittle down his army just to 300 men. And with 300 men, they were able to defeat a large army of Midianites, not even by attacking them directly, but just by shouting and lighting torches.

And the Midianites all attacked each other and killed each other. You see, in either of these situations, either

Egypt or Midian, both of them are marked by God's action without man's action, with only man's nominal participation.

You know, lighting a torch or raising a hand. What God is saying is that the period will be reversed, and it will be entirely

His work, entirely something that He is doing. You see, this victory will not be accomplished by us trusting in ourselves, operating ourselves, defeating the oppressing powers that are against us.

The oppressing powers of the great have already explained why they're great, because their powers come alone from God Himself.

They are great powers. We must trust in God to deliver us from them.

What is your go -to when you are oppressed? Is it to try to fight the situation itself?

Or is it most immediately to trust in the Lord when He may require anything of us? He may ask us to do things.

But ultimately, the victory is His. The battle is His. We must be going to Him prayerfully, lying to Him.

This reversed fury, this could be, once again, a great cause for comfort to God's children.

Have you ever seen one of those action movies where at the beginning of the movie, the good guy is getting pummeled by the bad guy, and the good guy's got a smile on his face because he knows something that that guy doesn't, and the bad guy is becoming more and more unnerved by the fact that the good guy is smiling and laughing off the pummeling?

This could be your situation. You don't have to be anxious. You don't have to be strong about the pummeling.

You can know that God's fury will be reversed onto the enemy.

Every power that oppresses us now, it will be reversed. But every power, perhaps it's sin.

Sometimes sin is in your life that you struggle with. Satan himself is heaping guilt on you, letting you know about this sin, how shameful it is.

Yet you know, if you were a child of God, that this has already been taken care of, that Jesus Christ has already provided forgiveness, and that power of accusation that Satan wields is ultimately the power of God, because God is the one that people have to answer to, not him.

And when that power is reversed, what happens? We are no longer the subject of the accusation, because we don't have to accuse

Christ. Rather, it is the enemy on the last day who will be accused, and who will have to suffer.

Now, I'm not saying we should even make the comparison in this way, but as we suffer from guilt, we can rest assured, knowing that that guilt was borne by Christ unto

Christ, and that that power of accusation will turn away from us against the enemy, and so we don't have to suffer guilt in this world, because we know that it is already been taken care of.

Now, this fury ending, being reversed in the end, it then results in infreedom.

Jesus is infreed again, and then this 27th verse. And then that day, it's a burden on the part of your shoulder, and it's a yoke on your neck.

And the yoke will be broken, and you can't lift that up. Now, this whole passage, beginning in verse 24, began with the therefore, right?

It's coming out of this previous passage, this previous passage, that said that destruction is a creed overflowing with righteousness, letting us know that God has a purpose, and this fury that he's dealing with, he has a purpose, and his affliction is often directed at his own people.

And that good thing that he has as a purpose is his righteousness.

But here, it is described as freedom. Speaking of the burden, the oppression of this fury on one's shoulder, speaking of the yoke, referring to slavery, right?

A yoke is something that you can put on an ox and have to keep him harnessed to the plow.

It is what makes the ox a slave to his master. So this is talking about oppression and slavery.

These things will break off. And what it says, because of the fact, and in some translations, you say it in a meeting, you know, oil, fat, it kind of has to do with some people aren't exactly sure what this means, but either the idea is

God's blessing, either God's blessing in the making, God's blessing in the midst of the combat, or possibly, and quite likely even, in action, because of the ox sitting there, not doing anything, once again, only having nominal participation in the victory, and God doing,

God accomplishing victory himself. This is the means by which people will be delivered from their oppression and set free.

Now, this whole time, I have been speaking about children, having the assurance that these trials will end and we'll resolve in freedom.

So it's important to understand that we need to be a child of God. And where the power comes to become a child of God, this is not something that we were naturally born children of God.

Not everyone is a child of God. We have no guarantee, naturally, that the trial should end.

There is no reason why God should have that much security against those who submit against him. Instead, that theory has any particular reason, because there is one who is not a son of God, secondarily, or by some action, but naturally, a son of God.

And that, one and only special primary son of God is Jesus Christ. And when he came to earth and became a man, he suffered the same trials and afflictions that we suffer.

He suffered the same things and then on the cross, he bore the ultimate fury that was supposed to be directed towards sinners.

Now all those who are united with him are able to be a son of God with Christ.

Not a son of God, he is the son of God. But secondarily, we may be adopted into his kingdom and counted as sons of God so that, that end of the fury that Christ purchased by living a sinless life in suffering and fury, whereas we would otherwise have lived a sinful life in suffering and fury forever.

By living a sinless life in suffering and that fury, he purchased an end to it, he purchased a reversal of it, so that that power of death which is limited to him is reversed.

So that death itself, died, has no more power over him or over anyone or united with him or any of his children.

This is what it means to be a child of God. If you do not have that relationship with Christ where you have trusted it in, become united with him so that you can be a son of God, you can be a child of God.

If you do not have that, there is no assurance that trials will end. They will go on and on and on, not just in this life, but they will continue on for all eternity.

But if you are found in Jesus Christ, trusting in his sacrifice, as if you only need his resurrection, as a sufficient offering to take away fury, you can have great assurance that your trials will end, that that fury will be reversed, that you will have a great, great freedom.

And that freedom is something that you can begin experiencing now in this life as you are assured of victory that Christ already accomplished.

And if you think about the way this all plays out in our own life, plays out in our lives, what is

God accomplishing through this fury? What is he doing to us?

Even though, you know, when I talk about those of us who are not as children, or before we were as children, being inserted in this fury, that makes sense why he would direct fury against us.

