Sunday, September 22, 2024 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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1, and we will be reading verses 27 through 31.

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Isaiah chapter 1, verses 27 through 31.

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Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for the night, I thank you for the rain, I thank you for your word, thank you for your

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Holy Spirit, and pray that by his guidance and grace in our lives that we would give a hearty amen to the truths that you have given to us here in this text.

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Truths that glorify your name as they reveal your Son. We pray these things in his name, amen.

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So we are wrapping up Isaiah chapter 1 in seeing the condition of the city, the attention of God upon Israel in dealing with their covenant breaking has become ever more specific and focusing in on the city, and the nature of the city, the condition of the city, and the outcome of his judgment upon the city.

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There's a lot going on in the world, and there's a lot of consequences because of Israel's failure to to keep covenant that affects the entirety of the world, and the

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Assyrians are abroad, and so on. But as God deals with his people and their covenant breaking, he focuses in on Jerusalem and focuses in on Zion, and deals with matters there.

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And it's all towards the purpose of bringing them to a point of promise and a point of hope that he's going to make a new

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Jerusalem, that there's going to be a heavenly, unshakable, holy, undefiled

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Mount Zion. And he's pointing them to a greater hope. In very like fashion, this is exactly what you have in the book of Revelation, the broad scope of the covenant breaking of Israel focusing in ultimately on the cities, and you go from seals that are broad, trumpets that are less broad, and bowls being dumped right on top of the covenant breaking city, and all for the purpose of getting to the point of talking about the new

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Jerusalem and the new Mount Zion. So we have here the last reflections of Isaiah 1, and God speaking about the promise of redemption, but through destruction and judgment.

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So Isaiah chapter 1, verse 27, "...Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her penitents with righteousness.

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The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together. And those who forsake the

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Lord shall be consumed, for they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired, and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen.

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For you shall be as a terebinth, whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.

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The strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark. Both will burn together, and no one shall quench them."

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You think about Isaiah, and we hear about his call in chapter 6, and what was going on near the beginning of Isaiah's ministry in the year that King Uzziah died.

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Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1. But what a job Isaiah volunteered for after encountering

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God in his thrice -holy state in his throne room. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 8,

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Isaiah says, "...Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

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Then I said, Here am I, send me." And this is usually the quintessential verse preached on at every missions conference.

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But what did Isaiah just sign up for? Ah, we keep reading. Verse 9, and he said, "...Go

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and tell this people, Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

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Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed."

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Well, that's unexpected. Remember Jonah's reticence to go to Nineveh?

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He didn't want to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Cruel, cruel Assyria. He didn't want to go there because, and he reasoned, that by preaching this warning from God, they may repent, turn from their wicked ways, and God would spare the city.

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Because he knew God would be merciful if they did that, and he did not want Nineveh to have the opportunity to repent.

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He wanted them burned to a crisp. Isaiah is sent to preach a word to Jerusalem that would dull their hearing, shut their eyes, close their ears, and ensure that judgment would come to pass.

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That's the kind of message Jonah would have loved to preach in Nineveh, and yet it's not the message that Isaiah, I think, really wanted to have to preach to his own people, whom we see he loved and he served in his lifetime.

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And his concern is evidenced by verse 11, where he asked, and I said, "'Lord, how long?'

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And he answered, "'Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, and the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate.

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The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

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But yet a tenth," here we have the theme of the remnant, "'but yet a tenth will be in it, and will return and be for consuming, as a terebinth tree or as an oak.'"

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Remember that, as a terebinth tree or as an oak. "'Whose stump remains when it is cut down, so the holy seed shall be in its stump.'"

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It's important that we mention that, as we think about Isaiah's calling to preach in the way that he's preaching here in Isaiah chapter 1, the terebinths show up in our passage.

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The terebinth trees that are slated for burning, for destruction, they show up in our passage as well in verse 29 and 30, and the fate of them in verse 31.

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So, as Isaiah preaches these difficult sermons, these sermons are necessary because they exalt the glorious nature and character of God, while at the same time exposing the shameful nature and character of Israel.

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It must be stated in clear, covenantal, and in a sense, legal terms, as God is bringing charges.

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He's called heaven and earth as witnesses. He's bringing charges against Israel, who are in covenant with him.

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He's bringing charges against them. So, it must be stated in careful, covenantal, indeed legal fashion, that the rebellion of Israel is both entrenched and egregious, and as far as God is concerned, it's exhaustive and exhausting.

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In every way that God had organized Israel into godliness by his covenant with them, in every possible way, they've gone astray.

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They've gone astray, and if they don't outright profane him and prostitute themselves to every idol under every green tree, then they're just playing the hypocrite when they do go through the motions of the required worship.

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And so, God sends his prophet with the word to preach to them, and he hits them in this passage we've been in from verse 21 and following.

