The Restoration of Israel: The Purpose of Enemies

The Lord’s Compassion on Jacob and the Promise of Restoration

We will read Isaiah 14, 1 through 2, and at some point I'll remember to have a sit for the opening hymn. But reading Isaiah 14, 1 through 2, and this is in a longer oracle that comes before this passage and after this passage about Babylon, so this is primarily about Babylon, but he takes a quick break here to talk about what this oracle means for Judah.

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them, and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord's land as male and female slaves.

They will take captives, those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppress them. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you would bless the preaching and reading of your word.

It is a kind and wonderful gift that you have given us this word for us to know your thoughts, for us to know what it is that we should be doing, what we should be thinking about you, and I pray that you would cleanse us and wash us by the water of your word.

In Jesus' name, amen. So last week I asked about judgment, about God saving through judgment. This week I'd like to think about a very related thought, which is enemies. So what kind of enemies do you have?

What kind of…maybe they're personal enemies, political enemies, enemies of the faith, or maybe some combination of them. The Christian life involves facing enemies. We have many enemies. We have not just personal ones in this world, but we also have abstract ones.

We have death, we have sin, we have Satan, and we must face all these things. And so in questioning again the providence of God and why it exists the way it does, and why it is that God would have us be in a world with judgment, why would he choose that to be the means by which he saves us?

And then also, now asking the question, why are there enemies? Now naturally there must be enemies for there to be the judgment that we talked about last week, but I'd like for us to dwell a little more specifically on enemies.

Why is it that God brings enemies into our lives? So as we look at verses 1 through 2, just these two verses, I'd like you to consider that God has purposes for enemies. Proverbs 16 .4 says, God has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Even the wicked for the day of trouble. Even the wicked man has a purpose. God has a purpose for him. And when we look at these passages, we're going to see that God has a purpose not only for enemies who surrender, but also for enemies who are undefeated and enemies who are defeated.

So those who have surrendered, those who are undefeated, and those who are defeated. I'm going to look at each of these in turn, but beginning just with verse 1. For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will choose Israel and will set them in their own land.

God will take Jacob that will be, you know, in prophesying about Babylon, we're supposed to imagine the time later when Judah is exiled to the land of Babylon, and God will set them in their own land.

He will return them to Israel. And so, we have that promise fulfilled in the pages of Scripture. And yet, we also have, as we've talked about before, we see that promise fulfilled in the church. I won't go through some of the proofs that we've gone through before, but I would have you consider this.

Either Isaiah or some rescinder after him is taking Isaiah's prophecies, you know, these aren't written in one long writing session. These are various prophecies and various oracles, and someone inspired by God, whether Isaiah himself or some, you know, additional inspired redactor, is bringing these things together.

And he chooses that right after that long section about Assyria from chapters 7 to 12, to instead of making Assyria the first oracle, making it the so that we don't get to Assyria until verse 24 of this chapter.

And he puts Babylon first. What would the Holy Spirit be doing in putting Babylon first? I think there's a special way that God has used Babylon to be kind of just the prototypical enemy, the prototypical oppressor of God's people.

And there's something very special that he's saying through Babylon, which represents not only the actual nation of Babylon, but if you look at the pages of the New Testament, especially in Revelation, that Babylon is representative of all oppressors, and especially the great oppressor, Satan, who would bind us with his accusations if it were not for Jesus Christ.

So considering this, this says more than just about the nation of Babylon. But I want to say, have you consider just the juxtaposition between this verse and what came before? You know, just before, you're talking about God making everything desolate so that unclean animals are dancing in the streets, and you have pictures of, well, if I can find it, pictures of children being destroyed.

Verse 16, their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their house will be plundered and their wives ravished. And then the sudden transition to compassion. Why are all these things happening?

Because God has compassion on Judah, because he is going to save his people. So if you are inclined to interpret your particular providence, your particular situation, very myopically, saying, oh, bad things are happening, this means this, good things are happening, this means this, and not consider what the bigger picture might be, do not do that.

There's a hymn in our hymnal, very close to the hymn we just sang, I'm not sure which number it is, but called God Moves in a Mysterious Way, and that's where that phrase comes from. If you've ever heard that phrase, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, it comes from that hymn.

