Wednesday, February 5, 2025 PM

There we go.

Isaiah’s First Three Woes in Chapter 5

Okay, Isaiah chapter five. Let's begin reading in verse eight. Woe to those who join house to house. They add field to field till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land.

In my hearing, the Lord of hosts said, truly many houses shall be desolate, great and beautiful ones without inhabitant for 10 acres of vineyard shall yield one bath and a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.

This is the first of seven woes here in Isaiah chapter five. A follow-up to the parable, the song of the vineyard where the vineyard owner did everything to cause a fruitful, bountiful vineyard to be a blessing to him.

He built his watchtower there. He built his wine press there. He did everything he was supposed to do to have a fruitful vineyard, but it brought forth wild grapes. This is the rotten plant of Judah. They have no good fruit.

And so now we have seven woes in verses eight through 20 where there is a full condemnation of what the enemies of the Lord in Judah have done. So what we're gonna look at here is a review in verses eight through 10 of this woe upon those who join house to house.

So we commented last time, this is not about God condemning real estate tycoons. He's not condemning those who gain lots of property given the context, which is the old covenant, the instructions that God gave to them that the land was the Lord's and he allotted it to them as their inheritance to steward.

And they were not to gain permanent ownership of the land and expand their fiefdoms and their empires within the land and to rob the inheritance from families over eons of time. But there is a gathering in of all this property into permanent ownership, and this is what God is against.

When it says they join house to house and add field to field until there is no place. What's the goal? That they may dwell alone in the midst of the land, right? That's not how God allotted the inheritance.

The people weren't supposed to live alone in the middle of the land. The people were to live together in the land. They weren't to merge the houses, so there was no distinction, but each distinction was to be maintained as part of the tribal inheritance and the allotment.

They weren't to merge the fields together and say, this is all one now. But remember, do not move the ancient boundary, the ancient landmark which your fathers have set, right? They were picking those up and saying, now this is all one field.

They were getting rid of all of that because they were being very selfish and self-focused and they wanted to retain what they had purchased against the covenant. Now, we were thinking about the proper application of all of that, and we noted that when it comes to the wealth that God has entrusted to us, that we should be using it for His glory and not simply for selfish exaltation and self-centered magnification.

But additionally, something we didn't get a chance to think about, when we think about the way in which the crossing over Canaan, crossing over the Jordan into Canaan was seen as entering into the promised land, entering into the inheritance, Hebrews 4 picks up on that imagery and says that us coming to Christ is our inheritance, okay?

Entering into Christ. He's the one who brings us into all of the promises. As we reflect on that, seeing that Christ is our inheritance, since it is wrong for the Israelite to so manipulate the land inheritance so that they cut themselves off from others so they don't have to live in covenant relationship with others.

They even tried to deprive their fellow covenant members in the old covenant from their portion, right? They buy it, they don't give it back on the year of Jubilee, they maintain it, control it, they erase those boundaries and so on.

So also in Christ, we have been saved and blessed to be in a spiritually rich and robust community called the church, right? Our inheritance in Christ is not meant to be enjoyed all alone in the midst of the land, right?

It isn't, well, I have Jesus, I don't need anything else, I'll go off and be by myself, thank you very much, right? The way in which we are to enjoy the blessings of the new covenant is not all by ourselves, right?

It is designed to be together in Christ with one another. Our salvation is not one of hermitage or of other posh forms of isolation. Additionally, this is why we have so many instructions in the New Testament on this, there should never be an attempt to stumble our brothers and sisters in a way that would deprive them of enjoying their inheritance, of rejoicing in their inheritance.

And when you think about the direction of the Old Testament law with Israel, how many instructions did they receive in the law so that how they were to treat one another in all aspects of the law and all the forms of justice in the old covenant in Israel, wasn't it so that they would maximize the enjoyment of the inheritance for one another?

But because they were faithful to God's law, because they wouldn't steal, because the judges would judge justly and people would treat one another fairly and so on and so forth, all of those laws were so that the Israelites in keeping the law would maximize the inheritance for each other.

Even down to the instructions about from the fathers to the children, that there would be a continuation in the land. If you don't teach your children the law, if you don't teach your children to keep covenant, are they gonna be able to stay in the land?

No, no, they're not. Because they're gonna get kicked out of the land because they don't follow the law, they don't keep the covenant. So everything in God's law was focused on that. So think of that in terms of Christ's fulfillment.