Then why does he direct fury against those of us who are already just children? What is his purpose in doing these things?

He is blinding our pride. He is calling us to trust more and more in him, so that we can fully enjoy and fully appreciate the great salvation that he's given.

You know, if you think about it before, before we were saved, prior to salvation, you go about your life experiencing the effects of sin in this world, and it does to people more and more, and you don't know how you can wear your freedom, that is when

God himself saves you at that final, last shred of the prize of heaven that you were ready to trust in him.

You know, he is the one doing that, lobbing off every bit of pride, so that you can appreciate this salvation, that you can enjoy this salvation.

That is his purpose, and we see a picture of that here in the remainder of this passage, where he's going to describe the pride of Judah being indicated by James, if I could interrupt you real quick here, that is a little in the, so, sorry,

I was thinking, pride being indicated by Jesus, this next passage at 20, down at the end of the chapter, illustrates this by speaking about Assyria.

Now, Assyria, you know, is toward the northeast of Judah, and they end up traveling down to the south of Egypt and assaulting it from the south, and Isaiah reports that, and he's aware that they end up assaulting it from the south, however, this passage, because the people don't know that yet, he describes them as assaulting from their hometown, from Assyria itself, so he describes advancing from the north to the south, so this, this prophecy that he's not writing yet, is not meant to be so historically precise, because he's describing it in a way that the people immediately recognize it, oh yeah, they're going to come from the north and the south.

So to consider this passage, he has come to buy off, he has packed her in the ground, that big bag, he supports his baggage, now, this is what the

Norman does, right, they've got a lot of bags to go along journey, and at some point they're not going to fight with the rolling suitcase in your hand, you know, so you have to store it somewhere, and so this is what they do, they have all their bags and they keep going out ready to fight.

They have crossed over the pass, I keep it in my pocket, you know, resting on it, resting on the paddle, resting on the paddle, resting on the paddle, resting on resting on the paddle, resting on the paddle, the paddle, the paddle, the paddle, the paddle, rest on the paddle, rest on And he called trees to the friggin' land of Isaiah, however, he didn't cry.

And they were all going to be cut off with his axe. And he had said in verse 15, he'd be back to the city.

But yet, this is done by the hand of the majestic one. And by the hand of the majestic one, that is

God himself. So if it's cutting off all the pride of the people, and he is just a servant, this will end.

And if it finally ends, right when there's nothing left, no pride left, and people were just a servant, and we are not going to give you too much emphasis perhaps, but I want you to take a look just a little further.

There shall come forth a sheep from the stomach of Jesse, of a branch from his root, shall bear fruit.

Jesse being father to David, David being the great grandson of the father, to Jesus. This is the great salvation, that when all other pride is taken away, when all other branches have been cut off, the people may experience salvation.

God is humbling people so that they will be safe.

That is why he does this. And it's not just a matter for those who do not yet know him.

As I said before, if you don't know him, there is no end in fear. But even if there are those who do know him, you will experience pain and suffering in his life, and may apparently experience great trials.

The reason why, because God seeks to help every last vestige of pride. The more and more that you rely on him, the more and more you will be able to experience true joy, knowing the great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ.

See, God is the creator. We depend on him for everything. If we thought that we ourselves were sufficient, we would not be able to know the truth that we are not.

We would not be able to enjoy things as they are, things as they ought to be. So God, in his great wisdom, and far too fascinating, starts drawing us in this way, by humbling us, bringing us to repentance, and then saving us in Jesus Christ.

And if you can have assurance that that trial, that the trial is like the end, even though you may experience many trials in your life, it will all lead to an end, and we will be with him, we will be with Christ forever, we will receive our body back in the grave, and we will have perfect joy and peace forever.

I mentioned to you before, Alonso Villagelde, the Spanish writer from the Philippines. After he had made it to Spain and was able to translate part of the

New Testament into one of the Philippine dialects, he decided he would come back and share it with the

Filipinos. And so he did, and he didn't get far at all.

His first week there, he was poisoned, and then his body was left on the street, so he would have an epic ruinous death.

And then later he was buried. Now, you might look at this and say, wasn't that just a day of everything we were saying?

He was delivered from his trial while he was on the boat, how come he wasn't delivered from that trial?

He was. He was. He is with the Lord. And one day, his body will raise anew, perfect, incredible.

And Alonso Villagelde is in perfect peace and joy right now, with Jesus Christ in heaven.

And that is something that if we know, if we have great assurance of it, if we know that this trial will end, we can have great comfort and great anxiety.

You wonder how it is that he was able to go to the Lord, knowing that he would be persecuted, knowing that he would be persecuted, how was he willing to do it?

What gave him the assurance? He knew that this trial would end. Even if it was not in the guarantee of his continued existence on this earth for the next however many years, he knew that this trial would end, and he knew that it would end.

And if you want that kind of courage, if you want that kind of peace, you must know, Jesus Christ, I just gave you, you must be united then, and in faith, that you can be a child of God, and know that God cares for you, and know that God's period will end, and turn over your enemies.

If you do not have this, you do not have anything. But if you do not have this, you do not have great salvation.

Father, we thank you for the trial that you put us through, because we know that you are sovereign.

We know that you are doing great things for them. We ask that you would take away our pride, that you would grant us humility, that we might fully know your love and care, and your power.

And I ask that you would hasten the day that we would see you again, and be able to enjoy a perfect, peaceful existence with him.

And I pray for those of you who do not know him, that you would grant them the hence, that you would show them the truth, and the only way to be forgiveness to them, to have eternal life, in the name of Christ Jesus.