And one of the lines in the hymn is, men scan God's work in vain, but he is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. Sorry, the first part is, blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain.

People who do not know God's truth, who do not have a right faith, are certain to read the events of history and the events in their own life and read the wrong things into them. But God is his own interpreter.

He will make it plain what his purposes are. And so, if you see, like Babylon, you see great things happening for them, they might have thought, well, you know, this is a sign that we're really going to make it.

That is unbelief that misinterprets. If Judah were to think that God had just discarded all of his promises and there weren't going to be a great Messiah that would come and save the people, they would have mistaken their present situation for the providence that God had already promised.

So do not interpret your current situation myopically. Recognize all of God's truth and what the big picture is, that there is a great heaven that awaits all those who believe. And if you are one who does not believe, then don't mistake your current circumstance, though it would be excellent for a sign that things will be excellent forever.

And if things are poor right now, do not mistake that. It's a sign that things will be poor forever. Because God has great intentions for his world. We continue on here to see the first kind of enemy.

You know, I broke it down into three different enemies. The first is the surrendered enemy, because you generally think of sojourners, foreigners in Israel, not necessarily as being enemies per se, but in being foreigners there are different people who are not naturally aligned with the people of Israel.

And sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. It's describing a picture of many people coming into Israel and joining themselves with them. And that may not have been that attractive a picture for the nation of Israel and what their purposes are, but what this is saying is you will be such an attractive prospect for others that those who travel to you will want to join themselves to you.

They will want to make your fate their fate because they know how great the providence is for you, how great God's intentions are for you. And this is, of course, as frequently in Isaiah when you see foreigners joining themselves to Israel, when you see foreigners coming to the land of Canaan, it is a picture of the gospel, of the gospel going out to all the nations and being brought in.

This is a picture of us. Now, you may distinguish this just between Jews and Gentiles, and you say, well, Jews are the ones being spoken of here and the sojourners are the Gentiles. But there is, you know, considering the bigger picture and everything that I just told you about Babylon, every single one of us, whether Jew or Gentile, is a sojourner, is one who has come out of the situation of the world and has joined into the church.

We all must embrace this identity as being a sojourner. Many people try to fit in with the world, and it just does not work. If you are of the people of God, you must consider yourself a sojourner. You must embrace that identity.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, I don't know if you remember those really massive pipe jeans that people would wear these things. And I would, at school, you know, when I was in high school, I would see people wearing these, and sometimes it was just, you know, that's who that person is.

Sometimes you would see other people trying to fit in by wearing these big, baggy jeans. And, you know, you look foolish. This isn't an identity you've already established for yourself. These people trying to fit in look like fools.

This is what it is for the Christian who tries to blend in with the world, to look like a fool. You want to embrace your identity as a sojourner. This is not—you can't have one foot in one world and one foot in the other.

We are in this world in that we are surrounded by it and we interact with it, but as far as mingling with sinful things and sinful identities and trying to fit in with people by engaging in sinful actions, whether it be, you know, what kind of things we laugh at, what kind of things we enjoy, what kind of things we approve of, there's no point in trying to compromise.

It only makes us look like fools. But we also, as church, must be not only embracing of our identity as sojourners, but a home for sojourners. This is a place where people who do not belong in the world, where God's elect, may come and gather together.

We want to be a welcoming place that says that if you—you might not be accepted by the world for your love of Jesus, but a love of Jesus is something where here is respected and honored, and this is a place with open arms for any who desire to be with Christ, for any who desire to have their priorities rearranged by God.

Now, I'm not saying that we don't accept people who may have serious flaws and only be somewhere on that road, but we need to be a people who are so valuing the things of God that people, when they come here, and they are one that feels outcast by the world, recognize that this is the place for me.

If I am a sojourner, this is my place. It continues on in verse 2. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place. Peoples will take them and bring them to their place. This is a most surprising statement.

Because the peoples are the Gentiles, right? The peoples, the captors, will come and take the captives back to their place. What a fantastic picture that it's not the people that save themselves. It's not even God directly who brings the people back, but God at the hand of other enemies brings them in.