How are we maximizing our inheritance in Christ for one another? Isn't that the idea in Ephesians four, we talked about in summer session, aren't we giving Christ to one another in our growth together, being knitted and formed together in Christ?

Isn't it that I give you Christ and you give me Christ? Isn't that we are rejoicing in our inheritance and our fruitfulness together? So I wanted us to consider that the way of our application matters when we read this passage, otherwise we'll be stuck condemning monopoly as a bad lesson to learn.

The Woe to Pleasure Seekers

Now let's move on to verses 11 and 12. The second woe, a woe to the pleasure seekers. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may follow intoxicating drink who continue until night, till wine inflames them.

The harp and the strings, the tambourine and flute and wine are in their feasts,.

But they do not regard the work of the Lord.

Nor consider the operation of his hands. So one commentator said this way, sum it up. Drink is their life. It is what gets them out of bed and keeps them out of bed. It's a good way to summarize the attitude of these folks.

Woe to them, the Lord says. God declares doom upon these pleasure seekers. Their entire purpose in life is to become inflamed by wine. Now that's a great metonym for just pleasing the self and gratifying the flesh and of being consumed by that drunkenness.

So they consider that the day is meant for their pleasure and so also the night. The day is for them, the night is for them, the drink is for them, it's all for them. Everything here in this world is all about pleasing me.

The harp and the strings, the tambourine and the flute, wine in the morning, wine at night, wine with the music, drunk makes right. Well, what's the result of all of that? They have, notice, no regard for the work of the Lord nor consider the operation of his hands.

They're in a drunken stupor. They're all about themselves, very self-focused. So they're not thinking about the Lord. They're not thinking about what he has made. They're not thinking about the fact that he made the day and he made the night.

They don't think about that music ultimately is for his glory. They don't think about the reason why God made the vine to flourish and the grapes to come forth. And they don't care that God is the one who invented wine.

They're not even thinking about him. They're not thinking about the covenant at all. They're not even considering the Lord now because they're so focused on the self and consumed in their own intoxication.

And so they are CUI, covenanted under the influence. They are CWI, covenanted while intoxicated. And they're about to have a huge wreck.

Not wise.

Not wise to be made responsible for how you manage the covenant, how you be faithful to God. And yet you're so drunk, you can't even see straight. This is not going to end well. Now there is a warning by Moses and Moses warned the children of Israel that this kind of thing can happen.

That if they became too selfish and they ignored God and really only thought about their own desires, that they would end up in a great wreck. They would end up in a great catastrophe if they went that direction.

So in Deuteronomy chapter 29, in Deuteronomy 29, Moses is warning against the casual response to the warnings of the curses. Remember in Deuteronomy 28 and 29, there are these blessings and cursings. And maybe after hearing all these curses, maybe after hearing all of these warnings, they just, they get to be monotonous and routine.

And oh, here we go again. And they just don't respect the warning that they should. And so he says in verse 19 of Deuteronomy 29, so it may not happen when he hears the words of this curse that he, this is Moses saying, this should not happen.

That when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, right? Very self-affirming. He loves himself. He's very self-edifying. He'd fit in good with our culture. He says, I shall have peace.

Notice, even though I follow the dictates of my heart. Notice, I shall have peace. I shall have shalom. All will be well with me, my land, my relationships, and my God. All will be well in my heart. All will be well in my life.

I shall have peace, he says in verse 19, even though I follow the dictates of my heart. Now notice how he equivocates the next part. As though the drunkard could be included with the sober. Now, we have these things called sobriety tests.

And there's a variety of them, right? You should be able to tell the difference between somebody who's drunk and someone who's sober, right? Wouldn't it be chaotic if someone said, you know, these sobriety tests are a form of oppression and injustice, because they distinguish between those who are drunk and those who are sober, and those are awful, oppressive terms.

Let's get rid of them. In fact, anybody who identifies as sober is sober. And that's what we're gonna go with from now on. So, what would happen? Would this be liberty and freedom and happy rainbows? No, it would be chaos, wouldn't it?

But this is the way of the sinful human heart. And this is the warning back in Deuteronomy 29, it says, when the man says, I'm gonna have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart, it's the same kind of foolishness as saying, the drunk is the same as the sober.

So, let's think about what lies behind the madness of our age. What lies behind the madness of our age is not that somebody says, well, male is the same as female. The madness is not found in that. It isn't that good is evil and evil is good.

What is it? It's that people, despite God being our creator, says, I'm gonna follow the dictates of my own heart, and I'm gonna be at peace, because I will think of God the way I want to think of him.

