Wednesday, September 25, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Vision of the Latter Days and the Lord’s House

Care and providence that you show us. We thank you for bringing us rain and bringing us your beautiful clouds in the dangerous storms in which you protect us and you provide for us. So Lord, we pray that you would help us to trust you and to fear you, thinking of you first and thinking of you most in all of our prayers and all of our considerations and all of our ways.

And I pray tonight as we read your word together that it would be glorifying to you, good for our souls, good for our lives. Pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, Isaiah 2 beginning in verse 1.

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 this passage that has so much hope and casts a vision, a prophecy of good things to come, is a little portion of this first section of Isaiah, the first 35 chapters, that are sermons for a difficult present.

And yet, despite all of the difficulties and all of the problems that are addressed, the people of Israel are reminded time and again, and here's one of the ways, that the Lord is their true Redeemer.

Now when it comes to salvation, when it comes to fixing all the problems and delivering them from all the evil, it has to be the Lord. It's not going to be them. It's not going to be their abilities, their capacities, their cleverness, their ways.

They are a people full of woe, in terms of their sin and the rebellion, the guilt that they're heaping up for themselves. We've had a whole chapter of God working bit by bit, line by line, through all the different ways that they have broken covenant with him.

And that chapter, Isaiah 1, is just chock full of all the warnings and curses of God for covenant breakers. The language of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 is thickly echoed throughout the entire first chapter of Isaiah.

So it's not looking good. But there have been promises along the way that God is going to redeem, he's going to restore, he's going to make things right. But he's going to do so, his salvation is going to come through judgment.

Somehow the salvation is going to come through judgment, and it will end up being to the glory of God. And so we've been asking the question time and again, what hope is there? We know we turn our hope to the Lord.

This is the hope for rebellious children, that the Lord will do his work. And even though he's rebuking them for their folly, there is hope. And here's one expression of hope, a vision about the Lord's house.

It's a vision about the Lord's house. It's a word that Isaiah sees. So it's something of a vision, but it's also words that you can cling to and share with others. And it sounds like there's a whole new introduction here.

If we didn't have chapter one, this would serve as a great beginning for Isaiah. It's just a wonderful introduction. It's very like the introduction of other prophetic books. You could read some of the other, like maybe some of the smaller prophets, the minor prophets.

And their prophecies start off just like this. It's a fitting introduction. It feels like we're getting a whole new introduction here. And it's all about how God is going to do things, how he's going to make it better.

Very often that the rebel, the one who's in rebellion, they want deliverance. They desire deliverance out of all the problems that are cascading and snowballing in their rebellion and their sin. But they want it on certain conditions.

And this is a signal that the pride is still operative. The humility is not there. When somebody is looking for help, but I'm still wanting to be in charge and pilot this thing. And I've got certain conditions that we need to follow.

It's a pity when the terms of unconditional surrender, which would be good for the rebel to agree to, this is going to be their salvation. If they would just simply agree to the unconditional surrender, it's bad when they reply with terms that sound like a hostage negotiation.

And in this case, in seeking to save their life, they're going to lose it. But in losing their life, Christ promises to save it. So God has said, you know, you're not keeping covenant, but I am. You don't keep your promises, but I will.

And then those promises are not only judgment, but also he's got so many promises about salvation, promises of blessing, promises that expand beyond just the parameters of Israel's population and place.

And so he's going to set forth a vision here in verses one through five that establish his whole program of salvation, how this is going to work. And it's all according to his terms, not Israel's terms.

Of course, he's already said there at the end of, especially at the end of chapter one, how he's going to make everything better by burning it all down. So you have all these shrines and all these oaks and all these gardens, and you think you've got your system here.

He said, but here's what we're going to do. We're going to burn it all to the ground. And this will bring about salvation. I don't know how that's going to work. How do you save something by destroying it?

John Calvin says at this point, he said it was the duty of the pious to look not at the ruins, but at this vision. That God's going to bring about the judgment and it's proper that they be judged, but they are not to spend the rest of their days looking at the ruins and pining away for the ruins.

But they are to look at the vision that God casts in front of them and say, there's the hope. They are to look forward to this new Jerusalem and new Zion, this new creation that God is putting together and talks about here in these verses.

Now, back when we looked at this whole section, the first five chapters of Isaiah, I had a big drawing on the board. We had two pillars on either side, and chapter one is the condemnation of Israel, and chapter five is very much the same thing.

God introduces things with some analogies, some metaphors, and then lays out the problems. And then inside the two pillars, we have two doors, two ways in to basically a funeral. Because in the main bulk of chapter two, in all of chapter three, there is an epitaph given in verse six of chapter two.

Here lies the woeful rebels. And then it's followed up with an obituary, kind of an outline of all the things that were bad and wrong. And then a eulogy that fleshes out all the parts of the obituary in more detail.

But bracketing both sides of this kind of sad funeral scene, I had drawn up two doors. And one of them was about the house of the Lord, which is this passage, and the other that matched it very well and patterned very well with it was the vineyard of the Lord in chapter four.

