The Key of David

Psalm 98 and the Call to Worship

Amen. Good afternoon. Saying amen as if there were words playing, because I was hearing the words in my head as the song player realized no one was actually saying anything. All right, I call us to worship this morning with Psalm 98.

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.

He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Please turn your hymnal to number 81. We can remain seated as we sing A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

Hymn number 81. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills rebelling. For still our ancient foe, God's seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate.

On earth is not his heat. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be blue. We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own true. Must ask who that may be, Christ Jesus it is he.

Lord Sabbaoth his name, from age to age the same. And he must win the battle. And though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo. But fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph. Truths of darkness grim before him.

His rage we killed shall flee through them. Upon us be the gifts of Christ, through him who with us sought good and kindred. A body they made. Well, we'll be continuing today in Isaiah 22, if you want to go ahead and turn there.

The Oracle Concerning the Valley of Vision

We're finishing off this chapter. If you remember, this is the oracle concerning the Valley of Vision. And the Valley of Vision is a title for Jerusalem. They are supposed to be a mountain of vision, but rather they are a valley of vision.

Rather than looking to the Lord, they have been looking to themselves. We looked where it said, God had called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth. But instead they said, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

So they've been not looking to the Lord, looking to themselves. They've been engaging in this sort of defeatism that focuses on enjoying one's life while it exists. And we'll see here that they were even building monuments to themselves while they were still living.

Monuments in forms of tombs, knowing that they would die. Knowing that they would die a shameful death, yet trying to build honor for themselves. So let's go ahead and please stand for the reading of God's word.

We'll begin in verse 15 in Isaiah 22. Thus says the Lord God of hosts, come, go to the steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him, what have you to do here? And whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?

Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you around and around and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master's house.

I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station. And that day I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and I will commit your authority to his hand.

And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut. He shall shut, and none shall open.

And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house. And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father's house, the offspring in issue, every small vessel from the cups to all the flagons.

And that day declares the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place, I will, excuse me, will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.

You may be seated. Dear Holy Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for the guidance it gives. We are an erring people who are weak and often misguided. We need your direction. We need your strength.

We thank you for giving that to us in your Word, for directing us by your Spirit, and I pray that your Spirit today would direct us as we consider your words here, and that we would be ever focused on the glory of Christ, and in that, that we would find full satisfaction.

In Jesus' name, amen. So, the way many of these oracles have worked, if you remember, is that a lot of times there's some prophecy that's stated, and then in the meantime, there is some provisional fulfillment, some interim fulfillment.

This thing is going to happen much later, and so to prove that that's going to happen, here's the thing that's going to happen more immediately, and this is one of those examples. God is talking about a destruction that's going to come on Israel eventually, because they have this pattern of looking to themselves and not looking to the Lord, of trusting in themselves and not trusting in the Lord, and so they will be defeated at this later time.

But here it's saying, even in the meantime, I'm going to show you that I will do this. In the instance of this one individual, in the instance of Shebna, who is not looking to my glory, but rather looking to his own glory, and this is a problem that exists in pretty much every human life.

We desire our own glory. We try to build ourselves up and to focus on ourselves, but the only way to truly enjoy glory is to pursue the glory of the Lord. It is only then that we will find any kind of real vindication or satisfaction.

So I'd like, as you think about this passage, the main message here is that securing glory for yourself is insecure, right? To try to bring glory for yourself in this life is an insecure way of pursuing glory, but if we instead focus on the glory of the Lord, that is a secure way of pursuing glory.

Shame, Death, and Seeking Glory for Yourself

Verse 15 here says, Thus says the Lord God of hosts, Come, go to the steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him, What have you to do here? And whom have you here? That you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock.

So as we've been looking at in these passages of Isaiah, especially the former section that went from chapter 7 all the way to chapter 12, it's talking about the Assyrian threat. And as people see this Assyrian threat, the right response, as we've talked about, is to repent and to turn to the Lord.

What you see here is something entirely different. What you see here is a pursuit of one's own glory. Given the limited time that Shebna has, who is over this household of, in Jerusalem, over the, excuse me, over the king's household in Jerusalem, he is instead pursuing his own glory, cutting out a tomb for himself so that in successive generations people will look back and see how glorious and how honorable he was.

