Woe Betide This Culture

Isaiah’s Temple Vision and the Commission to Speak Judgment

If you would turn with me, please, to a familiar passage, but we're only starting there, don't worry, Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6, as we look at this text, we're all familiar with it, and so I'm just going to use it as the background to move into our study this evening, brief as it may be.

You know that this is Isaiah's temple vision, where he sees the Lord, Yahweh, sitting upon his throne, surrounded by the angels who cry out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.

You know the story of Isaiah's recognizing his sin, the Lord providing forgiveness for his sin, the altar, the glowing coal from the altar, and with the forgiveness of his sins, we then have the commission of Isaiah.

And when Isaiah is sent, you may recall, we've discussed this many times, the message that is given to him sort of goes against what we would expect in the commissioning of Isaiah. Notice verse 9, he said, Go and tell this people, keep on listening but do not perceive, keep on looking but do not understand, render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.

Now that is not a positive message to which Isaiah is committed as being a faithful herald. But he is to go and announce a message of judgment to this people. And he asks, How long, O Lord? And the answer is, until cities are devastated and without inhabitants, houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.

Now there is, in verse 13, right at the end, that element of hope, yet there will be a tenth portion in it. It will again be subject to burning, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.

The holy seed is its stump. There always is that element of hope. But in general, for the vast majority of those who would hear the message of Isaiah, it was going to be a message of judgment. Now, this causes us to consider, I think, the seriousness of the prophetic role.

And this evening, I want us to think about what our role is, and where we see the celebration of ungodliness. What must we think? How must we think? And I don't think that your particular eschatology really necessarily has to determine how you answer this question, in the sense that you may see God's word going forth in victory around the world, but that doesn't mean that in one particular area, one particular nation, God's judgment doesn't come to bear.

Indeed, I think we would look at it as one particular culture that today seems just completely committed to a proclamation of a rejection of God's ways and God's truth and God's law. Most of you know, I don't think it took place today, last I heard.

I'm a little bit behind on things, haven't been away, but I don't think it's taken place yet. But sometime this week, and if it did happen today, someone can nod at me, the New York State Legislature is going to be voting on what I can...

The only phrase I've been able to come up with is the profanation of marriage. The profaning of the institution of marriage. And as we consider what these politicians are thinking about, as Christians, we have to stand back and we go, when a society, as a society, sets its face against clearly revealed truths, things that God has spoken without the slightest bit of confusion, without really the slightest bit of debate, when a society says, we know what God's law says, but we want the opposite.

With full knowledge, not in ignorance. We're not talking about people who've never seen a Bible. We're not talking about a society that has not had a witness of God's truth. We're not talking about when you would encounter sub-biblical kinds of marriage amongst peoples in the South Sea that had never even seen the word of God.

No, we're talking about a culture. And I'm talking about not only our nation, but Western culture in Europe as well. These are nations, as I have visited in England and Ireland and places like that, where, again, they're ahead of us in some of these ways, though we're catching up quickly.

You cannot help but walk down the street and you see monuments to great Christian men. The names of great Christian men are chiseled in the stone. Not that many of the people walking by them know anything about them or have ever read a word they said, but the point is, these are societies that have had tremendous witness.

What is the role of the Christian in that context? Now here, you had men who were delivering the very word of God to the people of God. These were a people of God that had a constant witness coming from God.

They had God's law. They had the temple. They had sacrifices going on in front of them all the time. And yet, they would turn away. And they loved to go to the high places, and they loved to mingle the worship of Galilee with the worship of the pagan gods, and their hearts were constantly wandering.

What kind of blindness led to this kind of announcement of judgment that we see in Isaiah's commissioning? Well, it doesn't take us very long to find out. Just flip back to the previous chapter. Isaiah chapter 5.

Isaiah chapter 5. We have a series of woes beginning in verse 18. A series of woes. I'd like us to consider what these woes communicate to us. Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes, who say, let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it, and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass, that we may know it.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink, who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right. Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into the flame, so their root will become like rocks and their blossom blow away as dust, for they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

On this account, the anger of Yahweh has burned against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and struck them down, and the mountains quaked and their corpses lay like refuge in the middle of the streets.

For all this, his anger is not spent, but his hand is still stretched out. He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation, will whistle to it from the ends of the earth, and behold, it will come with speed, swiftly.

No one in it is weary or stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps, nor is it belled at its waist undone, nor its sandal strap broken. Its arrows are sharp and all its bows are bent. The hooves of its horses seem like flint, and its chariot wheels like whirlwind.

Its roaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions. It growls as it seizes the prey and carries it off with no one to deliver it, and it will growl over it in that day like the roaring of the sea.

If one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress. Even the light is darkened by its clouds.". Here is another announcement of the fact that God is going to bring a nation against Israel.

