The Oracle Against Tyre: The Failure of Riches

All right, please turn to Isaiah 23. We'll continue on with the oracles against the nations.

And this is the final oracle. If you remember, this started in Isaiah 13, and it's continued all the way here to Isaiah 23.

So this is the final oracle. Now, these different oracles have launched themselves against different sins of the nations.

And here, the particular sin is trusting in one's riches. The people of Tyre are a merchant people.

They're people who get the wealth of the earth, and they have trusted in these things, but they have all faded away.

So please stand when you have Isaiah 23 for the reading of God's word. We'll only be looking at the first seven verses today, but I'm going to go ahead and read the entire oracle.

The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste without house or harbor from the land of Cyprus.

It is revealed to them. Be still, O inhabitants of the coast. The merchants of Sidon who crossed the sea have filled you.

And on many waters, your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile. You were the merchant of the nations.

Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea saying,

I have neither labored nor given birth. I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.

When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre. Cross over to Tarshish.

Wail, O inhabitants of the coast. Is this your exultant city? Whose origin is from days of old?

Whose feet carried her to settle far away? Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns?

Whose merchants were princes? Whose traders were the honored of the earth? The Lord of hosts has purposed it to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint anymore.

He has stretched out his hand over the sea. He has shaken the kingdoms. The Lord has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.

And he said, you will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, cross over to Cyprus.

Even there you will have no rest. Behold the land of the Chaldeans. This is the people that was not.

Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers. They stripped her palaces bare.

They made her a ruin. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.

In that day, Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years like the days of one king. At the end of 70 years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute.

Take a harp, go about the city, O forgotten prostitute. Make sweet melody, sing many songs that you may be remembered.

At the end of 70 years, the Lord will visit Tyre and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the Lord. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the

Lord. These are the words of the Lord. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, as we look to this oracle this afternoon,

I pray that you would help us to see what your word says about trusting in riches and I pray that you would, that you would guide our hearts appropriately, that we would not trust in riches, but only in Jesus Christ, the great treasure that we have in Jesus' name, amen.

So this is a great problem that exists in the world, trusting in riches. It's not something that we usually think of as being a problem in our life, trusting in riches, but it is.

Jesus said, how difficult is it for someone who has much wealth to enter the kingdom of God?

And his disciples responded and say, if a rich man can't, how can anyone? And Jesus said, what is impossible for man is possible for God.

So it is not just difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. In a sense, it is impossible.

Wealth is a great inhibitor to men. Here in the first verse, it says, wail,

O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste without house or harbor.

From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them. So you have this statement of destruction, that Tyre is laid waste, and it says that the ships of Tarshish should wail.

So the ships coming from this land bringing much goods headed towards Tyre, they are told as they reach

Cyprus, which is in between, they should wail, for the Lord has destroyed Tyre.

It has destroyed this place to where they're coming. And then it says in verse two, be still,

O inhabitants of the coast, the merchants of Sidon who cross the sea have filled you.

And so you see these alternate commands. One is to wail to the ships, and one is to be still to the coast.

So you have these two modes of mourning, wailing and being still, wailing and being silent, sitting down, there being nothing.

So you have a full picture of mourning, both ends of the spectrum of what mourning looks like, both in the land and in the sea.

Everyone is devastated because Tyre has been destroyed. Now, this will be later fulfilled when

Nebuchadnezzar launches a 13 -year campaign against Tyre and then more fully later on when

Alexander the Great captures Tyre. Tyre was a city that's largely out in the water, on a rock, on a fortress, and it's a fairly impenetrable place that people would think would never be destroyed.

How could Tyre ever be destroyed? If you read Ezekiel, Ezekiel has a very similar oracle to this one and talks about just how impenetrable this fortress of Tyre should be, even though God will, by his hand, destroy it.

These people, and as we look forward and we see all the things that it says about the wealth of the people, in verse eight, the bestower of crowns whose merchants were princes, these people have trusted in their wealth.

They have not trusted in the Lord, but in their wealth. Now, you may think that not many people actually trust in their wealth, do they?

Well, it's true that not many people very directly look at their wealth and think, this is what's going to give me eternal life.

I would say that not many people so explicitly and so directly say that. There are quite a number who do, though.

Especially in this area, there are a number of people working on the issue of longevity of human life, of mortality.

They think that by their own money, they might be able to solve the problem of mortality. There are many people in this area who have paid large sums to organizations to freeze either their heads or their whole bodies so that maybe one day, science would be able to bring them back to life.

There are people who really think that they might have eternal life by their own money. And it's not just the case among atheists pursuing scientific ways of prolonging their life.

This is also true in religions where people have thought that buying mini masses or paying much to their gods, that they would be able in that way to secure eternal life.

But the way that you see this most commonly displayed in man is by a satisfaction that they have with their own wealth.

Think about it, think about this area and just how few people believe in God in this area. Now you might say, well, that's not because they trust in their wealth, is it?

Is not affluence, is not the comfort that people have with their wealth the reason why so few see the need for God?

