Musical Victory

Joy, Salvation, and Judgment in Isaiah 30

Amen. Well, please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 30, excuse me, Isaiah 30, Isaiah 30 beginning in verse 29. And so this passage is spoken of the salvation that's coming to the people, and then in the most recent verses it's talked about how that salvation of the people of God results in judgment upon the nations, or it comes through judgment upon the nations.

And then, in this passage, it brings them together and describes that joy for the people of God and that judgment on the enemies of God together. So please stand when you have that for the reading of God's Word, Isaiah 30 beginning in verse 29.

You shall have a song as in the night when the holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause His majestic voice to be heard, and the descending blow of His arm to be seen, and furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloud burst and storm and hailstones.

The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when He strikes with His rod, and every stroke of the appointed staff the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres.

Battling with brandish arm, He will fight with them, for a burning place has long been prepared. Indeed, for the King it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance. The breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

You may be seated. And just so you know, we'll be looking at verses 29 through 32, so excluding that last verse today. But let me pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father, Your Word is before us, our hearts are open.

We ask that You would, that You would communicate to us with clarity, that Your Spirit would move us, that You would not hold back in demonstrating Your truth and convicting us of it, and I pray that You would greatly equip us for the week ahead, for the lifetime we have ahead of us as well.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this passage speaks of the joy of God's people, and the previous passages have spoken of the same. And so, I'd like for you to contemplate for a minute what the happiness of the world looks like.

How happy are people in this day and age? And it does seem that we live at a particular time where happiness is decreasing. Now, that is not always the case, that ever since the time of Jesus, happiness has been decreasing, but it does seem to be the case in our own time, that people are becoming less and less happy, more and more unsatisfied, more depressed.

I was looking up statistics on this, and there was a Gallup poll that was conducted, it's been conducted every year, I don't know what the 2023 results were, but in 2021, there were fairly all-time low numbers about how satisfied people were, and I think it was nine or nineteen different areas, basically just some kind of collective measurement of happiness or joy.

And only 48 of people, you know, were satisfied. 2021, that number dropped down to 41%, and 38, or excuse me, in 2022, that number dropped down to 38%, so it kept decreasing and decreasing. I have a friend who, back in 2020, he used to say that that would be known as the best year of the decade, because his perception of what was going on was it wasn't going to end when some of the restrictions ended, but the effects would go on for the rest of the decade.

That does seem to be the case, that happiness is currently decreasing, that many people are very sad, many people live without joy, and even the Christian is tempted to live without joy. Now, one of the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc.

Joy is part of the Christian experience, the Christian should be joyful, and yet many Christians live without joy, and I believe the reason why is they do not contemplate what should make them joyful, and what should make them joyful is what Christ has accomplished on the cross, that He has sacrificed His life, He has given us forgiveness, that He has given us a great hope of a glorious future, and this is something that should fill us with joy.

You see this passage, and it talks about the Lord destroying His enemies, and all the people just rejoicing in this with flute and harp, etc., this is something that should characterize our lives, being excited by such things, and yet people are not joyful, so where does that lack of joy come from?

Well, it comes very simply from sin. Because of sin, death has been brought in the world, because of death and all the effects that come with death, all the afflictions of this life, they are all things that result in sadness, and so the world is generally a sad place.

It's a sad place because of death, it is a sad place because death has entered because of sin. And as we've broken God's law, we are subject to sadness and death, there's no way around this except to be saved.

You know, many people try to find ways around it through distractions, through entertainment, and if you think about that, how people go to entertainment for joy, entertainments of all varieties of travel, of food, of drink, of television, whatever it may be, they try to go to these things to make themselves joyful.

They might distract themselves for a little period of time, give themselves a little happiness, but true joy is a joy that's in the Lord. You know, God is good, He is goodness itself, and from Him all good things have come.

So to try to enjoy something apart from knowing Him, to try to enjoy something apart from understanding its origin in Him, is to have some joy that has no foundation. It's to live on a house of stilts that can be easily toppled over.

True joy is a joy that is truly receptive of that goodness, and if that goodness is founded in God, you cannot have that goodness without God. And that's what so many people try to do. And so many people try to fix their sadness by going to these things, going to entertainment that they think will bring them joy, and it ultimately brings nothing.

You know, the healthy person usually goes to entertainment in order to make their joy complete, to add upon something that's already been built up. Even outside of what I've just spoken about, about having a foundation and a joy of the Lord, you know, a healthy use of entertainment is generally after having, you know, done a hard day's work, after in celebration of good things, you make your joy complete with means of entertainment.

