Sept. 16, 2018 PM The Tale Of Two Cities by Conley Owens Deacon

Dear Holy Father, I pray that I would be able to show your people your truth in this passage, and pray that you would be pleased to have your people edified at this time. In Jesus' name, Amen. So, cities are a pretty important part of human existence.

A lot of people live in cities, and even those who don't are assigned a city, their address is. And a lot of people identify with their city, and you know, they root for their city sports team. And if I knew anything about sports, I might make a few illustrations about that.

The Two Spiritual Cities and the Meaning of Jerusalem

But cities are often a part of people's identity. And here in this passage, we have a city mentioned, the city of Jerusalem. Now, there are also spiritual cities in addition to physical cities. There's a spiritual city that determines your identity.

And there are exactly two spiritual cities, and they correspond to the physical cities that we see in this passage. And what city you are in determines your identity, who you are, what kind of things you like, your value, your worth, etc.

These physical cities in this passage are going to teach us of those spiritual cities. And so, as we go through this, I would like us to think about that. The city, Jerusalem, that's also referred to as Zion in verse 27, because Jerusalem, the city proper, is built on Zion, the mountain.

That's the idea. All right, let me read verse 21 again. How the faithful city has become a whore. She who is full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.

Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them. So this once was a faithful city, but now has become a whore.

Now, that imagery seems drastic and unexpected, but the idea is Jerusalem is being described as though she was a faithful wife who has then engaged in faithfulness and left God, the one to whom she was married.

She owed God her allegiance, and now she has left her by pursuing idols. The things about oaks and meadows at the end, that is referring to pagan idolatry. So Jerusalem has turned away to whoredom. She has left God.

She used to be full of righteousness, but now she's just full of murderers. Verse 22 says, your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water. So dross is metallic impurifications, some other metal.

For example, if you had a silver pitcher and it had tin in it, that would not be good. It would not look good. It wouldn't be right. And if you have that problem in the pitcher, you can't just cut that one part off.

It impurifies the entire vessel. The same for wine, right? If you have good wine and you mix a bunch of water in it, you can't just… it's not like moldy bread where you just cut the little corner off and now it's all okay.

The whole wine is ruined. You can't fix that. That is the nature of sin that Isaiah is trying to get out here, that a little bit corrupts the whole. People like to think that they can compartmentalize their lives, that they can keep this little piece of their life over here and this little piece of their life over here, and if sin corrupts the one, well that doesn't necessarily have to affect the whole, but it does.

That is the nature of sin. For example, you might think that you can keep your thought life private, but as Jesus says, your heart affects your words, and your heart leads to your actions, and even if it didn't, even if it did not, in God's eyes, your whole person is corrupted.

You're not multiple people so you can say, oh, it's, you know, the other commonly that sinned. No, it's you. You are one person. Your whole person is corrupted through sin. This is the nature of sin. It is pervasive, and it is a pollutant that once it has infected, that's it.

It's everything. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them.

So here you have a description of corrupt officials who disdain justice because in the process they can make money out of it. They can get bribes, and you see mentioned the fatherless and widow. This is a frequent test in the Bible of righteousness is whether or not you show compassion to the fatherless and the widow.

Just look at verse 17. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. Now, I'm pretty certain that if I asked you, or most of you, you know, have you helped an orphan today, the answer would be probably no, you haven't.

And that doesn't mean that you don't belong here if you haven't helped an orphan. The idea is not that everyone needs to be watching out for widows and orphans. It's not widows and orphans that are so important as it is the defenseless and serving others.

What you have here is a contrast between people who would be willing to serve others at their own expense versus people who are serving themselves at the expense of others. That's what taking a bribe is.

Now, we often don't, I don't think of myself as someone who takes bribes, who perverts justice, who, I think of myself as someone who loves the helpless and the defenseless. But if you think about our call to serve others sacrificially, and you think about what small a bribe it takes you to be distracted away from that, right?

What things in your life are there that distract you away from serving others? What kinds of things do you value? What kind of entertainment? You know, is it just a half hour of TV that keeps you from doing that daily Bible reading that you were going to do so that you could, as we were talking about earlier this morning, proclaim Christ to others, to your brothers?

If you think about it in those terms, you know, we are taking bribes at an alarming rate, not sacrificing for others, but instead taking these bribes and not helping others. Thought about it in that way where it's not just these grand gestures of charity towards orphaned widows.

This is, once again, this is a pervasive issue that affects even us, not just those in city leadership. And so, this is the description of a city who was faithful but now has become faithless. Now, as you, as I've already said, and you know this is about Jerusalem, a city that's in Palestine, but I believe there's reason from the Bible to interpret this as meaning more than just Jerusalem, as being about something bigger.

