Wednesday, Aug 14, 2024

The Faithful City’s Inflated Justice and Corrupted Economy

Inflated. They have an inflated sense of their justice, but their actual justice is watered down. Their economy, their justice systems, their politics, they're all inflated, diluted, they're all a sham.

The idea is that their whole system from one end to the other is a deceit, it's full of theft, it is an abandonment of God's standards. But they still muddle through. They're still muddling through. Well, they still have the temple, don't they?

They still have the sacrifices, don't they? They still have the feast days, don't they? They still have the elders in the city gates, don't they? They still have their systems in place, so what are you complaining about?

What are you on about, Isaiah? We still have all the components still here. We still have silver, we still have wine, but how does it feel to get paid in dross? How does that wine taste? Alec Meitner is an Isaiah scholar.

He said silver can contain some alloy. It can still be silver, but silver which has become dross has suffered total degeneration. Similarly, as soon as wine is touched with water, no particle of it remains undiluted.

And so, this is the so-called faithful city. The problem with the faithful city is once you start pouring in unfaithfulness, it's the unfaithful city. You know, she's not what she once was. She has regressed.

She has regressed where she should have matured, and she has hidden what she should have confessed. There's two things going on here with this metaphor of the dross and the watered-down wine. She has regressed where she should have matured, and she has hidden what she should have confessed.

I sent this verse in its context to Dylan, who's a resident economist, and I said, what do you think when you read this metaphor? He was pretty helpful. He had some thoughts, and what he pointed out to me, and this wasn't his word, but I kind of took it as his word, it was Ichabod.

Ichabod, the glory has departed. Remember Hophni and Phineas, the sons of Eli, took the Ark of the Covenant out of the tabernacle, and they took it into battle because they thought it was a superstition charm, you know, hey, we'll win if we have the Ark of the Covenant, and they went into battle and totally failed, and the Ark was stolen, and as I believe it was Phineas' wife, and she's dying, giving birth, having heard that her husband is dead, and the Ark of the Covenant has been stolen away, names her child Ichabod.

The glory has departed, and that's really what's going on here. Notice the elimination of glory by the adding of other things. The elimination of the weightiness and the value by the adding of other things.

So you take silver, silver by itself, oh, it's weighty, has some weight to it, has some value to it, but if you add to it, you take away from it, don't you? You put dross in that, you put impurities in that, and all of a sudden you've taken away the glory of silver.

If you add water to wine, if you add to it, you take away from it. By adding water to wine, you actually make it worth less. You take the glory away from the wine. As the heft of silver and the bite of wine are taken away, they become less significant, less meaningful.

In other words, they're fit for children. They're fit for children. Fake money is what you give to children to have fun with, right? All that little chunk of dross, oh, you think you found treasure, okay, you found, yeah, there's your treasure, go play.

You know, Pokemon cards or stuff like that, you know. Yeah, fake money, you know, but it's not as weighty as actual currency, actual money. So you have so-called fake money for exchanges. This is something that children would play with.

The children used to play with the dross-filled off-castings of the silversmith, but now you're using it for your actual currency because you have regressed where you should have matured, oh Jerusalem.

And how would they make sure that their children drank water that was not filled with impurities? They would cut the wine with water, water down the wine significantly, thereby removing the impurities and let their children drink the water down wine so that they wouldn't get sick when they drank their water.

The cut wine, the water down wine was for children. So they've regressed where they should have matured. Also, if the inflation of the money and the dilution of the wine, Dylan noted, could be used to cover for poor stewardship.

If the king, if the princes, if the magistrates were very wasteful with the silver and they spent it on things that they really shouldn't have. Let's go buy a bunch of new chariots from Egypt or something, you know, like you really need that.

And so they've wasted all their silver. They can try to cover themselves by inflating the money supply by having more impure silver and they can try to cover for themselves. Also, if there's not a lot of good labor going on and diligence in the vineyards, well, we don't have enough wine this year because we've been lazy and so on.

So we're going to sell diluted wine, trying to cover over for poor stewardship. Either way, that's not, so there's some, they're hiding things rather than confessing things. So this is what God is getting at when he's saying, you, your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

You, your, the glory has departed. The glory has departed. You, you are regressing where you should have advanced and you're, you're trying to hide things that you should have confessed. So God has told them already how to return to glory.