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God hits them with a poem, he gives them promises, and he gives them a parable. And right now, we're looking at verses 28 to 31, as the city's rebels are punished.

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Unsurprisingly, God takes aim at idols. He's aiming at the idols in their midst.

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In the heart of every rebel, there reigns a lie. In the heart of every rebel, there is enthroned a lie.

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And that lie is ever cast in the mold of some idol.

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Some idol. Some covetous desire. So, we see that in our passage as well.

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Now, verse 28 shows us the destruction of sinners. The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the

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Lord shall be consumed. Now, this is in contrast to verse 27, because it says that Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her penitence with righteousness.

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The word penitence means those who turn, or those who repent. So, those who return are contrasted with those who forsake.

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Those who are penitent is in contrast with those who rebel. And when we read in verse 28 about transgressors and sinners and those who forsake

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God, those are the three key terms at the beginning of the chapter in verses 2 and 4.

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When these themes are first introduced, and now we come back to them again. So, bookends for this composition.

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What is the end of the transgressors and the sinners and those who forsake the Lord? Well, they're going to be consumed. They're going to be consumed.

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They're going to be destroyed. All of them together. And truly, given

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Scripture's own terms, given the promises of God, what other outcome could possibly be envisioned?

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It's a good time to remember. It's been many months since we've talked about it, but Isaiah chapter 1 has 28 different parallels or textual allusions back to Leviticus 26 and the territory of Deuteronomy 28.

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You know, the passages that talk about God promising to bring his curses. If you break covenant with me, then

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I'm going to bring all these judgments upon you. Isaiah 1 is chock -full of allusions and quotes and echoes from that territory of the

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Torah, the first five books of the Bible. God calls heaven and earth as witnesses, even as he did when he made covenant with Israel at Sinai, and now he's been listing out all of the charges against them, and this is the wrapping up part of the accusations against Israel.

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So, the outcome is clear. He promised that they would be destroyed, and so he's going to follow through with that.

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Now, they may have envisioned many other different possibilities for themselves and figured that everything was going to be fine because of this factor or that factor.

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The ungodly derive strength from consensus. The ungodly derive strength from consensus.

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Think about Romans chapter 1, verse 28. Even as they did not like to retain

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God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do the things which are not fitting. A debased mind is one that has ears that do not hear and eyes that do not see, whose mind grows dull and they do not understand, the kind that Isaiah was preaching to.

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So, very same territory. Verse 29 of Romans 1, they are filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil -mindedness.

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They are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, disobedient, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.

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This is the fruit of being a part outside of Christ. This is what the death of sin looks like.

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Verse 32. Now, here's where they derive strength, though. How can you even continue in this? Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, and how do they know?

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They know, but they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Paul already covered that in verses 18 and 19 and following.

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Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

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You see? They derive strength by consensus. You know, I feel guilty,

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I feel oppressed, I feel opposed, I feel like living the life that I want to live based on whatever desires

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I have in the moment just doesn't work out well for me, so I feel like everyone's against me. Well, it's actually because you're trying to swim upstream against the current of how

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God made the world. So, of course, you're going to feel oppressed. God is your oppressor. He's against you. But, you know, how am

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I going to get through life continuing my own way and affirming, as the Enlightenment taught, that whatever I have in my heart,

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I must affirm and follow, and that's true virtue? Well, we'll have a parade and sanctify it by a parade or something.

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So, the ungodly derive strength by consensus. Well, everybody has a terebinth tree, everybody has an oak tree, everybody has a garden shrine, everybody's offering up sacrifices.

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This is the way that Jerusalem just operates now. If you don't have a garden and a shrine, you look like you're not a patriotic citizen of Jerusalem.

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It means that you're not concerned about the health and welfare of the city. You don't care about the prosperity, you don't care about the field, you don't care about the virility of our people and our flocks if you don't have this shrine in your backyard.

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You unpatriotic swine, if you don't fall in line with whatever the current idolatry is.

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I love that shirt from the Babylon Bee, I support the current thing, right?

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Always virtuous. As long as I support the current thing, you can't complain.

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Well, the destruction is going to come suddenly.

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We are reminded by the book of Proverbs that destruction falls suddenly.

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Those who stiffen their neck suddenly, without warning, suddenly the destruction comes.

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That's the warning. Now, the basic idea of continuing on in sin, continuing on in rebellion, is the idea that, well, judgment is never going to come.

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Destruction is not going to come. A day of reckoning is not going to come, and as long as everyone is saying that, that I will bear to listen to, we can all agree that we're never going to face any kind of judgment, and so we're going to feel much better.

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So, the strength comes from consensus, but also you get courage from what is considered to be normalcy.

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Peter talks about the scoffers in the last days, walking according to their own lust, saying, where is the promise of his coming?

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For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation, and they willfully forget the way that God overturned heaven and earth with the flood, right?

