Sunday, October 27, 2024 PM

10 through 22 in a moment, but let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for the time that you've given to us. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we can read it and study it, that we may know more about you and to see things from your point of view.

We ask that you would help us with that by your Holy Spirit, that you would help us to rejoice in the truth of your Son, Jesus Christ, as we read about him in this word. We pray that you would bless our fellowship and our time together tonight.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Isaiah chapter 2, beginning in verse 10. Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops.

The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols he shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

Sever yourself from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he? So in Isaiah chapter 1, there is an entire address concerning Jerusalem and Judea, the rebellion of Judah, how Judah is so rebellious they have forgotten God, the one who made them, and the one who called them his own son.

They don't even remember that they have a father, they're so rebellious. Chapter 2 begins afresh as God describes the kind of Jerusalem, the kind of Mount Zion that he constructs, that he builds. And Jacob is even invited to come to this Jerusalem in verse 5.

Verses 1 -4 describe the kind of Jerusalem, the kind of Mount Zion, the kind of place that God envisions that he has in mind in the new covenant. And then in verse 5 he invites even Jacob to come along with all the other nations into the mountain of the Lord, which of course we see as a spiritual reality.

After all, Mount Zion, the mountain of the Lord's house, being exalted above all the other hills and mountains, and so that this mountain sits on top of all the other mountains all at the same time. That's a metaphor to express how all the nations are being called to come up into Mount Zion, a picture that we find in the New Testament as well, Galatians 4, Hebrews 12, and so on, and Revelation 21.

So now we come to after Jacob is invited to come to this Mount Zion, to come to this new covenant vision, verses 6 -9 of Isaiah 2 describe again the problem that Judah has forsaken God and so he has forsaken them.

They trust in themselves, they trust in idols, they trust in military power, they trust in wealth, but all these things fail. Now they're listed for us in verses 7 -9, and then in reverse order they are shown to be false trust.

So in verses 10 -19 we talked about trusting in self, and we looked at that passage last time, and we saw that the day of the Lord brings righteous reversals, wherein man is very lofty because he thinks a lot of himself but very little of God.

But when God exalts His name in judgment, the pride of men fails, the loftiness of man is now humbled, and there is this righteous reversal. And every time God is exalted, man is humbled, and that's the way it always is.

And that's really the theme of verses 10 -19. As many times as we're reading through there, 20 different times, we hear about the expression of something that's haughty and uplifted being humbled and brought low as God is being exalted.

So now we come to verses 20 -22. And let's look at that passage again. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made. The men who worship them, who have been carrying them around, they made these idols of silver, they made these idols of gold, each for himself to worship.

Where does he cast them away? To the moles and bats. Why? To go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

Consider that now a command, now a piece of advice. Sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils. For of what account is he? So when we are thinking about this passage, we look at this, we see the end of idolatry, the end of idolatry.

This is where things end up. This is the outcome of idol worship. We've already heard that idols are connected to the pride of men in verse 18. But here a special focus is placed upon idolatry and how everything turns out on the day of the Lord.

So when we think about idolatry, we could think about what is its goal. Why do people have idols? Why do people make idols in ancient times? And why do people have idols today? 1 John chapter 5 concludes with this note.

Little children, beware of idols. Not just an Old Testament problem, but a New Testament problem. That idols are still a matter of concern. Well, the goal of idols is to have something near and at hand and manageable that can bring you assurance and comfort.

To be able to control and manage some things in your life and you find confidence and trust in those things. This is your ballast. This is your anchor. This is what stabilizes you. And if these things were gone, life is over.

These are the confidences and trusts of a person's life. And if there's something that you can personally manage, that you can polish and buff up and rearrange on your mantle, so to speak, then these function as idols.

But what is the outcome, though? What happens to idols in the day of the Lord? We see that in verses 20 through 22. And the end of idols, we see, in verses 20 through 21, we can ask three questions. What is thrown away?

Or what are thrown away? Well, idols are thrown away. In that day, we know that to be the day of the Lord, as we've seen from verses 10 through 19, which we're going to talk more about in a moment. In that day, a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold.

Now, notice that these idols are those things which they made for themselves. Each one of them they made for himself. So these are gods fashioned in a way, cultivated in a way, crafted in a way that is very pleasing to each one of the idolaters.

