Isaiah 24
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Friendship with the world is enmity with God.
Something that we have forgotten today. Sadly what was a warning cry for 6 decades have shown itself completely true in our culture today. Every methodological slide of the previous 60 years are prime time now.
The private lives of those that claim Christ.
The public lives of Progressive Christianity.
God has moved his attention from nation to nation Declaring to them what Isaiah has called “the burdens”. These are heavy words of judgement for their behavior and rejection of the God of the Hebrew people. His heaviest words were reserved for the people of God, and the judgments that he has set aside for them.
Here in the 24th Chapter Isaiah grabs the gear shift and goes all gears in. He ramps up the vision to universal proportions. His opening verse is reflective of how many people feel at the end of a game of monopoly. Like just picking up the board and flipping the whole thing into the air. That is God in this telling. You can read verse one and see all the monopoly pieces of the earth in mid air and falling in slow motion.
Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
And turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
That is in one verse the people for everything else you will find in this passage. And God has given teh resona for why this will happen all the way back in the beginning of Isaiah .
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth:
For the Lord hath spoken,
I have nourished and brought up children,
And they have rebelled against me.
The ox knoweth his owner,
And the ass his master’s crib:
But Israel doth not know,
My people doth not consider.
Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
A seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters:
They have forsaken the Lord,
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger,
They are gone away backward.
Why should ye be stricken any more?
Ye will revolt more and more:
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it;
But wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores:
They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
Remember that the problem with Israel and the reason for their trouble is that their sinful selfishness was being revealed in how they hurt the weakest of their nation by refusing to care for the needy.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;
As with the servant, so with his master;
As with the maid, so with her mistress;
As with the buyer, so with the seller;
As with the lender, so with the borrower;
As with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
This section of Scripture from chapter 23-35 is to highlight a time of restoration or renewal that God will bring upon the earth. Before we can ever know anything about the renewal of God we must deal with sin.
Dealing with sin is always the first step. This I why our World and Satan work so hard to keep people blind to their need to be forgiven for their sin.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So God erupts into this prophecy with something that has not yet happened. But meant to deal with our prime problem.
When looking in the face of the judgement of God, sinners are left with only a few options.
Reject that God is offended with sinners.
Yes there is a god but he is not offended by our sin he understands and loves us anyway. Then we look past the sin as if that is what God did. God has never looked past your sin he looked away from your sin when he placed it all on him on Calvary.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Notice verse 2 at the universal nature of Sin.
Therefore the universal reality of Judgement.
Reject the idea that there is a God offended.
You see if there is no God then there is no law; no law then no sin.
Mankind rejects the knowledge of God and tell themselves that they have sinned against no one. In fact Sin is a transgression of the law.
Scripture here points the fact that sin has corrupted all the earth and that creation was imprinted with the corruption of sin.
This is why we must reject theological evolution.
Preacher are you one that believes in six literal days of Creation?
But of course.
Well I have a day age theory
I have a gap theory.
The problem of mixing evolution and scripture is that Scripture says death is a by product of sin. And death passed upon all men for all have sinned.
Evolution says that sin is a natural by product of being alive.
So if God used millions of years to evolve his creation then we are considering millions of years of death and distruction. When scripture says that God looked upon creation and announced it is Good. Either it is good is the truth and death is by product of sin. Or God was declaring death, disease and destruction - Good.
We elevate the sinner past the need for forgiveness.
We live in the culture that cannot be told what to do. Our relationships all reveal how well we do when the creature is elevated to the place of God. We will lift self expression and pleasure to the place of right and religious obligation. We are no longer obligated to stay faithful to our spouses for a lifetime, or obligated to care for our parents, or care for our children. We have thrown off all exprfectations. And the result.
Vs. 10-12
The introduction of the Tribulation:
This passage is introducing the idea of the Tribulation. A time where God will pour out his wrath on the earth for their wickedness. You can reject the Tribulation if you choose but you will have to answer for why you ignore the promise of Isaiah 24-35.
Consider the verses
Fear, and the pit, and the snare,
Are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit;
And he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare:
For the windows from on high are open,
And the foundations of the earth do shake.
The earth is utterly broken down,
The earth is clean dissolved,
The earth is moved exceedingly.
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard,
And shall be removed like a cottage;
And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it;
And it shall fall, and not rise again.
And it shall come to pass in that day,
That the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high,
And the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit,
And shall be shut up in the prison,
And after many days shall they be visited.
Compare that to
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
Or Rev 16.18
And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
But we look to the capstone of this period. That time we call the Second Coming when we will see our Savior coronated to his proper place on the throne of David.
Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed,
When the Lord of hosts shall reign
In mount Zion, and in Jerusalem,
And before his ancients gloriously.
We see our Lord of Hosts lived to the throne in Zion and Jesus will take his proper place. But why?
Why does God deal with sin so throughly?
Why does God elevate our Savior?
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Why does God purge the corrupted earth?
When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people,
There shall be as the shaking of an olive tree,
And as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.
They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing
For the majesty of the Lord, they shall cry aloud from the sea.
Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires,
Even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea.
Very simple.
God is worthy of his Glory…
God is worthy of a people who cannot help but be overcome by his power, by his greatness, by his terror, by his magnitude. God is worthy of a people that can do nothing else but lift him up in their thoughts, actions, attitudes.
God is worthy of a people that want him to be glirified.
Here is the problem Christianity has no longing for this same thing.
We like a God that loved people more than anything.
More than anything he wants them to know that he rather die than let them go
Because America’s god loves people more than anything.
Im gonna tell you that if God loves people more than anything than his judgement is an indicator of his failure.
I submit to you today that if God took all the glory that he is due and threw you to hell in the end HE IS STILL WORHTY OF GLORY>.
If God let you come to church, tithe, give, go and serve. If he let you love him with all your heart, soul, mind and body and your neighbor as your self. Got to the end and threw you into a sinners hell he is still a good God and still worthy of a people that worship him.
Make no Mistake about it God’s Grace in Christ Jesus on Calvary is not a tacit knod to your right to sin, but an indicator that God is far more gracious that we could ever deserve and that if he is even kinder than we know than we are even more deserving of his judgement.
God is worthy of His glory - you are undeserving of his grace. If you are among the wise you will flee your sin and grip the grace of God and if know the only promise you can claim from Screipture is the promise of his Judgement.
