Isaiah Lesson 39

Let's pray. So Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and to hear from your

Word, to be trained in righteousness by your Holy Scriptures. We know that hearing from you is our only way to be changed and only way to become like you.

And Lord, we desperately need you so we look vertically, not horizontally.

Lord, we look at you and not the world around us for help. Lord, we are not a people that wants to go back to Egypt.

We are a people that wants to walk in freedom. And we know that comes by hearing your Word. So thank you for your

Word and help us now as we look into it. In Jesus' name, Amen. I saw something disturbing.

Maybe some of you guys saw it. It was carried by a number of the news channels. In Oakland, California, there was a shooting and at least six people were hit.

One of them died and five were seriously injured. That would make enough of a story, right?

However, when the ambulance arrived at the scene, the crowds of people surrounded the ambulance and began to dance upon the ambulance.

One guy had a football and was standing on top and women were dancing in the most lewd, inappropriate ways you can imagine, what they call twerking, which is really simulating a sex act right there on the ambulance.

It was a bizarre scene, but it is, I think, indicative of the world in which we live and what

America, sadly, has become, especially in certain parts of America. Now, what's really troubling about that is the

Godward relationship where people who have no fear of God then turn and look horizontally for help or for salvation and begin to blame other people rather than the one with whom they have to do.

All of us must stand before the judge of all the earth, but there is increasingly no fear of God in the land.

Instead, people look horizontally and they begin to blame others for their own problems, inventing boogeyman oppressors, whether it be racism or corporate greed is the problem or Christian nationalism, misogyny, homophobia, all of these things are blamed as the source of oppression that's causing the problems rather than looking vertically and seeing what

God would say about behavior. Now, are there real issues of oppression coming from the systems of our society, from the government?

I would say, yeah. If you look at things like a mask mandate, not a recommendation, but a mandate in public places where we were forced to put coverings over our own breathing holes,

I would say that's an overstepping of what government is allowed to do because we have natural rights before God, and one of those is to breathe the air that he has given us to breathe.

Amen. Another thing would be the sphere of sovereignty that God has over his own church, that there is a

God over all the earth and he has given his Christ into the world who is the head of his church, and therefore the church has the right to gather in his name and obey his commands.

His commands include that we would not neglect the assembling together of ourselves.

So, when a governor comes and says that you are not to gather in his name because of a virus, this is overstepping the realm, the sphere of what government was intended by Romans 13 and 1

Peter 2 to be. Yeah, what's that? And speech. And speech, and yeah, limiting what we're allowed to say.

Freedom of religion and a number of these things. So, the government in many ways does become a force of oppression in the land, but not for the reason that people claim.

That being the case, isn't it ironic that the very people who decry imaginary oppression see no problem with bigger and bigger government, and in fact, lean on government to be their savior, demanding more and more from government, giving more and more power to the very force that always becomes the oppressive structures on earth.

It sounds like people have become blinded. Yeah, there is a blinding, I think. So, if you have already a government that has overreached its bounds, right?

Government was invented by God as an institution to punish the wrong and reward the good.

Romans 13, 1 Peter 2. Now, it's become a source of redistribution from social security to all kinds of taxation for government welfare programs.

Now, there's a demand for ever -increasing government, universal basic income, universal health care, as if health care is a right and not something that requires the work and the labor of another person.

Yeah. It's something for people to demand rather than something for them to earn.

It's the apotheosis of government. Man has become God. This is where I'm going, Rich. You said it exactly right.

Man is putting government in God's place and in no way esteeming

God. Well, what's the nature of government? It's like anything else.

It serves its own interest. It has a nature that will constantly desire to grow and take more and more power for itself.

Thomas Sowell was and is a famous economist. You guys all heard of Thomas Sowell?

He was a Marxist when he went to the University of Chicago and studied under Milton Friedman. He was not convinced by Milton Friedman's teaching on the value of capitalism and free markets and things of that nature.

