Isaiah 33:1-12 - Trustworthy

Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you. 2 O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. 3 At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered, 4 and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon. 5 The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, 6 and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure. 7 Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. 8 The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man. 9 The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. 10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted. 11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you. 12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.” - Isaiah 33:1–12

Target Date: Sunday, 6 October 2024

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

6 - your - This is a singular pronoun, indicating a person’s times, not a nation’s times.

Thoughts on the Passage:

1 -What is the plight of this fallen, Darwinian world? Dog-eat dog; law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.

We may reign supreme for a while, but we will be supplanted by someone stronger or more ruthless.

Who may be trusted but yourself? Who else will seek for your good? The most powerful, the greatest powers, are at the mercy of those they employ or cajole or convince to follow them. Their security is tenuous because anyone in whom they trust can betray them; in fact, it is ONLY those they trust completely that are placed to betray them.

2 - But God, who watches over us, will never betray us. At the very least, He needs nor wants nothing FROM us. What do we have that He covets? But even more, He LOVES us - He is gracious to us, He has saved us. We may draw close to Him unafraid - He will never betray us.

That is the tragedy of those who believe they must continue in faithfulness in order to receive His blessing: they cannot rely on the abiding love and grace of God. They live in constant fear that God will abandon them, even for a moment, if they wander too far from His way.

Do you, Christian, harbor the belief that if you miss a prayer, miss a day of Bible reading, or fall into a sin, God will once again despise you, renewing His wrath upon you?

6 - He will be the stability of your times.

This promise is not to the nation or the city, but to the person whose trust is n God.

The very promise of vv.3-4 assure us that God is the God that overthrows nations, relocates peoples, and executes His judgment that will dismay His enemies.

This is a particular promise here to His particular people - “Even though I create great upheaval, YOU will be stabilized.”

Your times - your life - your days are safely in His hand. He has not forgotten you.

In Him, you can have faith enough to nap in the bottom of the boat though the storms rage.

Jeremiah 6:14 -

We must be careful in how we preach the message of peace.

God, in His perfect providence, may not give you political or social or even domestic stability; He provides stability for faith in your life through all these outer things.

James - the one who doubts...

John 14 - Peace I give to you, not as the world gives...

There is NO PEACE apart from the peace God has given through faith in Jesus Christ.

The message of the church is NOT “Peace over all the earth” but “Peace in Christ alone.”

“Peace on earth”, the message of the angels to the shepherds, declares the same thing Isaiah promises here - God’s peace has come into this world of betrayal and upheaval.

Into this world of curse and judgment, God’s sole way of peace with Him has been born in Bethlehem.

Peace with God began as this divine baby.

For someone who has no peace in Christ, even the normal bumps of the life will jostle and unsettle.

But for one who is firmly established in Christ, it takes a much bigger blow, indeed, to unsettle and upend.

The natural question comes, then, “What do I DO?” How can I trust more, believe better? How can I stop worrying? How can I find this peace?

1. Everyone has times of doubt and upheaval.

John says he wrote his gospel so we would have faith, but he gives example after example of when the disciples DIDN’T. Every time their faith failed, Jesus was faithful to them.

2. Your relationship with God DOESN’T depend on you.

He holds no unreasonable expectations of you. He has no lofty picture of you.

When we are faithless, He remains faithful.

That is the MESSAGE of this passage in Isaiah – GOD will not betray you, even if you deserve it. Because you ALWAYS deserve it.

Your relationship is secured solely by the work and love of Jesus Christ, and nothing else.

You are not a better Christian if you don’t struggle;

You are not a worse Christian if you doubt.

You are beloved to God through Jesus Christ by His initiative, not yours.

And He will never leave you nor forsake you.

3. When you see your doubts and worry come, be comforted in these things.

Know that He understands your doubt and anxiety.

And, over time, you will be comforted more and more, gradually, by His comfort.

4. When you see a brother’s faith failing, don’t chide them for having little faith. Remind him of God’s faithfulness even to the weak, the oppressed, the bankrupt, the sick, the lame, the blind, the hurting, and the sinful.

Applications:

Little can be less helpful than to tell someone they need more faith or that they need to worry less. How do you do that?

Sermon Text:

This morning, we will look at the first twelve verses of Isaiah 33.

