The Importance Of Leadership

Well, today's text will be in Isaiah 3, Isaiah 3, 1 through 15.

So if you turn there, I will read the text for you. For behold, the

Lord God of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply, all support of bread and all support of water, the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the skillful magician and the expert in charms.

And I will make boys their princes and infants shall rule over them. And the people will oppress one another, everyone his fellow and everyone his neighbor.

The youth will be insolent to the elder and the despised to the honorable. For a man will take hold of his brother in the house of his father saying,

You have a cloak. You shall be our leader and this heap of ruins shall be under your rule.

In that day, he will speak out saying, I will not be a healer and my house there is neither bread nor cloak.

You shall not make me leader of the people. For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because their speech and their deeds are against the

Lord, defying his glorious presence. For the look on their faces bears witness against them.

They proclaim their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.

Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked.

It shall be ill with him. For what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him.

My people, infants are their oppressors and women rule over them. Oh my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.

The Lord has taken to his place to contend. He stands to judge peoples. The Lord will enter into judgment with the people—with the elders and princes of his people.

It is you who have devoured the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people?

By grinding the face of the poor, declares the Lord God of hosts. Amen. So, this is a text that is about leadership.

It's a text that is about bad leadership. Now, when I was in college,

I remember there were a lot of classes on leadership. There were fraternities that you could join about leadership, and I never really understood what all that was about.

It seemed like what I heard went on in these were just about people excelling at what they do, and then gathering together to sort of pretentiously pat each other on the back for excelling in what they do.

I did not understand how important good leadership is, or that it involves skills beyond just excelling in things.

I feel differently about that now. If you think about the leaders that have been placed in your life, you know, family leader like a father, or political leaders, or if you think about elders in a church, these people shape your life to the nth degree.

Think about how different your life would be if each one of those was changed out with someone different, who had an entirely different philosophy of leadership, and a different way of leading, a different moral guide.

This is a text about moral leadership. So, imagine if they had different dispositions.

If our government had a different idea of what justice was, and what right and wrong were. If a father or a husband in the family that you're a part of had a different idea of what was right or wrong.

They had a different disposition toward the church. Imagine if our own pastor, Josh, had different ideas about what right and wrong looked like, and was guiding us in a different direction.

Leaders hold our souls in their very hands, and it is a weighty, weighty thing.

So, Isaiah will be telling us about leadership, about poor leadership.

Not just how poor it is, but where it comes from, and what we are to do about it.

And throughout all this, it will point us to Christ, and show us that he needs to be our ultimate leader, because we cannot ultimately trust men the way that we can trust him.

Listen to these first three verses. For behold, the Lord God of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply, all support of bread and all support of water, the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the skillful magician, and the expert in charms.

So, you have the mighty man and the soldier, those who are able to protect physically. You have the judge and the prophet, those who offer wisdom.

The diviner and the elder, similarly, people who offer wisdom. Captain of fifty, man of rank, once again, people offering physical protection.

When it talks about the counselor and the skillful magician and the expert in charms, it might be talking about sinful trades.

When you have lists like this in Hebrew— Isaiah is written in Hebrew—it's not always clear what each word means.

This could, in some translations, do translate some of these words. Artificer, like an engineer.

So, it's not entirely clear what all these words refer to. But if they do refer to sinful trades, then they're saying that God is taking away all competent leadership, whether it's illegitimate or legitimate.

This is what he is going to be doing to Judah. Now, the first thing to notice here is that this is something that God is doing.

Now, it might be easy for us to look at this and say, oh, well, this is just this one time that God did this to Judah.

But the Bible frequently tells us of how God is sovereign over all rulers, and he puts rulers into power.

So, the rulers that we have, the leadership that we have, ultimately comes from God. Daniel 2 .21

says, It is

God who does these things. All these things he holds in his hand. Now, why is he doing this to Judah?

You know, when you have chapters like this in the Bible, sometimes you can think that, ah, this is an individual unit. I don't— it can kind of keep you from reading it in context, but the previous verse is actually pretty important here.

Verse 22 says, These people have committed the sin of trusting in man rather than trusting in God.

They trust in their leaders. They're counting on them to get them through hard times. They're counting on them to ultimately provide whatever salvation it is that they need, whether it be military salvation or just peace within the country.

They have relied on their leaders in a way that has tossed God aside.

So, God removes all these leaders to show them the foolishness of relying in man.

He says, That is—that is a statement that something is coming immediately.

Look, you can almost see it on the horizon. It's happening. God's going to do it. Even if today you have good leaders, you don't know that they might instantly be pulled away.

This is something that God does to reveal himself in the ways that he sees fit.

And it is, uh, it is a grave thing. He talks about support and supply, all support of bread and all support of water.

So it is equated here with the very necessities of life. God is pulling away these things to show these people that he is sovereign, and he is the one who must be trusted.

Trusting in man is like trusting—it would be like mountain climbing with rotten ropes.