And this is what is literally fulfilled when Persia comes and destroys Babylon and brings the people back to the land of Canaan, back to the promised land. But consider also how this is fulfilled for us, that enemies that are not yet defeated are working about accomplishing their own defeat.

Consider the cross. How did the cross come about? The cross didn't come about by God's hand directly. He worked through people. He worked through men, and specifically he worked through sinful men. He worked through all of our enemies, not just men, but also the abstract ones that I described, right?

He worked through death itself. How was death destroyed? Death was destroyed when death went for Christ. It was through the death of Christ that death has died. How did sin, how was the power of sin taken away?

The power of sin was taken away by the sinfulness that put Christ on the cross. And Christ's betrayer, Judas, being inspired by Satan to betray him. Satan, Judas, working together to bring about their own defeat through Jesus on the cross, and all those who gathered together with them to to crucify Christ.

All these various enemies of God's people are the ones bringing about the victory for God's people. It is just as profound—it's far more profound than what happened when Persia destroyed Babylon and brought the people back to the land of Canaan.

That all these enemies have worked to accomplish the death burial of Jesus Christ so that he might be resurrected and save us. It is the enemies that defeated themselves attempting to defeat God's people.

And think about how throughout the life of the elect, God uses sin, God uses sinful things to bring about their good. What is it that led to your salvation? The circumstances. What were the circumstances?

What things were it? It was probably, as it was for me, it was some sin of mine that caused me to recognize my need for Christ. If my sin had remained lesser, maybe I wouldn't have noticed it. But it was a sudden outburst of my sin that made me recognize how much I needed Jesus.

It was that sinfulness that God used to turn me to Christ, to turn me to his Son. And this is the case for many people, where it's various kinds of evil things that have have brought them and pointed them to Jesus Christ.

And then throughout the Christian life, as we grow in sanctification, as we grow in holiness, what is it that's bringing it about? Many times it is the means that God has given us that we should be engaged in, but many times, once again, it is the trials of enemies that enemies bring.

It is the wickedness of enemies that causes us to trust in Christ. And it is even our own wickedness that can bring that about. I wanted to read 5 .5 in our confession because I think it states this so well.

It's asking this question, why is it that God allows people to fall into—God allows his own people to fall into temptation? The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations in the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, so that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for other just and holy ends, so that whatever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment for his glory and their good.

And their good. So the enemies that come after us, whether they be enemies that you can see and touch, or whether they be the enemy that is ourselves within our own heart, working for our own good by God's appointment.

Romans 8 .28 says, all things work together for good to those who love God, those who are called according to his purposes. All things includes that very sinfulness that you struggle with. Now, you know, just like Paul said, shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?

May it never be. That's not what I'm encouraging, but I am letting you know that God has chosen to use the various enemies in your life, including your own corrupt self, as means by which you are to grow and means by which you are to experience the goodness of God.

So be quick to recognize that. Be quick to recognize that God is using these things for my good. Let me not fail to heed that, whatever it may be in your life. So do not be anxious when you face enemies.

Do not be anxious when you recognize your unsinful self. Do be convicted. Do turn from it. But recognize that God has brought enemies about. He has brought calamities about for your own good because he has compassion.

When you look at those things and you interpret them wrongly and say, ah, God does not have compassion, if you are one of his, if you have put your trust in him, even those things are good and perfect gifts from the Father above.

Even those are his compassion. And now we look at defeated enemies. So not just the undefeated enemies, but defeated enemies. And the house of Israel will possess them and the Lord's land as male and female slaves.

They will take captive those who were their captors and rule over those who oppressed him. So here you have a picture of the people being brought back by foreigners and then ruling over those same foreigners that brought them back.

And if you know, as you read through the Bible, this never happens in such a—at least not at a scale within the nation of Israel that you would consider this thing fully fulfilled. This happens frequently in the prophets, where they describe something that's going to happen to the physical nation of Israel, but that foreshadows something that will happen in the cross, and they leave something that doesn't exactly happen in the nation of Israel.

The Holy Spirit leaves that there to let you know this isn't fully fulfilled. This points to something greater. This points to the cross. It is through the cross that not only do enemies work for our good, but they become captives.

