Wednesday, October 16, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Judgment on Judah and the Need for a Better Servant

Christ's sake amen. Isaiah chapter 2 beginning in verse 6 Prophet says to the Lord for you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob because They are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines and they are pleased with the children of Foreigners.

Their land is also full of Silver and gold and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands.

That which their own fingers have made people bow down and each man humbles himself. Therefore do not forgive them so the book of Isaiah might Be outlined in more than one way. Very rich and complex. I choose a simple way three points because I'm Baptist.

Somewhat alliterated because again, I'm Baptist. But the first 35 chapters deal Isaiah is as the prophet of God preaching to Judah and Jerusalem. Concerning the great threat of Assyria. But why is Assyria a threat to Judah and Jerusalem?

Because the Lord is bringing judgment upon them because they are unfaithful to his covenant so God is Faithfully following through on the covenant curses outlined in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. In chapters 36 to 39.

We have stories that shape history. Stories first of all about how Assyria came to the very brink of taking Jerusalem. But God turned them back then stories about Babylon coming on the scene and how good King Hezekiah became very foolish and Gave a tour of all he owned there in Jerusalem to the Babylonian envoys.

So that they can make themselves a shopping list when they came calling in a few years. Speaking of the Babylonians sermons for a challenging future chapters 40 through 66 detail the oncoming threat of Babylon on the horizon and how Babylon is going to succeed and Causing Jerusalem to fall and be destroyed.

But wait, there's hope new Jerusalem. The promise is that heaven and earth will pass away, but there's a new heaven and earth. There's a servant who is deaf and blind and dumb. But there's a new servant a better servant a faithful servant and so Sermons for a challenging future one in which they were going to suffer great loss.

But God would bring about a new covenant. So that's Isaiah in a nutshell right now. We're in the first section sermons for a difficult present and the first chapter surveyed all of the unfaithfulness of Judah all the unfaithfulness of Jerusalem and Then in contrast God has a new start chapter 2 verses 1 through 5 where he says this is what I'm going to do When I remake Jerusalem when I make a new Jerusalem and a new heavenly Mount Zion.

And we have an echo of this hope-filled vision about the Lord's house upon his holy mountain. When we read about the Lord's vineyard in chapter 4 just the entire chapter of verses 1 through 6 but in between these two pillars of hope there is a review of the Wrong thinking the errant trust the wrong type of confidences that Judah has so they are detailed for us in verses 7 through 9 as wealth military idols and pride and then immediately pride is Taken to task and condemned idols are then taken to task and condemned military power is taken to task and condemned and finally wealth.

All of these make for very bad gods very bad idols very bad trusts. Israel was not supposed to trust in these things. They were to trust in the Lord. So Underneath this Epitaph in verse 6 we have all of these concerns.

We're going to begin here. This is like the epitaph here. This is like the obituary here and this is the eulogy. So it's kind of a funeral passage. Summarized here a little Broader here and then fully detailed here.

So that's how verses 6 through the end of chapter 3 go. So let's begin in verse 6. Let's listen to verse 6 again the Prophet now turns his attention away from inviting Jacob to To go to God in faith, and now he speaks to the Lord and he says you have forsaken Your people.

Why does Jacob need to? Come and walk into the light of the Lord verse 5 why. Why do they need to go seek for God because God has forsaken them. For you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob. Why for good reason because they have forsaken you.

All right, they are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines and they are pleased with the children of foreigners. The verse is very stunning. The verse is even harsh. If you have ever read through Proverbs chapter 1 Is is like this as well.

It's a angry cold splash in the face. When you read in Proverbs 1 and Solomon personifies wisdom as a woman who has been scorned. She does not hold back and She mocks the young man who? Did not listen to her.

She mocks the young man who did not want to spend any time with her and she says I will laugh. When your calamity comes upon you. And it really gets that gets the attention here. It really gets the attention when it says that God has Forsaken his people forsaken his people.

So how and why did he forsake them? The reason why he forsakes him is given in three short descriptions meant to communicate the idolatry. The entirety of their folly. First of all, we see they're filled with Eastern ways.

Second they are like soothsayers. They are soothsayers like the Philistines and the Philistines were to their West. So they're all about those soothsaying people to the West they're all about those Eastern superstitions so East and West and then they are pleased with the children of foreigners.

So what does that mean? So there's superstition from the East that reminds us of false prophets like Balaam in Numbers 23 verse 7. Balaam took up his oracle and said Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram from the mountains of the east.

Come curse Jacob for me and come denounce Israel the the The curse of Balaam. Balaam could not curse Israel. He could not do what Balak hired him to do directly. And so what he did was he advised Balak about how to be a snare to Israel.

And he said let's snare them through the Midianite harlots and they were able to ensnare and entrap Israel and to try to weaken them and Israel in the wilderness came under the judgment of God. So there are there's the superstitions from the east the the false prophecies from the east.

Of the type of Balaam who was always listed as a bad example in the Bible. But not just from the east but also from the west from the west a soothsaying from the West soothsaying is a form of witchcraft that depends on nonsensical language confusing you.