This is what—this is what trusting in man is like. He might be trustworthy one day, but at any point he could give way on you.

Whether or not it's a good leader, like pastors should be, that can give way at any point in time.

But Jesus is unchanging. Hebrews 13, 8 says, he is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

And it's not just that he provides, uh, a moral authority that is unchanging.

It's not just that his guidance is unchanging, but he himself is an unchanging savior. If we are counting on him for our salvation, counting on him to see us through whatever it is, he is unchanging.

He is always trustworthy. This next section talks about how woeful poor leadership is, how—how much of an affliction it is to have bad leadership.

And I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow, and every one his neighbor.

The youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable. So boys, princes, and infants ruling over them is not—I don't think it's certain this is saying that there will be child kings, literally.

But it is saying that the people who rule over them will have the maturity of infants.

And that is something that many people endure today. Uh, family leaders who never really grew up and are not—not leading.

Uh, pastors who are, uh, who are basing their wisdom not on scripture, but on other ideas that they have that aren't—aren't fully matured in Christ.

This is—this is a threat that—that stands in front of us even today. The people will oppress one another, every one his fellow, and every one his neighbor.

It might not be clear what—what the suppressing one another is all about. But if you don't have a leader, and there's no one leading you, it's every man for himself.

That's the idea. Everyone is fighting each other. The youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable.

If you don't have a leader setting the standard for who's to be respected, and who is not to be respected, then even those intermediate forms of wisdom beyond that top -level leadership is not respected, and you lose all these blessings, all this direction that you would have had otherwise.

Not having a good leader is like trying to orienteer without—with a broken compass, a compass that's pointing you in the wrong direction.

Verse 6. For man will take hold of his brother and the house of his father, saying,

You have a cloak. You shall be our leader. And this heap of ruins shall be under your rule. And that day he will speak out, saying,

I will not be a healer. My house there is neither bread nor cloak. You shall not make me leader of the people.

So here you have two people, just as a matter of household discussion, not, you know, in some court where these things might be decided.

As a matter of household discussion, whether or not they should lead the people and rule. And you have the standard being set low.

Ah, if you have a cloak, that's good enough. If you've heard the statement, I believe this comes from a

Jewish tradition that in the land of the blind, the one -eyed man is king. In the land of the naked, the one -cloaked man is king.

That's what it's saying here. If you have anything, you could rule over because the people have nothing, but then the rulers have nothing to offer.

He says, I have no cloak. I have nothing. And the people have nothing in return. It's a heap of ruins, so no one wants the job.

And then moreover, this one who might be a ruler has no compassion.

He says, I will not be a healer. This is a man speaking to his brother. It reminds me of the first two brothers.

Right? Cain says, am I my brother's keeper? There's no compassion.

Once again, this should be turning our eyes to Jesus. We should think how Jesus excels in each one of these.

Is he an infant? No. He is very mature, very wise. He is described in Revelation as having white hair, right?

White hair is not something that we necessarily think of as as beautiful, but in Scripture, it's talked about as something that is, because it designates this person has wisdom.

And is Jesus compassionate? Yes, he is. He's compassionate to the point of death, willing to die for us.

He is the greatest leader, and we should trust in him so that God does not have to take whatever good leadership we have in order that we might turn to him.

We should be turning to him, and not only that, looking at this picture of woeful leadership.

We should be praying for our leaders as we are commanded in the Bible. We should be praying for them, because that blessing, if it's unappreciated, it will be quickly lost.

Verse 8. For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the

Lord, defying his glorious presence. For the look on their faces bears witness against them.

They proclaim their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it. Woe to them, for they have brought evil on themselves.

This passage lets us know that poor leadership is often a judgment from God, a result of sin.

Their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, both how they talk and their actions, both of these things being against the

Lord, and openly so. It says, they proclaim their sin like Sodom.

They do not hide it. Because of their evil, because of their evil,

God is sending them poor leadership. He's taking away their competent leadership, sending them poor leadership. He says, for they have brought evil on themselves.

What that lets us know is that it's not just a divine judgment from God, but in a way, it is a self -appointed judgment.

I think for us, this might be easier to see than for other cultures, because we live in a democratic republic.

So we get to see how the people's current set of values and current set of morals determines what kind of leaders they get.

They self -appoint these things. But that's true even without that form of government. Look at the church.

The church will get the kind of leader that it wants. It will value certain things, and then that leader will be raised up who values the same things they value.

And if people are sinful, and they worship some idol, whatever that idol be, whether that idol be greed or immoral lifestyles, if they are worshiping that idol, and they invest into it and invest into it,

God will give them over to that and make that idol incarnate in the form of a leader. But we have a better incarnation, right?

If we are worshiping God, if we are worshiping the Lord, he has sent us Jesus Christ. He has sent us

Jesus Christ who can provide forgiveness for our sins so that we do not have to suffer the same affliction that Judah had to suffer.

And think about it is how Jesus went to the cross. Jesus went to the cross living in a world with bad leadership, right?