I will think of my life the way I want to think of it. And if anything doesn't affirm me, then it's wrong. But the covenant member in Israel must not follow the dictates of his own heart. That's a terrible idea.

That's going to bring all manner of disaster and judgment. You see, in Israel, in the old covenant, Disney princesses were regularly bounced off the covenant hard pack into a woe new world.

They were.

Follow your own heart.

Follow your heart. Follow your heart.

Follow your heart, do you. How'd that work for Israel?

Not well at all.

How's that work for those made in God's image? Not well at all. Pleasing the self was not to be the priority of the Jews to constantly live for the self denied the covenant reality. So Amos chapter three, Amos three verses one through two.

Amos says, hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family, which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.

Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. Now, it wasn't that God was ignorant of the Egyptians and ignorant of the Chinese. Okay. He knew all about them, but there was one family on earth whom he knew, whom he said, you are my son, whom he said, you are my children, whom he said, I am in covenant with you.

And therefore, I'm going to punish you for all your iniquities. Meaning when you transgress my covenant, I'm going to come against you in a way that I don't do others. So when the Israelite has only eyes and thoughts for their next drink, they forget God, they forget to be thankful, they forget to be content, they forget to be joyful, they forget to be at peace, they forget everything that matters.

They just forget. Now, Psalm 100 verse three says, know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. That was the song to be sung by Israelites to say, hey, remember, remember, we're not our own nation.

We are not our own people. We didn't make us. We're not shepherds, we're the sheep. And they would sing that to remind themselves of their special relationship with God. So when we think about the importance of this principle about the pleasure-seeking, self-centered, remember that living for the self, pleasing the self, makes no sense for Israel in the covenant precisely because it doesn't make sense for those who are made in God's image.

It doesn't make any sense creationally. We're made in God's image, not to make for ourselves a name like humanity tried to do in the plains of Shinar and build the Tower of Babel, let's make for ourselves a name, no.

We are created to make God a name, to make much of who God is. We're made in God's image, to love God supremely, to love others rightly, to steward the creation faithfully in all the different ways that those relationships intersect and impact one another.

We are to seek the pleasure of God and the good of others in Christ rather than the self. Now think about this. Where did these drunk Israelites get all that wine?

Where'd it come from?

I grew a lot of really good grapes in Israel. What a great place for growing grapes. What a great environment in that land to make wine. It was primed for it. They had lots of grapes, lots of vineyards, and they made great wine.

This is the produce of their land. Wait, no, that's the inheritance that God gave them. So what are they doing? They're taking the bounty of the inheritance that God gave them and they're using it all for simply selfish means.

You see that? Here is the bounty of your inheritance and they say, all for me to do whatever I want with it. So when we recognize that Christ is our inheritance and all the blessings that we have in Christ, our salvation in Christ is not something where we say, oh, all for me, to improve me, to make me happy, to make me think well of me.

That is not the point of our inheritance in Jesus Christ. We don't have a warm therapeutic deism on our hands. When we are saved in Jesus Christ, the blessings that God has given to us in Christ are meant for the glory of God as we bless others.

The Woe to the Presumptuous

To be self-centered is to be the opposite of a Christian who's growing in Christ. Third woe, and in this one, we're going to start in verse 18. The reason why is we're gonna come back to verses 13 and 17 at a later point and look at the content of the woe and see that in partnership with the end of the chapter to see just what kind of judgment does God bring.

But we're gonna move on through the woes in sequential order in the next woe. The third woe is in verses 18 and 19. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as if with a cart rope that say, let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it.

This is a woe to the presumptuous. What are they doing? Well, there's this full description of a woeful disaster in verses 13 through 17, and then we come back to this list of covenant transgressions, which is the reason why we have the woe, woe, woe, because they're transgressing against the covenant.

So what are they doing? From cord to cart rope, these transgressors go from bad to worse. The first picture, we see these covenant breakers, their labor is expended in dragging around iniquity. They're hauling sin.

And then they pile it into carts and now they're hauling it with oxen. And they go from hauling a little bit of sin to hauling a lot of it. These guys are industrious. So in contrast to the alcoholics, here's the workaholics.

Alcoholics are drunk and lay around all day. The workaholics are busy bees sinning. They work hard at transgressing. They are very industrious and successful in breaking the covenant. The pleasure seekers give no thoughts to God's ways, but these presumptuous, notice what they do.

They tap their fingers and they huff at God to get busy blessing them. You see how they put it in the text? They say they're hauling around sin. They're spending their whole life, they're committing their life to hard work of sinning.