It's an inherent part to soothsaying mostly trying to call up the dead to your aid something that Saul got involved in Isaiah chapter 8 verse 19 a little bit later on from this context. But it says when they shall say to you seek unto them that have familiar Spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead.

Why should a Why should you go seek the dead? To gain understanding for The living this is what they found so attractive in the Philistine country. They found many soothsayers. They found opportunity to engage in witchcraft to the east.

This was forbidden of course. Deuteronomy 18 verses 10 through 14 says there shall not be found among you Anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire. Child sacrifice was connected with demon worship or that uses divination or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizard or necromancer.

For all that do these things are an abomination under the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord your God Drives them out before you so again. Why are the nation's being driven out? Why is God using Israel as his?

Servant to be an instrument of judgment and to drive the Canaanite tribes out of the land because the iniquity of the Amorite had finally come to completion as God had promised Abram and Now Israel is pushing out all the Canaanite tribes for all of their wickedness in their idolatry and their witchcraft even though they had the witness of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and they had had the witness of Melchizedek long before that they were idolatrous and full of witchcraft.

So God says to. Or the Prophet says to God you have forsaken your people. Why. Because they're filled with eastern ways and western ways. It's interesting from the east to the west. Interesting isn't it.

Interesting way to approach it from the east to the west so it's in one sense we are thinking of the entirety of the land the entirety of the land is just filled from east to west with wrong thinking and wrong worship and and Idolatry witchcraft.

Not only from east to west but then again when we think about east to west. We also think about time don't we? In the descriptions in the Bible from the rising of the Sun to its setting we think about both space and time at the same time and of course we're supposed to.

The metaphor is rich because it captures both so it's all over the place all day long. And that's bad. Why are they forsaken? Because they are forsaking. They're forsaking God Everywhere and all day long, and so that's why God has forsaken them not only in the present are they Giving up on God all day long, but also They've given up on their future look they embrace they are pleased with the children of Foreigners in other words Not only their present, but they're taking hold of a future not related to their own covenant promises.

What was the great danger? that Pharaoh posed when Israel was in bondage in Egypt when he tried to kill all the male children in the Nile River. The great danger would be that the Identity of the Israelites would be completely lost and they'd be folded into the Egyptians and there would no be no longer the nation of Israel.

The same Danger was posed in the book of Judges. They were forbidden to intermarry with all the Canaanite tribes lest they become just one. One more in the mix and they all become completely canonized.

There was a need for a distinctiveness than a separation. Because there was a promise of God about the seed who would be born of Abraham Isaac and Jacob so The there was the threat to the promises of the Messiah but here they're take they're delighting in the children of foreigners.

So Exodus 34 numbers 25 so on and so forth there is a there is a Warning against intermarrying with all these other nations. So to sum up the problem from the rising of the Sun to its setting. For a while now and for the foreseeable future the house of Jacob has forsaken God.

And so he has forsaken then they have gone after a strange fire and they bear strange flesh and So he has forsaken them. That's why this epitaph works. I think as a summary of the problem forsaking and forsaken.

What a miserable group. This is a people doomed by their own Folly because they pursue strange and satanic and sinister ways. They forsake the Lord and he in covenantal turn forsakes them. And in a sense I know this comes from a different part of the scripture.

But they say mostly the same thing as we think about what's about to happen. They're basically saying We are rich. We have become wealthy. We have need of nothing and they do not know that they are wretched miserable poor blind and naked.

They are not pleased with God. That's the problem. They are not pleased with God. They're not satisfied with God and he is not pleased with them and he is not satisfied With them and that means that there's gonna have to be a different servant.

There's gonna have to be a different chosen servant. One who will be fully pleased with God and fully satisfied with God and one in whom God will be completely pleased and completely satisfied with and he Will stand in the place of the people before God and he will stand in the place of God before the people.

He will be the mediator that was far more glorious than Moses a servant far more righteous and far more faithful than Israel. And he was promised in Deuteronomy 18 after all of those. After all those prohibitions against the necromancers and the wizards and all of that verse 15 to that very same passage says in contrast The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet Like me from your midst from your brethren him you shall hear and This of course is Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ the son of the Living God of whom God said at the Mount of Transfiguration.

This is my beloved son hear him hear him. So he's the mediator and he must bear the guilt and he must bear the curse and he must bear the sin and he must bear the separation that his people rightly deserve.

He in the place of Adam and all those who take up the place of Adam and covenant. Jesus Christ Will die and live again. He as the temple will be destroyed and rebuilt. It's John chapter 2. He as the people Will be forsaken.

He as the people in their place will be forsaken Under the judgment of God and then he will be welcomed unto God to the most favored position even The right hand of God. What did Jesus say on the cross?

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My God my God, why have you? Forsaken me when the prophet says you have forsaken your people in this case. This covenant-breaking servant deserved it, but when God forsook his covenant-keeping Servant Jesus Christ upon the cross.