Why do you have that god? Why do you have this goddess? Why did you choose this type of design? Why do you have it as silver? Why do you have it as gold? Why that size? Why that shape? In every facet, the idol was crafted in a way to please the idolater.

This is the way I like it. This is the way I want it. This is how I think of it. This is how I like to think of God, or this is how I see the world. These are my ideas. These are my trusts and my confidences here manifested in actual idols.

Maybe they were originally wood or stone, as we see from the previous passage, the trees of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan. Maybe they were stone from the hills or the mountains, but they're overlaid with the silver and gold that come in the marketplace of the fortified cities and come across the water on the sloops upon the ships of Tarshish.

But they fashion their idols, and they are precious to them, but in the day of the Lord, they throw them away. They cast them away. These were the things that were supposed to bring them comfort. These were the things that were supposed to give them confidence.

These were the things that were supposed to be their anchor in the storm, their ballast in the storm, and yet when the day of the Lord comes, the storm of all storms, they throw them away. Notice that they are thrown away to the moles and bats.

I wonder what they did with them. What did the moles and bats do with idols of silver and idols of gold? I think the raccoon might scurry off with it, stuff it somewhere like something shiny. Does anybody have a different translation there at the end of verse 20?

Sometimes in the Hebrew, the English translators are trying to figure out which animal this Hebrew word refers to. Does anybody have something different than moles and bats? But think about moles and bats.

Moles live in holes. Bats live in caves or crags in the rock. Guess where these men are heading. They're heading to holes. They're heading to crags. They're heading to caves in the rock. See that in verse 19, the verse just prior?

They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily. So no wonder they're handing off their gold and silver idols to moles and to bats.

These are their only companions on the day of the Lord when they go hiding in holes and caves. So they cast these things off to go into the clefts of the rock, into the crags of the rugged rocks. Aren't these the very places?

Aren't these the very places where the gold and silver are mined from? And now they have been brought back. They have been put back where they were originally found. And so the men hide from the dread of the Lord, the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

Now when we read in the scriptures, we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of knowledge and understanding. To fear the Lord is to depart from evil. The fear of the Lord is life and health to the bones.

Fear of the Lord is good. But this word is not the word being used throughout Proverbs, for example, of the fear of the Lord. This is the dread and the terror. Do you remember in the letter of 1 John how perfect love casts out fear?

Because fear involves torment. For those who are in Christ and know the love of God, there is no more dread of the Lord, no more terror before God, because all of that has been taken away in Christ upon the cross.

But for those who refuse Christ and reject God, who reject Jesus Christ in whom is all wisdom treasured up, what is left for them except the pending wrath and terror and dread of the Lord. Now this word is actually found in Proverbs.

In Proverbs chapter 1. So if you'll turn your Bibles to Proverbs 1, just a few pages back. In Proverbs 1, even though we hear about the fear of the Lord in verse 7, we hear about something a little bit different in verses 26, 27, and 33.

This is qualitatively different than the fear of the Lord. This is dread and terror. Wisdom is personified as a woman. She is a great lady. She has all her ducks in a row. What a spread she puts out. What a house she keeps.

What a fixture of society she is. And Solomon is teaching his son. And he wants his son to grow up, and he wants, for lack of a better expression, his first crush to be Lady Wisdom. He wants his son to love Lady Wisdom, to know Lady Wisdom, to appreciate her and really be attracted to Lady Wisdom, and to see Miss Folly for who she is, for the deadly poison that she is, to learn to love Wisdom and hate Folly so that when the time comes, he'll make a kingly choice, Proverbs 31.

But here in chapter 1, Lady Wisdom, you see, when Lady Wisdom is scorned, when Lady Wisdom's beauty is not appreciated, when she's turned down and she's spurned, she doesn't hold back. She doesn't hold back.

Notice she says in verse 24, Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded. Because you disdained all my counsel and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your terror comes.

See the word terror, that's the dread, that's the terror, same word we find in Isaiah 2. When your terror comes like a storm and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, the dread and the terror come.

Why?

Look at verse 28. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.

Why?

Because they hated knowledge, notice, and they did not choose the fear of the Lord. You see, if you don't choose the fear of the Lord, what's left for you is the terror of the Lord. If you avoid the fear of the Lord, to think of Him first and to think of Him most, where your life is in orbit around God, if you don't choose the fear of the Lord, what's left for you is the terror and the dread in that day.

Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of my counsel and despise my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled to the full with their own fancies for the turning away of the simple will slay them and the complacency of fools will destroy them.".

Now is this not the folly of Judah? Is this not the folly of Jerusalem that they are full of themselves and enjoying themselves and calling themselves just fine and dandy but in reality they have rejected the fear of the Lord.

They don't think of him first. They don't think of him most. They don't even remember that he is their father and they think everything's fine. We have a great economy. We have a great military. We have religious diversity.

We have pride and culture. They think they're fine but in fact the day is coming. They've rejected the fear of the Lord so dread is on its way but verse 33, but whoever listens to me says Lady Wisdom will dwell safely and will be secure without fear of evil, without dread of disaster, without terror.

So that's the contrast. Now think about this shaking of the earth mightily. Shaking the earth mightily. Now in an earthquake, you can imagine an earthquake. Has anybody lived through an earthquake? Here in Oklahoma we have very small earthquakes but if you live through a much more major earthquake some folks from California probably have a much more memorable background with earthquakes than some of us do but if an earthquake occurs, do you want to be hiding in the cleft of a rock?

Do you want to be in the crag of the rugged rocks when the earthquake hits? That's where these folks are. These Einsteins have decided to reject the fear of the Lord, to reject understanding and wisdom and knowledge and in the day of disaster they carry their idols with them until they can't carry them anymore because they're so heavy and they toss them to the moles and the bats and go climb into holes in the rocks as God shakes the earth.

Isaiah is a bit hard on the idolaters. He mocks the idolaters. Isaiah repeatedly scoffs at the idolaters trying to demonstrate to his countrymen what a foolhardy thing it is to be an idolater. You know that you become blockheads.

Those who worship them, those who make the idols become like them, Isaiah 115, Psalm 115 says. So no one wants to be inside the caves and the crags when the rocks start shaking. Now the shaking of the earth is an expression in the Old Testament and even in the New Testament that talks about the end of something, the coming judgment of God to bring something to a close.

For example, we'll stay in Isaiah just as an example but let's go over to Isaiah chapter 13 and let's look at verses 10 through 13 of Isaiah 13. So not too far away from our passage but once again we're going to hear about the shaking of the earth and we'll begin in oh we can we can back it up to verse 10 if you mind.

Verse 10, now in envision this disaster for the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light the Sun will be darkened and it's going forth and the moon will not cause its light to shine I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity I will halt the arrogance of the proud and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir therefore I will shake the heavens and the earth will move out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of his fierce anger.

Sounds pretty bad. So what goes on here? It's the end of an era. The end of what era? There's a power outage, the governing authorities go away, the landscape changes. This is an excellent metaphor to describe the end of an empire, the end of an era.

In fact it describes the end of Babylon. Verse 1 of chapter 13 tells you what this is all about. Isaiah chapter 13 verse 1, the burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. So the end of Jeremiah, the book of Jeremiah and here in Isaiah 13 and then some other places in the in the Old Testament describe the judgment upon Babylon.

This is one of the places. And in describing the end of Babylon and its world empire, the stars fail, the Sun fails, the moon fails, the heavens are shaken and the earth gets rattled all around. It's an expression of the end of an entire era, the end of an age, the end of a system.

Nothing looks the same after Babylon goes down. You know the empire of the Medes and the Persians sure looked a lot different than the empire of the Babylonians. Different people were in charge, different laws were there, different money, different types of soldiers, different politics, everything was different.

It just didn't look the same. That's why shaking the earth and other places we hear about mountains melting, islands hitching up their skirts and running away, all of the all of the landmarks by which you thought you knew what the map said and even the stars that help guide you through, guide you in which direction you were supposed to go.

When all of the landmarks on earth and all of the directions from heaven go away, it's saying you don't know which way is up anymore. It's an excellent metaphor. Have you ever seen the the the time-lapse blended photography that shows the collapse and eruption of Mount St. Helens?

Have you ever seen the before and after pictures of Mount St. Helens before the eruption and then after and then maybe even years after that when all the growth came back? Doesn't it look like entirely different places?