Both of those are pictures of hope. Now, when we have this description of the mountain of the Lord's house exalted, so here's Mount Zion, here's the temple, exalted above all the other hills. And all the nations are saying, hey, let's go, let's go submit ourselves to Zion where the authority is now found.

All the nations are getting involved here. So we have Jerusalem mentioned, we have Jerusalem and Zion and the temple and all of it being exalted and powerful and wonderful, beautiful things happening here.

A lot of these terms, a lot of these pictures are things that Jesus used when he preached about the kingdom of heaven. In all four gospels, he preached about the kingdom of heaven. He described his message as the gospel of the kingdom.

And these are some of the things that are in his mind. And he uses Isaiah a lot, the hopeful promises of Isaiah when he starts talking about the kingdom that he brings. The common Jewish expectation in Jesus' day was that the promised kingdom that they were fond of reading about and hearing from in the Old Testament, that that kingdom would be very much political and very much immediate.

Because they were doing the math, too, and there was a countdown that Daniel gave, and they figured that they were pretty much in the ballpark. But they were looking for a very political and immediate kingdom and very often wanted to know if Jesus was the one who was going to do it for them.

Or maybe John the Baptist was. And if they didn't fit the bill, then they got rather upset. But Jesus taught that the kingdom, he taught it in spiritual terms, which manifested over generations. Now, when I say spiritual, don't think imaginary.

Some people get the idea that if something is spiritual, it must mean nothing to do with the real world. But in fact, the real world is spiritual. You've been discipled to think, you've been discipled by materialism to think that anything spiritual has no impact in the real world and it's just completely fiction and ethereal and imaginary.

So when Jesus says that the kingdom is spiritual, he doesn't mean imaginary and no real impact and no effect in the world in which we live. He means quite the opposite. There's no way the kingdom can have a real impact in the world unless it is spiritual.

And so when we read about, for instance, we're going to hear about how Zion is elevated above the other mountains and hills and they all come underneath it and begin to support it like pillars. Get the idea that we're talking about something metaphorical here, something spiritual.

But we're not to think then that it's imaginary and doesn't have a real impact. When we have many people coming in the passage saying, hey, we want to go up to the mountain of the Lord, let's go up there.

And then we have invitation in verse five, O house of Jacob, come, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. This invitation into the Lord's house to go up to the mountain of the house of the Lord is a is a genuine blessing and a great joy.

When you're invited to somebody's house, not least of which the house of the Lord, if you're invited to somebody's house, you don't get to say how the feast should be laid, right? You don't get to state how the furniture ought to be arranged.

You don't get to say what the agenda will be for the evening. You've been invited over, you're the guest. You don't have a say, but you're there to be blessed and enjoy what has been arranged for you.

And in this, God is saying, come to my house. Look how I have arranged things. You'll find things that are familiar to you. You're going to find things like Temple and Jerusalem and Zion. You're going to find things like that.

But look how I have arranged them.

The Wedding Feast, the Invitation, and Unconditional Surrender

Welcome.

So we're seeing the ideal covenant fulfillment being described with these descriptions, this vision, these metaphors here in Isaiah chapter two. Do you remember Jesus' parable about being invited in to the wedding feast in Matthew 22?

He said, the kingdom of heaven is like a king whose son was getting married. It's a big wedding feast. And so he sends out these prepared invitations to the people that you send invitations to. Who else are you going to send them to?

But to the landowners and to the nobles and the people with wealth and power and responsibilities. And so the king sends out all of this, all of these invitations to the who's who of the city. And they all decide not to come.

Who wants to come to that feast? Who wants to go do that? No, we're going to do something else. Forget that. And so they refuse and they rebel. They do not want to come. And so in Jesus' parable, he says that the king responds by destroying their city.

Destroying their city. But that's not the end. Because then he invites all manner of people, whether they're considered good or bad, whether they have great reputation or bad reputation. And all of them are invited into his wedding feast, where there's great joy and celebration.

But there's one man there that he finds who did not wear the wedding garment. Now, these people were caught off guard. They were pulled out of the highways and the byways. And brought into this wedding feast at last moment's notice.

Nobody was out there dressed for a wedding. Obviously, the host, as was customary in the time, is providing the proper garments for the guests who have been invited. So as they're coming in, you get a wedding feast robe and you get a wedding feast robe and you get a wedding feast robe.

And they all have it. But there was one man who didn't put it on. And so the king confronts him and says, where's the wedding garment? And he had nothing to say. He had no excuses. He couldn't say anything.

He had come to the king's house. He'd been invited in, this great privilege, this great blessing. And he had decided to make his own agenda. Well, he was cast out into outer darkness with his weeping and gnashing of teeth, Jesus says.

So there's two responses to being invited into the kingdom that are highlighted as wrong. The first one was, no, I don't need your kingdom. I don't need your feast. And the other one was, OK, fine, but on my own terms.

And both of those were wrong because neither one of those was unconditional surrender. Neither one of those was saying, I'll lose my life for Christ's sake and the gospels. I lay it all down. Yes, you're the king in every possible way.

And so I think it's important to have as the backdrop, this is God's agenda here in Isaiah 2. Let's consider the introduction here. And this is interesting that we have a whole nother introduction as we've already had an introduction.

