The Certainty of Judgment

Well today we'll be continuing Isaiah 24. So if you want to go ahead and turn to Isaiah 24, we're going to be reading verses 17 through 20

When you have that, please go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word and I'll go ahead and remind you

Meanwhile that this chapter is summarizing in this whole section 24 through 27 is summarizing

All the oracles against the nations that had come before so it's summarizing God's work of both judgment and salvation

Please stand when you have Isaiah 24 beginning in verse 17

Terror in the pit and the snare are upon you Oh inhabitant of the earth

He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit and he who climbs out of the pit

Shall be caught in the snare For the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth tremble

The earth is utterly broken. The earth is split apart The earth is violently shaken the earth

Staggers like a drunken man. It sways like a hut its Transgressions lie heavy upon it and it falls and it will not rise again

You may be seated dear Heavenly Father in this

Continuing this passage of judgment. I pray that we would understand your judgment. We would appreciate it

We would consider it solemnly and gravely but Lord that we would see great beauty of your salvation

In the presence of that judgment that you save through judgment Lord I pray that today we would fix our eyes on Jesus Christ who saves from sin who saves from death and damnation and that we would

Find in him Everything and that we would find great joy and life in him in Jesus name.

Amen So as we've been talking about God's judgment looking at the various aspects of his judgment how total it is

How how broad and how great it is Today we'll be looking at how certain it is how certain

God's judgment is God's judgment is a certain judgment. It is coming for Every man if you give me just a second here

God's judgment is coming for the whole earth. And so We must ask ourselves.

How do we escape an inescapable judgment? How do we how do we get out of a certain judgment?

That's what I'd like us to think about in this passage This passage on its own does not have the answer

But it does have the statement the judgment is certain as we look to what the New Testament says about the things said here in this passage

We'll see that Jesus Christ is the only way to escape and inescapable just judgment It's the only way he is the only means by which we can avoid

What is certainly going to befall the earth Here in the first verse begins

Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you Oh inhabitant of the earth

Terror and the pit and the snare now you have a footnote here, which

I find very interesting because These sorts of things happen more often. They actually bother footnoting.

So I find it interesting when they actually do choose to footnote it But you'll see there that the

Hebrew words for terror pit and snare sound alike. They sound alike. So one commentator has

Translated thusly panic and pit and pitfall are upon you Oh inhabitant of the earth

That's how you might imagine this being rendered if we were trying to focus on the alliteration rather than getting the exact meaning of each

Of the words panic and pit and pitfall are upon you Oh inhabitant of the earth

So, what is this? Panic and pit and pitfall. What is this terror and pit and snare?

It is the judgment of the Lord. It is his Justice that comes upon all who have gone against God's law

Now we might ask in addition to what is this thing? When is this? Now it'd be very tempting as you read through this and you see a lot of these passages

Seem to speak of that final day of the Lord To think that this passage only applies to the final day of the

Lord to that day of judgment When Jesus returns and judges his enemies saves his people

If you look through this passage and see that You would not be wrong in that this passage does speak to those things however, it speaks of something much broader as this

Section in Isaiah is summarizing all the oracles that go before remember those oracles that went before we're talking about talking about things that what

God would do throughout the course of history not just what he would finally do in the end and In order to demonstrate this a little for you today.

I'd like us to go ahead and Look at Jeremiah Jeremiah 48

Verses 42 through 44 Jeremiah comes a little after Isaiah and He uses the same imagery to describe the judgment that's coming upon the nation of Moab in his own time

So even Jeremiah understood this as something that was applying even in his own time. Not just on the final day

Verse 42 and Jeremiah 48 says Moab shall be destroyed and be no longer a people

Because he magnified himself against the Lord terror and pit and snare are before you

Oh inhabitant of Moab declares the Lord He who flees from the terror shall fall into the pit and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare

So you see very directly have the same words here in Jeremiah Jeremiah Understanding this prophecy in Isaiah to be referring not simply to the final day of the

Lord, but to be referring to his own time And it is rightly understood as referring to all times

God's justice is poured out on the earth. His wrath is revealed against the nations It's what romans 1 18 says

This is not something that is consolidated to that final day. But if something is being revealed from day to day

As calamities befall the earth his judgment it's a very serious thing to to contend with And his judgment is something that is that is upon us and it is upon us constantly reminding us

That it's coming an even greater measure in the future Now who is this coming upon We've talked about what this judgment is and when this judgment is what about who

This is upon the inhabitant of the earth, this is coming upon all who inhabit the earth

Uh, if you are one who inhabits the earth this applies to you

Uh, you should be considering this there is no it doesn't matter. Um, You know if elon musk makes a trek to mars and you get on that spaceship

You will not escape this because it's not just about this ground earth, but it's about all of fallen creation

Judgment is coming to a fallen creation Now why why is this happening?

