Rock Bottom? Trust the Sure Foundation!

Isaiah 28:1-29:24

As fallen people we have some tough pills to swallow in scripture don’t we? Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us is to realize we are not the most important being in existence. In fact we were created for the purpose of glorifying another, yet we seek to glorify ourselves. One of the difficulties we have is perhaps when the bible teaches that we will glorify God, whether we want to or not.

Sin is such a sinister thing isn’t it? It tells us so many lies, and we believe them all the time. It tells us that God can’t be trusted. It tells us that if we take matters into our own hands we can handle it better than God can. It tells us that God is selfish for wanting all the glory and that we deserve some of it.

God doesn’t speak this way to us. In fact if we would listen to him we would find out that what is in the best interest of his glory is also in our best interest. That trusting him will not ruin us but redeem us. That listening to him will not bore us, but revive us.

We start a new section this morning, but the theme of Isaiah hasn’t changed. God saves sinners. What we begin to see in this new section is that God is able to fulfill all the saving promises he has given us in the first 27 chapters. But faced with them, they seem impossible. So we’re left with the question again, who are you going to trust?

We’re going to look at 28 and 29 together today. And in these chapters we will see the hopelessness of the glory of man, and the surety of the glory of God. Build your foundation on one and you will be ruined, the other and you will be lifted up and satisfied.

Look at these first 6 verses in 28.

Isaiah is looking north to Ephraim or Israel. It was a beautiful place with much to be proud of. Their problem was a problem that is very familiar. How easily we forget who supplies our lives to us. Do you ever find yourself caught up in the gift instead of the giver? Or perhaps better yet, forget the giver altogether? We are a people fascinated with what we have and not who gave it.

Ephraim took this and wore it like a crown. See how great we are because we are the owners of this great land. Well that just simply wasn’t true. They were going to be destroyed. Just as every nation has been eventually. Verse 5, in that day glory will go to the one who alone can hold it. Here’s a question for you as we begin these chapters. Do you wear your glory as a crown?

Well Isaiah turns and looks back at his people Judah “these also” verse 7. Drunk on power. Isaiah likes this picture of drunkeness because it shows us what the love of the world does to us. We can’t see straight, we can’t walk straight, our ears ring and can’t hear from God. Look, ew they’re so drunk on the world that their table is full of vomit. Do you ever think about it this way? The world fills you up with it’s poison and then you spew it out all over the place thinking yourself wise. The wisdom of God is like foolishness to a people like this.

See they can’t hear God. They look at Isaiah who is working his whole like to teach them, not just who God is, but what is coming if they don’t trust him. And they say (verse 10 blah blah blah).

Flip over to 29:9-14. God says the same thing here but with a little more theological perspective. Their drunkeness, their inability to hear from God is because he has poured out on them deep spiritual sleep. Readers can’t read.

They look like religious people but they’re just going through the motions.

I don’t know what the word of God sounds like to you today, but maybe it sounds like blubbering baby talk. Isn’t it frightening how to some the same sermon can be sweet and others boring and unimportant. Now look sometimes a preacher just isn’t any good at preaching! But God’s word is always sweet. Oh if this is you this morning, find a friend today and confess to them that you’re asleep and not hearing God in his word and ask them to pray he would open your ears. He’ll do it!

Man’s glory also often follows its own counsel. Do you find yourself listening to your own advice over God’s word? Verses 14-15. They made a covenant with death. Probably speaking of the agreement with Egypt that they would band together to fight Assyria. First of all think about how crazy this sounds. Egypt, the enslavers of Israel, please team up with us, God who miraculously pulled us out from under your grip has promised to save us if we trust him, but we know better.

Do we think like this? We do, don’t we? Isaiah calls it making a covenant with death. That’s what it is. You have the option of trusting God who is life or trusting your own counsel which is death. Look ahead in 29:15. We are sometimes so arrogant. I will make my own choices but hide the motives from God.

Why do we do that? Do you ever think you have God figured out? God is an algorithm, if i manipulate him the right way I can get what I want. Oh God save us from thinking like that. Some of you are so good at manipulating people you’ve tricked yourself into thinking that you can manipulate the potter himself. Listen, you are clay in his hands. He molds you, you do not manipulate him. And if you cannot humble yourself before him he will press you down into the dirt.

How silly we are to hide our sin from God when he alone can redeem us. Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up.

God’s glory is dangerous, but redeeming.

There is no safety in our own counsel. But God doesn’t assume that we’ll just come around someday, instead he supplies us with the sure foundation, the precious cornerstone. We build our lives on sand, he humbles us by crashing our lives and rebuilding them on the rock, on the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Verse 14. God is so good that he will watch us make a covenant with death and frustrate ourselves to no end, and rather than destroy us, place us on the true foundation and rebuild us as vessels of honor for his glory.

Who else can crash a life and make it result is everlasting joy and praise? Verse 20. I love this picture. This is the frustration of a life apart from Christ, a bed too short and a blanket too small. I want a warm chest and warm feet.

What does he do? He rises up and fights for us. People who went to egypt for help, God steps in an fights for us.

29:14, we give him false hypocritical worship, he in turn works miracles among us and does wonderful things in our midst. We need to get rid of false worship. Stop pretending, if it isn’t working let someone know! You can’t pretend your way into the kingdom. Break down and cry out to him. Stop denying the power of God to change you!

Isaiah—God Saves Sinners The Mystery of God

Older people need the power of godliness in their hearts because they have little time left to get ready for Heaven. Middle-aged people need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are strongly tempted to coast, to rest on their laurels, to become dull and mediocre. Young families need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are forging the convictions that will shape their home for a lifetime. Singles need the power of godliness in their hearts because they can gain or they can forfeit single-minded devotion to Jesus. Students and teenagers need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are being targeted by the world with brilliant and attractive seductions. Children need the power of godliness in their hearts while they are young and open, to be set apart to God forever. We Presbyterians, for example, need the power of godliness in our hearts because the sin of the Presbyterian church is to settle for the doctrine of the power of God rather than pressing on by faith into the experience of the power of God.

This is the wonderful nature of our God. He made a covenant with Abraham, he chose a people, he fulfills his purposes in us. He takes men and women drunk on power, staggering through the world, fingers in our ears, building towers of lives on the sands of falsehood and lies, he knocks us all the way to the ground and when we would expect kicks and fists while laying under his disciple, he gently lifts us up and rebuilds us on Jesus.

28:23-29 he shows us this. God isn’t reckless. He isn’t angrily sweeping through your life because he can’t stand you. He is tending his garden lovingly. He isn’t crushing us for the sake of crushing us, he’s removing the chaff and harvesting the wheat.

He says the same thing in 29:17-21. Lebanon was known for its forests. And they boasted in just how wonderful they were because of their forests. Why do we do that? How simple is it to rejoice in God’s work instead of our own? He cuts it down. But he doesn’t cut it down just to cut it down. It becomes a fruitful field. The meek rejoice in fresh joy, the poor exult. See when you’re cut down by God you can scoff and become nothing, or find Christ at the bottom and be rebuilt on him in humility.

22-24

God sanctifies us