Wednesday, December 4, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Judgment and Hope for Judah

I invite you to open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 4. We'll be reading verses 1 through 6. There is a handout that kind of shows where we are currently in the outline for Isaiah, so it's over here by the door if you need to get the broad outline.

But we are obviously in the first section of Isaiah sermons for a difficult present in which the threat of Assyria looms against the people of Judah. They are inclined to depend upon themselves or upon others or to look for their security in a variety of places, but they need to be reminded that the Lord is their true Redeemer.

And so this is what the first 12 chapters are going to do. In one way or another, it's going to remind them that the Lord is their true Redeemer. And there is a contrast that occurs in the first six chapters.

We see Judah as children, the Lord's children, who have to be reminded that they have a father. They are rebellious. They are wayward. They're all over the place. And then in chapters 7 through 12, the focus will be not so much on the children as on the child.

The child, the one who is to come. And so setting up for later on in Isaiah, where you have the running contrast between the servant and the servant. And so right now we're looking at the children of woe, which is a rather sad way of talking about them, but there's a lot of judgment on the horizon.

So one question we might ask is what hope is there for Judah? And there is hope, though they are rebellious. And so amid the rebukes of folly, there is hope given in two particular places. One, the Lord's house described in chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, and the Lord's branch, which is where we're at right now, in chapter 4 verses 1 through 6.

And those two passages, chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, and then chapter 4, 1 through 6, have some parallels, and they're designed to be read together. So let's read Isaiah 4, beginning in verse 1. And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel.

Only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach. In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped.

And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy. Everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night.

For over all the glory there will be a covering, and there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain. So all of the follies of Judah are answered here.

All the ways in which they have failed, listed so far in the first three chapters of Isaiah, all of them get answered in one way or another here in this short chapter. The forgetting about God, the empty religious practices where they were just going through the motions, their confidence in their own pride, their own idols, their might, and their wealth.

This chapter shows an utter reversal on all of those fronts. Here is a vision, here is a promise, here is a scene in which they are taking hold of the Lord. Here we see a pattern of taking pride in the Lord rather than in all the other things they used to take pride in.

Here we find them taking refuge in the Lord, whereas before they were looking for other trusts and confidences. Here in Isaiah 4 we find the people having a new name, a new hope, a new start, a new home.

And the passage breaks down into four scenes. There is a glimpse of the bride and a look at the branch. There is a promise of cleansing and a promise of a covering. And so in verse 1 we find the convening of a new bride.

In verse 2, the crowning of the new David. In verses 3 and 4, the cleansing of the new Jerusalem. And verses 5 through 6, the creation of the new tabernacle. Why all this is good news comes back to how it is that we're made.

We were created in the image of God. We were made to be in relationship with God. We were made to glorify God, to receive his word, and to praise his name, to be entrusted with what he has made so that we would make for him a name in our lives.

He made us in his image and breathed his breath of life into us. And so throughout the scriptures, whenever we see people turning away from self and turning to God, it always looks like turning away from emptiness to fullness, turning away from famine to feast, turning away from death to life.

And that's the way it always is when those made in God's image turn towards him and away from self and sin, rebellion, and so on. Death is in Adam. Life is in Christ. That stark contrast is put before us in Romans chapter 5.

There is death in Adam, but there is life in Christ. There is death in lifting up oneself and exalting oneself, but there is life in exalting Jesus Christ. He's the man of all men, and he's at the right hand of the Father.

In his incarnation, in his bestowment of the Spirit, if we're in Christ, we're all the way to God. To be in Christ is to be all the way to God all at once. And you think about the contrast between the first Adam and the last Adam.

To be in Christ, it is better than being with Adam even before there was any sin. In Christ, we're not just in the garden. We're not in the wilderness. We're not in fellowship with God in the cool of the day.

There's not just the fellowship with God seen just at the tabernacle proper. But in Christ, we are in fellowship with God in all places and at all times, as the New Covenant sanctuary has been made from living stones and the Spirit indwells the New Covenant temple.

So it's not just fellowship in the cool of the day, but even when bearing the blazing sun and even during the lonely night, the communion with God is there. Repeatedly, God tells his Old Covenant people to fully rely on him.