But what is headed his way is not glory, but shame. Shame. There is a shameful death that is coming for him. And death is inherently a shameful thing. There's no way to avoid it. Just consider what happens to someone in death, right?

They die, they go into the grave, and worms crawl through their body, and their body decays. There is no way that you can make this not a shameful thing. It is, it is part of the way that the world is now that there is a fall.

It is a mark of the shame of sin. We cannot avoid the shame. There is no way to, you know, and as we were talking about the homework this morning for Sunday school, and I write down my testimony, this was a big part of it, is me realizing that the way to deal with shame and guilt is not to come up with excuses and pretend like there's no real problem.

The only way to deal with it is to acknowledge it and to find forgiveness in the Lord. It is only to go to the Lord in repentance and receive from his generous hand grace. That is the only way to have honor, is to have a status in Jesus Christ.

You know, as he has died for, for all those who trust in him, if you place your trust in him, then that, that shame can turn to honor. That shame can be, yes, I was a wretched, wretched sinner, but the Lord has saved me, and so we can boast in the Lord.

We can have a great honor in him, but we can't have that just by trying to pursue our own glory by natural means, which is what many people do. You know, there are all kinds of world leaders that go about making monuments to themselves in their lifetime, and most people recognize that this is fairly distasteful, but people still do it.

They don't wait for the next generation to make a monument to them. They make a monument for themselves, and usually the kind of people who do that, it's very soon after that that monument is taken down, and they are shown to be truly shameful, not, not great heroes, but rather enemies of those who, of those who would love justice.

Now, you may not think of yourself as someone who does this kind of thing, but anytime we sin, anytime we turn away from the Lord, and we turn to ourselves, and we're concerned for ourselves, we're not pursuing the glory of God, we are pursuing our own glory.

Anytime we trust in self instead of trusting in the Lord, anytime we have anxiety, I think I mentioned this earlier in the catechism teaching, you know, what is anxiety? Anxiety is the statement that I'm not trusting in someone who is perfectly strong, rather I'm trusting in someone who is, who is not perfectly strong.

That's, that's self-trust that leads to anxiety. Continues on in verse 17. Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land.

There shall you die, and there shall be your glorious chariots. You shame of your master's house. So, it describes this punishment for Shebna, for investing in his own glory rather than the glory of the Lord.

He will be hurled away violently. The picture here is of a shot putter or the hammer throw. You all know the hammer throw? That's like the shot put, but it's got a chain attached to it, you know, and you throw that.

Now, I don't know what kind of athletic sports they had back in Isaiah's day, but the picture here is a very strong man throwing a ball as far as he can out into a wide land. The picture of a wide land here meaning, meaning primarily barrenness, right?

There's, there's nowhere else for him to go. He's, he's going to be far removed from everything and have nowhere to go. Have you ever seen an astronaut in one of those training centers where they whip them around a hundred times with, you know, at multiple G's?

I'm not sure how many. I'd probably be inaccurate, but, you know, their face is peeled back as they're, as they're trying to maintain their consciousness. This is the picture. It's, you will be hurled by the strongest man.

You consider yourself a strong man, but the strongest man will hurl you around. And in another act, like we've seen throughout Isaiah, poetic justice, where someone pursuing one thing gets the exact opposite, where they pursue their own strength and instead strength masters over them.

He is thrown out and thrown away. Once again, this is the fate that awaits everyone who seeks their own glory in this life. If you seek your own glory, you will not find it. You will rather find shame.

Jesus said very clearly that whoever would save his own life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. We do not gain eternal life by trying to seek eternal life in natural means.

It is plain to everyone that this is no way of accomplishing it. But yet that is what so many people do. The only way to pursue eternal life, the only way to have an eternal, honorable state is by the way that God has given us to turn to him in repentance, to lose our life for his sake.

He continues on. I will thrust you from your office and you'll be pulled down from your station. And that day I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe and I will bind your sash on him and will commit your authority to his hand.

And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. So he's going to replace Shebna with Eliakim, going to swap the two.

This is what happens. The one who seeks his own glory loses it, and the one who is truly a servant of the Lord replaces him. He gains that honor that the other one loses. This is the Lord's plan. As you look through the Bible, it's amazing how often these pictures happen where, especially in poetic passages, where the things that are high are cut low, those things that are low are brought up high.