Well, we saw the reason back in verse 5 the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants for they have transgressed the laws

God's law has been broken His wrath is being revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness in men

Is because men have sinned against him that not only Mankind itself, but all that is underneath mankind as mankind has had dominion over the earth all of earth

Falls with man and as we see in this passage the whole earth the creation itself

Has a destruction coming to it his judgment coming to it And we see that this judgment is certain he who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit

He who climbs out of the pit Shall be caught in the snare The idiom that you might be familiar with is out of the frying pan and into the

Friar I found it. How does that go? I don't even know how that goes fire. There we go into the fire

You cannot escape god's judgment uh The person who leaves the panic will go into the pit and the person leaves the pit goes into the pitfall

You can see kind of isaiah's purpose in using these Words that sound similar to each other.

It's because you leave one and you run right into the same thing uh in the book of job

Uh so far speaks of the wicked in their portion being to escape

The sword of iron and to be hit with an arrow of bronze Uh, this is this is what is coming to those who have broken god's laws

Those who have broken god's laws have a certain judgment. They might escape one day, but they will not escape the next

Now I imagine many of you have some kind of story in your life where you are close to death I think a lot of us when we think back we realize there are multiple times when we have been very close to death

I think for myself I can at least think of two times, you know one time when

I was rock climbing, you know, just casually with no gear I was up higher than I should have been on something more precarious than I should have been and I was not certain

Whether or not I was going to make it And uh, there was another time some of you know that I was a student at virginia tech when the shooting happened there

That was the 15th anniversary of that happened only just a few days ago last saturday

And if my classes had been on tuesdays and thursdays instead of Or sorry, they had been on uh mondays and wednesdays instead of tuesdays and thursdays

I would have been sleeping in the hallway that the man chained up on either side and then went and uh murdered all the people in between we have

We are always precariously near death and Those people who imagine that they can escape it on one occasion the idea that you could just keep escaping it forever

That's just nonsense It is a point for man wants to die death is coming for every person.

Let us not ignore this. Let us not ignore The future of death, you know as you get older and as you start contemplating these things more seriously planning for how to take care of your children if you have children after you

Then you'll start thinking about this more seriously. You'll start wondering What lies ahead don't wait until that moment?

Think about this matter now think about it frequently Those thoughts should point you to the only one who can save they should point you to jesus christ

Now i'm describing how inescapable this judgment how certain this judgment is Says for the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth tremble the windows of heaven are opened now if you uh have ever gone about a bible reading plan and if you know, maybe you've tried to go the whole year, but you

Peter out in january You will have run across this phrase. Even if you don't get very far in the bible

You will see this phrase the heavens are opened. Where is that? It's genesis 6 and 7

Now this is the phrase that's used To describe god's judgment on the whole earth when the flood came

It's the heavens open and god's judgment poured down in the form of rain Now He has promised with the sign of the rainbow that he will not judge the whole world by water once again, but he will judge the whole earth by fire

And it will have that same quality of coming down from the heaven the heavens being open

How would you escape if the heavens were opened and judgment rained down? Well, you might hide under something

But what does it say here? The foundations of the earth tremble so from up above judgment and from down below no firm foundation

The earth will split the foundations of the earth tremble the earth is utterly broken The earth is split apart.

The earth is violently shaken You know these phrases once again, there's a a literary technique that's being used here to emphasize these things

You see The english translators have used different phrases to make it more extreme, right?

It's not just broken. It's utterly broken It's not just split. It's split apart. It's not just shaken. It's violently shaken

What's going on here in hebrew is repetition So it'd be something like broken broken is the earth split split is the earth shaken shaken is the earth

And it goes on the earth staggers like a drunken man it sways like a hut

Its transgression lies heavy upon it and it falls and it will not rise again Now there's much the bible says

About these about these sorts of things we see in amos 5 2 That this judgment falls upon israel fallen no more to rise is the virgin israel forsaken on her land with none to raise her up The bible says much about earthquakes demonstrating the judgment of god psalm 18 7 says the earth

Reeled and rocked the foundation also of the mountains trembled and quaked because he was angry

Why why do earthquakes happen on this earth because god is angry because we are a sinful people

If adam had never sinned if mankind had ever sinned there would be no earthquakes on this earth the reason that earthquakes exist

Is because they represent the anger of god his judgment upon creation And the earthquakes that we experience in the world even the big ones, you know even if california gets hit with a a massive one, you know that people have been

Anticipating for some time that will only be a small taste of the judgment that is in store for the earth

We see also in a Passage that is probably my favorite passage.

