The Broken Covenant

Isaiah 33 and the Deceitfulness of Sin

Amen. Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 33. Continuing in Isaiah 33 today, looking particularly at verses seven through eight. Excuse me, seven through nine. But we will begin our scripture reading with verse one.

Please stand when you have Isaiah 33. Are you destroyer who yourself have not been destroyed? You traitor whom none has betrayed. When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed. And when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

Oh, Lord, be gracious to us. We wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. At the tumultuous noise, people's flee. When you lift yourself up, nations are scattered and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers.

As locusts leap, it is leapt upon. The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high. He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and he will be the stability of your times. Abundance of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure. Behold, their heroes cry in the streets. The envoys of peace weep bitterly. The highways lie waste. The traveler ceases. Covenants are broken. Cities are despised.

There is no regard for man. The land more mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that through this passage, you would open our eyes to see the spiritual warfare that is occurring around us.

You would lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And that through this passage, we would see the great deceitfulness of sin. In Jesus name, amen. Hebrews 313 says, but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that you may not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin is a very deceitful thing. It promises all sorts of good, all sorts of pleasure, all sorts of riches. And it never truly delivers. It may give something temporarily, but it never gives anything eternally.

It never gives what it offers. And so, as we recognize the need to steel ourselves against temptation, where do we go for strength? But through the word of God in prayer. So today we'll be looking at the word of God.

We will be praying to God. And what I would like us to see from this word here is the deceitfulness of sin, that we may be more on guard to it, more ready to reject it and not be deceived to think that it is going to give us what it offers.

The Broken Covenant with Assyria in 2 Kings 18

This passage begins saying, behold, their heroes cry in the streets. The envoys of peace weep bitterly. And it speaks of a covenant that is broken. There is a lot of historical context that is necessary here.

And I have been speaking of it in summary and alluding to it very frequently in these messages. And we will see direct narrative in several chapters describing some of these events. But I think at this point in time, there is enough going on right here that it's worth turning to 2 Kings and seeing a lot of the details of what are happening.

So if you would please turn to 2 Kings 18, beginning in verse 13. This is going to describe the context. This has been the context of many of the passages we've been looking at. We don't have time each week to look at 2 Kings 18, but like I said, I think this week it would be good to do a little more of an in-depth look at what is going on in the history of Israel at this time.

What covenant is being spoken of? What envoys of peace are being rejected? What heroes are weeping? In 2 Kings 18, verse 13, it says,. So if you remember, in the earlier parts of Isaiah, Ahaz was king.

And Ahaz had made an alliance with Assyria to defend against the northern kingdom of Israel, as they had allied with Syria. That's Assyria versus Syria. And Judah versus Israel. And that alliance has continued on into Hezekiah's time.

And so Hezekiah is under the suppression of Sennacherib, as Sennacherib has gotten greedy and decided that despite this alliance, he will come against Judah and besiege Judah. And so we see Hezekiah wrestling with what to do.

He decides initially that he will side with Assyria, and he continues that alliance for some time, and he tries to strengthen that alliance, but eventually he will repent, turn to the Lord, and break that alliance.

But here we see him attempt to continue that alliance. Verse 14 says,. So Hezekiah is explaining that he's willing to pay any tribute the king requires. And in the treasuries of the king's house. So you see how great of a betrayal of the Lord this is, to not merely make an alliance that God had forbidden, but even to steal money from the very house of God to give it to the king of Assyria.

Verse 17 says,. And the Rabshakeh said to them, You say to me, We trust in the Lord our God. Is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah in Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

Come now, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it. So, Sennacherib has taken this gift, but then is still oppressing Judah, still going to attack them, asking for more, more, and more.

He wants the whole land. Continues on in 26. Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah, within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.

But the Rabshakeh said to them, Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own Urim?

What he's describing is siege warfare. He's going to stand outside the city so they can't get supplies until they have no food, no water. And the disgusting picture that is given there will become their reality.

So this is the context. Hezekiah has continued in this alliance, this sinful alliance that his father has built. And then when the king turns on him and does not honor the alliance, he tries further to satisfy the king by taking money from God's house, by stripping the doors of the temple.

And once again, the king of Assyria is not satisfied with this. And so who are the heroes crying in the street? The valiant men of Jerusalem. They know that they cannot take the army of Assyria. Who are the envoys of peace?

Those who would go and make this offer to Assyria. Say, please, take more of our gold, take more of our silver. Have nothing more to do with us. They have been rejected. And this is precisely how sin operates.

