(Isaiah) the Cause & Cure of Spiritual Blindness — David Guzik

Isaiah 29: Judgment on Jerusalem

Isaiah chapter 29. We're in a section of the book of Isaiah that spans several chapters where the Lord is speaking to the southern kingdom of Judah. Let's just jump in here. Isaiah chapter 29, verse 1.

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. Add year to year, let feasts come around, yet I will distress Ariel. There shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to me as Aria. I will encamp against you all around.

I will lay siege against you with a mound, and I will raise siege works against you. You shall be brought down. You shall speak out of the ground. Your speech shall be low out of the dust. Your voice shall be like a medium's out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.

Chapter begins almost in a mysterious way, doesn't it? Woe to Ariel. You say, well, wait a minute, is this Little Mermaid or something here? What's going on with this? Well, the name Ariel in Hebrew means lion of God.

But I should let you know that there's some controversy among commentators if the idea here by this word Ariel is what it literally means, which is lion of God, or if the meaning is an altar for sacrifice or an altar for burning.

Now, you might say, well, they don't seem to sound very much alike. In the Hebrew, the word for altar for sacrifice is very close to the word Ariel, but it's not it, but it's very close to it. And so some commentators believe that it's speaking here of Jerusalem being as if it were a huge altar for sacrifice, and the city's going to be judged and destroyed and burned just as a sacrifice would be burned upon an altar.

Personally, I don't believe so. I believe the best reading of this, although it's difficult to say with certainty, but in my best judgment, I think that the idea here by the name Ariel is the term lion of God.

Now, what's interesting about this is that in no other place in the Bible is Jerusalem referred to as the lion of God. You might say, well, how do we know he's talking about Jerusalem here? Well, look at it here, verse one.

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. Well, that settles it. I mean, this is the city of David. And if you say, well, maybe it's Bethlehem and not Jerusalem. No, go to the end of verse eight, and it says, who will fight against Mount Zion.

Well, that settles it right there. This is referring to Jerusalem. So why would Jerusalem be called the lion of God? That's it's a singular expression used in the whole scriptures. Matter of fact, that word Ariel only appears one other time in the Bible other than it appears right here in Isaiah 29.

It appears in the book of Ezra, chapter eight, verse 16. And it's just the personal name of a priest. So the only time it's given as a title or as a word having a meaning other than a personal name is right here.

And what does it mean? Well, I really believe that when we consider the way Ariel is used in these verses and the context as a whole, the idea behind calling Jerusalem lion of God, first of all, is something that the people of Jerusalem were saying about their own city.

This is how they thought of it. Cities like to represent themselves. Well, think of athletic teams, right? You have the Detroit Lions, the New York Giants, you know, all the other, the Eagles, you know, these mighty warrior animals.

You know, you'll never find the lambs or the puppies or something like that. They're just not going to find it out there. You know, the muskrats, you're never going to find it. Now, I think that Jerusalem, the people of Jerusalem were calling themselves the Lion of God.

They saw that attacks were on the way. They saw that a siege was imminent. And so, you know, sort of an effort of civic pride of, you know, let's put we're the lions of God. Yes, we're strong. Yes, lions of God.

And I believe that when God uses the term here in the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, he's speaking in a sense, sarcastically. Woe to the Lion of God, to the Lion of God. You see the repetition in my mind, there's almost like a sarcastic feel of this.

The city where David dwelt, add year to year, let feasts come around and let life go on as regular. The feeling here in Isaiah 29, 1 is that Jerusalem is proud, resting on its spiritual heritage instead of its present reality, right?

We're the city of David. He was such a man of God. The greatest king Israel. Yes, the city of David. Were these men and women in Jerusalem. They didn't have the heart David had. Not one tenth of it. Yet they're resting on the spiritual laurels of the past.

And finally, they're living for present pleasures without any concern to God. Add year to year. Let the feasts come around. Yes, we're the lions of God. And what does the Lord say to this proud, self-sufficient attitude?

Look at verse two. Yet I will distress Ariel. Oh, yeah, Mr. Lion of God, I will distress you. I'll trouble you. Jerusalem may have this high opinion of itself, but it is not out of the reach of God's hand of judgment.

Instead of the routine of year to year, instead of the regular feast and say, oh, we'll live life as normal. God will send them. Look at it here. There shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to me as Ariel.