Stop going down to Egypt and asking to hire their chariots. Stop offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, thinking that she's going to help you out this year with your crops. Give up on all of those other measures.

God continually challenges his people to prove how faithful he is, how good he is. And yet we find, Israel, we find Judah repeatedly shrinking away from him, looking to other sources for power and for help.

They fear that he will not be enough, so they look to that which is never enough. But Jesus Christ is the perfect Son and Servant. He never wavered in his faith. He never wavered in his obedience, never wavered in his righteousness.

Remember that Abraham laid Isaac on the altar, and Hebrews says he was ready to kill his own son, knowing that God had made all these promises that could only be fulfilled through the lineage of Isaac, and yet he laid him on the altar and was very willing and ready to kill Isaac because he knew that God would raise him back from the dead.

That was the faith of Abraham. Jesus Christ laid himself on the altar, willing to die as the promised seed, knowing that God would raise him from the dead the third day to keep all of his promises. So when we look at Christ, his utter and perfect reliance upon God has proven, in a supreme fashion, the faithfulness of God, the love of God, the perfections of God, to the uttermost.

We don't have to remain in doubt as to whether or not God is going to be good and perfect and true and faithful. All we have to do is look at Jesus Christ dying upon the cross, into your hands I commit my spirit, knowing that his Father would raise him from the dead the third day.

God is always faithful, God is always true, God is always perfect. So when we look at these six verses, in verse one we have some kind of an odd verse. In fact, many outlines and commentaries in Isaiah tack this on to the back end of all the bad news in chapter 3.

And to be fair, it's a well-known fact that whatever a monk divided up the Bible into chapters did so on the back of a bumpy mule on the way down a mountain, and very often put the markers in the wrong place.

So we know that the chapters don't necessarily signify the author coming to a complete stop in his thoughts. So, of course, verse one may very well is tacked on to the end of chapter 3, because it looks like a description of despair.

But it's a bit of a hinge verse, along with verse two, where there's a sense in which the devastation of the judgment of God has made way for something new. And without the judgment, the salvation would never have come.

Which, of course, is the pattern in the scriptures wherein God has glorified in salvation through judgment, time and time again. So when we look at verse one, we read, "...and in that day...". So we'll have to think about which day that is, but "...in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel.

Only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach.". So, that day. Well, we're going to hear about that day again in verse two. I thought that was interesting. Folks would break off verse one from verse two, because both of them talk about the same day, that same period, that same bright morning of grace and promise that comes after the night of the judgment of God.

"...in that day...". What day is that? Well, when we go back to chapter 2, verses 10 and 12, 10 through 12, we read about that day. And it gets repeated throughout chapters 2 and 3. But in verse 10, it says,.

"...enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.".

What is that day? Well, verse 12,. "...for the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, and everything lifted up and should be brought low.". Verse 20 says,. "...in that day a man will cast away his idols of silver, his idols of gold," and he throws his idols to the moles and the bats to enjoy, because he can't carry them around as he's trying to run for his life.

Later on, chapter 3, verse 1,. "...for behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread, the whole supply of water.". Behold, the Lord is doing something.

He is devastating Jerusalem. Verse 13 of chapter 3,. "...the Lord stands up to plead and stands to judge the people.". The day of the Lord is the day that God gets up and begins to judge and to devastate and therefore to sift.

Judgment in the scriptures is always a sifting action. The Lord always sifts when he judges. There's a clarifying moment that occurs in which, here are the righteous and the wicked, here are the believers and the unbelievers, here are the worshipers and the profane.

Every judgment that he brings always sifts. It always clarifies. In a sense, when we, when you read through Psalm 119 and one of the synonyms about the Word of God that's so treasured is judgments. The judgments of God, the mishpat of God, the judgments of God are precious and true and so on and so forth.

It's a reminder that the Word of God is, in a sense, a judgment. It's always a sifting thing. When the Word of God is read and brought to bear in full light to our lives, isn't there not a sifting? Isn't there a clarifying?

Motives are sifted, actions are sifted, words are sifted, behaviors are sifted, relationships are sifted all in the light of God's Word. Why, it's hard to read it sometimes. It's not the parts we don't understand that's problematic, it's the parts we do understand that give us the problems.

