WWUTT 1974 Yahweh Will Establish Peace (Isaiah 26:11-21)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Yahweh will establish peace. And establishing peace doesn't just simply mean that He makes a truce with His enemies.

00:09

It means that He will destroy His enemies, but deliver His faithful when we understand the text.

00:25

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

00:30

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

00:37

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Isaiah, chapter 26.

00:46

Last week we read verses 1 -10, so we'll finish up the chapter today, verses 11 -21, which

00:53

I'll read here from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. O Yahweh, your hand is raised up high, yet they do not behold it.

01:04

They behold your zeal for the people and are put to shame. Indeed, fire will devour your adversaries.

01:14

Yahweh, you will establish peace for us, since you have also performed for us all our works.

01:22

O Yahweh our God, other masters besides you have ruled us, but through you alone we bring your name to remembrance.

01:32

The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise, therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and you have made all remembrance of them perish.

01:43

You have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation, you are glorified, you have extended all the borders of the land.

01:54

O Yahweh, they visited you in distress, they could only whisper a prayer.

01:59

Your chastening was upon them. As the woman with child draws near to the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor, thus were we before you,

02:12

O Yahweh. We were with child, we writhed in labor, we gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.

02:21

We could not accomplish salvation for the earth, and the inhabitants of the world were not born.

02:28

Your dead will live, their corpses will rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your due is as the due of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

02:43

Come my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you.

02:49

Hide for a little while until indignation passes by, for behold

02:54

Yahweh is about to come out from his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth, and the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover those of hers who were killed.

03:08

Quickly recapping once again, Isaiah has delivered these oracles against those nations that God is bringing judgment upon.

03:16

In chapter 24, we had this pronouncement of judgment, how Yahweh will empty the earth.

03:22

Chapter 25, Yahweh will swallow up death. Now remember, Judah is being delivered over into the hands of their enemies.

03:29

So they're hearing these promises in chapters 24, 25, and 26 as a promise of deliverance from the hands of the

03:37

Babylonians, or maybe later the Medes and the Persians. But when they come back into their land and they build the temple, death doesn't stop.

03:45

So obviously that can't be the fulfillment of this particular prophecy. Then we get to chapter 26, and we're reading here about how

03:53

Yahweh will establish peace. But there isn't yet peace in the land.

03:58

There's still even enemies that are coming against us. So this is also a promise that has not yet come to fulfillment.

04:06

Now when we think about establishing peace, what do you think of? More often than not, when we think of peace being in the land, we just think people just stop fighting.

04:14

You know, there's an armistice, a truce is brought up between warring sides, and therefore we have peace.

04:22

But that's not really what the Bible talks about when it says that Yahweh brings peace. True peace takes place when

04:28

Yahweh's enemies are destroyed. So we're reading here about Yahweh bringing an end to his enemies, and that establishes peace in the land.

04:38

That statement was made at the beginning of our reading today in verse 12. Yahweh, you will establish peace for us, since you have also performed for us all our works.

04:48

Establishing peace for us means you're destroying those who oppress us. You're destroying those enemies who threaten or come against us.

04:56

That's how God establishes peace in the earth. And all of the promises that we see here about the way that God establishes peace, we also see a prophecy concerning the resurrection of the dead.

05:08

Did you catch that in here? Let's come back to verse 11, where it says,

05:13

O Yahweh, your hand is raised up high, yet they do not behold it. They behold your zeal for the people and are put to shame.

05:22

Indeed, fire will devour your adversaries. Now, this reference to Yahweh's hand raised up high, this could mean a couple of different things.

05:34

It could be that his hand is raised as like a military signal, commanding his armies to attack.

05:40

Or it could be that his hand is raised up in benevolence to his own people. Either way, the context works.

05:47

Your hand is raised up high, yet they, his enemies, do not behold it. And notice the third line.

05:53

Indeed, fire will devour your adversaries. Or if his hand is raised up as a benevolent offering to his people, they behold your zeal for the people and are put to shame, as it says there in the second line.

06:07

So his enemies see his hand raised up. Either they don't behold that this is an attack that is coming against them and they're devoured.

06:14

Or they don't behold God's hand for his people means he's going to wipe out his enemies.

06:20

And therefore, the adversaries are devoured. Verse 12, Yahweh, you will establish peace for us.

06:29

And establishing peace means destroying enemies. Since you have also performed for us all our works.

06:40

All that you've done for us. Deliverance for us. The kindness that you have shown to us.

06:46

All of this has been done by the hand of Yahweh. You have done this for us. And so, therefore, we know you will establish peace for us.

06:54

There's like a hindsight that's going on here. Looking into the past and seeing how God has dealt bountifully with us.

07:02

I believe it was last week when we were in chapter 26. The first part where I read to you

07:07

Psalm 13. And that's the very way that David ends that Psalm. I will trust in God for he has dealt bountifully with me.

07:16

So, likewise, this people are looking back at what God has done for them. You have performed for us all our works.