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He says, verse 5, 2nd Peter 3, 5, for this they willfully forget that by the word of God, the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water, and in the water, right?

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That's Genesis 1. By his word, he made the heavens and the earth, and he separated the water from the waters, and that was all by his word, okay?

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And that by that same word, verse 6, by which, by that same word, the world that then existed perished.

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In other words, the heavens and the earth of that world perished, and the word is very strong in the

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Greek, were destroyed and wiped away, being flooded with water. And we still live on a planet that bears evidence of that flood everywhere we look.

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I mean, it is stunning and in your face. And the moon that God made by his word, and placed to govern our months and our evenings, and the sun that he made to to govern our days, and the stars that he made to govern our seasons, all the heavens are still there, and planet earth is still here, but Peter says that they were utterly, completely destroyed.

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So, which is it? What he's doing here is using a turn of phrase that is common in the

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Bible to say that when everything gets overturned in terms of, in terms of the system, in terms of governance, in terms of anything familiar about who's in charge and how things work, when an entire system gets completely overturned, it's the passing away of heavens and earth, okay?

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So, that's the way we should read that. He's using a turn of phrase. So, what happened before Noah, the way that things were going, we find that it's different after Noah.

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And then God starts, because what happened before Noah was sin filling up the earth, and there was violence everywhere, and it was the theme of Lamech.

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Well, if Cain was avenged sevenfold, then I'll be avenged 77 -fold. And violence filled up the earth, sexual immorality filled up the earth, and then

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God was sorry, he made man, he flooded the whole earth, wiped the start over with Noah, and then after the flood, he makes a covenant with Noah, and then we start having covenants.

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And we start having covenants, covenants that were shaped in the fashion of creation, but anticipating the coming of Christ.

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And these covenants begin to build on each other and roll forward like a big snowball, and eventually they're called not just the covenants and the promises, but they're also called the old covenant.

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And then the stewards of the old covenant, the stewards of the old covenant begin to be unfaithful, and they begin to break covenant with God, and they begin to sin against him, and then

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God is sorry that he is covenanted with them, and what does he do with that heaven and earth?

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Goes away. So we have a new heaven and new earth. Like, I think we should live on planet

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Earth. Yeah, we do. We should live on planet Earth. Yes, but there's a whole new system. The temple itself, the temple itself was designed after Eden, designed after creation.

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The entirety of the created order in themes of the heavens and the earth and the entirety of God's creation were infused into the tabernacle, into the temple.

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It was a new heaven and a new earth. It was a new way of, it was a new way of, a clearer way of relating to God, recognizing the condition of the created person, and how to relate to God in faith and anticipation of the one to come,

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Christ. But when the temple is destroyed, it's like the overturning of heaven and earth.

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That's why the disciples asked the questions they asked in Matthew 24. The point is that what

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Peter is saying here is that the people of his day were saying, everything's fine, everything's fine.

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The people of Jeremiah's day said the same thing about the temple. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord. People in Isaiah's day said the same thing.

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And they keep on forgetting, and Peter's point is, they keep on forgetting that God overturned everything.

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You think he won't do it? He's done it. There's prerequisites here. So, the courage of idolaters, the courage of the rebellion, of the rebellious comes from the idea of normalcy.

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Oh, it's always going to be the same, the same, the same. But Jesus warned time and again, you have no idea when it's all going to come to an end, and you need to be under correct authority and repent and turn to God.

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So, the destruction of the sinners is combined with their desires, which are now shamed in verse 29.

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For they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees, and notice how the focus turns from promise to pointing at the people for which you have desired, and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen.

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So, this word desire is the same word, you have it a lot through the Old Testament, but it's comad. Then it comes from thou shalt not covet.

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And when you have desire that you, where there's desire after something that has been forbidden to you, that's covetousness. That's the

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Hebrew word comad. It says you have desired these terebinth trees, you have coveted these, you have worshipped these, these are idols.

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In 2nd Kings 17, it describes how Israel would find all these trees and worship under them, thinking that they would gain fertility for their families and their crops and their herds, if they would worship under high tall green trees.

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Isaiah 65 and 66, God condemns the gardens filled with idols that Israel and the citizens of Jerusalem engaged in.

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So, that's what is going on here in this passage. They've got sacred trees and sacred gardens and idol spaces in their courtyards, and they've filled

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Jerusalem with this because they're looking to the gods, they're looking to these superstitions to bring them prosperity, but they're going to be ashamed in these desires because these terebinth trees and these gardens and everything is going to be consumed.

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Those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed, therefore they're going to be ashamed.

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What we have here in the idea of being ashamed is that they are exposed. The ideas of what they believe are untrue and that's going to be exposed, and they're gonna be thoroughly disappointed in what they have chosen.