Hebrews 12 and the Heavenly Jerusalem

And to illustrate that, a passage I've always liked very much, it's actually my favorite passage in the whole Bible, is Hebrews 12. So, Hebrews 12 .22 starts with, "'For we have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,' and then continues, "'and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.'".

So, here you have the New Testament talking about this restored Zion the Old Testament has promised so much, right? The Old Testament has promised us this restored Zion, this new Jerusalem, and here you have in Hebrews 12 a statement that those who are in Christ, those who are Christians who have repented and turned to Jesus, have already come to that new city.

We have already come to the assembly of the firstborn. We are in the presence of innumerable angels. We have the blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, right? The blood of Abel calls out for vengeance.

The blood of Christ calls out for forgiveness. We are part of this new city. Now, if that is the case, if that's this renewed Zion that we see in verse 27, Zion shall be redeemed by justice, how should we understand the faithless city?

Because it's not as though, you know, we were purified out of…the old city is not Jerusalem, the new city is some spiritual thing. The old city should also be seen as a spiritual thing, and I would argue that it should be seen as all of humanity, right?

So, in the beginning, God created Adam and Eve. He created them upright and perfect, and they did not have sin. They did not have this problem of corruption, and that was…at the time, you've got two people, right?

That's all you need for a city. At that time, you've got this faithful city, but then they eat of the fruit. They turn against God. They rebel. They are willing to take that bribe that's handed to them, and then you see once again, you know, God rids the earth of wickedness.

He leaves Noah and his family, but once again, you have pervasive sin everywhere. Until all the people gather into a singular city, right? They all gather into Babylon, or sorry, not Babylon, Babel, into Babel, all to congregate and rebel against God, and God disperses that city, and that city goes over the entire earth.

So, you have this whole world that composes this one spiritual city, this one dispersed Babel, this one city that once was faithful in the garden, but now has rebelled against God. All of humanity belongs to this city, and we, by virtue of being children of Adam, are born into that city, that city that is now a city of unrighteousness.

But through Jesus, through his death, through his resurrection, we can be part of a new city if we turn to him in repentance. It's like if you were to imagine to, you know, take Chicago and San Francisco, right, and imagine you were to interpose them on top of each other, and you have, you know, Willis Tower next to the transatlantic pyramid, and you've got Coit Tower next to Skygate, if you're familiar with these locations.

Skygate is that silver bean in Chicago. Anyway, but now you've also got people interposed, you know. Some people that you see in this earth are a part of this one spiritual city, and some are a part of this other spiritual city.

How do you tell the difference? How do you take wine, throw it in the centrifuge, spin it out real fast, and get out the water and the wine? How does that happen? God describes this process in verse 24.

God Refining His People by Judgment and Fire

Therefore, the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes, and I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

So here you have God declaring himself as the mighty one, because this is kind of astounding what we see. We would expect God to come and just destroy this corrupt city, but he's just something even mightier.

He is so mighty that he can manage to destroy the wickedness and from that corrupt mixture create a righteous city. He will avenge his foes. I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye.

This is a process of refining by fire. God's going to take that metal. He's going to burn it and pull out the impurities. This is a picture of judgment, but it's more than that. Now, I've said that Jesus establishes this new city, and if you think, if you're thinking in your mind that what this looks like is, oh, on the last day Jesus will take the wicked and he will throw them into hell, and that's the fire that I'm supposed to think of, and those who are righteous he will preserve.

I think there's something more that you're missing. I don't think this is purely future. I believe this is already happening now, and if you look at Luke 3, you'll see the words of John the Baptist prophesying about the earthly ministry of Jesus and what it is that Jesus is supposed to accomplish in his earthly ministry, not just on the last day.

Verse 15, as the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Now, I don't deny that these things refer to the last day, but he is talking about one who is immediately going to come and begin this work. Jesus already in the time while he was dwelling on this earth and now is already separating people for this purpose of fire.

He said that he didn't come to bring peace but a sword. He is a divisive character who divides people, and he is already dividing now. He said that he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, so it is already the case that he is baptizing with the Holy Spirit, taking people, and making them a righteous people by purging out their impurity, by removing sin.

And by removing sin, I don't mean as though it's some substance that he will take out, but by sanctifying and making holy through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is that fiery process of refinement that creates righteous people.

So, Jesus imputes his righteousness to us. He credits his righteousness to us so that we are counted as righteous, but then in addition to that he gives us of his Holy Spirit so that we become righteous in another way, not just in credit, but additionally through our actions, through our thoughts, we become more and more righteous.

