The Oracle Against Philistia: The Purpose of Suffering

Preaching today is in Isaiah 14. We'll be finishing that chapter up if you want to go ahead and turn there.

Isaiah 14. I'll say a few things about this. So we've been looking at these different oracles of the nations, and each one of these oracles has really focused on what

God's purposes are amidst difficult things, either calamities or enemies just why are there hard provinces?

And it answers these questions that these are all part of his glorious plan. And so once again, this passage answers the question, why is there suffering?

Why do God's people fall in such miserable states if they are indeed

God's people? And the answer, once again, is this is part of his purposes, is that his story arc for his world, his history, is not just this linear thing, but a grand plan where he restores us from low places.

So let me go ahead and read for us, and if you'll stand for the reading of God's word, beginning in verse 28,

Isaiah 14, 28. And the year that king Ahaz died came this oracle.

Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that is stuck, excuse me, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.

And the firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy lie down in safety. But I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay.

Wail, O gate, cry out, O city, melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you, for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

What will one answer the messengers of the nations, of the nation? The Lord has founded

Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge. You may be seated.

Dear Heavenly Father, as we look at this passage today, I ask that you would give us clarity to understand it, and that you would move us as you would by your

Spirit, as we are cleansed by the washing of the water of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. So as I've already mentioned, this is a passage about why are

God's people in such low estates. And maybe that's a question you've asked yourself sometimes, maybe either considering the state of the church in America, maybe considering the state of the church here.

In the news lately, a lot of people are worried about the church in Afghanistan. What will happen to that church?

It is in a low estate where a hostile power has the power to assault, to persecute those who believe.

And what are we to think about all these things as we believe that God is in control? But it does not appear, given our wisdom and how we might order things, that God is in control.

But God is indeed in control, and this is part of his plan to have his people in low states so that as he redeems them, as he raises them up, that it will be clear that it is his power in our—not our own.

So that is the case here in this passage. He says, Rejoice not,

O Philistia. The foreign nations might be inclined to rejoice that Israel has been struck low, but he says do not rejoice that Israel has been struck low because this is all part of God's plan.

His plan is to take them low and then take them high. And so as we look at this, we'll see that God strengthens people in their weakness, but God destroys people in their strength, and that this is such a certain truth, such a part of God's plan, that is something worthy of being declared with certainty.

So let's begin here in verse 28. In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle.

So if you remember, King Ahaz is one who's been mentioned several other times in this book of Isaiah, and he is one of the kings of Judah.

He is the father of Hezekiah, who was another king of Judah. Rejoice not,

O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.

So interpreting several of these things, Philistia, the nation of the Philistines, a nation that's so common in the

Bible that most people know what it means when you call someone a Philistine. It's, you know, an evil pagan. Right?

Rejoice not, O Philistia. The rod that struck you.

Who is the rod that struck them? The Davidic line. What made David such a mighty king in battle was particularly his victories over the

Philistines. Saul was anointed king so that he might destroy the

Philistines, and he failed. He did not do a very good job of eliminating the Philistines. But then

David was made king, and he had great successes as he destroyed the Philistines. If you remember,

Saul, as a way of challenging David, not thinking that David would actually accomplish this, told him that he could only have his daughter if he provided him with a hundred

Philistine foreskins. And David went out and got 200. The rod that has struck the

Philistines is David. It is that line of Judean kings. And notice that when this happens, this happens in the year that King Ahaz dies.

So here you have Assyria and Syria attacking… well,

Syria has attacked Judah along with the northern kingdom of Israel. And then not only that, but you have

Assyria having turned on Judah so that Judah is in a low estate.

And the king of Judah has just died, so everything's looking poor. And then on top of that, the king dies.

So at this time, that is when God says, don't rejoice. The rod that has struck you has fallen. Right?

Specifically, King Ahaz. He has fallen. He is the current king, the current son of David.

For from the serpent's roots will come forth an adder. So if you are inclined to think of a serpent as being, you know, well, the serpent in the garden, that's

Satan, right? A serpent is something evil. This is not the only time where something that's typically used to signify something evil is used to signify something good.

Here the serpent represents that Davidic line. Okay, we have other examples. Jesus himself said that the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness represented himself.

And we also have, if you remember the sermon from last week about the leaven, that leaven's the loaf and it rises, and that that's like the kingdom of God.

Usually leaven represents sin, but in that particular parable it represents something good. It represents the kingdom of God.

Here you have a serpent representing the king over God's people. So that king has fallen, but from that serpent's root will come forth an adder.

And if that language of root, you know, from the root of Jesse like we had read about earlier in chapter 11, and its fruit will be a flying, fiery serpent.

Flying here could also be translated darting, and fiery means poisonous. You know, in Numbers 21 it talks about fiery serpents being sent on Israel.

So it's talking about poisonous snakes. So you can imagine this as a dragon if you want, but that's not what it's talking about.