07:24

And so, we know that you will establish peace. You will destroy our enemies and deliver us.

07:31

And we see that happening in the end as well when Christ returns. He will destroy our enemies and deliver us.

07:41

And his great name will be proclaimed among all. Even the living and the dead.

07:47

Oh, Yahweh our God, it says in verse 13. Other masters besides you have ruled us.

07:53

But through you alone, we bring your name to remembrance.

07:59

And think about this also in the sense that we are exiles in the earth. We've had masters over us.

08:06

Consider also that we have been enslaved to sin. Slave to our own flesh. Slave to the devil's schemes.

08:14

Christ has delivered us from that. By the power of the gospel, those chains have been broken.

08:19

And we're no longer enslaved to these things. We are slaves of Christ. No longer slaves to unrighteousness.

08:26

We've become slaves to righteousness. As Paul talks about in Romans chapter 6. We've had other taskmasters that have ruled over us.

08:35

But God is the one who has delivered us. He is the one who has shown us kindness.

08:40

The rest of our masters were cruel. But God is loving and merciful. So, it is through you alone we bring your name to remembrance.

08:50

Verse 14. The dead will not live. The departed spirits will not rise.

08:59

Therefore, you have visited and destroyed them. And you have made all remembrance of them perish.

09:06

Consider the mortality of man that's being spoken about there. Kings and many triumphant nations have considered themselves great in the earth.

09:15

Kings and emperors and rulers sometimes even fancied themselves as gods. But they have been torn down and destroyed.

09:23

And their memory is no more. Can you name any historical rulers?

09:30

Probably a few. You might be able to name a few on one hand. But for the most part, these persons have come to an end.

09:37

Their monuments have been torn down. Their names are not lasting. No longer on the lips of people except as a byword.

09:44

Hey, remember that Caesar? Yeah, he used to be great. He's dead now. Now he's a salad dressing.

09:51

You could eat him for lunch. How about the Emperor of Japan? If memory serves, the

09:58

Chrysanthemum Throne, which is the throne upon which the emperor sits, is one of the longest existing monarchies on planet

10:07

Earth. It's the same family line going back over a millennia, I believe. Yet can you name a single emperor of Japan?

10:15

Do you know who the current emperor is? And if you do, can you name three others? Longest existing monarchy on Earth.

10:23

And in this family line, there are even emperors that have considered themselves gods. Yet you don't even remember who they are.

10:29

You don't have any idea who they are. How about an example a little bit closer to home? Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, really changed the genre of rock and roll forever.

10:42

Even the Beatles said they wanted to be like Elvis Presley. Guy wrote some of the greatest rock songs there's ever been.

10:50

He did concerts with tens of thousands of people, singing his songs, shouting his name.

10:56

He had money, fame, fortune, women, drugs. How did Elvis die?

11:02

Do you know this story? He died reading a book on sex and psychic energy.

11:08

And he had a drug overdose while sitting on his throne. The king of rock and roll sitting on his throne.

11:15

The toilet. What an embarrassing way to go. That's the king of rock and roll.

11:22

How the mighty have been brought low. The dead will not live.

11:28

It says in Isaiah 26, the departed spirits will not rise.

11:33

Therefore, you have visited and destroyed them. And you have made all remembrance of them to perish.

11:41

And when the living perish, they don't come back. We all know that. We all know death is permanent.

11:47

When a person dies, they don't come back. We're all aware of that reality.

11:53

It is only by Christ that we will be raised from the dead. It's only by faith in him do we have the promise of resurrection and everlasting life.

12:03

And we even read about that prophesied here in Isaiah 26. We go on to verse 15 to read.

12:10

You have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation.

12:16

You are glorified. You have extended all the borders of the land. Now, what is this in reference to?

12:22

We've read things about this previously in Isaiah, including here in chapters 24, 25, and 26.

12:29

As the gospel of Christ has gone out into the world and people have come to faith in Jesus, the people of God have grown.

12:38

And God has increased the nation. Remember that 1 Peter 2, 9 refers to the church as a holy nation.

12:45

And God is glorified. People glorify God in his church.

12:50

You have extended all the borders of the land. You can find the church of Jesus Christ all over the world.

12:57

Any country that you enter into, you will find Christians who are worshiping Jesus. He's extended the borders of the land.

13:05

Verse 16, O Yahweh, they visited you in distress. They could only whisper a prayer.

13:13

Your chastening was upon them. So this would certainly hit close to home with a

13:21

Jew. As God has visited them in distress, they could only whisper a prayer.

13:27

Your chastening was upon them. So at the time that they're in exile and remembering this prophecy that Isaiah would have made, you know, years before they went into exile, they come back to hearing this prophecy.

13:41

And they remember God is chastening us. He is punishing us for our sin, but he is perfecting us.

13:48

And this promise of deliverance is given to us. And so verse 17, as the woman with child draws near to the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor.

14:02

Thus were we before you, O Yahweh. We were with child.