And yet so many people go to entertainment, whether it be any of the kinds of entertainment I said before or something else, they go to it in order to establish the foundation, and these are just icing on top of a cake.

If you have no cake, the icing is just, I don't like icing without cake, I don't know about you. I know some people are like that sort of thing. My point being, you have nothing of substance if you are finding your joy outside of the Lord.

The Song of the Lord’s People and the Feast of Salvation

But this passage describes the joy we can have. In verse 29 it says, You shall have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept, in gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, the rock of Israel.

You shall have a song, as in the night when the holy feast is kept. What is that referring to? You see, all the different feasts of Israel began on a certain day, and that day would begin at nighttime.

That's usually how they would think of their days. So for example, when Jesus is in the grave for three days, that is not three 24-hour periods. It begins on one particular day, and the feast would begin at the night, and this is when you would celebrate it.

It celebrates an end to what has come previously. So they have a song, as in the night when the holy feast is kept, and what are all these holy feasts celebrating anyway? All those holy feasts are celebrating accomplishments of the Lord, victories that the Lord has won over enemies, that the Lord has preserved his people and saved them, whether it be through the desert, or whether it be out from Egypt on the Passover, etc.

All of these different celebrations are celebrating the victory of the Lord, the Lord's salvation from enemies. And so this is how it describes the joy of God's people, as being on the night when the holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the rock of Israel.

So it also describes it as one going to worship God, as one going to the mountain of the Lord, the mountain of the Lord being Zion, where his temple is, because they are going to be in the presence of God and enjoy him.

And so the joy that the Christian ought to have is a joy that's in the Lord, the joy of God's people is one that's in him. Now some of these instruments are interesting because they only come up a few other times, and one of those is the flute.

The flute only comes up in a few other verses, you can look it up. One of those times is in 1 Kings 1 .40, and what they are celebrating there is that they have a new king, they have the coronation of Solomon.

And likewise, what we are to see here is the advent of a new king, the people are celebrating because God has one victory, and he has one victory through a king. And this has come up repeatedly in Isaiah, but a nearby reference that makes this clear is Isaiah 32 .1, which says, Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.

So how will all this come about? Why will there be flutes playing? Because a king will rule in righteousness, because those enemies will be defeated. And what are these enemies? You know, these enemies, these enemies are those problems of sin and death.

And they have been defeated through the work of Jesus Christ. This is something that has been accomplished for us. Consider also how it ends here, speaking of the rock of Israel. I believe this is a significant phrase because several times throughout the past several chapters we've had allusions to Deuteronomy 32.

And one recent one was in verse 17 of this chapter, it said, A thousand shall flee at the threat of one. At the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on the hill.

And so if you consider where that was in Deuteronomy 32, it said in verse 30,. How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight, unless the rock had sold them up, and the Lord had given them up?

So to make that connection for you again, if you don't remember when we were looking at verse 17 several weeks ago, there's a statement that one person, or just five people, will chase all the Israelites.

And so God's talking about how this promise to them, that they would, just a few of them, would chase away many enemies, is going to be turned around to them as a curse. But then in Isaiah 30, he switches around and says,.

But he will reestablish these blessings. And so he goes on, having quoted Deuteronomy 32, flipping the blessing around into a curse, now that he's moved on to talk about how God will reestablish the blessings, he speaks of the blessing of Deuteronomy 32 once again, but this time not reversing it into a curse.

And he says in verse 31,. For their rock is not as our rock, our enemies are by themselves. And so speaking of the rock of Israel, in this context of this chapter where Deuteronomy 32 has been referred to on multiple occasions, he speaks of God as being a rock.

He speaks of that promise of Deuteronomy 32 being reestablished, that God will be the protection of his people, the one that they could hide under. And how is this accomplished? Once again, it is accomplished not ultimately through the nearby situation of Israel, which is in their salvation from Assyria, but ultimately, it points forward to the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ, the one who is our rock.

And so how does, how does one have this joy? One has this joy by, first of all, being a recipient of that salvation. You must trust in the Lord, and you will have this salvation. But secondly, it's in contemplating the salvation.

If you don't spend any time contemplating what the Lord has done for you, you aren't going to have much joy. You must engage in thanksgiving in order to be a joyful person. You know, Christ taught us to give thanks to the Lord, and so we ought to give thanks to the Lord for what he has done.