Think you can pay into it more and more and it will give you what you want, but it asks for more and more and more. And this is exactly what happens with every form of sin. You look at a liar, what does he have to do to cover up the previous lies?

He has to make more lies and more lies and more lies. And what does the one do who harms his body with a misuse of drugs to receive some pleasure for them? He has to chase more drugs and more drugs and more drugs.

And this is how every sin works. That you have to sin more to cover up more sin. The lady swallows the spider to catch the fly, and so on and so on and so on. It never ends. And this is sin, this is the deceitfulness of sin.

Do not be deceived by sin. It never pays. It will always want more. He continues on and says, The highways lie waste, the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken, cities are despised. You know, this notion of a covenant is very interesting because so much of our faith circles around the notion of a covenant.

But here the covenant is not a holy covenant, it's not a covenant with God, it's a covenant with an enemy. It's a covenant with Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. And what this suggests to us is that this is how we should think of deals made with the devil, of engagements in sin, where we think that it is going to pay something, but it never does.

That covenant, that agreement between man and temptation is always broken by the side of evil, never pays out man what it offers. This is exactly how Satan himself operates. And we've seen many times throughout Isaiah and the way the New Testament uses Isaiah that Sennacherib in many ways is a type of Satan.

By a type of Satan, I mean that he prefigures a lot of the work of Satan as we see it take place in the New Testament. And this is what we see even all the way at the beginning, at the Garden of Eden.

Satan says that if Eve eats this fruit, she will be like God, her eyes will be clear, she'll have wisdom and understanding, knowing good and evil. There are many truths that are said in this, but there is the underlying lie that this will pay out in the end.

Yes, they will know good and evil and be like God in this way that they were not designed to be like God, to take matters into their own hands and make their own determinations rather than submitting to the Lord.

And so, as Eve eats the fruit, as Adam follows after her, they are kicked out of the garden because that agreement made with Satan never succeeds. Maybe you've seen fiction where there's some kind of deal with the devil, and the devil's got slick hair and he's smoking and has some kind of contract to be signed.

And you're sitting there and you know that the protagonist is getting himself into trouble by making this deal. And you think, that protagonist, what a fool, can't he see where this is going to end? That is exactly what happens every time, every time we fall prey to the tempter, which is all the time that we sin.

Every time that you sin, you are falling prey to the tempter. Now, I'm not saying that he in particular is active in every instance of temptation, but as he is over his demons, his minions, and as he has brought man into this fall by tempting Adam and Eve, this is his work to tempt.

And you are falling prey every time you do not resist temptation. The covenant is always broken. There is never a time when the devil makes good on his promises, on the temptation and on what he promises, the pleasures and riches that will come from it.

They never truly come from it. Continues on, says, the cities are despised. There is no regard for man. This whole passage here, speaking of heroes crying in the street, people weeping, highways lying waste, it's all a picture of societal collapse.

It's all a picture of the destruction and the effects of sin. This is a picture of how sin affects us. It destroys, it takes away what is truly good. Describing the streets being empty, there's a contrast here between heroes crying in the streets and now there's no one in the streets.

Why is there no one in the streets? Maybe it's already apparent to you, but if you have enemies prowling about, you cannot travel on the highways. That's where they'll be waiting for you to take all your money, the highwaymen who will come.

And Judges 5, 6, it says that in the days of Shamgar, son of Anna, in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned and travelers kept to the byways. This is what happens when the society does not have a king over it to rule in righteousness.

That was in the book of Judges. The book of Judges is about the need for this king. It's about all these different rulers in Israel who would do things to settle small problems that the people had, regional issues, regional war.

But there's a need for a king who will reign over the whole land and cleanse the whole land of all enemies and establish peace in the land. So that's why they're not able to go about. This is what we see in Isaiah.

There is no king who is able to fight off the enemy. Hezekiah is not sufficient. They need someone more, someone who does not make covenants with the evil one, but someone who makes a covenant with God.

And we will see that Hezekiah will make a covenant with the Lord. But this agreement he makes with God that saves the people, once again, it is only temporary. This is pointing to something greater. This is pointing to a greater covenant, pointing to a greater king of Israel, pointing to a greater savior.

And that one is, of course, Jesus Christ. It continues to talk about the effects on the land. It says, The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

This is a phrase that was used earlier in the book of Isaiah. In 24 -4 it says, The earth mourns and withers. The world languishes and withers. The highest people of the earth languish. This sin is so great that it has affected the whole land.

As God has made a covenant with the people that should they follow Him, the land will be blessed. If they do not follow Him, the land will be cursed. All these blessings have turned into curses. It says, Lebanon is confounded and withers away.

