Isaiah 34
Notes
Transcript
The Nations are Judged...
The Nations are Judged...
Recap a moment…
God has promised to deliver his people, He will stop the Assyrians from conquering and taking the Holy city of Jerusalem.
But He still will judge those who tried to make alliances with other nations to help defend his people instead of inquiring and trusting in Him.
In our chapter today, we will find out that those nations who oppose Him and his people will be judged and faith his wrath
So lets begin and see what the Lord is saying....
1 Draw near, O nations, to hear,
and give attention, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes from it.
When we open this passage we see that the people of the nations are called together to meet in the court room of God.
From chapter 13 to chapter 33, we have looked at the sinfulness of mankind.
And so here we will begin to look at what God will do, not so much the why He will do it, because we have been looking at it for a while, we have seen the wrong doing of mankind.
What we are about to look at is not just some emotional outburst of God, no! This is the response of a Holy God to sin.
God calls them to draw near, to come in and pay attention and hear, let all the earth hear what God is going to say and see what He will do....
Now lets see verses 2-4 Isa 34:2-4
2 For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,
and furious against all their host;
he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.
3 Their slain shall be cast out,
and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
the mountains shall flow with their blood.
4 All the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
as leaves fall from the vine,
like leaves falling from the fig tree.
We see that the Lord our God is angry with the nations of the earth. While God does not explain everything fully in this verse, we do see He has promised to destroy the nations of the earth.
The slain of the nations, those who were slaughtered ( end of verse 2) were laying, their corpses laying on the ground stinking, the thousands dead on the ground provides a horrific scene.
The destructive power of God will also affect the heavens and the hosts that live there., The skies rolling up are seen as the heavens collapsing. He will reverse the creation by rolling the skies up like a scroll. He will dim the bright objects of heaven, they will fall from heaven as leaves all from a tress in the fall.
When the power of God’s destructive wrath brings all the heavens and mighty hosts down to the realm of the puny dead of the earth.
God is the sovereign ruler and creator of the heavens and the earth and he can change them, move them or even cancel them if he so chooses too.
Now lets look at verse 5 and the first part of verse 6
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom,
upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
6 The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;
it is gorged with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
The second act of God involves the destructive deeds of the sword of the Lord. We see its power and deed with the imagery of slaughtering animals
The idea that a sword has drunk its full is an image of an instrument of death saturated for killing its victims
The sword will descend upon the earth on the representative nation of Edom, these people have been doomed to destruction.
And understand, when God declares a people as doomed or for destruction we must know that God controls the destiny of all people, especially those who fall under his holy justice.
And when we see sacrifices of blood and fat, these were offerings that were always reserved to the Lord.
In truth, once the destruction of the Lord begins, it will not stop until His justice has been executed.
Now verses 6b and 7 Isa 34:6-7
6 The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;
it is gorged with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen shall fall with them,
and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall drink its fill of blood,
and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
We see more death here, more destruction from the sword of the Lord. More animals will be prepared for slaughter or sacrifice.
And usually with the sacrifice of animals, we see things like atonement, forgiveness, the confession of sin,… but we do not see any of this mentioned.
The mention of Edom and Bozrah, the capital of Edom, is not because they were overly sinful or violent, bu they do represent what God has doomed for destruction.
These nations and cities cannot stand, People who act like the Edomities will be destined for slaughter. The oxen, calves, and bulls may simply refer to everything that was living in Edom.. The animals may simply refer to the people who will be destroyed.
Now verse 8-9
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9 And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch,
and her soil into sulfur;
her land shall become burning pitch.
The Lord is going to one day make right the wrongs committed by sinful people on earth.
When you hear the term Vengeance, it is not some form of trying to hurt another worse than they did you. This is recompense and establishment of justice.
The people will be held accountable for their actions, the times of waiting for people to repent has past, the just verdicts against sin will not be given out and will stand.
Now verses 10-11 Isa 34:10-11
10 Night and day it shall not be quenched;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
none shall pass through it forever and ever.
11 But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it,
the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,
and the plumb line of emptiness.
The greatest threat to the earth, to this world is not the environment, it is not death and disease, it is really human sin.
Human sin affects everyone and God and thus it taints and ruins the world. remember the world was made perfect it was a beautiful place, but it was cursed after sin entered the world.
How sad to see the effects of sin.
Human sin Isaiah says from God’s message effects from generation to generation, it is perpetual in result. Remember there are times when God has said the sin effects families to the 3rd and 4th generation.
God will reduce those who have lived in rebellion with precision of a plumbline.
Now verses 12-13
12 Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,
and all its princes shall be nothing.
13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
The princes and kings, other nobles are no longer in Edom, they cannot call it a kingdom any longer. And the curse of Genesis 3 is intensified, thorns and thistles will overtake and possess the land.
You know why? The people have been destroyed, there is no one there to work the land, and keep those overgrown lands at bay.
So the ground slowly but surely returns to a overgrown land.
Verse 14-15 Isa 34:14-15
14 And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;
the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird settles
and finds for herself a resting place.
15 There the owl nests and lays
and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;
indeed, there the hawks are gathered,
each one with her mate.
Those who laid a land on God’s people willl be destroyed and the land will be returned to those animals.
It is really reminist of places like Babylon, where God declared people will not dwell there any longer but those animals will over take the land and possess it.
People will not survive the wrath of God
Now the last two verses 16-17
16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
Not one of these shall be missing;
none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
and his Spirit has gathered them.
17 He has cast the lot for them;
his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it forever;
from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.
If the people had read the word of God, they would know His promises are true.
We know that God has a book, and we know that book continues the names and deed of the righteous, but this appears to be a different scroll or book, perhaps these prophies will refer to the future of Babylon or what is about to befall on Edom.
But why can we beleive this? The mouth of the Lord commanded these things, God has spoke them and thus they are trustworthy
And just a the Israelites cast lots at God’s command to divide the land, so now God has cast lots to divide the land that he is giving to the anuamsl.
These animals will possess the lands forever. God has said so..