You see, instead of the routine of year to year in the feast, God will send heaviness and sorrow. And if Jerusalem sees itself as a lion, then God will fight against them with the same fury a man would have against a lion.

And I think that's what he means when he says there in verse two, it shall be to me as Ariel. You know, if you're fighting a lion, you're not holding back. You're going with everything you have. And God says, that's how I'm going to bring my judgment upon you.

God’s Siege Against Proud Jerusalem

Then he goes on and he says, using the terminology of warfare of that day, verse three, I will encamp against you all around. I will lay siege against you with a mound. I will raise siege works against you using the images of warfare for that day.

God promises to battle against Jerusalem and to conquer her. You shall be brought down. In other words, as if God's saying, I'm going to bring in the bombers. I'm going to send in the infantry. I'm going to send out the cruise missiles.

You're going down, Jerusalem. If we were to use the modern imagery of war in our day, you pride yourself as being a lion of God. Wait until you get in this battle with me. And in all of this, the Lord will bring down the lofty self-image Jerusalem has of itself.

Instead of calling herself Ariel, the lion of God, instead of calling herself the city where David dwelt. Look what their speech will be instead. Look at verse four. You shall speak out of the ground.

Your speech shall be low out of the dust. Instead of loud boasts, their speech shall whisper out of the dust. I'm going to bring you low, God says. Your voice, your speaking, it's going to be low. It's just going to be out of the dust.

There'll be no place for vain glory or proud speaking. You're not going to be on top of the world anymore. I'm going to bring you low down to the dust. Now, that's pretty strong, isn't it? Lord, grabbing his proud child by the lapels, shaking him around a little bit, if you will, casting him down to the ground.

And there he is, the proud child of God, groveling in the dust. We think, wow, God must have forsaken that proud child of his, right? Not at all. Let an enemy come against that child of God and look what the Lord does.

You see, it's one thing for the Lord to do it, right? It's another thing for somebody else. I mean, you have the judgment and the discernment to discipline your own children. You might have to, you know, apply the Board of Education to the seed of knowledge there to bring that about.

But you wouldn't want anybody else hitting your kid like that, right? What's the idea here? Look at verse five. It says, moreover, the multitude of your foes shall be like fine dust and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passes away.

Yes, it shall be in an instant. Suddenly you will be punished by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire. That's the Lord speaking to the nations that will attack Israel.

In other words, he's saying, I'm going to put you in the dust. He carries the imagery of Israel being down in the dust, or actually Jerusalem being down in the dust. And then he carries that imagery out.

And he says the multitude of your foes are going to be like fine dust. They're going to be numerous. They're going to be scattered to come against them. But I will judge them. I will come against them with thunder and earthquake and great noise.

Look at verse seven. It carries on the thought the multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her in her fortresses and distress her shall be as a dream of a night vision.

In other words, the nations that come against as numerous as dust against Jerusalem. And by the way, this prophecy, I'm sure it had a partial fulfillment in the days of the siege of the Assyrians and probably later among the Babylonians.

But won't this have an ultimate fulfillment in the end times when all the nations come against Jerusalem, when they all come to attack Jerusalem, and God rises up and saves God's people and saves Jerusalem?

And look at the look how God will thwart these people who attack the city. It says it shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams. And look, he eats, but he awakes and his soul is still empty.

Or when a thirsty man dreams and look, he drinks, but he wakes and indeed he is faint and his soul still craves. So the multitude of all the nations shall be who fight against Mount Zion. God will frustrate Israel's enemies completely.

Don't you love the imagery God uses? And God knows how to write a book. He just says, you know what it's going to be like? It's going to be like when you have that dream. You go to bed hungry. There you are in your dream.

You're just eating all your favorite foods. You're at this big table. Oh, it's just food, food, helping after. Oh, wow. And you're just tasting it. You're salivating. You see drool all over the pillow because, oh, you're just, oh, it's so good.

And then you wake up, you know, and you blink your eyes. And you know what? You're hungry. And all that dreaming, all that it was a delicious dream, wasn't it? But there was no reality to it. You wanted it was so close, but so far away.

So unsatisfying. And that's what God said. These nations are going to come and they're going to attack Israel. And they're going to think it's going to be so close and it's going to be right in front.

