Wednesday, October 9, 2024 PM

And before we do, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day, we thank you for gathering us here tonight.

Thank you for the opportunity to read your word, to study it, to understand it, to delight in it.

And I pray that you would have your way in us, through it. And that you would lead us and guide us as we pray for one another.

And pray for the burdens and the needs that you have made us aware of. That we would not be in anxiety, but that we would know the peace of Jesus Christ.

As we turn to you, our Heavenly Father. And know that you will care for us, and for all of our concerns.

And we pray for these things, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Isaiah chapter 2, and we're going to be reading verses 1 through 5.

The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.

Many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the

God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the

Lord. So we've been looking here at this encouraging, hope -filled vision, of the mountain of the

Lord's house. We've identified the when, and the where, and the who, and the how.

The whole idea that we're getting from this is, here's how God establishes

Mount Zion. Here's how God exalts Jerusalem. We've seen the failure of Israel to do so in chapter 1.

They've done things their way, and their way is in rebellion to God. But even though they break covenant with God, and although He brings fiery judgment upon them, this does not mean that His promises have failed.

He brings about His promises, and keeps His promises in His way, and we see that success, the vision of that success, here in chapter 2.

And so chapter 2 starts off like it's a fresh new beginning, as if we didn't have an introduction in chapter 1, because it's a fresh new start.

But this is the way that God paints the picture. And then we read about the latter days, which in the

Old Testament refers time and again to the days of the Messiah. The good news is that when the

Messiah finally shows up, as the fulfillment of all the promises that came before, that means that those signs have been working, and they are nigh to accomplishing their purpose.

Once you have arrived at the destination, the signs are no longer necessary.

The shadows pass away when the substance comes. And so the days of the

Messiah are the latter days of the Old Covenant, because He brings the New Covenant. And we have

Mount Zion being exalted above the hills. This is not the physical mountain of Mount Zion.

This is not the limestone and chalk and marl of geographical, geological

Mount Zion that's been jacked up above K2 in Everest. This is a metaphorical mountain.

This is the exaltation of the city of God, the people of God, the

New Covenant Jerusalem, the New Covenant Zion. And what do we find?

So often in the Old Testament, the nations are angry, and they gather in jealousy, and they lay siege to Jerusalem.

But here the nations are gathering and conspiring not to lay siege, but to surrender, to go up to Mount Zion and say,

Tell us what's true. Tell us what's good. Tell us what is beautiful, how to live. Teach us.

Direct us. And so we come to verse 4. We come to verse 4, which reads, concerning the

Lord, He shall judge between the nations. All these nations coming up to Mount Zion.

He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Which makes for a really good spiritual. Has anybody heard the spiritual, not learning war anymore?

One of my favorites. When we look at the inscription,

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Last time's homework was to go, Google Street View was recommended, a personal tour of New York City was not recommended, but you could take the

Google Street View option, which I did. It's great to take a tour of the UN, the United Nations complex there in New York City.

And there's a granite wall across from the main building on which there is the inscription of Isaiah 2, verse 4.

But, there are two things missing from the inscription. I wonder who all did their homework.

Miss Wylene did her homework, and she sent me two very detailed emails. She did a great job.

She's very studious. If you're hoping to be top student tonight, I'm sorry.

You can't be top student. That goes to Miss Wylene. But, what did we notice?

You're beeping again, Jerry. What did we notice about the inscription? What seems to be missing?

What seems to be lacking? Yes. Yes. The Bible reference is not on there, okay?

What else? Yes. They didn't think that that was important, did they?

Now, that's a pretty big granite wall. If you've seen it, they had room to put it on there. They had room to put the whole verse on there.

They had room to put the reference on there, but they left those things off. Apparently, apparently, the fact that this comes from the

Bible, Isaiah 2, verse 4, and this introduction to the verse that the

Lord judges and rebukes nations and peoples, while this is essential for the vision of peace that we find in Isaiah 2, verse 4, apparently this is unnecessary for the political aspirations of the

United Nations. But the point that we're learning from Isaiah 2, verse 4, the most important point about this whole vision is that there is no peace where Christ does not reign.

The whole reason why there can be peace is because Messiah reigns.

Only divine intervention can bring about peace, a divine intervention full of authority, meaningful authority that arbitrates between nations.

Now, why is that? Why is it that only divine intervention can bring about peace?

Well, there's this little problem called sin. Genesis 6, 5 says,

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

So he sends a great big flood, and everybody but Noah and his family and selective two -by -two animals, all of them die except for a remnant.

And if you've watched any environmental disaster movie at all, what happens to humanity on the flip side of the great environmental disaster?

Yeah. The multicultural survival team look at each other and realize we all bleed red.

We're all the same, really? And now we understand we live in peace.

Actually, after the big flood, God did another survey of man's heart.

Genesis 8, verse 21. This is after the flood. The Lord smelled a soothing aroma.