[Read Isaiah 33:1-12]

In our time together this morning, I would like to focus your attention on verse 6:

He [the Lord] will be the stability of your times…

The first time or two you read through this passage, you might read it, nod, and keep going.

We have no real trouble believing God is stable.

It’s a description of God we have heard many times.

Many of our great hymns offer praise for the stability and protection of God:

The Church’s One Foundation

Rock of Ages, Cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.

The Solid Rock – On Christ the Solid Rock I stand/ All other ground is sinking sand.

He will be the stability of your times…

But look where this promise is placed: in the middle of some really un-stable times:

v.1 – times of betrayal and destruction.

v.3-4 – at the time of God’s rising in judgment.

v.7 – at the time when heroes cry, shriek for help, in the streets.

And peace envoys weep.

v.9 - Even the land mourns and loses its fertility and production.

You see the rest – we just read the passage.

So the first, most obvious, thing is that when God promises He will be the stability of your times, He is NOT promising you will live in stable times.

The promise isn’t that He will bring the strife or judgment of the world to an end.

He is not promising that, in your lifetime, nations will stop fighting,

Or wars will stop occurring,

Or crime will be reduced,

Or even that your anxieties about these things will go away.

While the world remains, as sure as there are seasons, there will be upheavals.

Hurricane season will happen every year.

And tornado season.

And earthquakes, and pestilence, and general bad will from people in this world.

And God’s sovereign plan will continue to bring one nation or people to prominence while reducing another to oblivion.

Every Christmas, when we sing about the angels’ message to the shepherds: Peace on earth, I have to remind myself that this is not simply some well-wish;

It is a declaration of the One who has accomplished a much greater peace, between our Holy God and sinful and rebellious man, has been born.

The message of the angels was not “Peace over all the earth.”

It was, and is, “Peace with God through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of Glory”

It is not, I think you can agree, a promise that God is bringing an immediate peace between people and nations right now for our sakes. That’s not the stability He is talking about.

Another way we could read this promise – He will be the stability of your times – as something that points entirely to the future.

We might read it (wrongly) to mean something like: “Things are really bad now, but one day, perhaps centuries down the road, God will bring ultimate stability to the world.”

I say “wrongly” not because the statement itself is untrue:

God will one day rule in perfect peace, where men and nations don’t commit war against each other.

Where God’s love and peace will reign with none of the strife we so often see even among brothers and sisters in the church.

If we think that, we miss the point much like Martha when Jesus told her Lazarus would rise again.

Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” - John 11:24

It would be unhelpful truth – doctrine that points to the future with no help here in our time of need.

It would be, dare we say, like the friends of Job, who sat with him and gave him very good doctrine about the holiness and righteousness of God, but did nothing to help him in his time of need.

Besides, this is not a promise about “the times of God’s people” – it is YOUR times – right now.

So how is He our stability right now?

How is He YOUR stability right now?

Because that “your” in the verse is singular – talking to EACH of His people.

Not “He will be y’all’s stability” – but YOURS.

In giving you this promise, God is saying to YOU – Even though you live in a time os great upheaval, I am stability for YOU.

Your times – your life – are safely in His hand. He has not forgotten you.

He has not forsaken you.

In Him, even in the times of storm, you can rest safely in the bottom of the boat.

But for many of us, it doesn’t take great upheavals to unsettle us.

The normal bumps of life can often jostle us quite enough.

We become anxious – worrying about what tomorrow will bring.

Three times in Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus tells us “Don’t be anxious”.

And perhaps there is someone hearing me today that doesn’t trust Jesus Christ, who is not one of His people.

If that is you, if you are still in control of your life, and have to use for Jesus, you are right to worry.

You are right to be anxious.

I would never do you the disservice of removing that terror you may have of what may come in the future.

Because I know there is a day when you will stand before God in His wrathful judgment, and give an account for everything you have ever done.

And God is so holy and no natural man is – so all who have not followed our Lord Jesus Christ will face God’s unmitigated wrath.

But that is why God sent Jesus Christ:

He lived a perfectly righteous life, which God has counted toward all those who follow Jesus Christ in faith.

And Jesus died on a cross, rising again on the third day never to die again.

In doing so, He paid the penalty in full for all the sins of His people.

And so He is the only way to have peace with God, the only way He becomes your stability in these difficult days.

But perhaps you are a believer, and you still struggle being worried or anxious.

It would be easy for the people of Judah to worry – they did – as they saw God’s judgment coming.