Hasn't he in verse 18? He's already told him how to return to glory. Come now, let us reason together. Come now, confess your sins. Agree with me about my rebuke of you and I will cleanse your sins. I will cleanse your trespass.

I will cleanse you. I will forgive you. That's how they should return to glory. For their glory is not intrinsic. Their glory is derived. Their glory is not intrinsic. Their glory is derived. Their glory is dependent upon God.

The only reason why that city and that people would have any glory at all is because of who God is. When we're looking at, we're looking at some thoughts on that. I want us to turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 28.

And remember the pattern that we were looking at in this passage is the contrast between blessings and cursing. So, in Deuteronomy 28 verses 11 and 12, we have the blessing for covenant-keeping. And then later on in verses 39 and 44, the promise of cursing on those concerning their economy for their covenant breaking.

So, in verses 11 and 12, we read, and the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, to bless all the work of your hand, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

So, if Israel was faithful in their covenant to God, God would have this covenant blessing for Israel. But what if they were unfaithful? Well, that's the situation they're in right now in the book of Isaiah.

So, verse 39 says, well, verse 38 helps connect that, since it's an agrarian economy. You shall carry much seed out to the field, but gather little in, for the locusts shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you should neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.

Speaking about the economy again, verses 43 and 44, the alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him.

He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. So, it's a complete opposite. And so, when we think about the situation in Isaiah, they've, as we've discussed, the good, of the blessings that God promised them is God.

Since they've abandoned God, they don't know any good. The good land is just land now. They're not experiencing anything of the blessings. And so, God is calling them back to himself, which is a big part of the overall message of Isaiah.

Not only in verse 18, that invitation, but also in chapter 55. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight in, delight itself in abundance. God is saying, come to me.

I am your good, and it will cost you no money whatsoever. Keep your awful silver. Just, you're hungry, you're thirsty, you're tired, you're weary. You have done all of these curses upon you. Come unto me.

I will give you what you are desiring. Notice verse 3 specifies, incline your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul shall live. The idea is that you're hearing, and believing, and responding to his truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David, which is the passage that Paul preached when he went to Antioch at Pisidia in Acts chapter 13, and said, this has been fulfilled, in the arrival of Jesus Christ.

Here you all are in this outpost, in the high plains, in the mountainous area of Galatia, and you know, here's the invitation, and here's the promise, here's the fulfillment. Come unto Christ. Well, what did he say?

What did Christ say in John 2, John 4, John 6, so on and so forth? You know, I am the bread. Come eat of me, be satisfied. I will give you drink, and you will never thirst again. So, Jesus is taking on the entire mantle of all the covenant blessings of what it means to be in right fellowship with God, and he's saying, come to me.

Come to me. By confession, think about the Sermon on the Mount. By confession of our poverty and our misery, our hunger and our thirst, blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

By the confession of our poverty and our misery and our hunger and our thirst, it is by our looking unto the perfect and mature Son, the perfect covenant servant, that we are brought into his kingdom, that we are comforted, and that we are satisfied, and that we are filled.

There was no hope left in the old covenant to be satisfied elsewhere than in Christ. Every avenue was hedged up and frustrated. The invitation time and again was cast aside the dross, pour out the diluted wine, and go to where the glory was.

The glory had departed. There was no more glory. How often has the glory departed from Jerusalem? Well, there went the money, and there went the wine, and there went the ark of the covenant, and there went the temple, and there went the priesthood, and there went the king, and the glory kept on departing and departing.

It was Ichabod over and over and over again, and there was no glory left so that they would know where to go where the glory was, and the glory was revealed in Jesus Christ the Son. So, I hope that's encouraging to you.

The point of what God is doing here is making them pay attention to the Ichabod amongst them, making them pay attention to how far they had fallen, making them pay attention to the darkness, the dimness, the despairs that they would know where to go and where to run.

All right, we'll leave it there for now. I don't know how to go faster than a verse at a time, so if you'll pray for me. If you're frustrated, if you're fine, then keep on praying for me. All right, we're going to turn our attention now to our prayer requests.