How much time do you spend thinking about how the Lord has saved you from sin, if you are one who has trusted in the Lord? How much time have you spent thinking about that and contemplating it? Is it a source of your joy week to week, or do you mostly think about yourself as someone who is, who, because they are saved, doesn't need salvation, and so you aren't thinking about what God has done for you?

If you want joy, you need to be able to contemplate where that source of joy comes from, which is, is the work of God in salvation. So give thanks. You know, I've mentioned before the practice of keeping some kind of prayer journal.

One of the good advantages of that is that you get to record all the prayers that you've had, and all the prayers that God has answered, and you can go back at any time and thank God for those things.

Otherwise, they are swiftly forgotten, and you don't remember all the things the Lord has done. How many things has he done? How many prayers has he answered that just totally evaporated from your memory?

I know it's just countless. It's, it's, the Lord is so good it's impossible to keep track of it all. You know, pens could be dried, the whole sea could be filled with ink and then dried if we were to write down what the Lord has done, but all the same, we go, we go too far when we just refuse to even try to remember the things the Lord has done.

And so that God has given this as a prescription for us to contemplate the victory that he has won as a means of, as a means of joy. So if you lack joy, and the doctor has given you this prescription, and you have not been taking your meds, you have not been contemplating what the Lord has done, should it be any surprise that you do not have joy?

You know, that joy is to be found in contemplating often through the word, what it says of what he has done, and through thanksgiving and prayer. He continues on here, and it says, And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard, and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, and furious anger, and a flame of devouring fire, with cloudburst, and storm, and hailstones.

The Lord’s Voice, His Arm, and Judgment on the Assyrians

So at first, this verse might sound very different than what's come before. It might sound like, how is this related? It just talked about the joy of the people going, it's going to be like that. It's talking about some of that, it says it's going to be like all these people going to the mountain of the Lord, celebrating a great feast.

And then it says that he's going to send his arm down with furious anger and flame of devouring fire. How did those two fit together? Well, as I've already explained, it fits together because the Lord saves his people through the judgment of the enemies, that these things go hand in hand together.

And so this picture we have here is of God's great sovereignty over the world, picture of God's great sovereignty to destroy enemies, to protect his people. He uses this power of creation against them.

He is the one who has created all of creation. So when it talks about a flame of devouring fire, cloudburst, and storm, and hailstones, it's talking about all the elements, all the things that he's created being used against his enemies.

And people imagine they can evade the wrath of God, but there's no way to evade the wrath of God. All of creation is created by him. It all bends to his will, and so it will be used against his enemies.

And this was said earlier in Isaiah 29 6, it said, You'll be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise and with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of the devouring fire.

And so it describes that judgment there as well. You know, and this picture of a fire is something that's come up repeatedly, even back in verse 27 here, to describe this wrath of the Lord, this anger against his enemies.

And you realize he is not just sovereign over creation to use it against his enemies, but he is even sovereign over the enemies themselves. Proverbs 16 4 says, God has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked, for the day of trouble.

You see, it's not that the wicked are some surprise, but God is strong enough that he is able to destroy him with these means he has available to him. Rather, he even created the wicked with the purpose of destroying them to save his people.

This is something that I feel like I mention often, but I do think it's a real important thing in understanding this world that we live in and the wisdom of God and ordering things the way that he has.

And that is that he did not just desire to create a people, but to create a redeemed people, to create a people that would appreciate his goodness in salvation. And so as that, he is not just ordained some things, but he has ordained all things, including the wicked, that he might save his people from the wicked, and they would see his strength and know his mercy.

You know, just thinking about things to contemplate, to give you joy, and a lot of times thinking about that judgment gives people the opposite of joy because they don't, they don't think about it in the right light.

But if you think about it in the right light, it should give you great joy, and you should be looking forward to a day when the world is rid of evil, when Christ returns, and all that has, all that has passed.

And there is nothing but us praising the Lord, dwelling with him, and reminding each other of what he has done. And we will give that thanks that I was speaking of earlier, we'll give that thanks thinking of the past.

But this is something that to us now is a future event, that us, us thanking the Lord in that environment where we've been completely freed of sin and death, where that has been made manifest in our world.

And so not only should we be giving thanks about the past, we should be giving thanks for this future that God has promised us. We should be contemplating it, being excited about it, looking forward to it.

A lot of people feel like if you spend a lot of time thinking speculative thoughts about heaven, or you've got your head in the clouds, and you're being too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good. Well, it is important that we contemplate this future, because apart from having a long sight, having that long vision, that long-term vision, how are you supposed to have the encouragement and the joy to get through this world that we live in?