He remained a Marxist. Until he went to work for government. And he did believe in truth and he was after facts, but he heard the proposition that the reason why

Puerto Rican minimum wage laws and the labor pool in Puerto Rico unemployment rates were up, the claim of his agency for which he worked was that this was the result of hurricanes.

An undue number of hurricanes had hit Puerto Rico, and that's why there was just not enough crop to pick.

But the other side was saying, well, the reason why there's such high unemployment in Puerto Rico is because you just hike the minimum wage.

Well, which was it? So Thomas Sowell did believe in facts. So he began to study and everybody in his agency trembled.

When he got the raw data, there had not been a destruction of crops resulting in too little crop to be picked and therefore unemployment.

The fact was the minimum wage law actually did reduce employment in Puerto Rico.

So the facts on the ground convinced Thomas Sowell that it was government and their arbitrary restrictions on the economy that was hurting people.

And that's what convinced him to no longer be a Marxist, but to believe in the free market.

His work that he's done over so many years since then have proven the point a thousand times over.

So he's written many books about these subjects. All this to say what

Thomas Sowell came to discover is that government is a monster. The more you feed it, the more it grows, the more power it has, the more it seeks to take.

And it will eventually result in what you saw in the

Soviet Union with Pol Pot, with Che Guevara and every communist experiment the world has ever seen.

The result is ever increasing government and then power placed in the hands of sinful people.

Yeah, it's a beast that keeps growing. And ultimately from the book of Revelation, we recognize that this will become a worldwide phenomenon in the end times where the beast, the worldwide government will take over and then will fall.

So we see in America this clamor for bigger and bigger government, the very thing that will oppress.

This is a parallel to Isaiah chapter 30. When Israel was enslaved by their own sin, they did not look to God in repentance.

For help, what did they do? They looked to Egypt and Egypt is the very symbol of their slavery.

It was Egypt that enslaved Israel for 400 plus years. And yet Israel turned back to Egypt and looked to Egypt for deliverance.

And that is the nature of man to run to other men for deliverance, to look horizontal rather than to look to the one with whom we have to do.

If Israel had repented, turn from their own wicked ways, God would have seen and heard from heaven and healed their land.

Instead, they leaned on a stick that was really a sharp stick that can do nothing but pierce the hand.

So let's read about it. Isaiah chapter 30. Godless people look to other people to save them, but we look to God.

So who would like to read? We're just the first verse. Isaiah chapter 30 verse one.

Rick, thanks. Our stubborn children declares the Lord who carry out a plan, but not mine and who make an alliance, but not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin.

Okay, so this is again, we're carrying on from chapter 29, the prophecy against Ariel.

Ariel, that's Jerusalem. It's against God's own people. In Jerusalem.

And now he's calling them stubborn children who carry out a plan, but not my plan.

Now we've discussed at length in this study on Isaiah, the idea that God has two wills.

He has a decree, a sovereign plan, which no one can thwart.

And it was included in God's sovereign plan that Assyria would be a rod of his judgment.

But there's another sense in which the Bible uses the word will. We talked about this last week from first Peter.

There's four uses of thelema in the book of first Peter. There is the decree of God, his sovereign will, things will happen according to his plan.

But there's also the revealed will of God. And that is his commands, his imperatives, what he has told us to do.

Now look at verse one, which will is in view? Is this the revealed will or the decreed will?

The secret will of God. All stubborn children declares the

Lord who carry out a plan, but not mine. The revealed will.

Yeah. He has revealed for them what they are to do. Right. I've told you, oh man, which to love justice, to love to practice justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your

God. Micah 6, 8. The commands of Deuteronomy and the blessings that go with them.

Deuteronomy 28, the curses that are associated with disobedience. All of these things are revealed to Israel, but they don't carry out the plan.

They make their own plan. So this is the revealed will of God who make an alliance, but not of my spirit.

Where did God command Israel when attacked by the enemies to go down to Egypt?