It wasn't that he deserved it in fact, he was bearing that curse in that separation and that judgment in our place and For our sake that he will be received up into heaven. To be seated at the right hand of God so that while we are hidden with him in the heavenly places.

Welcome to the face of God. So when we think about that We should be filled with the ways and the words of Christ. Not with the words in the ways of well, whatever's to the east and whatever's to the west.

And the future that should occupy our attention is that which belongs to Christ. Now verses 7 through 9 is the survey in the sense the the obituary. This is the sum total of their situation. Verses 7 through 9 their land is also full of Silver and gold and there is no end to their treasures.

Their land is also full of horses. And there is no end to their chariots. Their line is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands which their own fingers have made people bow down and each man humbles himself.

Therefore I do not forgive them so the folly of Fullness is rebuked here. Many people live to be full if I could just be if my bank account could just be full if my belly can just be Full if my if my goals could just be full if my schedule can just be full.

But the folly of fullness is rebuked here. We hear time and again. They are full of full of there's no end to there is no end to. But when we carefully investigate the fullness Wealth military tools and pride or idols and pride we what do we come to recognize?

They're actually just full of themselves. They're full of themselves. They're supposed to be full of God, but they're full of themselves. So there's a progress of descriptions here. We see that they have a robust economy check.

They have a lot of military check. They have religious diversity. Check they have deep cultural pride check. Well, whoever's the president of this nation is definitely getting reelected. Right. Four more years of that.

Oh. You're definitely getting reelected if you if you have the whole nation full of this full of this full of this full of this. Who can complain? Nobody's voting you out of office. But the real problem is not really it's not that wealth per se is bad.

It's not that the weapons per se are bad. The problem is what do they trust in? What do they trust in the focus is the they have the work of their own hands. It's that which their fingers have have made Idols.

The word idols here is is a word in the Hebrew that means Unrealities. Non-entities. It's a rhyming word. The word for God is Elohim. This Hebrew word is Elalim. Isaiah once again Mocking his opponents.

There are some chapters in Isaiah where you can really tell he's in full-blown sarcasm mode and he's mocking with relentlessly, but In the Hebrew he does it a lot just all sorts of all sorts of bars.

He's just dropping all the time. But it shows that they're relying upon Themselves. A question from Habakkuk in chapter 2 verses 18 to 20. Habakkuk asks what profit is the image that its maker should carve it the molded image a Teacher of lies that the maker of its mold should trust in it to make mute idols.

Woe to him who says to wood awake. To silent stone arise it shall teach. Behold it is overlaid with silver and gold yet in it. There is no breath at all but The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.

So The last line. The last line of verse 9. Therefore do not forgive them. It's either an appeal of the Prophet to say God remain just and do what needs to be done or it's simply an observation. Therefore you will not forgive them.

Either way, it's the same sentiment in Deuteronomy 17 verses 16 through 17 The future king of Israel, I mean this is long before the Kings ever came on the scene. This is when Moses was still leading Israel you have to go through the entire Governance of Joshua and you have to go through all the ages of the judges before you finally get to a king of Israel.

But way back in Deuteronomy 17 the king of Israel was warned against very particularly multiplying to himself silver gold and horses. Of course when we read their land is full of silver and gold and horses.

That's not the right thing to do. They weren't supposed to have confidence in that. Solomon completely disregarded this warning. He filled the land with silver and gold and horses. Special purchases of chariots first.

Kings first ten chapters of Kings tells us all about that and So everything is going the wrong direction there. They're putting their confidence in the trust in Other things and so that's why they need to need to repent.

The very last part in verse 9 where it says people bowed down and each man humbles himself. This is not talking about them bowing down before God and worshiping God and not humbling themselves before God.

They are Showing all of the appropriate Unexpected signs of respect and honor to one another. Right. This is your HR department. Right. Everybody needs to be fully respected for all of their pronouns and all of their backgrounds.

That was going on a long time ago. Nothing new under the Sun. Solomon did get that one, right? Now humility and repentance go together. Jesus does call us to be humble and to bow and repentance before God.

But this will be giving up all of these different trusts that don't count for anything Jesus says to come into his kingdom as those who are poor in spirit those who mourn over their Sin and rather than be proud considering the work of our hands to hunger and thirst after righteousness righteousness from God and When we look through here, they're full of this and they're full of that and there's no end to this and no end to that.

What are we to be full of? We're to be full of Christ full of Christ no end to His grace. That's what we're supposed to be full of. So so I say is doing the inventory here he's Going over the general heading right now in verses 7 through 9.

Here's the general heading of the categories and then he's going to do inventory. Very carefully walk through the whole warehouse of Israel and he's going to do inventory on each one of these categories.

And he's going to show that indeed they are full full full of all these things and yet When the entire inventory is valued. They're going to find that they're bankrupt. It's an invitation for us to take inventory of the warehouse of our souls.

What are we full of full of. Full of what is there? No into no into no into when it comes to our lives. All right, we'll leave it there and it's Lord wills we'll return to look at chapters 2 3 and following.