Remember Isaiah chapter 10, where we have that very special discussion of the bringing of the Assyrians. We have the announcement of judgment, but why? All these woes, just as Jesus announced woes against Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 23.

But let's just take our time this evening and consider what the people had done. Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes. Now, how can that be relevant to us today?

Well, think about what is being described here. Who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes. They are open about their sinfulness. They are open about their rebellion. They do not care who sees.

There is something fundamental. There seems to me to be a tipping point in a society's existence because there was a time when people felt shame for what they did. There was a time when people felt shame.

But then it becomes a time when a tipping point has been reached where they no longer are concerned about being seen in their sinfulness. There is no longer this sense of shame. I had the misfortune of reading an article today.

It's a very brief news item about a man, a friend of mine. In fact, I'll be speaking with him next week up in Alaska. He's the other speaker at the ACE conference that I'll be speaking at in Anchorage.

And Phil Johnson's his name. He's the head of Grace2U. Some of you know of his work. He and I have spoken together at many conferences down in Brisbane, Australia and all over the United States. And he made reference to someone he had run into at the airport.

He ran into some weird people at airports. But this one took the cake. And unfortunately, I had a picture. It's a man who flies U .S. Airways. I sent this to my wife so she can be warned. Flies U .S. Airways.

And he does so in women's underwear. And he's proud of it. And they let him fly. And there was a picture. I really wish there hadn't been one, but there was actually a picture that I'm trying to wash out of my memory.

And I thought about this man, probably about 62, 65 years of age. And he's standing there as they're taking the picture, and he's smiling. There's no shame. He likes this. And I just wondered, if I ran into this person, And unfortunately, I have to fly through San Francisco to get to where I'm going next week, so I am concerned.

But I thought to myself, what would I do? What would I do? What would I say? I don't believe I could keep my mouth shut. I don't believe I could do it. But what would I say? I don't think I could avoid the word shame.

What kind of... There's just an openness. These people aren't hiding their sin. They're dragging it with cart ropes. They're out in the open. They are putting effort into their sin. There's a description of those who receive God's wrath.

And then there's a mocking attitude. Let him make speed. Let him hasten his work. We may see it. Let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass. We may know it. Oh, don't tell us about judgment coming.

You prophets have been saying this all along. Come on, we've been fine all along. There is a disrespect for God. And do we not see that all across the whole spectrum of our society today? From the highest levels to the neighbor next door.

We can sing God Bless America with Kate Smith. I don't know that Kate Smith would recognize this nation anymore to be perfectly honest with you. But we can sing God Bless America. And we just think somehow God's under obligation to do that because, well, we're American.

There is a disrespect, a mockery. There's no such thing as judgment. Come on. That sounds like that Harold Camping guy. What are you talking about judgment? A verse I think we all probably could have quoted, even if we didn't know what its reference was.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness. Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 520. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

I think of this verse more and more and more. As I reluctantly keep track of not the cultural evolution, but the cultural decay that is taking place around us. And it is becoming more and more common to hear people identifying as morally good that which God's law specifically says is morally evil.

And I think and maybe this is just an age thing. But those of you who are my age and older, you remember a day when there was there was much more of a consensus as to what was good and what was evil. It wasn't that people weren't doing evil.

They were. I'm not trying to say, oh, people just become sinners recently. I'm not even suggesting that. But as we saw before, when people would do something wrong, they didn't then spend all their time saying, well, it wasn't wrong at all.

Now, they might say I'm not as bad as somebody else, but they recognize that their behavior was bad. Now. Now, yesterday, we had a woman in Texas put on probation for five years. She's trying to get custody of her three children back.

You know what she did? She spanked her two year old. She didn't beat her two year old. There was no question in the trial. She never touched that child, but on the child's rear end. I don't know what a two year old's rear end is for if it is not for spanking, but she spanked her two year old.

Her children were taken away and she is now a felon in the state of Texas. And the judge said to her in sentencing, we do not spank any more. We may have when we were younger, but we don't anymore. Do you understand that?

And her answer was, yes, sir. Things have changed. The idea of discipline. Our society says, no, no, we'll put you in jail. And I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but I think I'm a realist. It's well known in the news today.

The New York Times reported that the President of the United States is, his views on same-sex marriage are evolving. Now, of course, the fact of the matter is, back in, I think it was 2004 or 5 and running for office in Chicago, he responded to a homosexual group's inquiry saying he supported same-sex marriage.

Of course, when he ran for President, he said, no, I don't support same-sex marriage. But we all know that that's going to change. And I think we all know that it's just a matter of time until this nation as a whole, from the federal level down, it's not going to come from the local level up, it's going to be the federal level down, a mandate, is going to establish the profanation of marriage.