Was that in Hezekiah chapter three, verse two, or second opinions chapter four, verse seven.

There's no book of Hezekiah. There's no place in the Bible where God commands them to go to Egypt.

What are they to do when they see foreigners coming into the land? Deuteronomy 28 through 30.

They should bow their heads before God. That's a sign they're under judgment. They need to repent and God will deliver them.

As they call on him, he will send a deliverer like he had done over and over again. That's his plan.

That the judgment that falls when the nations come would cause them to repent. Instead, they don't repent.

They make an alliance, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin.

Okay, so let's take a look at what the nature of this alliance is. What are they going to do? Verses two to five.

Who's my next reader? Isaiah 32 through five.

You got that? Thanks. Be your shame and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation for his princes were at zone or zone and his ambassadors came to harness.

They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them or be help or benefit.

But a shame also. Do you recall when the

Assyrian threat first came upon Israel? What did they do? They make alliance.

Go back earlier than that when it was Syria and the northern kingdom. What did

Israel do? They look to us Syria to be their delivery.

Now, Syria has wiped out the north and Sinasherib is moving in on the city of Jerusalem.

And once again, rather than turning to God, they go to a foreign nation looking for help.

A foreign government. Yeah, this isn't even their own government. They're looking to a foreign government to help.

So verse two, you who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.

But it's just a shadow. It can't protect them. There's no substance there. In fact, at this time,

Egypt is beginning to crumble as a kingdom. They're only really a shadow of their former glory.

And they're also not interested in saving Israel. They're you're leaning on a rod that will pierce your hand.

Therefore, shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame. And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

For though his officials are at Zohan and his envoys reach Haines. So these two cities in Egypt, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them.

That brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.

So raises the question, what is the role of government? Here, they're looking to a foreign government to complicate matters even more.

Their whole government and their country is collapsing. So they're looking for foreign help.

But just in general, what is the role of government? It should be to protect its people.

Protect its people. Yeah, to do justice, right. To enforce justice.

So there's a couple passages about this. Somebody read for me Romans 13, 3 and 4.

This is why we're to remain in subjection to government. They have a God -ordained purpose. God's the one that has placed governments where they are.

So Romans 13, 3 and 4. Awesome.

So who invented governments? God. And there's a good purpose for government.

It is to reward the good and punish the evil. Now, in a fallen world, do governments remain within their

God -ordained sphere? No, they tend to go beyond what

God has ordained for them to do. What happens if a government begins to punish the good and reward the evil?

That's what we're living. Well, is there ever a time where the church ought to disobey government?

So the Romans 13 injunction to remain in subjection to government is within the sphere of what

God has created government to do. But there does come an Acts 5, 29 moment, which the apostles came to when they said, is it right for us to obey

God or men? And they determined they would continue to preach the gospel, even though the government told them to be silent in that name.

So that does come about at times. Yeah. The irony is that during COVID people are relying so much on the government for their income.

Yeah. And yet rioting in the streets. Wow. That's exactly it. They're rioting in the streets while relying on government for income.

That's incredible. Yeah. But that's the nature of going down to Egypt.

You're looking to what enslaves you to be your deliverance. I mean, what is the reason for the problems of the inner city?

And that's not a racial question because the inner city has whites and Hispanics and blacks and all different ethnicities in terms of skin color.

But we know that in the inner city there is rampant crime and violence and failing education systems and teenage pregnancy.

And these are just statistical facts, right? Murder rates. Look at Chicago, 54 shot last weekend and five of them died.

Whereas black lives matter when people with brown skin are killed by other people with brown skin.

There's obviously a political thing going on rather than a true pursuit of life and justice.

What's the reason for it? Is it the racism of America? Well, if it were the case, then when you ask for systemic racism, you would get examples other than policing and the prison industrial complex.

I watched the movie 13th. Anybody seen that? It's one of the social justice propaganda pieces that claims that prisons were created in America to enslave.

