Isaiah Lesson 10

Everybody here in the sanctuary, those who are going to be checking in with us on the video as we continue our study in Isaiah. Just before the tape started, we were talking about the reality that it's really a blessing to be able to differentiate between what you're experiencing and what people may say and who you really are and your identity and that your identity in Christ, there is nothing that somebody can do to change that identity.

You are forever Christ's child. Live that way. We are in Isaiah and we're coming out of last week's chapter as we were in the beginning of chapter five. And the message there was that my beloved has planted a vineyard and he cleared the land and he took the choices of vines and he built a watchtower in protection and built a wine press so that the actual produce would be made available.

And he watched, and I'm actually basically quoting out of verses one and two in chapter five, he watched for a crop of grapes, but instead of grapes, he got wild grapes. And we talked last week about the implications of what that means.

And one of the, I think, realities of it, so I'm going to ask this question I asked it last week, does anybody here have experience in farming or things like that? Okay, good. I'm free to talk. I would imagine that from a distance, it's really hard by the eye to determine whether a grape is a good grape or a bad grape from a distance, but it's when you get into the grape that you know that it's a good grape or a bad grape.

The nation of Israel in the time that Isaiah is prophesying has been wild grapes, which is to say that they might be on the outside doing a lot of things that could look good, but when it came down to understanding where their heart was, they were just a bunch of wild grapes, not good for much of anything.

And so this were the exhortations of last week as we were studying, and we know that in earlier chapters, God has looked at his chosen people, and he's called them Sodom and Gomorrah, and the depths of that would have to have been hurtful to the nation, but it's true, it's what they are.

We're going to continue on in chapter five. I was going to do the entire chapter, but I realized that there's just too much there, so this week we are going to look at seven woes that are included, verses 8 through 12, and then 18 to 23.

Next week we're going to get God's perceptiveness, God's perception, his understanding. Because of these woes, what does that mean? But I think we're well-spent to take the time to talk about these seven woes.

When I look in the room, I have good knowledge of everybody here, and have had sweet fellowship with everybody here, and my perception, as best I can, is that the Holy Spirit is indwelling people in this room.

Now that being said, you have the ability, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. God is faithful. He won't allow you to be tempted beyond that which you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

He gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us his grace. That being said, it also is recorded in scripture, he who says he was without sin deceives himself. And putting those together with this picture of good grapes versus wild grapes, it's worthwhile spending a moment to go through these seven woes that he had.

Take an inventory of what they are, how they come to be. Nobody is going to wake up in the morning and say, I'm going to be a bad grape today. I would hope not. But it does happen. And so let's spend some time in these seven woes.

There's some great teachings to be had in them. And we'll see how that plays out. Pastor Jeff, could you open us with a prayer, please?

Yes. Father, we need you. We thank you for your promise that you would always be with us, never leave us nor forsake us. We ask now that you would be with us in a special way to illumine our minds to your.

Word.

We pray that your spirit would accomplish a work in us through your word, that we would be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ. In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Kimberly, you're going to be my Isaiah 5 person. You get it easy. You get to one book, you get there. Bob, I want you to get Micah 2, verses 1 to 3 ready. And Louise, Deuteronomy 28, 20 to 24, and Dave, Ecclesiastes 2.

If you would get those verses ready. Kimberly, verses 8 to 10, please. Okay, this is the first woe. They join what? House to house and? Okay, what is it that's a problem there? Anybody got a feeling, maybe your study notes, what's the problem there?

Okay, focusing material things, Neva, you said greed. Those are probably the right answers. What they're doing is they're accumulating. That's the picture here. They're adding houses. They're basically accumulating, whether it's houses or whether it's land, whatever it is, their focus is more, is better.

The assessment of that approach is that what? He's got a couple of things to say. I'm sorry, say again? They'll become desolate. All these houses that you think you're accumulating, there's not even enough room.

It's totally unable to satisfy. And it leaves them empty. The land, in fact, becomes nonproductive. The things that the people are attempting to make their value, to feel their value and everything else, what's wrong with this?

Why are the people seeking after this stuff? And why is it wrong?

Things evolve, not only things on the earth. This is all going to pass away.

That's very well said. That's a good quote. That's a great quote.

This might be indicating self-reliance.