The Lord vindicates his servants. As one serves the Lord in this life, they may feel very low, very ashamed because of how people treat those who serve the Lord. Those who believe in a god in this area are generally considered foolish.

Those who not only believe in a god but actually believe all the things the Bible said are considered very foolish. This is something where people heap shame on those who would follow the Lord. But if you understand rightly, while that external heaping on of shame is temporary, there is a great honor to be had when the Lord vindicates his servants.

The Lord always vindicates his servants, as you see here in this picture of Eliakim being raised up over Shebna, and everything is replaced. That robe that was on Shebna goes to Eliakim. That sash on Eliakim, excuse me, all the authority transferred over.

Eliakim, the Key of David, and the Vindication of Christ

Now, this is actually fulfilled in Scripture. We don't always see the fulfillments of these prophecies, but this one in particular is one that we do. If you turn over just several pages to Isaiah 36, you'll see what happens by the time Assyria is finally about to make its attack on Jerusalem.

We begin to see this prophecy fulfilled. In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the washer's field.

And there came out to him Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the whole household, and Shebna, the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder. So what was Shebna before? Shebna was over the whole household.

Who's over the whole household by the time Isaiah 36 comes around? It's Eliakim. This prophecy already fulfilled just in these 13 chapters away, or 13 or 14 chapters away. So God vindicates His servants, and those who seek their own glory, He cuts down.

There's no security in pursuing your own glory. Now, ultimately, this is not pointing us to arbitrary acts of service, teaching us that, well, if you serve, then you'll be raised up. Ultimately, this is pointing us, most importantly, to Jesus Christ, who is the greatest servant.

He said in the Gospel of Luke that who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. As we see examples of servants that are elevated, our mind should not just go to how we ought to serve in order to be elevated, but the one who served the greatest, the greatest servant, which is Jesus Christ.

And He is elevated above all things. This is our only hope. We cannot serve sufficiently. We cannot do enough service that God would raise us up. Rather, it's as we have trusted in Jesus Christ, and He has placed us under Him, and we follow after Him in His pattern, that He is pleased to, since He has been a perfect servant and been exalted, to carry us in that pattern.

As we participate in His death, burial, and resurrection, as we participate in this service, He raises us with Him, not on account of our own service as though it were sufficiently meritorious, as though it were sufficiently good enough, but rather, as we follow in His pattern, He carries us up with Him.

No hope in doing this ourselves. It is something where we must look to Jesus Christ. And we see that this is about Jesus even more clearly in the next passage. Verse 22. And I will place on His shoulder the key of the house of David.

He shall open, and none shall shut. And He shall shut, and none shall open. So here, it speaks of the key of the house of David. Eliakim, excuse me, Shebna had this authority, and it's passed off to Eliakim so that he is over the whole house, shutting and opening, speaking of controlling the kingdom, who is in the kingdom, who is out of the kingdom.

And this is not something where you just have to take my word for it that this refers to Jesus Christ. Scripture itself actually tells us this is about Jesus Christ. Now, it sets a pattern for us so that oftentimes when it's not giving us an explicit explanation, we're allowed to make that judgment.

But here's one time where it gives us a very explicit statement that this is indeed speaking of Jesus ultimately. While these things are true in a lesser sense of Eliakim, Jesus is the one who truly and ultimately and forever holds that key of David.

If you turn to Revelation 3, and we'll read what Jesus wrote to the church in Philadelphia. In Revelation 3, 7, it says,. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,. The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one will open.

This is Jesus Christ's title. He is the one who holds that key, who opens and shuts, who decides who will be in his kingdom and who will be out. He is the one who has the ultimate authority. And so, as it commands here, it says, hold fast to what you have in verse 11.

Jesus, Jesus is the one who has the key of David. He is the one who is over all of God's house. Now, there are many people who have taken this, taken this sort of authority and honor for themselves. You think of political leaders, kings who have called themselves gods or in all practical mechanisms, by all practical mechanisms, having raised themselves up to the level of gods, considering their kingdom to be the highest kingdom of the earth, not recognizing that there is a greater king and a greater kingdom.

There are also religious leaders that have taken these titles for themselves. Chief among them would be the pope who literally claims to hold this key. He claims to hold the key over all the church. Now, obviously, one aspect of this is that we don't take such authority for ourselves.