But Christian, you have NOTHING to fear in God’s judgment.

Nothing to fear.

But there may be someone thinking: “I’m not afraid of God’s judgment. I know the gospel. But I still wake up worried and anxious almost every day.”

“And if there’s not something real to be worried about, my mind runs to things that might happen, that could happen.”

That is EXACTLY what God means when He says He will be the stability of your times.

Everything in our passage this morning is a contrast about the instability of this world and the complete stability of God.

The betrayals and terrors of this world, the fears – they are the things you have been called out from, SAVED from.

He has saved you from your sins, yes, but so much more:

He has saved you TO HIMSELF.

And while everything you may have ever known apart from Him has taught you to worry, to look out for yourself,

Know this: God is trustworthy.

Listen to the words from Psalm 27:

This great Psalm begins:

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

But in the beautiful honesty of David, he cries out in the middle these words:

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! 8 You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” 9 Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation! 10 For [though] my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. - Psalm 27:7–10

What he is saying is that he trusts God, he knows God, but still he worries.

He knows his worry about God is, at its base, a lack of faith, a lack of trust.

When you have been betrayed, when you have been wounded, when you have lived through great disappointment, trust is hard.

And that even makes trusting God hard.

Much less trusting other people.

Even though you KNOW God is entirely trustworthy,

Even though you know He cares.

It only makes it to your heart as doctrine or as a future hope;

It hasn’t comforted your fears.

It hasn’t stopped your worry.

Your mind believes it all, but it doesn’t provide comfort to your anxious heart.

Perhaps that describes you today.

Perhaps that was you last week.

You know that your worry is a problem.

You know that it is robbing you and others of the joy and peace God has provided for you, even in this life.

The natural question comes, then, “What do I DO?”

How can I trust more, believe better?

How can I stop worrying?

How can I find this peace?

1. Everyone has times of doubt and upheaval.

John says he wrote his gospel so we would have faith, but he gives example after example of when the disciples DIDN’T. Every time their faith failed, Jesus was faithful to them.

God knows exactly how much doubt and fear you have, and He is NOT OFFENDED by it.

You were a feral child of Adam, living in the middle of a world you were raised not to trust.

And He brought you into His home, fears and all.

And your life in Him, in the middle of this daunting world, is His loving coaxing of you to trust Him for everything.

2. Your relationship with God DOESN’T depend on you.

He holds no unreasonable expectations of you. He has no lofty picture of you.

When we are faithless, He remains faithful.

That is the MESSAGE of this passage in Isaiah – GOD will not betray you, even if you deserve it. Because you ALWAYS deserve it.

Your relationship is secured solely by the work and love of Jesus Christ, and nothing else.

You are not a better Christian if you don’t struggle;

You are not a worse Christian if you doubt.

You are beloved to God through Jesus Christ by His initiative, not yours.

And He will never leave you nor forsake you.

3. When you see your doubts and worry come, be comforted in these things.

Know that He understands your doubt and anxiety.

And, over time, you will be comforted more and more, gradually, by His comfort.

4. When you see a brother’s faith failing, don’t chide them for having little faith. Remind him of God’s faithfulness even to the weak, the oppressed, the bankrupt, the sick, the lame, the blind, the hurting, and the sinful.

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” - Mark 4:35–40

Now, if all you get from that verse is that Jesus talked about their little faith, you have missed the several main points of the passage.

Yes, their faith was weak.

Yes, they should have believed better.

But Jesus, I think, didn’t point this out to rub their noses in it. It was added for our instruction.

Because if He JUST wanted to give them a lesson about faith, He would have done it in the middle of the storm.

But He CALMS the storm FIRST; only then, when their hearts were stilled, does He speak to them.

Their feral fear of the sea, which is a very real threat and must be respected, found its match in the stability Jesus called them toward to faith in Him.

Don’t beat yourself up – REMIND yourself of God’s goodness and trustworthiness.

And don’t beat someone else up for weak faith – REMIND them of God’s goodness and trustworthiness.

They don’t need to hear how weak they are – they KNOW that.

They need to be reminded in those weak moments how STRONG God is.

How LOVING God is.

How TRUSTWORTHY God is.

In time, the message will shape your heart toward faith – but it will probably take a lot of time and patience.

And God is patient with us.

Let us be patient with ourselves and with each other.