It's the end of hebrews 12 Speaks of the uh How the earth shook at sinai what did that represent?

Uh for they could not endure the order that was given if even a beast touches the mountain

It shall be stoned indeed. So terrifying was the sight that moses said I tremble with fear But you have come to mount zion and to the city of the living god to the heavenly jerusalem so The mountain shook at sinai and later on when it says uh in verse

Uh, excuse me later on In verse 27 this phrase yet once more indicates the removal of the things that are shaking

Yes, that is things as they have been made In order that things that cannot be shaken may remain

See sinai shook Demonstrating god's anger against those who would break his law because what was given at sinai his law was given

And so the mountain shook demonstrating his anger at those who would break his law The bible says that it will shake once more yes, it's shaking all in between but there is a great day when it will shake once and for all

Split open and all those who are against god will be destroyed

So looking at this at this certain judgment, how may it be escaped? How may we escape?

That certain judgment the answer is only found in jesus christ He has died for the sin of sinners who trust in him.

It is only through him that man can be saved consider Consider several things that the bible says about the images we see here

Consider simply the earthquake In matthew 27 what happened when jesus died there was an earthquake

It says in verse, uh in matthew 27 54 The centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over jesus saw the earthquake and what took place

And they were filled with all and said truly this was the son of god Now, why did why did an earthquake happen?

I would say is representing god's judgment. What is jesus bearing? He is bearing judgment For all those who trust in him so that they don't have to experience that same judgment

That earthquake is showing that we have a substitute who can bear the penalty that's due to us

And then three days later Now after the sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week

Mary magdalene and the other mary went to see the tomb and behold There was a great earthquake for an angel of the lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it

Death itself was judged that day You see there is no security

For the inhabitants of the earth for those who would come to mount sinai and be judged on the basis of his law because we have

We have stood against his law. However, as it says in hebrews 12 But you have come to mount zion and to the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festal gathering

The one who comes to mount zion the one who comes to the heavenly jerusalem Though they may

Walk on this earth. They have a status that transcends the category Of simply being an inhabitant of the earth

You see this judgment is coming to all the inhabitants of the earth But if we have come to mount zion, we have come to a place that cannot be shaken

Zion is the city where god's temple it is a place where he dwells and as jesus explained in in the gospels in john 4

That god dwells with his people that god dwells He is he is not to be contained in a single place

And so there's coming a time jesus said where we would not worship on this mountain or on that mountain

So where is zion? Where is this place where god dwells? The new testament explains that christ

The express image of god he dwells in us by means of his holy spirit If we have trusted in him if we have believed he dwells with us

So we have come to that heavenly zion. We have been removed from simply Inhabitants of the earth if we trust in jesus christ and consider the passages that have been preached in previous weeks from ephesians ephesians 120

Ephesians 2 6 That talk about us being seated with jesus christ in the heavenly places

How does one escape the certain judgment that is coming to all the inhabitants of the earth the answer

Is to be a citizen of heaven is to be Seated in the heavenly places with jesus christ and it is in him

Trusting in him that we can have that status to be where he is seated in those heavenly places

Now we still dwell on this earth we still experience calamities

But we can have a certain end we can have a certain covenantal and it a certain contractual agreement in jesus christ where we are counted as being in the heavenly places

It's being seated there rather than being mere inhabitants of this earth. We can have a certain salvation

We can escape the inescapable judgment We can avoid that which is certain

Because we have access to heaven through jesus christ Through his blood through his death burial and resurrection

Do not do not ignore the judgment that is coming because it is certain instead

Looking to what scripture says looking to what god has done in jesus christ Let us look to jesus christ and trust in him for a great salvation to escape what is otherwise inescapable

So let's go to lord in prayer Dear heavenly father

We thank you For providing jesus christ one who without which

We'd be hopeless. We'd be utterly hopeless doomed destined to destruction only palligating our concerns with distractions

Willfully ignorant lord. I pray that we would not be willfully ignorant today I pray that there's anyone here who's not

Not taken seriously this judgment not turn to jesus christ for salvation. I pray that they would They would see that their only hope is in him

And lord, I pray that as we carry this message forward to the neighborhood and to the world It would be received it would be received as good news because that judgment that people ignore.

Yes, it is bad news, but God I pray that they would they would recognize the goodness and having a great savior to save from that justice

And I pray that on that last day When we stand before him That we will be able to do so With great joy and god in the meanwhile