The sifting that occurs. Well, that day, the day of the Lord, this day of judgment, well, on that day we see from the previous passage that so many people have died. It makes sense that seven women will take hold of one man saying, we will eat our own food, wear our own apparel, just let us be called by your names that our approach will be taken away.

And yet, because this is connected with the rest of chapter four, there's actually a great deal of hope that is being expressed here. Hope and promise that has been brought about because of the effective judgment of God.

This expression of seven women and one man. Now, it's like, well, wow, look at all this polygamy. Well, look at the text though. It's not actually the polygamy that we're accustomed to seeing, you know, in the patriarchs, right?

This is not Abraham's polygamy. This isn't Jacob's polygamy. Look at what they say. We will eat our own food. We will wear our own apparel. Meaning, we don't want any sustenance from you. We don't want anything from you.

We're not actually going to take anything from you, any kind of support. You know, we're going to be on our own. We just want this one thing. Just this one thing. Only, only, merely, singly, this, just this.

Let us be called by your name to take away our approach. Remember, seven has a ring about it, you know. It's like, hmm, seven women. Look at all of these women, just seven women, one man. They just need his name.

They don't want the portions. Portions with multiple wives comes up as a problem. I think about Elkanah giving up portions to Hannah and Penina. Okay. All they want is a name. See, in the sifting of that day's judgment, in the death which brought exposure to these women, we just heard about women, right?

And the women of Zion, and how they acted, how they conducted themselves. And now they have no covering. Now there's reproach. Now there's shame. And that's what God's judgment did. He exposed what was really going on.

So now they need a name. Well, one thing, after all this judgment, I'm kind of surprised that there's a man left. After all the death, after all the destruction, I'm surprised that there's a man left.

But there is a man. And there's a man, and there's a man whose name is worth having. That's surprising, too. I mean, given the report card I just read about in chapters 1, 2, and 3, I'm surprised a man is left after this judgment, and I'm surprised that his name is worth having.

But that's why this is hopeful gospel material, right? In the sifting, God exposes and shows who we really are, what we really are, what really goes on. You can think about the exposure of the Word of God, what the Word of God does to lay us bare, who we really are in Hebrews chapter 4, right?

Living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting down to the very heart of things, we really are showing us who we really are before the face of God, the one with whom we have to deal. And being so exposed, there is a need for a covering.

And his judgment has been made very clear. When we read about the day of the Lord in the Bible, we always find some great judgment. And God is acting as a wise king. Proverbs 20 verse 26 says, the wise king sifts out the wicked and brings the threshing wheel over them.

That's the image of judgment. But when the Lord brings his day of judgment, his day of the Lord happens in many nations. You know, Edom, Babylon, Judah, happens over and over again. But these cataclysmic moments are described with decreation language.

Everything's falling apart. Everything's unraveling. I think R .C. Sproul's famous favorite word was atmospheric perturbations. That was his old-fashioned way of talking about the sun growing dark, the moon turning to blood, stars falling out of the sky, and so on.

Which happened with Edom, which happened with Syria, which happened with Babylon, happened again and again. Power outage. The point is that the day of the Lord is when it becomes really, really clear.

God has undone the entire power structure. He is completely humiliated and completely exposed the people. Judah has broken the covenant, so God keeps his covenant promises to bring the curses and brings a day of judgment against them.

Now, this all is helpful context, I think, because when we read about seven women grabbing hold of one man, that reminds me of another passage in Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 7 verses 8 through 14 details how Judah has broken covenant with God.

It tells the story kind of like Chronicles or Kings would tell the story in a very brief moment. God told him not to, and they did it anyway, and then he completely wiped them out and took them away and exiled them from their land.

And then Zechariah 8 gives us a whole chapter of how God will bring new things to them and remake their nation, remake their city. It's all these new covenant promises, and we get down to the end of Zechariah 8.

So, again, the pattern is destruction for covenant breakers, but now here comes a new covenant. So, Zechariah 8 verses 20 through 23, it says, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, peoples shall yet come, inhabitants from many cities.