So what an excellent metaphor to talk about the earth being shaken or earthquakes or mountains melting to talk about how if if you knew Mount St. Helens before and knew your way around that mountain like the back of your hand, well after the eruption you get lost.

All the landmarks are different. So in like manner, God is saying in Isaiah 20 verses 20 and 21, He comes back to the theme that Isaiah talks about in the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant Jerusalem is under the judgment of God.

That's chapter 1 and that theme is back here in chapter 2 again. The Old Covenant Jerusalem is going to be judged by God and he describes it as a day of the Lord. Now when you read in the Bible about the day of the Lord, just remember it comes up a lot and it happens a lot.

In Isaiah 2 12 we're reading a we read about the day of the Lord and Jerusalem. How Jerusalem is going to fall in 586 BC to the Babylonians. But in Isaiah 13 6, you go back to Isaiah 13 verse 6 says it's the day of the Lord but it's the day of Lord for Babylon and Babylon is going to be judged by God in that day of the Lord.

If you read in Jeremiah 46 10 you discover the day of the Lord for Egypt. And Egypt is going to be destroyed in the day of the Lord which was not the same day of the Lord for Babylon which was not the same the day of the Lord for Jerusalem in 586 BC.

You can read the prophecy of the day of the Lord for Jerusalem again for AD 70 in Joel chapter 2 verse 31 or you could read an Obadiah chapter 1 verse 15 and the day of the Lord for Edom. Time and time and time again the day of the Lord is simply the day in which he is exalted, his righteousness is manifested, his judgment comes and he sifts everything so that he's exalted and men are humbled.

You know what happens to idols in those days when everything starts shaking? Those idols topple and fall over. They don't stand up anymore and they're no good as ballast. They're no good as anchors. They don't do anything except weigh you down and at the end of the day idols are just something you toss away to the moles and the bats.

What's the application? Verse 22, sever yourselves from such a man. What kind of man? The man who makes idols and trusts in them. The kind of man that would grab his idols, tuck them under his arms and run in the day of the Lord.

Sever yourself from such a man. That's the application Isaiah brings. Sever yourself from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils. That's how robust he is. That's how steady he is. Think about that.

The no account image worshiper is of no account. He has no life in and of himself. His life consists of whatever breath he currently has in his nostrils. So why would you have confidence in him? Now think about in Isaiah's day before the day of the Lord came for Jerusalem.

The kind of man who owns idols of silver and idols of gold is the kind of man who has abundant wealth. He's likely well received by his peers and enjoys a prominent position in his society. It's the poor man trying to keep up who has to deal with idols that are simply wood or stone but not covered with precious metals.

Temptation to to have confidence in the man with the gold and the silver idols would be there. Proverbs sagely observed how many friends, friends that the wealthy have. But such a man is stunningly fragile.

When a man's life consists of only what breath he has in his nostrils and when the day of the Lord comes he's hiding in mountains during an earthquake, he's not long for this world. He's not long for this world.

And so sever yourself, meaning go independent from, have no confidence in, entangle yourself not with the idolater. No matter how wealthy he is, no matter how well-connected he is, no matter how popular he is, no matter how powerful he is, no matter how many gold and silver idols he has on his mantle, no matter how impressive he is, sever yourself from such a man.

Put no confidence in that man any more than you would put confidence in his idols. Put no confidence in the man whose life consists of only the breath in his nostrils. God gave him that breath in the first place.

Now, if we're going to sever ourself from such a man, we're essentially saying leave off Adam, right? In whose breath God put, in whose nostrils God put the breath. But we should connect ourselves to another man.

And this is the man who is the light of the world and life is in and of himself. He is the life, Jesus Christ. And he's the man who actually presides over the day of the Lord. So who are we going to cling to?

His kingdom is unshakeable, his mountain will never crack. In Isaiah 2, we first hear about a mountain above all the other mountains and that mountain will never be shaken, but this mountain will. The New Covenant mountain will not be shaken, but the Old Covenant mountain will.

In reverse order, we read about the same thing in Hebrews 12. The Old Covenant mountain is shaken, but the New Covenant mountain will not. The contrast is very strong, but you come up the New Covenant mountain, who do you find?

You find a man. You find Jesus Christ who, and there's no idols there, no idols there, don't need the idols. He is the image of the invisible God. So we worship God, he manifests God to us. All right, we'll leave it there and let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology together.