It's talking about very fast poisonous snakes. But regardless, the image here is the same.

You have this king that's died, but God is promising that a greater king will rise in his place. Perhaps the previous king has fallen and you have been given some room to grow

Philistia, but out of that king's ashes will rise a greater phoenix. Out of that king's ashes will rise a greater king.

Who is this greater king? In part, it is Hezekiah.

Hezekiah comes and he destroys the Philistines as his father David did. 2

Kings 18 .8 mentions this. And we also had prophecy earlier in Isaiah that talk about the

Philistines being destroyed as God reunites his people together. God is promising that the nation will be rebuilt, that the son of Ahaz will destroy the

Philistines, and so there is no reason for the people to rejoice. Out of their weakness,

God will rebuild the nation. Out of their weakness, he will show himself to be strong as he destroys them.

Now, in the immediate context, this represents Hezekiah, this flying fiery serpent.

But as we've seen, all these things that are about David, as the New Testament indicates, ought to be interpreted in light of Christ.

If Jesus Christ is the final son of David, then these promises about a son coming from the line of David must be considered in light of him.

You know, David was promised that he would have a son who would rebuild a temple, or who would build a temple, and indeed

Solomon built a temple. But it was the much later son, Jesus, who built the ultimate temple, which is the resurrection of his own body and constructing his own church where he dwells and his people.

And so from that, who is the ultimate flying fiery serpent?

The ultimate flying fiery serpent who defeats the enemies of God is Jesus Christ. He is the one that we are to have our eyes on.

As we see, as we see God's people in poor estates, we must not look to the current visible scenario and derive our hope from that.

Instead, we are to look to God's ultimate son of David. We are to look to Jesus Christ.

Verse 30 says, This is talking about the needy of God's people.

This is talking about Israel. Those who have no hope within themselves find their hope in God as he, like a shepherd, leads them.

You know, if you imagine someone trying to destroy something, a lot of times visibly it looks like destruction, but then it gets built up in the end.

So if you have a, if you have ore that's burnt and thrown into a furnace, you might look at that furnace, you might say whatever is in there is going to be completely destroyed, but what does it come out as?

It comes out as something much stronger. It comes out as a sword. This is what God is doing with his people, so that his strength may be shown in our weakness.

But I will kill your root with famine, speaking to Philistia, and your remnant it will slay. You know, a lot of these promises here about root and remnant, these are things that have been promised to Israel already.

So these things that are blessings to Israel, that from your root there will come this massive tree, that your remnant

I will preserve, that blessing that is given to Israel is turned to a curse to Philistia, right?

Philistia is told that the remnant will not continue, that the root will be completely cut off, and this promise of famine is not necessarily designed to be a prediction of how they will die, but in speaking of a root, it gives a consistent metaphor.

It gives a consistent metaphor by which you can imagine a root dying. Now, another thing to consider here is, as it talks about, the needy will lie down in safety, but I will kill your root.

What is it that distinguishes Israel from Philistia? It's not merely the national boundaries.

It is this idea of being needy and being self -sufficient, right? Those who are needy will find their strength in Jesus.

Jesus said, blessed are the poor. He said, woe to you who are rich. That's in Luke 8, if you're not familiar with, you know, that there's a parallel text that matches the

Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Jesus said, woe to you who are rich. We must not be those who are rich who are self -sufficient, who don't find our need in Christ.

We must be those who are needy. Now, how might someone manifest being rich, having no need, being self -sufficient?

Well, if you find yourself in no need of the fellow people of God, if you find yourself sufficient without them, living life day -to -day without corresponding with your fellow brothers and sisters and engaging with them in the way that you've been called to do in various meetings of the church, even outside of those, then you might be one who does not find themselves to be needy, who considers themselves self -sufficient.

If you go on without prayer, without calling out to God, you do not recognize your need.

One who recognizes their need calls out to God. If you're one who does not go to the Word of God frequently, you are not one who is needy.

You are one who considers yourself rich, who considers yourself to be self -sufficient. We must call out to God.

We must call out to his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only one that can save us. Wail, O gate!

Cry out, O city! Melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you! For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

So here you have this statement of despair. Wail, O gate! Cry out,

O city! Melt in fear, O Philistia. The gate is the first place of attack. It's also the most public place of the city.

God is telling the city to wail because it is so certain, even though it looks just the opposite right now.

It looks like Philistia will go fine, and it is Judah that will die off.

It will be just the opposite. For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

Now specifically, the way this gets manifested is in Assyria. God's sending Assyria. You know, if you noticed in the previous verse, it says, but I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay.

You have this kind of two -part destruction, and that's what takes place in history. God says, I will kill you first, and then it, the flying fiery serpent

Hezekiah, will destroy you. This is what happens. God sends Assyria to destroy the

Philistines, and then afterward, Hezekiah wipes out the remainder of them. Now right now, actually the sky looks pretty good today, but past few days it's been pretty orange.