This is how Jesus is creating this new city. This is this process of refinement. Either you are one who is being purged in fire to be more holy, or you are one who's being separated for the fire. He is separating the chaff from the wheat already.

Rebels, Sinners, and the Shame of Idolatry

Then let's continue in verse 28. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. So, here you have that picture of judgment. These are those who are being set aside for as the chaff to be burned.

He mentions rebels and sinners. Now, you might think, well, what's the difference between a rebel and a sinner? I think there is a difference here. I don't think this is just two synonyms. I believe the sinners are those who don't identify with the city.

For example, the Gentiles in the context of Jerusalem. And then you have rebels, those who do identify with the city, but their heart is not in the city, truly. They are rebels. And you see something very similar when he speaks of, sorry, verse 27.

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent. So, you have both Zion, the people of the city, and you have those who repent. So, you have those who have been a part of the city a long time, and those who are converts.

Right? And so, here you have the same thing for the wicked. You have those who identify with the city, but are rebellious, and those who just don't identify with the city at all and know themselves as wicked.

But both of them together have the same end. There's no difference. And so, for those in the church, it doesn't matter whether or not you're in the church doing good deeds. That does not change the fact that if your heart is not attuned towards Christ, if you are not trusting in Him, it will not change the outcome.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired, and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. These oaks and these gardens, like I said, this is referring to pagan idolatry. Now, the reason why these people will blush and be ashamed is because people can hold their head up high when it comes to matters of sin if they are not, if it's not shown to be something that's wrong.

And the way that something is shown to be wrong is through the process of punishment, through that which shows it to be wrong, that visceral judgment. And that is how these people will come to be ashamed of their actions.

It says, The strong shall become tender, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench him, with none to quench them. So, there's several things that we should notice here.

Talks about the strong becoming tender, right? Those who think of themselves as self-reliant, they don't need anyone else, doesn't matter how strong they are, they will burn up. And then also, his work is a spark.

It is the wicked's own work that comes back to harm them. Now, of course, it is God who is enforcing judgment, but yet it is the wicked whose work ignites that process. They are bringing their end upon their own heads.

I believe it's Psalm 716 that says, His wickedness descends upon his own skull, and upon his own head his unrighteousness descends, something like that. I've quoted it poorly, but you get the idea. It's their own unrighteousness that falls upon their own head.

And both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them. This is an unstoppable fire. Notice also that it says in verse 29,. Now, that's a really confusing sentence. It says, What's happening is in the very middle of the sentence, Isaiah is getting suddenly personal.

Isaiah is going from talking about they, those over there, to showing that this is you. This is you that I'm talking about right in the middle of the sentence. And this tree, if you think about the tree from Psalm 1 that stands beside the water and it meditates on God's word day and night so that it's full of water and it's alive, this is the opposite, right?

This tree does not have God's word. This tree has turned away from his law. It's grown dry and brittle, and it is ready to be burned. If you've ever made a fire, you know, you might take, especially if you don't know what you're doing, you might take some big pieces of wood and try to set them on fire, and that doesn't work, right?

And so, you take smaller sticks, and that still is really hard. Then you shave off little kindling, and if you're no good with starting fires, like I'm no good, you know, even that doesn't work. And so, you go to the car and you get out all the newspaper that really burns up, and you know, that just goes up in flame.

In fact, sometimes it goes up so fast, it doesn't even light the other stuff on fire. Fast it goes. These people and their sin and rejection of God's law is like the newspaper of the soul. The more they sin, the more they are throwing newspaper in their soul until they have a warehouse.

Imagine a warehouse full of newspaper, just lighting that on fire. That is what the sinful man is. That is what it looks like if we are not abiding by the law of God, meditating on it, and following it.

And even though that's a starved picture, it is actually a hopeful message, because judgment is a terrible thing for the unrighteous. But it is through judgment that God's people are saved, and it is through judgment that he protects his people from those enemies.

And if you look at verses 26 and 27, and I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward, you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent by righteousness. Here you have God using this terrifying implement of justice to destroy the wicked, but also to preserve the righteous.

This thing should not be looked at, we should look at it with fear and trembling. But if your trust is in the Lord, that's not the only emotion you should feel when reading a passage like that. It should be one of hope, that God will destroy the enemies, any of those who attack us, any of those who attack his people, and we will be preserved.

And this city is given a new identity. It becomes the city of righteousness, the faithful city, and it's restored. Maybe you kind of notice this pattern, and maybe not. I'd like to point it out to you.

He starts off by talking about, in verse 21, he talks about this faithless city, and then he talks about, you know, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers, you know, there's no good judges. And then you have silver, and then you have princes who are corrupt, right?

