The Oracle of Arabia: The Myth of Neutrality

The Oracle Concerning Arabia and the Call to Read Isaiah 21

Please turn to Isaiah 21, so we continue on in Isaiah. Today, another very enigmatic oracle concerning Arabia today. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. Isaiah 21, we'll begin in verse 13 and go to the end of the chapter.

Isaiah 21, verse 13. "'The oracle concerning Arabia, "'in the thickets in Arabia you will lodge, "'O caravans of day to nights. "'To the thirsty bring water, "'meet the fugitive with bread, "'O inhabitants of the land of Timah.

"'For they have fled from the swords, "'from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, "'and from the press of battle. "'For thus the Lord said to me, "'Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, "'all the glory of Kadar will come to an end.

"'And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men, "'the sons of Kadar, will be few. "'For the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.'". You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for this oracle concerning Arabia. And God, I pray that you would open our eyes to see everything that you have for us here and that you would grant us, through your word, by your spirit, great zeal, that we might live for you and serve you as we ought, and that we would eagerly await the return of Christ and life with him forevermore.

In Jesus' name, amen. So as you look at this passage and the previous one, both very enigmatic passages, you have to ask yourself, what is this for? Bible's written by both human authors and by a divine author, the Holy Spirit.

And God has his purposes for everything he has written. 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, says that the word of God is breathed out by God and profitable for correction, for reproof, for teaching, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

So God's word is designed to equip us and to strengthen us. It is to communicate to us. And as we look at this passage, we have a couple of options. One is that this is just another, you know, if we have that mindset that the Holy Spirit gave us for a reason, I see basically two options before us.

One is that, well, this is just another picture of judgment, just like all the other pictures of judgment. But you would have to ask yourself, why did God give this one in particular in addition to all the others?

Why were not the others enough? Or that this is given for some specific reason. This adds something that the others do not have. And I think as you look at what the Bible says about the Daytonites and the character it describes of them, this does give us a distinct message.

It gives us a message about those who might consider themselves not necessarily enemies of God. You have God and all these previous oracles going against these people who are enemies of him, enemies of his people, assaulting him.

And here you have the Daytonites, caravans of traitors who are quite likely to think of themselves as outside the concern of Yahweh, outside of the ones that he might consider as enemies. They've never attacked the people, not in any biblical record.

They've never done something to incur the wrath of God. But there is no neutrality. There is no neutrality. You are either a friend of God or you are his enemy. You either serve God or you serve yourself.

You serve your own pleasures. And so I believe the reason why we have this oracle in particular, in addition to all the others, is specifically to address those that might consider themselves to be outside this dichotomy of friend of God and enemy of God.

I'm just over here doing my own thing. I'm fine with the Lord. He should be fine with me. This addresses that crowd. So beginning here, verse 13, the oracle concerning Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia, you will lodge, O caravan of Daytonites.

So in the thickets of Arabia. So you imagine these caravans, Daytonites, they have to lodge in thickets. That means they've been pushed off the beaten path and have to camp somewhere difficult. I don't know if you've ever had to camp somewhere difficult.

There was one time I was hiking in the woods by myself and it was middle of the night. I couldn't see anything. And I kept walking and walking, hoping to find some good place to set up camp. And I couldn't find anything.

So I just gave up and I set up camp. And pretty rough area, didn't get much sleep. And then when I woke in the next morning, there was flat ground just a few yards ahead. If I had just gone a little bit farther.

So here they are pushed off, pushed off the path. To the thirsty, bring water, meet the fugitive with bread, O inhabitants of the land of Temah. So Temah is 90 miles northeast of Dayton. So you can, it's not clear whether or not they're trying to make their way back home, being pushed away from their home or what, but they are far from home.

And the picture is that they have been, that they are fugitives. They are on the run because of the bloodshed that this passage describes. And they require help from others very, very far away from their home.

So it's instructing those of Temah to bring water to the Daytonites, to meet them with bread. They need bread, they need water, they have nothing. And these are merchants. These are people who typically would have much, but here they have nothing.

They need bread and they need water. They have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the press of battle. And here you have the direct statement that bloodshed has come to them, that some kind of military threat has reached them, and now they are on the run.

These military threats are always, in these passages, pictures of God's judgment. They represent his judgment because he is, he works through these enemy nations to send the sword to those that he wishes to judge.

And here he's done this even with the Daytonites. And many people don't think much of God's judgment. They spend very little time contemplating their own mortality, their own relationship with the Lord.

But we are to fear the Lord. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it speaks much of the fear of the Lord. Now, that's one of the things I like from Miguel's testimony earlier.

He was talking about a real fear of the Lord. There's so many people, they think that they can be right with God without ever having that experience of fear. I know in my own life, my process of coming to the Lord came through really fearing judgment.