It's going to be like a delicious dream, but it's going to be unsatisfying. There'll be no fulfillment of it. So that's what God says first. He says, if you notice in the first four verses, he says, I'm going to judge Jerusalem because of its pride.

But the nations that come against Jerusalem, I'm going to judge them and bring them low and protect my people. You know, friends, if you feel like the Lord has his hand of correction on you, his hand of discipline, don't think it's because he doesn't love you.

Don't think it's because he just kind of cast you out to get kicked around by the devil for a while. It's not like that at all. He's managing everything. I think that if there was one thing we could see in the spiritual realm tonight, among anything that would just give every one of us a tenfold increase in our appreciation of the love of God for us, is if we could see how much the Lord preserves us from that we never see.

How much in the natural realm? How much in the physical realm? How much in the spiritual realm? You know, we think we have a bad. Oh, what if the Lord wasn't protecting you? What do you think would come against you then?

There'd be no place for you to stand. And the Lord was protecting Jerusalem, even though they were caught in this blindness of pride. Well, speaking of blindness, he's going to talk now in the remainder of the chapter of the spiritual blindness of Jerusalem.

Spiritual Blindness and Self-Induced Drunkenness

Verse nine. Pause and wonder. Blind yourselves and be blind. They are drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink. The Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, namely the prophets, and he has covered your heads, namely the seers.

Interesting, these two verses, Isaiah cries out and he says to the people of Jerusalem, pause and wonders, blind yourself and be blind. Jerusalem's pride, as it was expressed in the first part of the chapter, has made them spiritually blind and spiritually drunk.

And the Lord tells Jerusalem to pause and wonder at this because they do it to themselves. Even though they do it to themselves, they lack the self-awareness to see that condition. Look at it there again in verse nine.

Blind yourselves and be blind. Now, let me ask you, if you're blinding yourself, why should it be something amazing to you that you're blind? That's how it works, is spiritual blindness, doesn't it? You do it to yourself, yet you're amazed to find when you're in that condition.

Same way when you're spiritually drunk. Now, it's interesting that he brings up the idea or the image of drunkenness, because in the previous chapter, he condemned literal drunkenness. But now he's talking about spiritual drunkenness.

And it seems amazing that anybody who would make themselves spiritually inebriated would be blind to their condition. But they are. They lack the self-awareness to see their condition. That's why he says there in verse nine, they stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.

Now, let me ask you something, and I think we've got a room full of Bible scholars here this evening. Let me just ask you simply. Is he speaking about this in a good way or in a bad way? Is this a compliment to the people of Jerusalem?

Not at all. It's a rebuke. Isn't that interesting? In light of the movement that hopefully is passe among Christians now, and I'm hoping it is, of this whole business of being drunk in the spirit. And, you know, the Holy Ghost bartenders where the guy comes up and, you know, let's all get drunk in the spirit and act like a bunch of foolish drunk people and on and on.

My friends, you know, the Bible talks about that, doesn't it? I'll read it to you right now. They're drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink. For the Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, namely the prophets.

Oh, so you say, well, I'm I'm like drunk by the spirit, you know, but I haven't consumed any alcohol. And brother, you're under the judgment of God is all I can say. This isn't a blessing from God. This is a rebuke.

This is a chastisement from him. This is a curse, both at the same time, self-induced and sent from the Lord. And if you notice here, it says in verse 10, a connection here. You have Jerusalem choosing to be spiritually blind, choosing to be spiritually drunk.

And because Jerusalem chose blindness and chose spiritual drunkenness, God sent something to them. And what did he send? Look at it. Verse 10. He sent he poured out on them the spirit of deep sleep. And what's interesting about this is, you know, a drunk might sleep it off, right?

He's so exhausted. He's so spent. He's so wasted from from his drunkenness that he goes to sleep and he sleeps it off. What's interesting about that is that when the drunk finally wakes up, he's sober to some degree, right?

That's not how it works, though, with spiritual drunkenness and spiritual sleep. When you sleep it off, you're in just as worse condition, if not worse than before, because when you're spiritually asleep, you're not alert to the things of God.

You're not sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit. You see, when we're asleep, we're doing nothing productive. When we're asleep, we're vulnerable. When we're asleep, we're insensitive. And God sent these things to a blind, proud, drunk Jerusalem.