And in every place where that has happened in Europe, it has been followed almost immediately with the persecution of Christians who would not acknowledge those things and would not engage in those things.

It's happening all over the place. These things are coming. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, even if that's the majority. See, God doesn't give us the right to determine what is evil and what is good.

He determines that by His own nature. He determines that by His own word. Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, there is a fundamental twistedness, a perversion of the natural order.

Well, that's not light. We haven't had light in this nation. Now we're getting light as we see ourselves as highly evolved humans, hominids, just like the apes. And now we see ourselves in such a way that we have this liberty.

And what's good is to basically throw off everything that our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and all the generations before us thought was good. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Oh, my. I don't know that Isaiah could have even contemplated the kind of arrogant attitude that is expressed by the intelligentsia of our day. I just look at a Sam Harris or a Richard Dawkins and the prideful, creaturely influence that flows from them.

And I think of these words, woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. They don't see themselves from God's perspective. They have a very limited perspective and they think so highly of themselves.

And they will be the first ones to mock these young people as they sit in a beginning philosophy class or world religions class out of Glendale or ASU or wherever, if they're not fortunate enough to have a good professor like Mr. C.

I think Mr. C has run into a few of those folks himself. And notice, woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink. I don't think we need to limit that solely to the abuse of alcohol.

Today, we've come up with all sorts of interesting things to abuse. That may have been pretty much all they had access to back then. But now we have expanded the playing field greatly. And why not if you don't view yourself as a creature of God?

If you're not made in the image you've got, if you're just an animal, why not? Woe to those. There is a sign of coming judgment when God removes the restraint of his hand to where we don't even respect ourselves enough to behave in a proper manner.

And finally, woe to those who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right. God is concerned about the doing of justice. You cannot read the Minor Prophets without being struck over and over again about the fact that God is concerned about justice being done in human society.

In fact, the psalmist says that justice is the foundation of his throne. And if it's the foundation of his throne, the foundation of his rulership over his own creation, then that means it is very important to him and therefore should be very important to us, but it rarely is anymore.

Listening to what is being done by men who call themselves judges in this land has become a joke because of the perversity of their thinking. While I was traveling, I was listening to the radio and a suit had been filed that the judge who overturned Prop 8 in California, which we all know is a homosexual, and in fact came out since the trial, that he has been involved in a relationship, quote-unquote relationship, all along, that the judge who then judged whether the judge should have judged didn't care about any of that.

It doesn't matter to him. It just causes one to cry out. You start to understand a little bit better what the psalmist was talking about when he cried out for justice from God. And when the psalmist in Psalm 119 talks about tears flowing down from my eyes because of people who they abuse your law, they reject your law, they trample on your law.

We can't help it as we look around. Justify the wicked for a bribe. To justify. We all know that term. We all know justification by faith. To declare righteous. But here it's declaring righteous a wicked one not on the basis of the substitutionary work of Christ.

No, this is for a bribe. And they take away the rights of the one who are in the right. There is a fundamental perversion of justice in this land and because of this. Did you notice the description here?

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into the flame. Well, there's something we've been seeing on our television sets for a long time now, isn't it? The dry, dry desert grass from the spring rains and along comes that wall of fire and how long does it take that piece of dry grass to just collapse into ashes on the ground?

And that's the picture. So their root will become like rock and their blossom blow away as dust. God promises he will do justice and he will bring judgment upon those or the objects of these woes that we've looked upon.

So what do we have to do? Well, when people are calling what is evil good and we come along and say, no. What is good is good. What is evil is evil. And if you call evil good, you yourself are evil and you will receive judgment from God.

Don't expect to get employee for the month for that. Don't expect. But you know, one of the texts we're Lord willing to be looking at on Sunday, Jesus told us, don't be surprised. The world hates you.

Hated me first. We reflect his truth. If we walk in his ways, we cannot help but experience the wrath of those who remain in rebellion against him. And so we have this root, this remnant in Israel, recognized it was only there because of God's grace.

It had a prophetic role. It had a role to remain faithful to the truth of God, to proclaim God's truth, no matter what the cost was. Now they suffered as a result, but they had God's support, God's grace, God's blessing, God's approbation.

But they were called to a prophetic role. Now we should never ever engage in that prophetic role, that identification of evil as evil and good as good, out of motivations of ego and self-righteousness.

We're broken people. I get no sense that Simeon and Anna, that there is any self-righteousness about these people. Their lives match their words. Our society doesn't need a bunch of self-righteous people.

But what God does call us to is faithfulness in the proclamation of his truth, even when we know it will cost us. It will cost us greatly to do that. And so as we consider this, I hope you'll consider these words and think about the description provided in the woes and how that's relevant to what we see around us each and every day.