Living in a world where man was telling him different things, and he did not fear man. He instead feared God even to the point of the cross.

Jesus said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

Jesus feared God. He has succeeded where we have failed, and he has died in our place suffering the punishment that was due to us so that we don't have to suffer the kind of affliction that we see these people suffering.

Instead, we can have him as our leader, following him, being led on to glory.

Verse 10. Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him.

So whether or not you are capable of surviving poor leadership is contingent on whether or not you are righteous.

You have the wicked who fall under bad leadership. They most likely don't even realize they're under poor leadership, think the situation is fine and do not find and do not realize they're being led astray.

Whereas the righteous, the righteous in serving the

Lord, have another leader, one higher than that poor leader who is leading them astray, and so they are able to survive.

The righteous under poor leadership is as safe or as in danger as a fish on a sinking ship.

So if you're a fish on a sinking ship, it would—ship is often a metaphor for leadership.

But if you're a fish, you have a greater king, a greater sea, and you're not concerned if the ship goes down.

You have a greater leader. Jesus Christ is that greater leader that we should be following that can take us through all these things.

Verse 12. My people, infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. Oh, my people, your guides mislead you, and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.

The Lord has taken his place to contend. He stands to judge peoples. The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of his people.

It is you who have devoured the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?

Declare us, Lord God of hosts. So here you have a statement that not only is

God giving infants as leaders, but they already have infants as leaders. I don't think that this is what people call the prophetic perfect, where Isaiah is saying something as though it's already happened and it hasn't yet.

I think he's really saying, because he says that they have misled you, that this is the reason why the people are sinful, is because their leaders are already poor.

They're already pointing them in the wrong direction morally. So not only does poor leadership result from sin, but often, and perhaps even universally, so sin results from poor leadership.

It is a self -perpetuating problem. How can you break that cycle? The people are misled.

They've got this straight and narrow path that's being pushed aside by their poor leaders.

It is a vicious cycle, and only God can break it. That is the only way to get out of it, is instead of relying on human leaders, is to rely on God and the leader that he has put in place, which is

Jesus Christ. The Lord has taken his place to contend. He stands to judge peoples. The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders and the princes of his people.

We know that this happened at that time, and we also might be thinking ahead to when

Christ will return and do this again, but think about what happened when Christ first came to earth. This is exactly what he stood against.

The people were misled by the Pharisees and the other religious leaders at the time who taught the commandments, taught the traditions of men as the commandments of God.

There was all this poor leadership leading the people into sin, and Jesus contended against them and fought them and created a new people ready to persevere through all of that.

He has already judged them, and he will return and he will judge them again. All those spiritual leaders who lead the people astray, teaching them not to heed the gospel, teaching them that they are heeding the gospel when they are not,

Jesus Christ will return to judge each and every one of these people, and if we are not following him, we will be found guilty along with them.

And so I have some questions that I would like you to ask yourself to decide whether or not you are trusting in the

Lord as you ought, or whether or not you are trusting in men. First of all, think of the thing that causes you the most anxiety, and then ask yourself, one, does it have to do with leadership?

So is that thing something in your workplace where you have some leadership issue that's causing you anxiety?

Is that thing in your family where you have a family leader who causes you anxiety because it is something that you cannot control?

Ask yourself these things, and then ask, if you had your eyes on the Lord and were trusting him ultimately as leadership and not fearing man, would you feel differently?

Would you have a different anxiety level? Would that shape your anxiety differently so that you would cast your fears upon the

Lord? And then secondly, I would ask, if you consider yourself to be one who follows the

Lord, what does that look like in your daily life? He has set—he has set goals, he has set standards, he has given us guidance, and he has given that through his apostles in the

New Testament. Is the Bible something that you're going to, on a regular basis—and not regular like yearly, regular like daily—or is it something you're going to daily to be guided by?

Now, if you ask yourselves these things, I hope that you will see that there is room for improvement, that there is room for following Christ in a way that you have not previously.

But as I said before, there is forgiveness, because Christ lived a perfect life trusting in God, not fearing man, and he has died in our place.

And then not only that, he has given us his word, he has given us his spirit to interpret that word and to give us the strength to continue trusting in him and following in him.

Because without that, we would be just like the people of Judah, trusting in man, trusting in ourselves, trusting in things that will ultimately fail us.

But if we rely on Christ and on his spirit within us, and we are turning our eyes to him, we can weather any situation, no matter if our leaders are good or if our leaders are wicked.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for being sovereign over all things.

We thank you for the leadership that you have put in place. We know that regardless of what leadership it is, you could always give us worse leadership.

So we thank you for the leadership that we have, and we thank you for the good leadership that we have. We ask that you would keep us from sin, that you would help us to keep our eyes on your

Son, and that by your Holy Spirit, we would be led on regardless of what winds, of what winds of leadership turn us aside.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, our next hymn will be number 195, which

I'll have to look up what this is again. Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed, 195.

Defo 'ed that sacred head, for such a worm as I.