Thank you. In what way? Good answer. Oh Lord, give me, how does that say, give me the grace to accept when I have plenty or when I have little? That's a rough paraphrase. It almost feels easier to pray when you're struggling because you recognize that's a time to pray.

Why is it important to pray when you have plenty? Thank you. And it can disappear.

I think this is saying that even though it's a bad time for a lot of people, yet we're seeing more and more people turning to the Lord and relying less on themselves.

Yeah.

So in paraphrase, I know a lot of this doesn't get picked up yet. We're working on that so that the video would pick up more and more. But Bob is referring and relating to how our country has actually seen in the midst of what's going on in the pandemic and everything else, a need, a desire, a desire for God.

What's happening in this particular passage is if you start to experience success and you start to experience the ability to accumulate things, often what gets left behind?

God.

Yes, he does. God will get left behind. It often leads up. Micah 2 .1, who's got that?

I do.

In the midst of this, there's some stuff in the front that sounds like, well, this is really bad. This is really, really bad. And in the midst of it, did you get coveting fields, coveting houses? In the midst of it, it's like this is all together.

This is an attitude that is as evil as everything else that is out there. Having this coveting for the fields, coveting for the houses, it's just not going to get there and it's all going to come to an end.

Deuteronomy 28. Go ahead and do that one. Deuteronomy 28 is a powerful passage because of all of the blessings and cursings and everything.

Else.

So I'll read a little bit of it. Louise.

Cursing, confusion, with severe burning, fever, with mildew, they shall pursue.

I'm not going to go down a path that says if you're caught up with COVID, that means you're a sinner. I am not going down that path. That's God's sovereign.

I'm not.

But I will say this. In the middle of what Louise wrote, read, because you forsake God, and at its core, what this passage is talking about, accumulating houses, accumulating fields. We talked about the greed.

We talked about the desire for more, this insatiable desire. At its core, it's denying God. And scripture is so clear. What does God want? He wants your heart. And it is a warning about becoming so aware and so desirous of physical possessions.

Sandy and I used to own a sailboat. We loved it. And it was a great opportunity. It was better than going to a psychiatrist. I could go out in the middle of the water. I could put up the mainsail and put up the jib and let that wind knock the boat way down on the side and just go screaming across the water.

And it's quiet. Or I could be out there with maybe five knots of a gentle breeze and just sit back and relax. It was very, very therapeutic. One of the realities of a boat owner is a boat owner always wants what?

A bigger boat. Why?

With a motor.

With a motor. Well, motors are a good thing, especially when there's no wind. Because they saw somebody with somebody with a bigger boat. We had a good friend. We had a 27 foot, which was plenty. Well, it was plenty.

We could sleep four. It had indoor plumbing and all that other kind of stuff. We had a friend with a 35.

Uh-oh.

It is uh-oh. It is uh-oh.

Yeah.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with a sailboat and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with my 65 Mustang, absolutely. But it's when they become something that turns your heart away from devotion to God that it's going to be a problem.

Ecclesiastes 2.

Dave?

By the way, I'm loving everything that he's accumulated, maybe not the concubines.

Go ahead.

This is really one of the cores of all the seven woes is self-indulgence. It's finding satisfaction in your heart in something other than God. It is going to be one of the core essentials behind all the woes.

So let's take a look at the second one. 11 and 12, Kimberly, if you would. Isaiah 22, Carol, if you would get that, and Rich, Proverbs 23. You probably can quote it without reading it. So please give me 11 and 12.

Filling in the blanks fairly easily. They rise up early in the morning so that they can have something to drink. It's got to get started. You know what? It's, what's that Jimmy Buffett says, it's five o 'clock somewhere, Margaritaville, yeah.

But they also stay up real late at night so that they can have strong wine and they can get drunk. It says that they're, this is my paraphrase, they love to party with music. They love to make merry and to experience all that good stuff.

But what is it they're not doing? They're not seeking after God, but they're not worshiping God. Why do people seek after drink?

Yeah.

To feel good, Neva says, why does that make them feel good? Okay, you can forget your problems when you're drunk. Why else do people drink?

To what, please?

Escape reality. Escape reality. It's a great drug to let you forget reality. I'm not going to ask how many people in this room have ever gotten drunk, because I don't need to know that. But I will confess that I was in the Navy, and my brother here, hoorah, he's a Marine.