Now if you, just as a sidebar here, possessing them in the Lord's land as male and female slaves, you know it's a common question, does the Bible support slavery? Just to give you a very brief answer for that, the only time where the Bible permits and does not absolutely condemn taking a slave is in the situation of conquest.

So if you're used to hearing a different question, which is, you know, does the Bible support genocide? You know, when it talks about Joshua, you know, to go in and spare no nation, etc. And if you're used to answering that question saying, no, God has a very specific purpose in having the nation of Israel not spare any of these pagan nations, really the answer to the slavery question is exactly the same, because there's no other circumstance that the Bible permits slaves to be taken.

It's only in these situations of conquest over the promised land. It's only in the situation of prisoners of war. The other ways of taking a slave or selling a slave, or if you're found having purchased a slave that was stolen from his freedom, all these things are punished and condemned by the Bible.

So rather than, you know, I think as Christians in today's era, a lot of passages like that we just look at as things we have to explain and defend and, you know, and worry about. But do ask yourself, why does the Bible have this in here?

And for example, why does the Bible have, you know, these genocidal conquests, as you might label them? You know, whether or not that's a reasonable label, we can say for a different time. But why does God have this picture of people having conquest and capturing slaves?

It is to point to something much greater. It is to point to the fact that Christ, in conquering, has made all things his inheritance so that all those who are enemies instead serve him and do as he commands, and that we, as co-heirs with Christ, are benefiters of these things.

Consider some of the ways that this takes place. One, if you go all the way to the end of Isaiah, this is a kind of a harrowing scene, and maybe I've brought this up before. But at the very end of Isaiah, in verse, I'll start at 21, and some of them also, I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord, for as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so that your offspring and your name remains from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worms shall not die and their fires shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

This is a picture of eternity, of men witnessing God's judgment upon enemies, and in an act of worship doing this, from new moon to new moon, from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come and worship before me.

This is an act of worship where we contemplate the great mercy that God has given to us in light of the lack of mercy that he's given to others who, like us, deserve inherently no mercy. This is just one of the ways that God uses these enemies, even eternally, not just in our own time for our good, but even eternally, they will continue to serve a purpose to allow us to contemplate how merciful God has been to us who do not deserve these things apart from being in Christ, apart from being in the one who has died for the sins of those who believe in him.

So they will take captive those who were their captors. They will rule over those who oppress them. This is the picture of God's purpose in enemies. He has created everything for its purpose, even the wicked, for the day of trouble.

And we see in this passage some snippets of what God is accomplishing. He has his purpose for abstract enemies like death and sin. He has his purpose for angelic enemies like Satan. He has his purpose for physical enemies.

And as these things come and assail you, as they attack you and you feel overwhelmed, have no anxiety as you trust in the Lord. Come to God in prayer. Cast your fears upon him and and recite these promises that if you are in Christ, then these things are ultimately for your good.

These things are not for your harm. They are for your good. There was some time ago I saw some nature documentary that was describing that there are some fishermen in this one particular area of the world that they don't like the starfish because the starfish, I think they kill some of the clams that they're trying to harvest.

So what they do is they take the starfish and they chop up the starfish and they throw it back into the water. But there's a problem with this. Anyone know what the problem is? What is it? Yeah, so when you chop up the starfish, they grow back, and so you've created three starfish.

So this is what happens to God's people as enemies come against us. They think they're making us weaker. We, if we are not guided by God's word, think they're making us weaker. But just like the starfish, we grow stronger and stronger as enemies attack because they are not their own operatives but are under the sovereignty of God who is bringing out everything for his purposes and for his people's good.

Amen. Dear Holy Father, I ask that we would not scan your work in vain, that we would not have eyes of unbelief, but that we would know these promises are true, that you have brought about all things for the good of those who love you.

I pray that those who do not know you would recognize that their situation, whatever it seems to promise them, does not promise an eternal life. And I pray for those of us who do have eternal life that we would not be misguided by our present situation, that we would not read your providence myopically, but would know that you have done great things in Jesus Christ and in him, who have a wonderful future forever with him.

In Jesus' name, amen.