He's made them spiritually asleep. We have to note that the problem of spiritual sleepiness didn't end with Jerusalem of Isaiah's day. Romans chapter 13, verse 11 was written to Christians and it says, and do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

You know, people, if you believe that Jesus Christ is coming soon, if you believe that your salvation is nearer now than when you first came to Christ, there's all the more reason for you not to be spiritually asleep.

If you're spiritually asleep, you're not productive for the Lord. If you're spiritually asleep, you're vulnerable. I mean, that's the easiest time to attack anybody, right? When they're asleep. When we're spiritually asleep, we're insensitive.

We don't know what's going on. You don't know what's going on around you when you're asleep. And that's how many people are today in the body of Christ. Friends, Christians need to be awake, especially knowing the time.

Now, that's what God sent upon them is sleep, but because Jerusalem chose blindness and chose spiritual drunkenness, God not only sent them sleep, but he took away something as well. Look at it here in verse 10.

He has closed your eyes, namely the prophets. A drunk has blurred vision and poor perception. Even so, God closed the spiritual eyes of the nation, namely the prophets. I mean, the prophets were silent and the word of God was neglected.

There was no spiritual vision there because the word of God was neglected and the prophets were silent. And friends, it was because the people wanted it that way and silencing the prophets and the seers.

Famine of the Word and Spiritual Illiteracy

God simply gave Jerusalem what she wanted. You know, the prophet Amos spoke of the same idea in Amos chapter eight. It says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it. Friends, when a people reject God's word long enough, when they come before God with their fingers in their ears, so to speak, God will say, Fine, I won't speak to you anymore.

I will send a famine for the word of God. I will close the eyes of your prophets. As it says here, he'll cover the heads of the seers, those who bring the revelation from God. He'll close their eyes. As I look at our own culture in the United States and the church culture, if you will, you wonder if these principles aren't being fulfilled right now.

You sometimes just scratch your head and say, Where are the people teaching the Bible? You know, there's a lot of talking going on. You know, there's a lot of pulpiteering. Where are the people teaching the Bible?

It's a famine of the word of God. And you wonder if it isn't the Lord just saying, Listen, church, this is what you want. I'm giving you what you want. You don't want my word. Then I'm not going to entrust you with this special gift.

And I suppose it's easy and they certainly bear responsibility, too. It's easy to blame the preachers. It's easy to blame the unfaithful ministers and the pulpits who aren't teaching the word of God. Friends, what about the unfaithful people in the pews who don't want to hear the word of God?

They just don't want to hear it. They'd rather have ears tickled. And so there's plenty of responsibility to go around for everybody. Friends, the bottom line is you need to understand that when God entrusts his word to you, it's a precious gift that you need to value, that you need to take to your heart, that you need to say, Man, I want it, Lord.

Give me more. I want your word. I don't want you to close the eyes of your prophets. I don't want you to seal up your vision. Lord, keep it coming to me. And I'm not talking about some unique, ecstatic, prophetic vision in some hyper spiritual sense.

I'm just talking about God revealing himself to you through his word, through the words of the prophets. Friends, God wants to do that. Well, it goes on here. He's kind of going to draw on another sort of idea here in verse 11.

He says, The whole vision has begun to you like the words of a book that is sealed. Which men deliver to one who is literate, saying, Read this, please. And he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. Then the book is delivered to one who is illiterate, saying, Read this, please.

And he says, I'm not literate. We see this is speaking of the spiritual illiteracy of Jerusalem. Isaiah likened Jerusalem to the blind and to the drunk. Now he likens them to the illiterate. But this isn't a literal literacy because the literate man receives the vision.

It's like Isaiah delivers the vision to the guy who can read. But to him, it's a sealed book because his heart isn't right with God. And he looks and flips through the page. Well, I don't get anything out of this.

What's in here? There's nothing in it for me. So then Isaiah goes and he takes it to the illiterate man. And the illiterate man looks at it and he goes, Well, I can't do anything with this either. Both of them, the guy who can read and the guy who can't read, they're both spiritually illiterate.

Friends, I wonder. I wonder how many people are spiritually illiterate. Many people today read or receive God's Word like an illiterate man reads the newspaper. I mean, think of a person who can't read and you give them a newspaper.