Never got drunk. Amen to you, brother. I came to know the Lord partway through school, and prior to that, coming to the Lord, I partied. The question is, why do it in the first place? There are very few people that the first time they taste a beer, they say, oh, that's really.

Good.

Very few people have that expression. Or the first time they take some scotch, and they feel this going down their throat, and they go, oh, that just feels so good. Very rarely. So why do it in the first place?

Peer pressure.

Thank you. Peer pressure. You got to fit in with the crowd. You got to fit in with the crowd. And putting it another way, the Prince of the Power of the Air has got some great plans for you, and he feels like you want to do it.

Isaiah 22, who's got that? In the middle of what she just read is that word that shows up so frequently, and before it, you have these calls to a relationship with God, and after it, you have the folly of what the world has.

One of the truths of drink is that it's never going to satisfy. It may make you forget. It may help you to overcome the anxieties of this world. It may make you feel connected with the peer pressure, but it's never going to satisfy.

It's always going to need more. It's always going to need more until it eventually becomes destructive. And when that becomes part of your lifestyle, what gets left behind? Again, what gets left behind is God.

We're told, don't get drunk on wine. Drunk in the Holy Spirit. Who's experienced the emotional high of quote-unquote getting drunk in the Holy Spirit? Rich says he has. To have this clarity of mind when you're in worship or when you're in his word and he just speaks to you.

Runners have something, anybody hear a distance runner? A distance runner, the endorphins. Did you ever experience the runner's high? What's the runner's high? There is the endorphins, and that's I think the chemical explanation of what's going on in there.

It's an amazing feeling. Having spent a time in prayer, a powerful time in prayer, maybe where you've prepared and you have passages that you're going to use and using in your time with prayer, and you intentionally spend time quiet, just waiting for the Lord to give you a feeling of what he wants to you.

It can almost be an intoxicating feeling, I want it again. When you are drunk on wine, you want it again, and it's just, and it's flat out not going to satisfy. Woe to you who are going to go down that path, so much so that when you wake up in the morning you can't wait for that first drink.

Or it doesn't make sense, does it? And woe to you who are so into the party scene that you'll stay up at all hours of the night. Woe to you to that. The opposite would be amazing. I wake up, I cannot wait to find that endorphin of prayer.

I can't wait for that. Or I'm in my bed and I just want the hours of prayer to lull me into a great sleep.

I'm sorry, there you go.

Proverbs 23, who's got that?

Proverbs 21, be wise to be got you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

That's good enough, stop there. As believers, there's a strong warning in that passage there. Those that you deal with that are outside of the family of God are not coming from the same perception, the same spiritual guidance.

They don't have the Holy Spirit. They don't respond to God in the same way as you should as a child of God. The warning is don't let them entice you for whatever reason down a path. Don't let them entice you down a path.

Ephesians 2, I'll just speak of that. It talks about that we all at one time walked in the desires of the flesh, fulfilled the desires of the flesh. We walked after the prince of the power of the air.

We all did this kind of stuff. But now that God is with you, you don't have to do that anymore. We're not dead in trespasses and sins. But the reality is that if anybody says they are not a sinner, they have deceived themselves.

And we are all one step away from being in a bad place. The woe against that one. 18 and 19, please. This is kind of a tough one. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood. The picture here is allowing a sinful part of your life to become entwined and actually part of the fabric of who you believe you are as a believer.

And so the definition of who you are is actually infected or in some way disturbed by the presence of sin in your life. You're allowing it to come in. Why would a believer feel that sin can be part of the natural part of their life?

And let's be honest, it does happen. There are sins that you think you can control, or there are sins that you are too embarrassed to confess to a brother, much less to God, who, by the way, already knows it anyway.

And somehow deceived himself.

That is a great insight. Rich just said some people have gotten to the point where they believe that God will excuse it. When our lifestyle comes to some point, and again, I don't believe anybody wakes up in the morning and says, I think I'm going to let sin be part of my life today.

It's a gradual thing. It's a gradual thing. And Satan, okay, we got what, about 13 people with us, there's about 15 people in this room. I believe that Satan has tested each one of us. Satan is not omniscient.

He doesn't know everything. But he is relentless, and he will find and find and find until he succeeds in one. And then he kind of puts that in his little black book. All right, Phil, I got one, I got one.

I can always come back to this one, you know, with Phil. We're all there. And the danger is eventually letting the flesh become before who?