He is a great and awesome God. He does not allow sin into his presence. And those who think that a right relationship with God doesn't involve recognizing his greatness and his awesomeness and his justice, and that you can just bypass that experience and go right to peace with him without ever experiencing the war to him, that is not the picture the Bible describes.

Bible describes us being born children of wrath, and in order to become sons of peace, we must recognize that prior to that peace, we are at war with him. I would love to see more people contemplate their own mortality.

You know, there's just a lot in the world that distracts people. There's a lot of entertainment. There are things moving 100 miles an hour, and no one ever stops and takes time to contemplate their own mortality.

I'm not much of the kind of person to, you know, sit here and talk about how I wish things were like the good old days. First of all, I'm not that old, so I don't know what the good old days were, and Ecclesiastes 7 .10 that says, do not ask why the former days are better than these, for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

I don't think there really were necessarily better days, but it is the case that there are many things that distract people from contemplating the justice and judgment of God. And if you were just to spend five minutes, you know, more than the brief five seconds most people would give, if you just spend five minutes considering what the Lord has in store for those who are his enemies, it really changes the way that you think about him, changes the way you respect him and fear him as we ought.

The Day of Nights, Merchants, and the Myth of Neutrality

Now let's consider the Day of Nights for a minute. The Day of Nights go through the Bible, look at every time they're mentioned. It's either, well, I guess there's three contexts in which they're mentioned.

One is just, you know, in their history that they descended from such and such a person, so it's not really anything, especially of great spiritual significance invested in those passage into how we should understand the Day of Nights.

Then there are other passages that talk about judgment upon Edom, and it describes Dadan as well as other tribes being caught in that judgment upon Edom. And then the remaining passages about Dadan speak of them as being traders, you know, people who trade, trade with a D, not a T.

It speaks of them as being merchants. In Ezekiel 38, that famous passage about Gog and Magog that goes from Ezekiel 38 to 39, they aren't the enemies of God's people, they're sitting off to the side on the sidelines, right?

And Gog is going to attack God's people, and Dadan is sitting on the side, hoping that maybe there'll be some extra spoils for me later on. I believe that's Ezekiel 38, 14. So the way we're supposed to think of Day of Nights in scripture, I believe, is as people on the sidelines, people who do not see themselves as involved in this war between God and his enemies, and they will, but they will fall under judgment as well.

Because as I said, there is no neutrality. There are only friends of God, and there are enemies of God. Many people think that they will be all right, that there is, you know, that they are on God's side.

Maybe they even call themselves Christians because they attend a church once in a while, you know, maybe twice a year or something like that. But this is not, this is not the path to being a friend of God.

Imagine what it would be like to be a merchant of that time. You go around, you go to different lands, you experience the different ways people worship. Maybe you even take part in it to appease people.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people considered themselves to have paid sufficient homage to Yahweh, along with any other god of the nations. But such is not true alliance with God. Such is not real peace with Him.

He cannot be one among many. He demands, He demands full authority, full obedience from His servants. So people think that they'll be all right. They think that others will be all right. They think that as long as, you know, you're not a bad person, as long as you're not doing anything too evil, that you'll be all right with God.

The Bible says that all have sinned. All have sinned and fallen ashore of the glory of God. Everyone, everyone sins in small ways. And when you look at it in scripture, you realize even the small ways are large ways because God is so great.

To sin against Him is a very great sin. You know, if you sin against, if you insult a brother or a sister, you know, that's bad to do, you shouldn't do that. You insult your parents, well, that's worse.

You insult some high person, some king or a police officer, right? You're gonna get in a lot more trouble for that than those lower levels. You insult the God of the universe, this is a great, great sin.

Just things that people consider small. So those who would consider themselves to be on the sidelines, out of the, out from those two categories, a friend of God or enemy of God, they're deceiving themselves.

There's no one who's in those categories. And along with this, there are many people who think that, well, if someone has never heard of God, they must be in the clear. You know, someone who's never heard of the maker, how can they be required to serve Him?

The Bible says in Romans 1, Psalm 19, that God's thumbprints are on all creation. Everyone knows about Him. Everyone is obligated to serve Him. And there's no one who escapes. But this is very prevalent theology.

You talk to many people, this is what they believe, that if you don't hear about God, then you're in the clear. You know, you read C .S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, this is the kind of stuff he taught in there as well.

C .S. Lewis is a good author, I'm not trying to dig everything he says, but be careful, this is the wisdom of man to say that someone would be at peace with God just because they don't, haven't heard His word, just because they don't know about Him.

There's no free pass given. I heard someone once say that if this were true, if someone could go to heaven just by never hearing about Him, we should send, instead of sending missionaries, we should send wall-building teams so that these islands never hear about Jesus, because once they hear about Jesus, then they're held accountable.