Well, you know what? I bet they could have a fun time with that newspaper for quite a while. I mean, you open it up and there's, of course, a few words you can pick out, right? Even an illiterate man can pick out a few things here and there.

And so he notices a few words. Oh, he just picks out the three or four words on every page that he can read that are big enough. So he can amuse himself doing that. He can look at all the pictures, right?

Well, there's a lot of interesting pictures to look at. Yes, an illiterate man can amuse himself with the newspaper for quite a while. They can sit with the open newspaper, enjoy themselves to some degree, and appear to be reading.

You've got an illiterate man just picking out a word or two here and looking at the pictures. And you've got an expert English major next to him, you know, studying every word and knowing the intimate knowledge of every word there.

They look the same, don't they? Right there, the literate and the illiterate. But the true content escapes the illiterate man. Friends, how about that with your understanding of the Word of God? Really, do you receive it like an illiterate person?

You come here and there's a few things here and there you can pick out. You know, you can pick out a word here or there. And, you know, the pictures or whatever you like, you know. Yeah, that was funny.

That was interesting. This is that, you know. Tell more stories. I like that or whatever, you know. There's pictures. It's good to put pictures in the newspaper. That's fine. But the real content, the real meat of it, the real essence of what's been saying, right over your head.

You're not getting it. Now, if you hear that, you say, you know what? That that might be me. You know what you need to do? Cry out to the Spirit of God. Because your problem isn't fundamentally an intellectual problem.

The problem is a spiritual problem. You need your heart made alive by the Spirit of God so that you can be spiritually literate. And when the Spirit of God speaks to you, when the Spirit of God writes it on your heart, you can read it.

The Lord will do that for you. Now, look at verse 13. He says, Therefore, the Lord said, Inasmuch as these people draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men, therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder.

Outward Religion and Hearts Far from God

For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden. Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord and their works are in the dark.

They say, Who sees us and who knows us? Surely you have things turned around. Shall the potter be as esteemed as the clay? Or shall the thing made say of him who made it, He did not make me? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, he has no understanding?

Wow, what a powerful section. God speaking to the spiritually blind people of Jerusalem. And he looks him square in the eye and he says, These people draw near to me with their mouths and they honor me with their lips, but they've removed their hearts far from me.

Jerusalem knew how to talk the spiritual talk, but their hearts were far from God. And friends, can I just draw a very basic point from this? You can't always tell a person's heart by what they say. You can know the right things to say spiritually.

You can know how to come off right. You hang around Christians long enough, you know, just like you hang on, you know, I tell you, you want lingo or something, hang around your kids who are into skateboarding.

You know, all the tricks, all the maneuvers, you know, all the, you know, the backside, fakie, nollie, manual, kickflip, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these things. And, you know, sometimes I try to act with my boys like I understand that stuff.

And so, you know, I say, well, why don't you try a da da da da da da da? And they'll look at me, you know, with that. You poor thing. That's impossible. You know, you can't do that. You know, it's like two contradictory moves at the same time.

Well, but if you hung around skateboarders long enough, you'd get the lingo, right? You know how to say it. Maybe you couldn't do it. Maybe you wouldn't really understand, but you could say it. You know, it's the same thing with Christian walk, right?

You come to church, you hear enough sermons, you hang around Christians, you know the things to say. I mean, you're smart enough to not get around a bunch of Christians and say, I'm the most spiritual dude here, right?

You know that much. Come on. But you think it. It's in your heart. You don't say it. You say the right things with your words. You know enough to say, you know, oh, don't we just love one another? You know, when it's like, oh, man, if I could bring their neck, that's kind of what's in your heart.

Well, friends, it's not enough. You can't just talk it. These people draw near to me with their mouths. Oh, praise the Lord. We love the Lord. But their hearts are far from me. You can't always tell a person's heart by what they say.

And might I say this as well? You can't always tell a person's heart by what they do. How many times have you done something? And man, it's just been a mess. And you go, oh, man, I didn't mean for it to turn out like this at all.

Oh, gosh, this is just a mess. You know this. And you can't tell the heart by that necessarily. You know, the only way you can know a person's heart utterly and completely, well, you'd have to be God.