But even in that movie itself, they say 97 % of people in prison have pled guilty, which means that anybody who's there by pleading guilty for a crime that supposedly they did not commit is there by their own lie, saying they committed a crime that they didn't commit.

So if it is an enslavement, it's one that comes by the sin of lying by pleading guilty to a crime you didn't commit.

Or could it be that the crimes are generally committed in the first place? So these examples just crumble under cross -examination.

Proverbs 18, 17, systemic racism, homophobia. There's nobody attacking homosexuals in the streets.

I mean, Fort Lauderdale just had a gay pride festival and a car went haywire and a truck just ran people over.

And the mayor of Fort Lauderdale said it was homophobia, clearly. Only it turned out that the guy behind the wheel was a gay man in a pride shirt who was either drunk or somehow had a heart attack or some medical event and killed people because of it.

But the assumption was it was homophobia. It's not the case. All of the so -called reasons for the problems that we see in America are not the case at all.

What are the problems? It's a God word problem. It's a sin problem. It is fatherlessness in homes.

Jeremiah 17, 9. It's the rejection of the law of God.

Those who live by the law of God will find from God's law the kind of prosperity promised in Psalm chapter one.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water.

Whatever he does prospers, not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the

Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. That doesn't mean we'll have

Lamborghinis. It means there'll be a kind of prosperity that comes from obedience.

Well -ordered families, fathers in the home that train children to be disciplined and to walk in righteousness and to avoid the kind of nonsense that was happening on the streets of Oakland just yesterday or two days ago.

The problem is God word, not horizontal. It's obedience to God's word.

Yeah, I don't think there was any reason.

It was just the degradation of a society, a cultural breakdown.

And culture is the values of a people. So culture can be the problem.

Can one culture be better than another? Not according to social justice.

To say that Western American values of individualism and freedom are better than collectivistic ideas and Islamic Sharia law, that would be considered

Islamophobia. And this is your hegemonic

Western privilege speaking. Your colonialism. Tell them they're a

Christophobe. Well, if they're afraid of Christ, yeah, which they probably are.

The case, though, is that the reason for the destruction coming on Jerusalem and what's happening in our world as well is a vertical problem.

And yet they run in Jerusalem to the very thing that enslaved them, to Egypt.

And that's what is happening in America today. People turning to the thing that is their slavery and strengthening the bonds, the very thing that's keeping people in poverty and the crime filled neighborhoods and things of this nature is the thing that they strengthen when they support a party that is for the killing of babies and for the mutilating of children and for the confiscation of wealth by an oppressive government via unnecessary taxation.

All of these things that people support as a source of their liberation is the very thing that enslaves them.

It's Egypt. And that's what's happening in verses one to five.

So somebody read for me verses six and seven. An oracle concerning the animals of the

Negev through a land of hardship and distress of lions and lions of adders and darting snakes.

The envoys carry their riches on donkey's backs, their treasures on the humps of camels of that unprofitable nation to Egypt whose help is utterly useless.

Therefore, I call her Rahab the do nothing. Okay, so what's happening big picture here is they're loading up their donkeys and their camels with the goods of Jerusalem to bring these gifts to Egypt so that Egypt will come and rescue them from Assyria.

I like how Matthew Henry said in his commentary, God would have helped them gratis for free, but now all of their hard -earned wealth they're giving away to someone who charges this fair price, this high price, but won't come through.

So it says in verse six, an oracle on the beasts of the Negev. The Negev is that desert region south of Beersheba where the

Philistines were, the region between Israel and Egypt through a land of trouble and anguish from where come the lioness and the lion.

This is a treacherous land where there are lions, there's adders, flying fiery serpents, a reference to Deuteronomy 8 .15.

They carry their riches on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people that cannot profit them.

They're going for help to Egypt. Now, this is interesting here. Egypt's help is worthless and empty.

Therefore, I have called her Rahab who sits still. Why is she

Rahab that sits still? Why is Egypt Rahab?