It's been pretty cloudy. Now if you imagine that that cloud had been representative of fire that could even reach us, right?

We're pretty detached from the wooded areas, you know. There's not a whole lot of reason to fear specifically here, you know, for ourselves, maybe for friends and neighbors, but there's not a lot of reason.

However, if you imagine that we were in a wooded area, and that fire represented a fire that could reach here, we would know there's no way of that stopping.

It's going to just keep coming and reach this place. Say whale, whale,

Silicon Valley. Whale, city of Sunnyvale. Whale. That death is so certain, and the world that right now is so self -sufficient, and those people who consider themselves at peace with God but are self -sufficient and do not actually rely on Him for their needs, they must whale.

Because the certain end, the certain end of their trajectory is death.

It does not matter what things look like right now. It does not matter how low the people of God look. It doesn't matter how low they look here in America.

It does not matter how low they look in Afghanistan. The fact of the matter is that God restores

His people, that in them He places His strength. And this is not something where we should imagine that in this life, the church will ever be visibly glorious.

You know, I encounter people who think that the church ought to, in this life, be visibly glorious.

And they look back at older generations where you have massive chapels built out of stone to exalt this edifice of the church, and they think that this is what we should be striving for.

You know, those who have small buildings and have buildings that aren't designed to look impressive, that they need to be corrected so that we can re -embrace what the saints of old have had with their mighty buildings.

That really, you know, that really glorifies God because it shows how great Christianity is. Misguided. That is not what

God has for us in this world. His kingdom is not of this world, so its glory will not be of this world.

Its glory will not look like the glory of the world. You know, this morning, Josh opened up with a quote from Abraham Booth, who was an early early

Reformed Baptist, one of the first ones. And the reason that came up is because he and I have been reading

Abraham Booth together. So I have a quote from Abraham Booth as well. And his book is called—well, actually,

I'm not sure what it's called, this long essay. It's an essay on the kingdom of God.

I think that's what it's called. It must therefore be absurd to think of doing honor to Christianity by erecting pompous places of worship, by consecrating those places, and by adorning ministers with showy vestments and the performance of public worship.

Let the palaces of princes and the mansions of the mighty be magnificent and richly ornamented.

Let the nobles and judges of the land, when acting agreeably to their different characters, appear in robes of state and in magistracy, as those things belong to the kingdoms of this world.

Nor pretend to anything more. There is nothing amiss, nothing inconsistent with station or profession.

But confine them there, and by no means think of decorating the kingdom or of prompting the cause of Christ by anything similar.

Were any man to lacquer gold and paint the diamond to increase their luster, he would certainly be considered as insane.

Yet the conduct of those persons is more absurd who borrow the trappings of secular kingdoms to adorn the spiritual kingdom of Jesus Christ.

If you were to take gold and paint it, if you were to take a diamond and paint it, you would not be making the diamond more impressive.

You would not be making the gold more impressive. The same thing is the case with the kingdom of Christ. Not only is that not what we should—not only should we not be upset that the kingdom of God is in the state that it is in now, this is part of his plan.

And to decorate it with something more, to say that God's plan is misguided and to decorate it with something more, to want something more glorious, like the kingdoms of the world, is to be, as Abraham Booth says, insane.

We have something that is already glorious to the eyes of faith.

Not to our physical eyes. What we see here is not especially glorious. But it is glorious in the eyes of God, and one day that will become physically manifest when the kingdoms of this world pass away, and that is the only kingdom that remains.

Verse 32 says, And so many from around the world come and ask, well, what about Zion?

What has happened to Zion? Has Zion been defeated because Ahaz has died? Has Zion been defeated because Assyria has turned on Jerusalem?

No, the Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.

Sorry about that. And in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.

We have messengers from the nations all around who come into contact with us every day, and we have a choice in what message we proclaim.

Do we say that, oh, you know, churches yeah, the church is poor, being destroyed?

Or do we say, no, this is exactly God's plan, that the Lord has founded Zion? So no matter what you see physically, this is not the end state of the church.

God has his plans. God has his purposes. And we will not decorate those with the trappings of the kingdoms of the world, but we will embrace what

God has for us, knowing that he has something wonderful for us. Those of the kingdoms of this world must wail.

They must know that their doom is certain, and we must tell them. And those who are of this kingdom, the kingdom of God, must not mourn over what there is nothing to mourn for, because this is

God's purpose. His purpose is to do something wonderful, to show his strength in our weakness.

Let's pray. Dear Holy Father, I pray that you would guide our thoughts as we consider your kingdom, that we would…

I pray that you would help us as we pray to be ones who are needy, to not be ones who are self -sufficient.

And I ask that through these things, that you would be pleased to answer our prayers, that you would be pleased to preserve us as we wait that day when

Jesus Christ returns, and the glory of his kingdom becomes manifest. In Jesus' name, amen.