We trust in the Lord. We give all honor to him. But the great hope here is not just the command that we do it and then left at that, but rather the promise that comes with it, that this really is something where you see the true servants of the Lord are vindicated.

Jesus Christ takes us with him in that vindication. And you even see this with the keys of the kingdom in Matthew 16. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus speaks to him of the keys of the kingdom and says that he will use them to loose and to bind.

And you see that again in Matthew 18, that this is an honor that is given to the whole church. That authority that Jesus has, he shares with his people. This honor that he has, he shares, which is mind-blowing because God has said, even in this very book of Isaiah, that he does not share his glory with another.

So there's something very amazing about the fact that though, you know, we would never have honor as though we ourselves are divine, as though we ourselves are God, that he would even do so in some kind of secondary way.

Share these things with us. You see other promises in Revelation where we get to sit on his throne, where we get to share that with him, where we get to share his inheritance. He is an amazing savior that is not just taking glory for himself, but as a servant to his people is lifting us up with him.

This is a wonderful, wonderful good news. It just amazes me that I feel, I feel like what I, well, this isn't, this isn't entirely true, and I wouldn't want to denigrate the church that I grew up in as though what they were teaching me was insufficient.

But I feel like what I focused on most about salvation was merely the forgiveness for a very long time. And I realized it's not just the forgiveness. God is giving us so, so much more. We don't deserve forgiveness at all, but how much less do we deserve all the joys that we have in store in Jesus Christ?

So very little, so very little. It says in verse 23,. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house, and they will hang on him the whole honor of his father's house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.

So it's talking about Eliakim being the secure peg of honor. His whole father's house will have honor because of this status he has in the house of David. And it says that they'll hang everything on him.

Imagine a peg that's very strong, stuck in the wall, and you can hang anything on it, the big cups, the small cups. When it's talking about the flagons, that's like a pitcher. Imagine a big, heavy pitcher and a cup.

Offspring and issue, it's, these are ways of saying like large and small, every, this thing and that thing, warp and wolf, heavens and earth, so on. You know, these are called merisms, where you describe complementary sets of things to describe the whole.

But then, then you see something surprising. Now this is surprising because he just talked about Eliakim, his servant, being fastened securely so that none could move him, so that he could open the door and none could shut.

And then he's saying, but in that day, I'm going to take him away also. You see, the rulers of this earth, even those ones that point forward to Jesus Christ, they are all finite, they are all limited.

Each one of the kings that is a precursor to Jesus Christ, they all ended up dying. Even Eliakim, who's an administrator in the house of God, over the house of God, even he will be removed. Even he, if people go and trust in him, they will find themselves very disappointed as he fails.

There is no ruler in this earth that we could place our trust in and expect to, expect to be satisfied. I was, I can say this because my family's not here. My, my daughter, I was asking her last night what kind of thing she was excited for for the future.

She said, she said the next election. I said, you're too young to worry about these kinds of things. And then we ended up spending some time talking about how, you know, Psalm 146, 3 says, put not your trust in princes.

There's no one, there's no one that's going to be able to save us. There's no human person who can, who can save us. Rather, if our trust is in the Lord, we can have a salvation that's so much greater than either military victories or economic victories or whatever you want in the, in this, in this world.

So much, so much better. An eternal kingdom filled with glories forever and ever. If we seek our own glory in this life, we will have none of it. But if we are willing to acknowledge our own shame, our own sin, and seek instead by repenting and turning from that the glory of the Lord and putting all our trust in Jesus Christ, He has so much more glory than we could ever attain on this earth.

So much more joy to attain in His heavenly kingdom. We can taste that joy on this earth with our brothers and sisters in the kingdom as it is here, but it will be just a wonderful day when it is greatly manifested in all the earth when Christ returns.

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You once again for Your Word, for Your Son whom You sent, and Your great love to us. We thank You that He is wonderfully merciful, has given us all good things, that You have given us all good things through Him.

We pray that You would, that You would have our eyes fixed on Him, that we would not look to ourselves, but that we would look to the Lord. That we would not say, let us eat, drink, and be married, for tomorrow we die, but instead that we would, that we would recognize the great weight of eternity, and that we would turn from our sin, and we would further serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we would find full satisfaction in Him, being completely dissatisfied with the things of the world, which ultimately must dissatisfy.

In Jesus' name, amen.