This world feels like forever if you don't have that eye toward the end. And this world feels like it is unbearable if you do not have a sense of that hope of what is coming. Christians not going to have joy apart from Thanksgiving.

Christians not going to have joy apart from hope. But these are, these are things that God has given us. He's given us these promises. He's given us victory over sin and death and the devil through the cross.

He's given us all these things that we might be able to have joy even in this life. He continues on here in verse 31. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod, and every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres.

The Voice and Rod of the Lord Against Assyria

So here you see those two things put together, the music and the, and the defeat of enemies. So the Assyrians have been assaulting Judah. Just to recap what's happened at this point, Judah had made an alliance with Assyria.

Assyria has turned on them and is now threatening them. And that alliance that they made with Assyria was sinful, which is why God has turned Assyria against them. And now they're contemplating whether or not to make another alliance, another sinful alliance with Egypt.

So the Lord has, has turned Assyria on them, but he has also promised that he will bring victory. And so what's going to happen is the angel of the Lord, who, if you study the Bible and you see all the things it says about the angel of the Lord, you realize that this is, this is Jesus prior to his incarnation, he will come and he will destroy a massive amount of the troops of Assyria as they wait at the doorsteps of, of Jerusalem.

And so Jesus Christ will literally save this people from the Assyrians. But it is also, and even more primarily, a foreshadowing of how he saves us from our enemies, how he saves us from sin and death.

And so they are terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod. The voice of the Lord is the revelation of God. You know, God speaks and he acts. Others have to work very hard to accomplish things.

God merely has to speak and his word is done. And so this voice of the Lord, he reveals his son, and his son destroys those enemies. The rod is in his hand to smash the clay pots that stand against him.

It's very interesting too when it speaks of rod and it speaks of, speaks of a staff, because those words, rod and staff, come up, well, they come up several times together in Scripture, but they also come up several times together even in this book of Isaiah, especially in chapter 10.

So in chapter 10, he had spoken multiple times of a rod and a staff, and does anybody, the rod and the staff here, it should be very clear, is this strength of the Lord, and looking forward to what's going to happen, it is the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, coming and defeating the enemies.

So that rod is Jesus here. Does anybody remember what the rod and the staff were back in Isaiah 10? I'll read 10 -5. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff in their hands is my fury. Assyria itself was the rod and staff.

God was disciplining his own people through Assyria, who was the rod and staff, but now the rod and staff are, they are losing the power to be that rod and staff, and rather God is sending against them a new rod and staff.

This is, this is very similar to what we saw before with that blessing of Deuteronomy being turned into a curse and then being restored into a blessing. This rod and staff are Assyria itself to discipline the nation of Israel, and then God transforms the situation so that instead the rod and staff is now Jesus to destroy the nation of Assyria.

And this is, this is the nature of a sinful man and his destruction. You know, he has his purpose in the world. God has created him for the day of trouble. God has created him for all the purposes he does, not just that final end.

But if he does not know this, he goes on living in this world, being platformed for certain purposes and thinking that these things are his own doing, thinking that his strength comes from himself. You can imagine Assyria believing that it is strong and powerful because of itself, but it does not understand.

King Sennacherib does not understand that his strength truly is coming from the Lord and not from himself. And so it is with the average person. They think that their, they think their strength comes from themselves.

They do not recognize it as coming from the Lord. And so they continue on that strength. And when it's suddenly taken away from them, this surprises them because they didn't think of it as an alien strength.

They think of it as something that is their own. And they are surprised when it is taken away as though it wasn't theirs. Well, it is not theirs. It is something the Lord has. It is something that has come from the Lord.

And it speaks of every stroke of the appointed staff, being with the sound of tambourines and lyres. You know, God is, God and his destruction of the enemies is establishing joy for his people, something where his people can celebrate him and praise him.

Isaiah 11 4 said, But with righteousness he shall judge the poor. He shall decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

And that is all in context in Isaiah 11 of, There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his root shall bear fruit. This is a prophecy of Jesus. You see, it even speaks in that next chapter.

I'd quoted Isaiah 10 a minute ago. It speaks in that next chapter of Isaiah 11 about Jesus striking the earth with the rod of his mouth. Simply that voice of the Lord to destroy. Now, while that brings about destruction for the enemies of God, and if you are an enemy of God, you should be very afraid of this.