God.

Again, the same thing. Letting this become before God. The fabric of who we are should be, well, 2 Corinthians 5 .17 says we are what? Keep on. We are a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things have become new.

In Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and by the grace of God, we are capable of being that new creation. We are no longer without excuse. It's no longer Charles being Charles.

Not passages, kindness, not new in nature.

Thank you. Very well said. Romans 12, 1 and 2 says don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And Isaiah 55 .7 exhorts the wicked to forsake his ways. The warning in this one here is in the reality of your life, in the reality of your time before the Lord, what cord have you allowed to become entangled in the essence of who.

You are?

Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Now, what's interesting is the next part of that passage is the individual who has allowed what they are to be infected by what they shouldn't be. They go calling to God, come quickly, come quickly, expecting that God is going to jump and at their beck and request, he's going to come and fix it.

What have they turned God into? A vending machine. A genie. God is sovereign. He is omniscient. God desires for us, but he's not something that we call on as a Mr. Fix-It. In our neighborhood, there was a guy who worked for, back in the time it was RCA, as an engineer.

And I think he figured out that he could make a whole lot more money by being a contractor, which he could. And so he set up a business as the Neighborhood Handy Fix-It Man, and he does all these little jobs around the house.

That is not who God is. He is not your Neighborhood Handy Fix-It Man. He is in the business of changing lives. He is in the business of helping you to become that new creation, not just to fix things that you think you need him.

Give me verse 20, please.

Yes.

That's very well said. If you didn't hear on the thing, Kimberly's relating to the juxtaposition of 18 and 19. I threw that word in there. Of 18 and 19, and how 18 talks about, we've allowed the fabric of our life to become impacted by sin.

And I forgot the second half of it.

Sin distorts.

Ah, that will distort our perception of truth and reality. That is so very, very well said. Kimberly, give me verse 20. You know, we get down to that point, and that's very well said. Rich says that's the culmination of the distortion that Kimberly brought up.

The reality that there is a difference in God's economy. There's A and there's B. There is not a middle ground. There is evil and there is good. There is sin and there is righteousness. There is light and there is darkness, and you can't play the fence in between.

And because you can't play the fence in between, well, there are two options, three options. One is to stay in the good path. Two is to slide into the bad path, recognize it, confess it, repent, and turn back to the good life.

But what's the third option? Justify it. Accept this is just the way life is, and to justify it and continue in that path. Call light darkness, call darkness light.

And the physical curl over time.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Barb, if you would get John 1 ready for it, verses 9 and 11. And I think we'll look at, all right, Romans 125. Chris, if you would get that. When you're ready, go ahead and read it, Barb.

Yes.

As the beginning of John, the gospel of John unfolds, we learn about in the beginning was the word. The word was made flesh. We learn about the reality of the coming of Jesus. He is called the light, and it says the light came into the world, but the world didn't know him.

There is only one true light, and that is Christ. There are false lights that are partially darkness. I've said this one once before, because it works right now. Back in the early 1970s, the Navy changed the lighting in their machinery spaces down in the bottom of the ship where all the heavy machinery was.

They were fluorescent lights, and they changed them into incandescent lights. Bob, you're nodding. You know why? Absolutely. He's 100 right. Fluorescent is not a pure light. Fluorescent is the light goes back and forth and oscillates at the frequency of the current.

In between the light is darkness, and it's actually a strobe. You've seen fluorescent lights that are going bad. You can actually see the flickering. What would happen, even though the lights were good, they were oscillating at a frequency, and if that frequency was a harmonic frequency to a piece of machinery, that machinery looked like it was standing still, and people were getting injured by touching a piece of machinery that was rotating but looked like it was still.

They had to change it to incandescent light, which doesn't do that. Light that the world wants you to live under is like fluorescent light. It has darkness that will hide. Light that does not have darkness only comes from one source, and that's from God.

He comes as an angel of light. John, who's got Romans 1? I gave you that, please. And that's what's going on in this verse. They have taken truth, and they've called a lie the truth. They have taken evil, and they have said, well, this evil is actually good, and it's explained in Romans 1 .25.

God has given them over to these unnatural possessions. They have exchanged what is good for what is not good. Give me verse 21, please, Kimberly. I'm glad none of us are in this category. Wise in your own eyes and clever in your own sight.