The inhabitants of one city will go to another saying, let us continue to go and pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of Hosts. I myself will go also. Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and pray before the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of Hosts, in those days, now listen to this, ten men from every language of the nation shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying, let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you.

So, what's the pattern? Here in Isaiah, we hear about the destruction, the day of the Lord, which comes against covenant breakers, which then results in seven women grabbing hold of one man saying, let us be called by your name.

In Zechariah, same pattern, the destruction of God upon the covenant breakers, but then here comes the new covenant in which ten men from all these nations grabbed the sleeve of a Jew and say, bring us up to Zion.

So, it's a very, it's a, it's a similar pattern that we find in the Old Testament, talking about the days of Messiah. God's salvation comes through judgment to his glory. With the failure of all the other saviors and trusts, only one remains.

So, what are these women asking for? Well, there's been massive death, death all over, destruction all over, there's no more covering, all they have is reproach and shame. You know, in in Genesis, in Genesis 30, Rachel speaks about her barrenness as her reproach, but these women don't, don't even mention it, they just need a name to cover themselves.

All they're needing is something to be taken away. What, what should be taken away? They have no head, they have no man, they have no name to cover them, and therefore they are under reproach, because of the judgment, because of the death.

Well, what was God's instructions, practically speaking, for a woman in the, in the life of the Old Covenant in Israel? If her husband died and she had no man, and, and it was, and she, there was therefore under reproach, what solution did God design to solve that?

You may remember, Kinsman Redeemer, right? The whole story of Ruth, right? The whole story of Ruth, Levi-Rite marriage, the Kinsman Redeemer would come in, and he would take away her reproach by bringing her to himself, and then his name would be there to cover, and then her reproach would be taken away.

He steps in as the substitute, okay? That's what this is about. This is, this is looking to, this is looking towards Messiah, there is a man whose name will take away our reproach. The judgment has come, we've been exposed, here's our shame, but there is a man whose name takes away our reproach.

And then the description of that man is in verse 2, and descriptions of his, of him being beautiful and glorious and excellent and appealing, right? So that's what verse 1 is pointing towards, is the man whose name can take away that reproach.

The, the fact of the matter is that we, we do need a Kinsman Redeemer. All we have in Adam is a dead man with no name. I'm becoming more and more to believe in deep biblical irony. Do you know what the first man's name was?

Man. Adam. We're gonna name him Adam. All we have in Adam is a dead man with no name. We need a new head, we need a new name, someone to take away our reproach given the judgment of God upon our transgressions, given the judgment of God upon our sin, because of, because of the death of, the sin and death, we need somebody else's name, we need a Kinsman Redeemer, we need Christ's name, righteousness in the place of reproach and shame.

And notice how the women ask for it. You see how they're just, just, just getting, just get a name across. I need to have my reproach taken away. And all they ask for, they say, we eat our own food, we'll take care of our own apparel, I'm not gonna cost you a dime, just let me have your name.

That reminds me a little bit about the prodigal son. Do you remember the prodigal son? Full of shame, full of reproach, comes to himself, he says, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna ask for the bare minimum.

But what does he receive? So much grace it makes you uncomfortable. Like, really? That's a confluence of verses one and two. We'll get to verse two, come back next time, we'll look at verse two. But look at the bounty that comes.

They ask for the bare minimum, but then look at the bounty of grace that comes into their life. And that, I think, reminds us to rejoice in the name of Christ, that we should be turning again and again to his name, away from our own, away from our reproach, away from our shame, away from our guilt, away from our exposure, that we look fully upon the name and glory and work of Christ.

God's wrath upon Christ on the cross, this great day of judgment, certainly does expose the depth and the the terribleness of our sin, but it also expiates it. It does point out how sinful we are, but it also propitiates it, all at the same time.

We know how great a sinner we are not because of how bad I feel, but because of how Christ suffered upon the cross. I know how forgiven I am, how delivered I am, not because of how I currently feel, but because of the satisfaction that Christ offers to God on the cross.

You see, so we look there. So we need a name, to take away our reproach, we know where to look. There's a man whose name is definitely worth having. Okay, let's turn our attention to our prayer requests tonight.