And you should be, you have no right to any joy. But if you are one who is trusted in Jesus Christ, then it is the case that you are not subject to such destruction. But rather, you are the recipient of that protection by which you can have great joy.

By which you can rejoice in the Lord with harp and with lyre. You know that song we just sang with harps and with vials? It's talking about this sort of celebration that you see in Scripture that the people are able to have as the Lord destroys his enemies.

And so, another way that you can grow in joy is by singing. You know, too many people only sing to the Lord on Sunday. You should really be singing every day. Part of our church covenant is to worship the Lord daily.

Part of the worship of the Lord is singing. You should be singing to the Lord. And it should be something that, where you are contemplating the words that are being said, and you are filling your heart with right, rightly framed thoughts about the salvation that you have in the Lord.

There's a reason that God has decided that we should praise him with music. And not just with words in monotone, but rather with rising and falling voices. And that is because these truths are so good that we should be drilling them in our hearts with song, with something that emotionally captures that truth.

And once again, if he has given something to us by which we are to, are to contemplate these truths and grow in our appreciation of them and our joy in them, how can you expect to be joyful apart from taking advantage of these means that he's given us?

And I would, I would encourage you to, that not just singing to sing, but, but even learning how to engage in this better. You know, other aspects of the Christian life, it is very easy to recognize that we should grow in them.

You know, people are always talking about their Bible reading plans and how they want to grow in their study of scripture. And they talk about their prayer life and how they want to go, grow in their prayer life.

They talk about various Christian disciplines and how they want to grow in them. Who have you ever heard talk about growing in singing? Now, maybe, maybe you have heard someone, that's great if you have, but it seems like it's just so rare compared to the other areas of Christian worship and discipline that we, that we hope to grow in.

But this is something that you can grow in. You can train your voice as you sing more to praise God more heartily and to grow as one who has, who has practiced in this, this gift that God has given us to enjoy Him by.

You know, just once again, how can you expect to have joy in the Lord if you are not using the means He has given us to contemplate the truth, that salvation, that gives us such joy? All right, then he continues on here.

And he says, battling with brandished arm, he will fight them. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight them. His arm is brandished. You know what that means? It means it's shown off. He is showing off.

He is not just simply defeating the enemy in a way where he doesn't necessarily get credit. He is defeating the enemy in a way to, to show off. You ever see, uh, uh, professional wrestlers where they, you know, do a lot of taunting and things like that?

Because the point of, of, you know, all the, uh, activity in that is not just to see who's the strongest because it's, it's not really about strength. It's all being staged. Sorry if I burst any bubbles there.

But, uh, it is, it is to show off and gloat and to make a big deal about how strong you are. And this is what God is doing, right? He is, of course, He is almighty. Of course, He could just wipe out enemies like that, but He is doing it in such a way so that He gets full credit and He is showing off His strength.

He is revealing His arm. He is pulling up His sleeve and revealing His arm. And it is Jesus Christ who is that arm of the Lord who has been revealed to man that God has sent His Son to walk among us and to show us who He is and to demonstrate that strength by defeating enemies through His death on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection.

And this is something that has been accomplished for us so that we can have great joy, so that we can have salvation, yes, but so that we can enjoy that salvation as well, looking to Jesus who has accomplished it, enjoying the Lord, just as the catechism question asks, what is the chief end of man?

Chief end of man is to, to love God and enjoy Him forever, right? We must, uh, we must enjoy the Lord. And how do we enjoy the Lord? Except for through, uh, enjoying His salvation. How do we enjoy salvation?

Except for the means that He has given us to enjoy His salvation. And so what I'm, what I'm presenting you today is not a list of, uh, to-do items that you need to, you need to do in order to make yourself right with God.

What I'm presenting to you is the fact that if you have trust in Jesus Christ, you are already right with God and you have a right to such joy. And the only thing that is needed in order to experience that joy is to take advantage of the means that God has given you of experiencing that joy and looking to Him so that you might, uh, might know what is true, so that you might contemplate the one who has given you salvation and have joy in Him, preparing your heart for that day when you get to be with Him forever.

Uh, praise the Lord for this joy that He has offered in His Son. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for the great salvation that you have provided through Him.

And we ask that you would give us a great joy in that. That we would not, uh, fail to contemplate the wonder of what He has done, the depth of our own sin and the great riches of His majesty and strength and grace and, and granting us this salvation.

But Lord, that we would contemplate these things, even through the means which you have given us, and that, uh, you by your Spirit would fill us with, with an excellent joy. In Jesus' name, amen.