And is not that the case even for Christians that one thing that causes them to trust less and less in the

Lord is having much wealth, is not feeling their need for the

Lord. If you look at your own life and you think about times when you had prosperity, when things were going well, is that the time when you found yourself especially leaning on the

Lord or was it times when you had very little? If you lost everything that you had in terms of wealth or whatever it is that brings you comfort in life, what would be your response?

Well, I'd hope as people who are gathered here around the word of God, your response would be to turn to the

Lord and to pray to him, to go and trust in him. But what's your response while you do not have such losses, while you have much?

Yes, I should hope that you are consistently coming to the Lord in prayer. But how much do you really trust in the

Lord when things are going well? It is the human condition simply to trust in wealth, to trust in the things that we have, the things that bring us comfort.

And unless God is letting us know of our need, us not feeling our need, us not feeling our need without those pains of loss.

And this is the case all over. It's not just the case in Tyre. It's the case today that many people feel comfort.

They don't think they need God. Every single one of us, every single one of us relies on God for our very being, everything we have.

It continues on. And on many waters, your revenue was the grain of Shihur, the harvest of the

Nile. You were the merchant of the nations. When it speaks of Shihur, that's just another name for the

Nile. This is speaking of goods being brought from the fertile land of Egypt all the way up to Tyre.

And so it recalls how much good there was, how much good had been brought into Tyre.

But all this recollection, all this thinking back on the past means very little, means very little for what the state is after said destruction.

And this will be the case once again for humanity. One day, people will have all their goods stripped away.

They will stand before the Lord in judgment and realize that their wealth is not there to save them, that their wealth has failed them.

And there's no amount of recollection, there's no amount of nostalgia that will revive any of this.

Especially, you can think about this a lot right now because we're suffering some economic difficulties.

There are a lot of people posting very nostalgic things about better times. That doesn't accomplish anything.

What is accomplished by talking about how great former times were?

Ecclesiastes 7 .10 says, do not ask why were the former days better than these for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

It is not the wise man that keeps a focus on the past, but rather is focused on understanding the present and his future trajectory.

To say that your revenue was the grain of Shihur, the harvest of the Nile, you were the merchant of the nations.

If this is the thing they have focused on, if this is their trust, the point of their trust is that status they had, it is nothing, it is fleeting.

Something that exists in the past but does not exist now, it might as well be as though it never existed at all.

Verse three says, excuse me, verse four says, be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying,

I have neither labored nor given birth. I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.

When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre. Cross over to Tarshish.

Wail, O inhabitants of the coast. So here you have a picture of devastation.

Rather than prosperity, the people are barren. It's as a woman who has no children. It is as a desert rather than a fruitful field.

And so they are ashamed. And all the lands across the area are all ashamed as well.

You have Egypt being ashamed. You have Tarshish wailing. Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away?

Once again, the past, the wealth that one has in the past, the things that one has relied on in the past, if they don't exist in the present, they are worth nothing.

And so we have to transpose that to now and think about the things that give us comfort now, things that give us comfort now, and will they be there in the future?

If they will, then that's great. If they will not, then why would one rely on them now rather than relying on the

Lord? Wealth will fail. Wealth will ultimately fail everyone no matter how much they think it is the source of all their comfort.

Matthew 6, 19 through 21 says, do not store up for yourself gold here on earth where moth and rust destroy, but store up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys.

For where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. How does one store up for themselves a real and a lasting and an eternal wealth?

They do that in Jesus Christ. He is the great treasure. The one who trusts in him rather than trusting in what they have here on this earth has something that will not fail them.

Wealth will fail, but Jesus Christ will not fail. The one who finds their satisfaction in him, they will not be ashamed.

They will not be disappointed. The one who is trusting in his wealth, when that wealth is lost, then they start clamoring for other things.

When they have wealth, let's say they have some kind of relationship with God and then that relationship with God fades.

If they have their wealth and this is what they're trusting in, they won't care. The same is true the other way around.

One who has their trust placed in the Lord Jesus Christ, as their wealth fades, it won't matter.

We can have a great contentment if we find our joy in Jesus Christ. And he provides much.

He doesn't provide simply a great hope of a future, but even now he gives us such wonderful gifts.

He gives us an assurance, a great peace, an answer to our guilt so that we can day to day stand before the

Lord, stand before others, knowing that we are justified in the courts of heaven. And not only that, but he gives us an excellent family.

Jesus said that many will lose their fathers and mothers for his sake, but they will gain much more in this life.

How much more in this life? This family we have here is a wonderful and a beautiful family.

And maybe for many of you, you recognize that this family is of much more value than a typical earthly family that just comes by natural lineage.

What we have here is a family that will be carried off into eternity, into heaven.

God has given us so much in Jesus Christ. And if we find our confidence in that, if we find our joy and our contentment there, that will not fail, wealth will fail, but Christ, he will never fail.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for this oracle. I pray that we would not be those who are economically prosperous, and then because of that, trust in riches rather than trusting, rather than trusting in you.

I pray that it would not be said of us as it's said in Luke six, a woe to the rich for they have received their consolation, but it would be said to us as in Matthew five.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. God, I pray that we would be ones who are poor in spirit.

Though you may, in your goodness, prosper us with earthly riches in this life, that we would not find our trust there, but we would find our trust in you.