This is the offering that Noah offers up. And then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will

I again destroy every living thing as I have done. So actually, there's not a coming together of humanity.

First story out of the box after God makes the covenant is the sun's not getting along and future conflict promised.

The problem is, as Jeremiah 17, 9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who could know it.

That's why we have to have the Lord's intervention. So when we look at Mount Zion, we find that, well, this is the

Lord's mountain. This is the Lord's house. It's the Lord's law or instruction being taught.

It's the Lord's word going forth. And that's why he has all the authority to proclaim righteousness, to bring the categories to bear.

Here's right, here's wrong. He's the one who arbitrates. He brings the definitions and he judges comprehensively between all the peoples.

And he arbitrates in such a way so that all the nations are at peace. Now, which nations are at peace?

Well, those who have come up Mount Zion. See, we're reading the story. The people say to each other, hey, let's go up Mount Zion.

Let's go up and pledge allegiance to the Lord and hear what he has to say.

Zechariah's vision, 10 men from every nation grab the sleeve of one Jew and he brings them all up into Mount Zion.

And so the nations who have peace are the ones who have come up on Mount Zion. That is the place of their peace.

That is the context of their peace. I saw this the other day. A few years ago,

I watched a little documentary from Frontline's Missions International, Tim Kazee.

I was out in the Balkans. And those of you who lived through the 90s, you saw all the footage of the war, right?

In the Balkans. The UN peacekeeping measure, which went really well.

And you had all these people trying to kill each other, Albanians, the Serbs, the Croats, everyone just trying to kill each other all over the place.

Well, what business does a

Serb and a Croat and an Albanian have to do with one another in the same place at the same time out in the

Balkans? How about communion? How about prayer?

How about a fellowship meal? How about a Bible study? Because those are the kinds of things that happen when the nations grab hold of the sleeve of the one

Jew and go up Mount Zion. And people who are meant and designed and determined by all manner of people to continue to fight and kill and hate say, you know what?

Let's turn our swords into plow material, and let's take our spears and make pruning hooks, and let's go together and work together in the harvest.

Wherever Christ is, and Hebrews 12 talks about us coming to him, if we come to him, we come up Mount Zion, guess what happens to the nations that come up to Mount Zion?

They are at peace. They are at peace with one another.

So we have this contrast. We have

Mount Zion elevated above all the other nations and all the other hills.

Down below in this picture, we have the mountains that are still opposed to each other, the hills that are still opposed to each other.

But once the nations leave those mountains and come up to Mount Zion, what do they find? They have peace.

They have peace. And that's the same kind of picture that we get when we look at Daniel's prophecies and Christ's parables.

Daniel interprets the dream that Nebuchadnezzar has as the kingdom that fills the whole earth, a mountain that fills the entirety of the earth, so that the kingdom of God from heaven, as he calls it, that begins with Christ and then spreads throughout all of the world, is, well, it's throughout all of the world.

And so there's Koreans, and there's Japanese, and there's Indonesians, and there's sub -Saharan

Africans, and there's South Americans, and Canadians. Yes, even

Canadians. All kinds of people come into this kingdom from all over, and they all belong under the same authority.

And while other people don't know peace, we have peace. When Jesus tells his parables, he reminds us that the wheat and the tares are mixed throughout the world, that the leaven is in the dough and spreading, that the birds that make up the nations gather into the mustard tree and they roost there.

The good and the bad fish are all in one net. And all the while, all the while, what makes the distinction between the good and the bad and the right and the wrong and so on is a higher authority that's going to be expressed at that sifting clarity at the end of Christ's reign where he comes back, raises the dead, and sorts everybody.

So Jesus is exalted. He is raised up by his cross. He is raised up by his resurrection.

He is raised up in his ascension, and so he draws all men to himself. He's the one

Jew, takes 10 of us with him, and says, come on up, let's go. Come up to Mount Zion.

This is the hope -filled picture and invitation that we have not only in Hebrews 12 but also in Galatians 4 and so on.

Christ says to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world.

He didn't say, my kingdom is not in this world. He did not say, my kingdom has nothing to do with this world.

He didn't say, my kingdom is in outer space. But he had just,

John 17, he prays. He says, his followers are not of this world, but he asked the

Father to leave his followers in this world. Very next chapter, my kingdom is not of this world, but is it in this world?

You bet. It's what happened in the book of Acts. Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too, saying there is another king, and his name is

Jesus. Right on. That's right. It's a kingdom that upsets everything else.

So Christ brings peace, but he brings peace in himself. He brings peace between otherwise irreconcilable nations, which is the point we find in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2, verse 14, For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

And he came and preached peace to you who are far off, and to those who were near. For through him we both have access by one spirit to the

Father. Paul is dealing with the most divisive, most deeply felt division, possibly scripted, the one between Jew and Gentile.

And if that one is healed, and if that one is reconciled, and if there is oneness and peace between Jew and Gentile in Christ, if the greater is true, then all the lesser is true.