Okay, so you're going to Joshua and in the notes I have from Joshua 2 .6, the harlot

Rahab. It very likely does refer to that. There is another interpretation, but first let's do

Rahab. What's the other one? A monster, a sea monster that's like, there was a sea monster in the kind of Canaanite mythology that was like Leviathan and she was described as being like a hippopotamus.

So there would be hippopotamuses. How do you say it? In the

Nile River and they would pretty much do nothing. They're just these big fat do nothings that just sit there.

So some commentators, including the Bible Knowledge Commentary, say that's what's in view here where it says

Rahab who sits still. Mine says a harmless dragon. A harmless dragon.

Just plop there in the Nile River. You go, bring all these gifts, all that you want. Just going to be a hippopotamus just sitting there.

You're wasting your money on this thing. It's not going to come to your deliverance. So that's one possible image.

The other is that it's referring to like a Rahab prostitute who doesn't help. So in Joshua 2, they would be familiar.

Israel would be familiar with how Rahab hid the spies. Joshua 2 .6, but she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stocks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.

So this was a Rahab that actually delivered. A foreigner to which

Israel turned for the sake of these spies and she delivered. But that would be the aberration.

Egypt will be a Rahab that doesn't deliver. So I'm not sure which one of those is right, but Rahab who sits still, we know this in the context, not going to help you.

Not coming to your rescue. You can give all the gifts you want. There's going to be no deliverance here.

Egypt is you're barking up the wrong tree. So it's like a representation of an idol.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's turning to worthless idols that cannot speak or save or do anything.

Isaiah 30 verse 8. Now go and write down these words concerning Egypt.

They will then stand until the end of time as a witness for it to Israel's unbelief.

Okay, so this reference could just refer to verse 8 itself that now we this many years later are reading in the word of God about their disobedience and that becomes the issue in verses 9 to 17.

It could also refer to the recording of all of our deeds. Everything that's done on earth matters.

So in verse 8, it says write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.

Everything done under the sun is recorded in God's books. Remember Revelation chapter 20 verse 12.

And I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were open.

Then another book was open which is the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.

The things that people do under the sun matter. It's not meaningless.

There is a judge over all the earth. So why do you think the people danced in Oakland?

Nobody knows, right? Obviously, it was bizarre. But how would they dance before the

Lord like that? They don't know he's watching.

And if they think he's watching, they assume that he's one like them. That he doesn't care because where's the judgment?

They've been dancing like this since they were two. In fact, even more troubling than that video was another video where 18 year old girls were teaching a two and a half year old to learn to dance like that.

Training her how to do this particular dance move. Which is not dance, but again, it's a simulation of a sex act.

It's what they call twerking. A two year old. It is a depraved society in which we live.

And there's no fear of God before their eyes. What I find confusing is what about the people who needed to be attended to who were shot?

Yeah, there was no concern. In fact, that ambulance was hindered and delayed because the crowds had to be dispersed to get the five wounded and the one who died to the hospital.

Did they catch the person that was shooting? I would hope, but I think in shootings across America, it's less than half ever get found.

Yeah, especially in Oakland. Chicago, I think it's a very small, like maybe 15 % ever get caught.

Yeah, it bothers me about that dance. Some of them were just arrogant and rebellious. Like Karl Marx and his followers knew there was a

God. They just didn't care. They hated him and they were going to be arrogant and do whatever they wanted anyway.

Yeah, it is so troubling to see where America is today and the judgment that will come on the unrepentant.

So we move on to verses nine. Let's do nine through 11.

Oh, you have an announcement if he's calling. Ralph, you get to read nine through 11 for that.

Let me turn this off. These are rebellious people, deceitful children.

Children are unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction. You want me to read 10 as well?

Yeah, and 11. 11. They say to the seers, see no more visions.

And in the prophets, give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant things.

Prophesy illusions. Leave this way. Get off this path and stop confronting us with the

Holy One of Israel. Yeah, in other words, lie to us. Well, don't point it out.