Princes are those who should hold their heads up high, but the people holding up their heads high are murderers. It's not someone, they're thieves. They're not people that you would think would hold up their head high, and the idea isn't it's just the leaders that are corrupt.

The idea is that this is the best that this city has to offer. So, you have this description of this city that's become faithless. Now, in the next several verses, that description is reversed. Everything that he just said gets put in reverse.

So, we ended with these princes that are rebels, but then you have, but the Lord is mighty. As opposed to these princes that are rebels, the Lord is mighty. And then you have, I will turn my hand against you, and I will smelt away your dross as with lye.

As opposed to you being full of dross, now the dross will be smelted away. And I will restore your judges as at the first. So, instead of all the murderers, instead there will be the judges. There will be these righteous people.

And then in 27, Zion shall be redeemed by justice. So, instead of the faithless city that's become a whore, you have Zion, this redeemed city. So, he takes that whole transition from faithfulness to unfaithfulness and reverses it and says that God is going to restore it right back to the first.

And if this is, and if this is talking about a spiritual city of which the whole world is a part of in the sense of having rebelled against God altogether, then you can think about this as God describing a restoration of the Garden of Eden, not just to that point, but even more so, that God is going to take us back to a paradise where we will be safe from enemies and where we will be righteous, and we will be safe from sin because this time he will have purged away all possibility for the problem of sin.

He says that Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent by righteousness. Now, in a way, this is just talking about that process of judgment. This is just talking about Zion's redeemed by God judging the wickedness out of it, right?

But there's a little more to that, because if the whole city is corrupt, if every single individual is corrupt, and God is just going to destroy the unrighteousness, what does that mean? He's going to destroy everything.

So, this tells us a little more. Zion is going to be redeemed by righteousness, not just in God exerting his own righteousness and destroying the wicked, but in God doing that and additionally granting his righteousness to his people.

So, that same God who destroys by his righteousness is granting his righteousness to us, so that those who have turned, who have trusted in Christ, we have not only Christ's righteousness counting us as righteous people who are not destroyed, but additionally, as I said, his Holy Spirit making us more righteous.

This is, if you've studied Isaiah, this is the big conundrum in Isaiah. Isaiah 1 through 39 are all focused on how because God is holy. Okay, the theme of Isaiah is God's holiness, right? You've got that holy, holy, holy statement in Isaiah 6.

That's the whole theme. The first half of the book is about how God is holy. He will not let unrighteousness stand, and so he will destroy all that is unrighteous. And the second part, you know, chapter 40, mostly to the end, but stopping around chapter 56, the theme is God is holy, and because he's holy, he can't let his name be besmirched by his people being destroyed, because if his people are destroyed and his name is attached to them, then his name is besmirched, and he becomes unholy.

But these two things don't work together. If the people are wicked, and he must be holy and destroy them, and his holiness is threatened if he doesn't save them, how do you put those two together? And the answer of Isaiah, either 56 or 57 through the end, is he will save them by turning them into a righteous people that he can then save.

And this is the great hope we have, a God who does not just demand things and leave us with no way to pursue them, but a God who, even despite the corrupting effects of sin, just like water and wine, just like, you know, some kind of, if you have a soup and you just throw some pollutant in and it spreads through the whole thing, that despite this, God has given us his Son, so that we may be counted as righteousness.

And the Father and the Son have given us their Holy Spirit, so that we might become more and more righteous. We might become holy, like God is holy, and we can dwell with him eternally in his spiritual city, this renewed Zion.

Living as Citizens of the Renewed Zion

So, as you're looking at your own life and thinking about which city you belong to, I hope that everyone here belongs to this new spiritual city that we're talking about. However, what it looks like to live in that city, it looks like that continued path of righteousness and sanctification that God provides, and so I hope that this encourages you, that you have all the tools you need.

You have the Holy Spirit to further sanctify you, to further pursue righteousness, to not think that, oh, I can just put sin in this one little compartment of my life, but that you can get sin at the root and fight it in every aspect of your life, even something as deep as your thought life.

So, I pray that you're thinking about these things and thinking about what areas it is that God can help you purge out as Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for your Son.

I thank you for the righteousness that he gives us. Thank you for your judgment by righteousness that gives us hope, not only in the judgment of the wicked, but also in the purification of our own souls, and I thank you for the Holy Spirit by which you've given us everything we need to pursue you and to pursue righteousness and become conformed closer to the image of your Son.

I pray that we would not take this lightly, but that we would recognize our status and our residence in a spiritual city, and that we would be driven to further become a part of that city and to build that city up, that kingdom of Christ.

In Jesus' name, amen.