That's not how it works, of course. We're told to send missionaries because how can they be saved without hearing of the Lord? How beautiful are the feet of those who share good news? We must send missionaries because people, if they have not heard of the Lord, they're not on the sidelines, they are His enemy because they know that there is a creator.

It is written in creation, it is written on their own hearts. What they need is to hear of Jesus. The only way that one can be saved is to hear of this great and glorious Savior. Everyone is aware of God, everyone owes their obedience to Him, but not everyone has heard of Jesus.

He is a merciful Savior, and if one learns of His death and resurrection, places their trust in that, they can have peace with God. You cannot have peace with God merely by being on the sidelines, for there are no sidelines.

There are no sidelines at all. There's something interesting about this passage that goes unnoticed if you're in most English translations, including the ESV. The oracle concerning Arabia. It's a little different because there's actually a preposition here.

So usually, the way this is set up, it says just something like the oracle Arabia, and then you're supposed to interpret how that means, but there's an extra preposition here. It basically means in, usually.

So how should this be translated differently? Well, some try to put a different translation in here, some don't, and I'm not sure, really, what the best thing to do is. But the reason why this is significant is because if you put this extra preposition in here, it says in, it sounds a lot like in the evening.

So this word, Arabia, it's barab. But in the evening, the phrase in the evening is ba-arab. So given this passage, and we've seen how these oracles in this particular chapter are connected in some of the images, right?

In the first oracle and the second oracle, both spoke of watchmen. The first oracle and the second oracle both spoke of evening time. This third oracle is also by way of inserting this extra preposition alluding to the evening time.

And the evening time, if you remember, in these previous passages was speaking of judgment. Isaiah had said in verse four, my heart staggers, horror has appalled me, the twilight I long for has been turned for me into trembling.

Twilight on the nations represents judgment. You see, this is a passage of judgment. This is a passage about a desert evening. Those who consider themselves on the twilight think that their day will continue forever, but that is not the case because the day will end.

Twilight will come, evening will come. There is a great judgment coming upon all who do not trust in the Lord. The only way to have any mercy is to put your trust fully in Him, not by coming to church once every couple of years and thinking that somehow doing some kind of action is going to appease the Lord Almighty.

No, you must put your trust fully in His Son, not partially in Him and partially in some other things that you're doing. The twilight is coming. There is no lasting day. The only lasting day comes after the twilight, and it only comes for those who trust in the Lord.

The Year of Hired Worker and the End of Kedar's Glory

In verse 16, we see here an intermediate fulfillment. This has happened in several of the oracles. Well, I'm not gonna try to go back and find them for you, but some of these oracles, you see them in your English Bible written in some kind of poetic form, and then afterward, there's prose, and a lot of times that prose is an intermediate fulfillment.

It says this thing will happen in poetic form, and then it says, but in very short time, this other thing will happen. Here's the intermediate fulfillment. Here's the down payment showing that I will do this thing eventually.

And so that's what we see here in verse 16. For thus the Lord said to me, within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kadar will come to an end, and the remainder of the archers, the mighty men of the sons of Kadar will be few, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.

So this thing will happen, but just within a year, the glory of Kadar will come to an end. Kadar referring to roughly the same region as Arabia. So its glory will end, there will be assault there, there will be death and bloodshed.

There will be few archers to defend all the mighty people of Arabia that consider themselves able to defend. No more, there will be few, because God has spoken. God has spoken. There is a certain end.

People imagine that they can avoid these things. They cannot. It's like if you have a sign that says beware of dog, and you think, well, you know, usually dogs are okay, as long as you just don't act in a threatening way around them and you try to pass.

But you try to pass a dog that's vicious like that on its own property, it understands, it has this territory to defend. It will attack you. You can't just say, well, I'll just act like I'm not his enemy, and then I'm not his enemy.

No, the only people who, the only people who would be able to get by are the friends of the dog, the ones the dog knows. And God owns much more than a yard. He owns all of creation. All of creation is his, and he demands that every knee bow down to Jesus Christ, the King.

And he is not some capricious dog. He is the God of the universe, and you do not want to be caught with him when that twilight comes unless you are his friend. And he has made a way for you to be his friend.

He has sent Jesus Christ, the incarnation, God, become man so that we may, even us mere humans, we may have friendship with God through Jesus Christ, one who is man like us, who can sympathize with us and our weakness.

And if we go to him, if we go to him, we can be friends with God. That's a, I feel like I use the word profound too much when I preach, but that is a profound thing, to be a friend of God. You cannot, there's no third category.

You're either a friend of God or you're an enemy with God. And the only way to be a friend is through Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you would grant us a great zeal, that we would not be apathetic, that those people who hear this message, that they would not think that they can get by in some third category, but they would fully serve you, one who is a friend, finding great salvation in Jesus Christ.

And I ask that this would fill us with great joy as we come to you and we have peace with you in him. In Jesus' name, amen.