Then we should be ashamed. Right. What is the primary attribute of God which the world hates?

His holiness. And it really is the sum of his attributes. It refers to his splendor, his glory, his otherness.

The fact that he is God and we are not. And that we stand guilty before that holiness.

We can't stand in his presence. He is a holy God. Remember how Isaiah cried out in chapter six?

Holy, holy, holy. What's that called, Rich? The trisagion. The trisagion.

I always forget that word. So holiness. But see, it is the revelation of God as the

Holy One of Israel. It's what God speaks. It's his word. So look at verse nine. They are rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the

Lord. Compare that to Psalm 119. And how for 176 verses, every verse delights in the instruction of the law of God, his word.

Psalm 19, it's more valuable than gold, more precious than honey. But there's some who don't want to hear

God's word. This is Jerusalem when the Assyrians are invading. So then in verse 10, what do they say to people like Isaiah?

Do not seek. Do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things.

Are there any smooth -tongued preachers in America today? It's exactly like itchy ears of Timothy.

Yeah, there are many preachers. In fact, Joel Osteen, when interviewed, was asked, well, why don't you speak about sin?

He said, I never speak about sin. People already know they're sinners. They need to hear positive things.

That's what people want to hear. They want to hear smooth things. Prophesy illusions, the illusion that you can speak your will into existence as if you're

God. That's the name of the claimant, the word faith, speak it into existence. Yeah, he'll grant whatever you wish.

The irony is that they know what is right and they don't want to hear. They don't. They're like children, they're plugging their ears.

Yeah, the word has gone out in all the earth, right? Romans 10. But they plug their ears. They don't want to hear.

Verse 11 says, leave the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more about the

Holy One of Israel. What is the ultimate enemy of the social justice movement?

Or I should say, who is? The Holy One of Israel. Yeah, it absolutely.

Yeah, it is Christianity that the social justice movement is ultimately seeking to tear down.

The morality. And think of the morality of the Bible with regard to race.

There is no races in the Bible. We're all one race in Adam.

Yeah. And in Christ, the race of Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, barbarian,

Scythian, but he has already reconciled. He's done racial reconciliation. Ethnic reconciliation in the cross on the tree.

It's accomplished. It is finished. And we're just to walk in that. It's not a work for us to do.

He did it. He's made us one in Christ. What about with regard to economics?

Where do we learn about free markets versus redistribution? Exodus 20, thou shall not steal.

Right? To confiscate, to steal from one and give to another would be a violation of Exodus 20.

And sexuality, of course, you know, there's a teacher named Jen Wilkin, who says that God only whispers about sexual sin.

Is that true? Does the Bible whisper about sexual sin?

Yeah. Right. He is very clear about sexual sin.

It's not a whisper by any stretch of the imagination. But we are taught in 1 Corinthians 6, such were some of you, but you were washed.

You were clean. You were justified, sanctified in the name of the Lord. So there's deliverance and there's freedom to be one in Christ, to be had and gained in Christ.

So here again, in verse 11, they want nothing to do with the

Holy One of Israel. Verses 12 through 14. Therefore, thus says the

Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them.

Therefore, this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant, and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth or to dip up water out of the cistern.

Okay. The man standing on the ambulance pictures society as his oppressor.

And to stand on that ambulance is a picture in his mind of triumphing over the systemic oppression that he faces every day.

That's why he stood there. It was himself standing strong over the system, over the authorities.

That wall on which he's standing, his worldview, will collapse.

Look at verse 12, because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them.

Therefore, this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant.

If the women twerking against that ambulance do not repent, and we want them to repent and have life in Christ, if they do not repent, their destruction comes speedily.

God's judgment will come. It will be a horrible life that's coming and that they've probably already lived.

It will be a generational cycle that will go unbroken. It is a self -defeating posture to stand opposed to the

Holy One of Israel, isn't it? And you can see the result of it. As much as people bellyache and moan about how others are oppressing them, they are falling victim to their own sin.