But we are to, I think, reflect that outside of the grace of God, we don't hear any introduction at all. Outside the grace of God, we are deaf and blind in sinful rebellion. And that is actually what death is.

It's separation. Death is not nonexistence. Death is separation. And the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. And all manner of separation fell upon Adam and Eve and even further separation to come as their soul would be separated from their body and so forth.

So separation from the life of God is death. When those who are made in God's image can neither receive his word nor rejoice in his glory, that's death. It's a spiritual death, dead in trespasses and sin.

Those who have ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see, that Jesus will borrow the language from Isaiah and talk about in Matthew 13, that is death. That's the opposite of life. Those made in the image of God need the word of God.

And unless God reveals his word for our life, we just don't live. Now, back to the verse, it says, the word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And that verse does not sound like we've already been through a whole chapter in Isaiah.

It sounds like we're starting all over again. And that's a good observation to make. It's a good observation to make. In a sense, it does reflect what has come before in verses one and two of chapter one.

We hear that it was a vision that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw in chapter two, verse one. It's the word that he saw. In chapter one of Isaiah, verse two, God is saying, hear, oh, heavens, give ear, oh, earth, for the Lord has spoken.

So in Isaiah chapter one, verses one and two, we move from a vision that is seen to a word that is spoken. In chapter two, verse one, we go from a word that is spoken and to be heard to the language of seeing.

You see how these are combined? This is not the only place. Very often throughout the scriptures, the idea of hearing and seeing a word that you see is brought together, as well as the aforementioned saying about ears to hear and eyes that see.

So what is this? Words that are seen. It is a typical expression of a vision, but it's good to remember that God's word is not received or delivered simply upon the principles of communication. God communicates by means of words and sentences and so on, but we have to have the ears to hear and the eyes to see both.

And Jesus said that to his disciples in Matthew 13 when he began his parables about the kingdom, and they wanted to know what the meaning of this parable of the soils was all about. And Jesus interrupted his explanation on a lengthy discourse to say, you know, to quote Isaiah chapter six and say, how blessed are your eyes that they see?

How blessed are your ears that they hear? Of such, you're of the kingdom because your heart has been prepared for this and it has been given to you to see. It's been given to you to understand. And that's what makes all the difference when the seed hits the soils.

And Jesus explains all those different results at the second half of that very long parable. So think about this. Chapter one of Isaiah, a whole chapter, 31 verses full of condemnation upon those who reject God's word and thus suffer judgment.

But in chapter two, verse one, another introduction as if it's a whole new fresh start. He starts it all anew. Let's run this again. But this time, instead of your Jerusalem, we're going to look at mine.

Let's run this again. Instead of your Zion, let's look at mine. Let's run this again. Instead of what you think is prosperity, look at what I call prosperity. Instead of your shalom, your sad version of it, let's look at my version of it.

And so he restarts the whole thing over again. That's grace. Given that the old covenant Jerusalem and the old covenant Zion are going to be consumed by a judgment of fire, there seems to be the need for a new covenant Jerusalem and a new covenant Zion in which all of God's promises will be realized.

But we know by now from Genesis that it's not just a new place that we need. God gave a new place to Noah and his descendants. But made a point of saying, but their hearts are just the same as they were before.

So it's not simply that you need a whole new space, a whole new place, a whole new arena. That's not enough. What you need is a new people. So the word became flesh and we saw his glory. The word that is seen.

He is the light of the world. The light into which Jacob, in verse 5, is invited. All of the nations, in verse 3, are invited. All the visions and the revelations throughout the old covenant generations consisted of some kind of word that was seen.

Some kind of light that revealed God in propositional form. All old covenant revelation was simply preparation for the incarnation. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 says that. I don't have it in my notes.

I guess I'm going to have to turn there in my Bible.

I do.

It helps.

In Hebrews chapter 1, we're essentially told that there has been a lead up in all of God's revelations to his supreme revelation in his son Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 verse 1. God who at various times and various ways spoke in time passed to the fathers by the prophets.

Has in these last days spoken to us by his son whom he has appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the world. Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power.

When he had by himself purged our sins sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So there is an echo of the revelation of God in the last days and this promise of the latter days here in Isaiah chapter 2.

So by the word who became flesh in his light Christ alone the new creatures of the resurrection who are all called new creatures. All things passed away but all things become new. We are new creatures in Christ.

New creations in Christ. That's how we are formed. There's something new that happens and it happens by the revelation of God. When God made everything the first time what does he do? He speaks it into existence.

How does he do everything in the new creation? He speaks it into existence. By his word he forms us. He calls us into repentance and faith. He sanctifies us by his word. He brings everything to a fitting conclusion by his word.

When we need a fresh start, when we need a new beginning, when we need a repentant and hopeful turnaround. Something along the lines of unconditional surrender. Sinners, rebels and the like all need the same thing.

We need to see his word. We need to see his word and receive what he has to say about his revelation. Next time we'll plan on looking at verses 2 -3 and following and figuring out how to move mountains.

We'll turn our attention now to prayer requests.