So, when we think about nations, the Bible continually puts our attention, not on political borders, but on ethnic groups that often express themselves collectively in political ways.

The real conflicts are always ethnic anyway. In Genesis chapter 11, we have the story of when man decided to make a name for himself, and so they gather in the plains of Shinar, and they are frustrated and scattered by the judgment of God.

Soon after that, what are we going to do about all these families in the earth that need to know who

God is and to worship God? Well, God comes to Abram and says, I'm going to make you the father of many, and eventually he's the father of many nations, and he says that through your seed, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

So, when the Bible talks about nations, it's not political states first.

It's not about lines that have been drawn on a map by arrogant men. We've seen time and time again in modern history when political borders are drawn that throw ethnic enemies together.

Peace is not the result. Civil war is the result. Renaming is the result. Redrawing of lines are the result.

That's what happens. You can't just draw a line around people and say, okay, you're one nation.

No, they're not. Not at all. In fact, you cut that whole group off, and then half the family's over there in another political system.

Way to go. Arrogant men cause wars over and over and over again by drawing arbitrary lines on a map, causing all kinds of chaos.

So there's no peace by the measures of men. The UN cannot bring peace. They can't simply draw lines around people and say, no fighting now.

But when people come from whatever nation they come from, and they come to Christ, and they come up Mount Zion, there is peace.

There is peace among those brought to Christ for the purpose of laboring in the gospel's kingdom harvest.

Now, someone's going to really appreciate this next passage. Matthew 9, verse 35 and following.

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Harvest? Jesus is looking at multitudes, saying there needs to be a harvest.

We need laborers to work together in a harvest. This is how he sees his kingdom expanding and growing and proceeding.

What's Isaiah 2? What's Isaiah 2? Plowshares, pruning hooks, time for a harvest.

I also think this is interesting. This is the way that we end up interpreting 1

Corinthians 9, verse 9. It's an odd little quote from the

Old Testament. Paul, who often time and again informs the saints that trying to keep the law of Moses is going to bring you under condemnation, but if you follow

Christ, you fulfill the law, and there's a higher righteousness, says in 1

Corinthians 9, 9, trying to talk about why any church anywhere might want to compensate their teachers or their pastors.

We had to study this in seminary. But Paul says, here's the reason why.

For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

And so all the seminarians who needed to be taken down a peg or two said, well, you bunch of dumb old oxes, even they get grain, so you get paid too.

Don't get a big head, you know, that kind of thing. But then Paul writes, is it oxen

God is concerned about? Now, if you don't know, an ox, that was your tractor.

Got to use your ox for everything. Treading out the grain. After you used the ox to plow the field, and you sowed the field, and then you harvested all of the grain and brought it back, you would throw it into your threshing floor.

And then you would attach a very heavy sled to your ox, put them on some sort of ring that goes round and round, and have them walk round and round and round on the threshing floor.

And the sled and the hoofs of the ox would beat the grain, trample the grain, separate the kernels of wheat from the chaff.

And then when the ox was all done, then you'd get in there with your winnowing fork, and you'd throw it up into the sky, and the wind would start blowing away the light chaff, and the heavy grain would fall right back down.

And so the law was, don't muzzle the ox. As it's working and going round and round, it needs to every once in a while reach down there with its mouth and grab some of that grain and go munch, munch, munch as it's working.

So snack while you work. Paul says, is it oxen that God is concerned about?

What's the point of this? What did Paul just do? He just took the laws and the concerns and the patterns of old covenant harvest, and he applied it to gospel ministry.

Well, what warrant does he have for that, Jesus? That's how

Jesus talked about it. And so he takes this old covenant, old law, this random case law in Moses, and says, you know what this is really about?

So the old man, the old creation, the former manner, all must be put off and left behind when entering into Zion.

As the nations come up into Christ, as we come up to this mountain, we learn Christ, we put on Christ.

This is much of our study in our summer session this year in Ephesians 4 about how we were to be at peace with one another, to be in unity as a church, where we were told time and again, how did you learn

Christ or put on Christ or consider the work of Christ as the entire context for why we should be at peace?

So we are to put Him on us. We are to walk in His ways.

He has the authority. He's the one who arbitrates. In Christ, we are new creations in His new creation.

We live according to the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells, and that's why we don't learn war anymore.

We don't learn war anymore. Very interesting, what happens next is, after talking about the mountain of the house of the

Lord, Zion, Jerusalem, the place where the law goes forth, even

Israel is invited to Jerusalem. So we're going to look at it next, verse 5.

Israel is invited to come to Jerusalem. The house of Jacob is invited to come to the temple.

They're invited to come to where they currently are not, but they need to come.

They may be in a physical Jerusalem. They may be on a physical Mount Zion, but they're not at the actual

Mount Zion. They're not at the actual Jerusalem, and verse 5 invites them to come.

So we'll be looking at that next time. Okay, let's turn our attention to prayer requests.