What is the danger of trusting your own wisdom? Okay, Rich says purely subjective. That's a great answer. What else is the danger of it?

We aren't wise.

We aren't wise, and that's the fact. How can a person live in wisdom? Thank you. Knowledge of God. It's not only knowledge of God. Rich is raising up his scriptures. It's accepting the truth of God. What is the opposite of accepting the truth of God?

It's subtle. It can be very, very subtle. You can take a passage out of this book, and you can misuse it out of context to prove something that you want to have proved. There is a very classic scene, and I'm going to let Jeff speak to it because he used it once in a passage that comes out of the West Wing where President Bartlett is confronting the question of gays.

Do you remember that scene?

Yeah, yeah.

The president comes in and humiliates a reporter who, or I think she was a psychologist who held to the biblical worldview, and all he did was quoted Old Testament passages and applied them as if they were part of the new covenant and basically humiliated her because she doesn't practice everything that's under the old.

And why was that a problem?

Well, he's taking things out of context.

You mean we can't just use the Bible in any way we see fit?

Right. You got it.

Yeah.

You can sound wise. You can even sound important by taking scripture and applying it to a situation that God never really, really intended it to be in the first place. Yeah, Barb. Barb is raising a good question in that she says that Barb is about 37 years old now and she's had plenty of time to experience life and to gain wisdom.

Is that what's going on in this passage? There is a way in man's eyes. Okay, Proverbs 21 .2 So every man's ways seem right but God weighs the heart.

So.

The difference between wisdom and knowledge. I've heard it said. Knowledge is accumulated information. Wisdom is the ability to apply information to a new situation. That's the way I've heard it expressed.

If the accumulated wisdom that you've had through life is coming purely from the world it's distorted wisdom. It's wisdom in your own eyes. But it's distorted wisdom if that wisdom that you've experienced through your life through a walk with Christ through the guiding of the Holy Spirit.

That.

The truths of reality are now the filter that you see things through. The more that you live through that, the more that those truths can become germane to whatever you've got. I believe it comes down to.

Where are you seeking wisdom. Jeff, you got any comments.

Yeah, what's being condemned here is people who are justifying things that are against the word, so they think they're smarter than the word. They have ways to turn up down and down up and exchange light for dark and dark and sweet for bitter.

And they in their mind have worked a way to do this so they can explain away every passage of the Bible that condemns anything that they want to practice. And they're just smart enough to do that. They're so wise.

And the Bible is condemning that kind of worldly wisdom because it's only wisdom in their own eyes. The scripture cannot be broken. There's another kind of wisdom which is godly wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom first.

Get Proverbs 3, 7 by. If you would go ahead, continue.

Oh, ok, yeah, and so he's able to make us wise unto salvation. So the saved person has a wisdom that's taught by the spirit. And the spirit teaches us all kinds of wisdom. And there is a deeper wisdom that we know, 1 Corinthians 2 for the mature.

And that's by knowledge of the word. So your wisdom that you're referring to is godly wisdom by walking with Christ and knowing him you know, and growing in that. So that's not what's condemned here.

Go ahead, Bob.

Yes yep.

Well said, we have about one minute. Give me 22 and 23. We've come down now, this path to the point where not only has sin prevailed and at the very beginning we talked about accepting.

Indulgences.

And putting God off to the side, we've gotten down to the point now where these are now the heroes these are now the people that we would look up to woe to. Those who are heroes at drinking wine and the society that makes us their dealings are going to be dishonest and they're going to deny the rights of the righteous when sin has so overtaken.

And he's using the picture now of drunkenness when sin has so overtaken. This person now becomes the standard of what is to be emulated and it turns into a dishonesty and it even turns into hating those who love righteousness.

Next week we're going to get into the therefores but I wanted us to perceive these because it's an important list for all of us to have. I have time, you're going to pray and then turn off the video.

So Father, thank you for this word to us today, it is woes to those who would reject your wisdom, the wisdom that's taught from above in favor of earthly wisdom which is carnal and no wisdom at all, so we pray Lord that we would always be taught of your Holy Spirit taught of your word.

And we thank you so much Lord for these woes being in the word that we would be trained by them, corrected, rebuked, held within the straight and narrow path that we would not wander and step to the right or to the left of it.

So thank you again for your word in Jesus name, Amen.