And then what do they say about God?

Let's get busy, God.

Where's the blessing at?

He said, you bless us.

Where is it at?

Come on.

You see that? Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it. Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it. Where is it at? Where are all these promises at, God?

You said you'd do it.

Now that is presumption, that's presumption. They're full of sin and they're hauling sin and doing iniquity and they want God to enable them to continue to do that. Because that's just who God is.

Wow.

We had a benevolence case one time when I was, I think I was like 27 or 28, so I didn't, sitting with two of my deacons at Liberty Baptist Church, and we had a benevolence case come in. And this poor man and his son were about to get kicked out of their trailer house that they were renting.

And the reason why is because this man's girlfriend, who was a live-in girlfriend, had left because she got so fed up with him. So he wanted money for next, for that month's rent. I was like, well, what's your plan?

You don't have a job, you say you can't find a job, you don't want a job, what's your plan? His plan was to sweet-talk his girlfriend to come back and live with him in adultery or fornication, okay, so that she would pay the bills again.

And he wanted the church to float him until he could succeed in his plan. So we denied his request.

Yes.

And how hateful and judgmental we were that we would do that, okay? But that's presumption, very, very presumptuous. You're the church, you should just do that, right? You're God, you should just do that, that kind of presumption so that they can continue sinning.

This approach is that high-handed kind of sin that God warns about in his covenant in the Old Testament. Numbers chapter 15, verses 30 through 31, talk about this. Numbers 15, verse 30 says, but the person who does anything presumptuously, and the Hebrew word here can be translated as with a high hand, meaning brazenly or defiantly.

The modern equivalent would be flipping God the bird, okay? I'm gonna do what I want, thank you very much. Whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord and he shall be cut off from among his people.

Verse 31, because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be completely cut off, his guilt shall be upon him. This is a presumption of saying, I'm gonna do what I want and I'm gonna be industrious about doing that, and God, you better do what I think you ought to do, otherwise I'm gonna complain.

The presumption is that God is not active. You think that he's uncaring. You accuse him of being uninvolved. Judah's hauling around iniquity and they sin all they want, and it's like, well, God's not helping, you know?

When is he gonna prove himself? When is he gonna show up and do something once in a while? Well, you know, he never answers my prayers, all of this. If he's so good, why doesn't he prove it? That's the attitude that is a dreadful transgression against the covenant.

Now, when we think about the garden temptation, the serpent's temptation sailed on the winds of presumption. He said, you will not surely die, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, God said that, but, you know, Eve, follow your heart, right?

Isn't this better? Isn't it be better to be as wise? And after all, you know, he comes with his own proof positive. Here's a talking serpent. So obviously the serpent knows something about elevating his status.

So why don't you elevate your status, Eve? Why don't you be like God? Why don't you take that step of that upward mobility? Why don't you go ahead and get onto the same level as God? And no, you're not gonna die.

He said that you would, but you're not. God's not gonna do that. You should do without God, be your own God. Well, that whole temptation sailed on the winds of presumption. However, when we deny that God is good, and we deny that God is truly involved, when there is a frustration or an accusation against God that he's not doing enough, this is pretty much kicking against the goats.

We're an ox hauling sin and iniquity, not being obedient. And this is, when we think about folks that are living in presumption with a high hand against their creator, generally in their hatred of God, in their hatred of God's truth, their lack of submission to God, their lives just do not go very well, do they?

In general, in general, it's all manner of problems. And very often, these folks talk about how oppressed they are, right? They hate marriage and now they're oppressed. They hate male-female distinctions and now they're oppressed.

They hate reserving sexual intercourse for the marriage and now they're oppressed, right? They're fine killing people as long as you can't see them, right, but now they're oppressed. All these different classifications of people that today are screaming that they're oppressed, what's common to all of them is that they sin with a high hand against their creator.

They're going against everything that God made that is good in this world, and they discover that they're oppressed. Indeed, they are. And God himself is the one who is against them. And no amount of legislation is ever gonna make them feel better, right?

So we need to recognize presumption when we see it. The only way out of that is simply to cut the ropes of hauling the sin, hauling the iniquity, being industrious in sin, and come to Christ and rest in him.

All right, we'll leave that there. We've got a few more woes to look out for, more woes, and then a look at the content of the woe there in verses 13 through 17. We'll leave that for next time. I've asked Dwight to lead us in our prayer time tonight, gathering our prayer requests.