And that example that we saw in Oakland is probably one of the worst things we can imagine, right?

But it's a good lesson for all of us, too, because we're all prone to look outward and blame others for our problems.

What should we be doing? We should be looking at our own heart and the one with whom we have to deal.

And when we do that, when we look to God and we repent of our sin and we ask for forgiveness, we find

Him to be a perfect Savior. He restores us. He helps us. But when we look away from God and begin to blame the world around us and don't take responsibility for our own sins, that's when everything crumbles on our lives.

Many people are just standing on a structure that it's an edifice that's about to fall because their whole worldview is built around themselves and it can't bear the weight.

There's a breach in the wall. It's bulging out. It's about to collapse. We look to God.

The breaking comes suddenly in an instant. Verse 14, it's breaking is like that of a potter's vessel. This is when a pot is just completely smashed.

Good luck drinking out of it, right? I mean, you could use all the glue you want and try to piece it together, try to make it work.

But once it's been smashed up like that, it's useless. It's in a thousand shards.

It's smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments, not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth or to dip up water out of the cistern.

This is a picture of complete ruin. And the Bible teaches this. There is a final judgment coming from which people don't recover.

An eternal flame. And there's no rescue there. It's very sad.

It reminds me of what Patrick Henry said. What did Patrick Henry say? When men forget God, that's when tyrants force their chains.

Yeah, every tyranny that took over a nation began when that nation departed from God, or they maybe never had

God in the first place. But it was when Germany first was overtaken by higher criticism and departed from the

Bible, and they no longer believed in the word of God. Even their so -called conservatives were not conservative by any standard that we would take.

And that's what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said. Yes. When Communists took over, he said, men forgot God. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right.

So we pray that there's a revival in America before it's too late. So finally, 15 to 17.

For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, in repentance and rest, you will be saved.

In quietness and trust is your strength. But you were not willing. And you said, no, for we will flee on horses.

Therefore, you shall flee. And we will ride on swift horses. Therefore, those who pursue you shall be swift.

Want to continue? Yeah, please. One thousand will flee at the threat of one man. You will flee at the threat of five until you are left as a flag on a mountaintop and as a signal winning hill.

Okay. So the picture there is they're fleeing from Assyria and they're so trampled down.

It's kind of like when you're running away from a dog. The more you run, the more likely you're going to get cut down, right?

So they're running and they're just helpless. The few that even don't die, they're just like a loner on top of a hill as a signal of what happens when you disobey

God. But there is a glimmer of hope in verse 15. And then the rest of the chapter picks up on this.

The problem is they're rejecting this promise. The holy one of Israel in returning and rest, you shall be saved in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

Had they sat before the Lord in repentance, called on him, he would have healed them. He would have restored them and given them rest.

But you were unwilling. And that's the sad state of affairs. So we end there, verse 17, because from 18 and on now we have the turn where there is a remnant.

And will there be a people that calls on the Lord in Jerusalem? They will. And in fact,

God will deliver them. So this warning is something they do take to heed, especially

Hezekiah who leads them to repentance here in the 30s of the book of Isaiah.

So let's close in prayer. Lord, you teach us to put our hope in you and let us be reminded,

Lord, not to put hope in government because government will ever grow and become the oppressor taking more and more ground.

I pray that we would be wise as serpents, as innocent as doves to be subject to government as you've ordained it to be.

Lord, but not to submit to things that are against your church and against your name. Lord, we pray for the culture in which we live, which is becoming more and more like Sodom and Gomorrah.

And it is very disheartening to see, Lord. And so we pray that you would have mercy. We pray that we could go forth now offering this warning, preaching the holy one of Israel, even though the world does not want to hear it.

I pray that we would be bold because it is merciful to warn of coming judgment. Lord, thank you that you have given us these warnings.

And we pray for our country, Lord. Please send revival at least one last time here before the end times.