Lebanon is supposed to be a place with mighty cedars, great trees. Sharon is like a desert. This place that is supposed to have beautiful pasture lands is now like a desert. Bashan and Carmel, a place of great oaks, now they shake off their leaves.

The trees are dying. There was indeed a famine around this time that the Lord speaks of elsewhere in the book of Isaiah and in 2 Kings. The point being that sin has not merely an individual effect but even a societal effect.

You see this effect on the land. It happens not only in Israel where there is a specific covenant about this promised land, but it even happens once again in the garden. What is the curse that is given to Adam?

That thorns and thistles will grow out of the ground. The whole ground has become cursed because of Adam's sin. As I've said, we're not in a particular covenant as Israel was that would dictate that it would be particularly our land that would be harmed by our sin.

But are there not, and is this not obvious, that there are great societal effects of sin? And is it not obvious that the Lord in sending disasters upon people, that these exist because of sin? All such disasters have entered the world because man has sinned and God has his purposes in disasters and that is to turn men away from sin or to punish them for their sin.

You see the great disasters that have come upon us, whether they be hurricanes or pestilence or plagues or things like COVID, all of these things exist because sin has entered the world. They are all reminders that we must turn from our sin.

And even beyond just generic reminders, I think they do tell us of the particular time we live in and call us to contemplate whether or not God has sent particular things because of our society's particular sins.

Our own confession picks up on this language when it speaks of oaths and vows. It says that this land mourns because of rash, vain, and false oaths. Because of covenants that are broken, the land mourns.

So this is something where the best of theologians have recognized that this is not something that was merely true for the nation of Israel, but this is something that has truth for us as well. These great societal effects of sin.

The New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus Christ

Now, I would add to all of this a consideration of covenants. So we have this covenant, this covenant made with an evil king that is broken by this evil king. And in the process of having made this covenant with this evil king, the covenant with God was broken.

These things are mutually exclusive. You cannot have both. You cannot serve both God and mammon. You cannot serve both God and the devil, both God and Sennacherib. These things will always be at odds.

But there is great mercy that God has offered, that though one should have made such a deal, they may easily return to the Lord. And this is what we see with Hezekiah. We will see this later, that Hezekiah turns in repentance to the Lord.

He prays to God. God is merciful to him. God saves the people. And you can have the same kind of salvation as well. There is a covenant that God has made that is not like the old covenant that He had with His people.

That covenant, the people had to continue serving the Lord so that He would continue the blessing to land. And if they stopped serving the Lord, He would stop blessing the land. And their peace with God rested upon their own performance, their own ability to keep God's law.

The New Testament speaks of a greater covenant, a new covenant that has been made that is far greater than this old covenant. Why? Because it no longer relies on the people. It doesn't rely on fallen people like you and me who continually fall prey to the deceitfulness of sin.

Rather, it relies on Jesus Christ, who sees through every single one of those lies and has never fallen to the deceitfulness of sin. In fact, He faced Satan himself and did not buckle under the pressure of temptation.

And because this covenant relies on His obedience rather than on ours, it is perfect and secure and it is sealed with the promise of God, Him making an oath to us that it would never be broken. And so the things that the world has to offer, the things that Satan, the tempter has to offer, the things that the pleasures and the riches that you might think you will receive from prioritizing things that the Lord has not prioritized by falling into sin that God has commanded against, none of those things will make good because none of those things come with the oath of God.

None of those things come with the security of the blood of Jesus. None of those things are certain and secure. In fact, they are certain and secure, but in the opposite direction. You can be assured that they will fail you, every single one of them.

And it is only in the blood of Jesus that there is great security. It does not rest on you, it does not rest on me, but it rests on Jesus Christ who is above all, who has perfectly obeyed God, and who gives mercy to all who come to Him for mercy.

If you find yourself today afflicted by sin, afflicted by temptation, whether you have already come to the Lord or not, I urge you to turn to the Lord in repentance, to pray to Him, to seek His mercy, and to rest in His covenant that is so sure and so certain it will never be broken.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this new covenant we have in the blood of Jesus Christ. We thank You for how certain and secure it is and how it gives us a great peace and assures us of an end to all enemies.

And we ask that as we pray today, as we come to You, that You would mortify in us that gullibility that makes us susceptible to the deceitfulness of sin. And we pray that You would stir in us a great zeal for this new covenant, that we might have great joy in it and even a joy that is overflowing that we would share with others.

In Jesus' name, amen.