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Now, the desires that are being held here in verse 29 have to do with the people trying to make

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Eden on their own terms. They would like to have

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Eden on man -exalting terms. They've got their trees there, they've got their garden there, they're on a mountain, they've got their city where they're going to dwell with God, just like Adam and Eve were dwelling with God.

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They're boasting of a life that they have there and the communion that they have there, but it is vain for those who are made in God's image to try to build

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Eden without God, as if they could find it without God.

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This is deeply rooted in humanity to have Eden, but man doesn't understand what

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Eden in paradise is without God. This is why the modern paradise green movement is all about seeking paradise through the elimination of man, through the elimination of man.

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Something I learned just the other day was I was kind of humorous, that as temperatures increase on earth, human population goes up.

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Let that sink in a little bit. As temperatures go up on earth, human population rises because more people are able to live and there's more agriculture.

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So the people who want the temperatures to go down want the population to do what? Go down.

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That's right. Very interesting. So then there's a disaster upon those who think that they're strong in verses 30 and 31.

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Here comes the parable. They're putting their focus on terebinth trees and these gardens, but then

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Isaiah uses this parable. It says, you shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fades.

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You worship the terebinth tree. You're going to be like a terebinth tree. You worship in these gardens.

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You're going to be like a garden, but you're going to be as a terebinth tree whose leaf fades and as a garden that has no water.

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You think that you're strong, but in fact, you're just kindling. You're going to be as tender and the work of it as a spark.

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You're going to be like tender that sparks itself. Pretty flammable. Both will burn together and none shall quench them.

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So you're going to be so flammable that nobody can put you out. You're going to be like an electronic vehicle's battery. Nobody's going to be able to put the fire out once it starts.

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That kind of judgment. So the idolater, we notice, is the one who makes the shrine, makes the garden, tends the tree, but also then becomes the tree and becomes the garden.

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We see that? The idolater is both, by default, both the maker of the idol and then the idolater is made by the idol.

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Even made into the idol. Because the lie that is enthroned in the heart of the rebel is in the mold of some idol, some covetous desire, which is self -ward.

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And in Psalm 115, in describing the idols of the Gentiles, that they are silver and gold, the work of men's hands, they make these idols, that they have mouths that do not speak and eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear and noses that do not smell and hands that do not handle and feet that do not walk and they don't mutter through their throat.

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Verse 8 says, those who make them are like them, so is everyone who trusts in them.

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And so here Isaiah is saying, you worship the oaks, you worship the terebinth trees, you worship these gardens, you're going to be like these oaks, you're going to be like these gardens.

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Gardens without water, trees without water, and you're going to be consumed like so much kindling.

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So what we're hearing is there's no sap in the tree, there's no water in the garden.

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If there's no sap in the tree, no water in the garden, there's no life, there's no strength. There actually is no strength, there is actually no life in these idols.

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And the garden that we should desire, the garden that we should desire, the mountain that we remember, the city that has foundations that even

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Abraham looked for, this Eden is made new by the gardener who

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Miriam thought she saw in the garden. And he really was the gardener because he's the head of the new creation, he's the last

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Adam. He comes and he makes the whole thing new. And if we become like what we worship, then shouldn't we worship

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Christ? If we become like what we worship, shouldn't we worship Christ?

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Christlikeness is what godliness is. And by worshiping Christ, we become like that which we worship.

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2 Corinthians 3 .18 says that we all with unveiled face, our faces unveiled by Christ, beholding

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Christ in the scriptures. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the

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Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the

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Spirit of the Lord. So with unveiled face, we look in the Word of God and we see Christ. And as we see him, as we look at him in the

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Word, we begin to look like him in this world. We become like that which we worship.

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And this is why what God is doing and promising here at the end of Isaiah is so essential.

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The idols have to be done away with, the idols have to be burned up, the idols have to go away. And they have to be displaced by the glory of God.

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The grace of God is at work to topple idols from our mantles. Covetous desires fall off the mantel place, rebel agendas fail and shatter off the mantel place as they are displaced by glory.

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Glory is in the metaphors of weight and light in motion. Everything begins to shift, all of a sudden the gravitation, the gravity just shifts and everything falls off the mantel place.

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Or put it another way, how careful, I think remember, I think this was in our driver's ed, how should you drive your car?

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Like grandma is sitting in her Sunday best in the backseat holding a brimming full peach cobbler, right?

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But should there be a sudden shift and acceleration or braking or turning, all of a sudden the meaning of gravitational force is going to be made extremely clear.

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And this is what happens when we encounter the glory of Christ and the glory of God. Things shift in our life and there are some things that fall over and go away and there are some things that remain.

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That's a good thing, as we are continually sanctified in the light of Jesus Christ.

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Okay, so next time our goal will be to look at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 2 and hear about that new mountain, that new city, that new garden where God wants his people to look and find their hope.