Now, the next best way, the only way you and I can do it, is not by looking just at what people say, not by looking just at what they may do in any isolated incident. You can look closely at a person's life and look at the whole of their life, not just what they say, not just what they do.

And especially, not only how they act at church or among Christians. Right? Isn't that the measure? How do you act outside of these walls? You all here, you might have the right words to say and your heart might be real close to the Lord right here in this room.

How is it when you leave the room? How is it when you're someplace else? Now, Jesus said something very interesting regarding this. Matthew chapter 12, verse 34. Jesus said, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And friends, that's certainly a true principle, isn't it? But it's not an absolute principle. Because people can draw near to God with their mouths and honor the Lord with their lips, but their hearts can still be far from God.

Now, of course, I think if you followed that person around, their speech would betray him sooner or later. But you can't do that, right? You can't be Jiminy Cricket on their shoulder or bug them all the time or simply put those things that they have in the spy movies on them or something.

Their speech would betray them, but you might never hear it. So friends, it's possible. It's possible for a person to honor God with their mouth, with their lips, but have their heart far from them. And if you notice it here in verse 13, it's very revealing.

How did their hearts get far from God? How did this happen? How? Look at it there. They have removed their hearts from me. Did God push them away? No, they removed their hearts from God. Friends, let me tell you something.

If you're not close to God tonight, he didn't move. It's you. You've removed yourself from him. And it's just best for you to take responsibility for it. Stop blaming everybody else. You know, well, I did it because, you know, what blah, blah, blah, blah did to me or what blah, blah, blah, blah did or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

You know what? Fine. But you still did it. You removed yourself from him. You can go around and kick yourself for it all day long. Oh, that's all. There's no hope. Or you can just draw close to the Lord with your heart right now.

Isn't that much better? Just draw close to him. He's near. But if we are far from God, it's ourselves who have moved ourselves from him. The end of verse 13 is very interesting, too, where he says,. And their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men.

In other words, the fear or the honor or the reverence they have of God, it doesn't come from within. It comes from an outward commandment that people put upon them. Now, friends, it's better for people to fear the Lord by the commandment of men than for them not to fear the Lord at all, right?

But it's far better for somebody to fear the Lord because their heart is turned towards God. And then you don't have to command them or the state doesn't have to command them or the church doesn't have to command them because their own heart is alive to God and God commands them.

And God says, here's the breakdown. You don't have any personal relationship with me. Any personal ground with me. Instead, it's all external. It's all somebody else getting you to do something. It's all upon you and somebody else.

There's no motivation coming up from within you to draw near to God. Their hearts don't respond to God. They only respond to men. What does the Lord say about all this? It says in verse 14, The wisdom of their wise men shall perish because Jerusalem's pride had led them into spiritual blindness, sleep and drunkenness and illiteracy and hypocrisy.

God says, I'm going to destroy the wisdom of their wise men. Their wise men promoted the pride that led to all these evils. And Isaiah here in verse 14, he calls it a marvelous work and a wonder. You know, when I rebuke the pride of man, it's going to be a marvelous work and a wonder.

It's going to blow people's minds. Isn't that exactly what Paul says in 1 Corinthians that God did in the gospel of Jesus Christ at the cross? Friends, according to human thinking, what could be more absurd than God saving the world by coming down to die just about the most shameful, excruciating death that a person could die?

I'm going to save the world through that. By human reasoning, it's foolishness. But in the greatness of God, it's the wisdom of God. It's the plan of God. And it's a marvelous work and a wonder. If you want to see more of this pride, take a look here at verse 15.

Human Pride Before the Creator

They say, Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord. And their works are in the dark. And they say, who sees us? You see, in their false wisdom, the proud people of Jerusalem thought that they could hide their thoughts.

They could hide their counsel. They could hide their deeds. Their works are in the dark. They thought they could hide all that from the Lord. Right? You know, oh, God doesn't see us. God doesn't know what I'm thinking.

God doesn't know what I'm doing. And they might not say that, but that's how they're thinking. That's how they're acting. And listen here. I love it. Verse 16. This is so precious because surely you have things turned around.

And think about that for a minute. They thought that they could hide from the Lord. And they thought that they had God all figured out. OK, I'll hide from the Lord, but I got him figured out. Friends, surely you have things turned around.