14:07

We writhed in labor. We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.

14:13

So if it was left up to them for their own deliverance, you're talking about the

14:18

Jewish people here. If it was left to them for their deliverance, they would not have been able to deliver themselves. If it was even left to them to come up with repentance on their own, they would not have repented.

14:30

They may have mourned over their situation, their condition. They may have mourned over the sin that they committed against God.

14:36

But it was not a godly grief that led to repentance if it was dependent upon them. It's only by a new heart that God has given to them that this anguish that they were in turned into something truly transformative.

14:53

They writhed and cried out in the pangs of labor. Thus were we before you,

14:58

O Yahweh. We were with child. We writhed in labor. We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.

15:05

We could not accomplish salvation for the earth, and the inhabitants of the world were not born.

15:15

Now, this reference to salvation here doesn't mean a spiritual salvation, like being born again.

15:23

It's not the direct reference anyway. This is like the generic sense of salvation, of how do we get delivered from the plight that we're in, the captivity that we're in.

15:34

How do we get drawn out from this place? If it was left on us, we could not accomplish it.

15:42

We would not have been able to escape our enemies, our adversaries. They had conquered us. They ruled over us.

15:48

We were their slaves. We could not have delivered ourselves. But it is

15:53

God who comes in and delivers the Jews from the hand of captivity. Okay, so just as this had happened for the

16:01

Jews, so is the promise for us in the spiritual sense. We were enslaved to our sin, enslaved to our own flesh, our own natural desire to rebel against God and go our own way.

16:17

That's what we were a slave to, the natural person that we are, having inherited a sin nature from Adam.

16:26

It is in our nature to rebel against God, to go against his word and not seek after him.

16:33

Remember what's said in Romans 3. There is none righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands.

16:39

There is no one who seeks for God. Because in our nature, we want to go against God.

16:45

So left to ourselves, we could not have delivered ourselves from our condition of sin. We would have continued in our sin, our own way, to our own destruction if left to ourselves.

16:57

But God is merciful and he saved us. Consider Titus 3 .3.

17:02

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

17:15

But when the kindness and affection of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

17:31

Holy Spirit. Our salvation is given to us by the mercy of God.

17:37

So here, as Isaiah prays on behalf of a people who have not yet been enslaved at the time that he's praying this, but again, the remembrance of God's word comes back to the people as they are in captivity.

17:51

We could not accomplish salvation for the earth and the inhabitants of the world were not born. And yet in verse 19, we read,

17:59

Your dead will live, their corpses will rise. You who dwell in the dust awake and shout for joy.

18:08

Now this is prophetic and what's it pointing to? It is pointing to the fact that we have the resurrection of the dead for all those who are in Christ.

18:17

First Thessalonians chapter four, when Jesus returns with the cry of the command, with the shout of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ will rise first.

18:27

And then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the air. And so we will always be with the

18:33

Lord. This is pointing to that. You who dwell in the dust awake and shout for joy for your do is as the do of the dawn.

18:44

Paul even says that their first Thessalonians five, we are not of the night. We are children of the day and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

18:55

The dead in Christ will rise. This is the promise of resurrection of even a renewed body that we will have with Christ forever in glory.

19:06

Given in prophecy that was made 700 years before Christ was born.

19:13

And so the conclusion to this prophecy versus 20 and 21, the conclusion to chapter 26, come my people enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you.

19:26

Hide for a little while until indignation passes by.

19:32

Now, this again would have been said directly to the Jews. Your sin is upon you now and you're being punished for it.

19:40

But continue in faithfulness. Continue to seek God. That's what it said by enter your rooms and close your doors behind you.

19:50

Hide for a little while. Hide in the shadow of his wings. That'll be talked about later on in Isaiah.

19:57

Wait upon the Lord until indignation passes you by. For behold,

20:04

Yahweh is about to come out from his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth.

20:11

So you wonder where God is right now. Where is he in the midst of this? He's about to show up and he is going to afflict his enemies.

20:19

Those who have imprisoned you and the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover those of hers who were killed.

20:31

So God's judgment is coming upon those who have afflicted his people and he will deliver them out of their situation.

20:39

And so the same is the same promise is given to us. God's judgment is coming upon the earth and we will be delivered out of it.

20:47

But we must continue to cling to Christ. He is our only hope for salvation and the only deliverance that we get out of this place.

20:57

Turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. Bow before him in the earth and cry out in anguish and he will forgive you and he will save you.

21:09

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here in Isaiah 26. A prophecy that was given to your people and is even extended to us who are your people in Christ.

21:21

We see even here the promise of the resurrection of the dead. So may that be a day that we are looking toward.

21:28

Not in distress, not worrying or in anxiety for the days that we are presently in.

21:33

But even the struggles that we go through in these days cause us to long all the more for that day.

21:40

When we will be with Christ forever in glory. Deliver us Lord Jesus, we pray in your name.

21:48

Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books and more, visit our website at www .utt

22:00

.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

22:09

And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.