Isaiah 33:10-24

Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might. 14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” 15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, 16 he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. 17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar. 18 Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?” 19 You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. 20 Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken. 21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass. 22 For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us. 23 Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey. 24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

Target Date: Sunday, 20 October 2024

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

18 - muse - to reflect deeply, meditate, on something. The picture is of someone so deep in thought there is an involuntary growl in their throat, almost a humming. This is used of doves cooing, mourning over things lost. It is reflective, pondering on the object.

Thoughts on the Passage:

14 - The sinners and godless who live in proximity to God have, through His judgment, realized the great depth of their sin and unworthiness before God.

Who can say if this brought them to repentance?

It is possible to reflect on the depth of your sin and meet only rebellion or despair. To know God is completely holy and to know something of the ruin of your heart, but to love your sin too much to leave it behind.

But for some, those God has called to Himself, they will see the depth of their sin and fly to God for mercy in their need.

That is the very purpose of the fire - to purify, to bring out the pure from the adulterated. The judgment of God serves His purposes in this way - the destruction of His enemies and the release of His people from the corruption that had encased them in earthly ore.

How will someone who understands their

15 - This verse describes the one who may dwell in God’s presence - the presence of the Consuming Fire.

The key to this verse is that it does not declare God’s favor on those who strive or intend or do their best to walk righteously - it is for the one who does it.

If our God is a Consuming Fire, how close may we come? How much straw in us is too much to keep near a raging fire? How much paper is appropriate to line a chimney? Our God is entirely holy, and so must be anyone who approaches to Him.

This means the promises of the rest of the chapter are to those who ARE upright.How can we ever hope to become this: becoming real an un-burnable? We are born straw, chaff, paper before the holy fire of God.

Thus Jesus came to make you holy, completely. And as this has occurred once for all His people, they are each and all being made every day to DO those right things. God sent Christ to set apart a people for Himself, zealous for good works.

22 - Thus, He has become our Judge, our Lawgiver, our King.

17 - The King is truly beautiful. It is this King, our Lord Jesus Christ, who gives to His people the righteousness we require to stand before God unafraid, knowing our adoption is sure.

It was this beautiful King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who Isaiah saw in chapter 6, and whose gospel he proclaimed throughout this book.

Sermon Text:

[Read Isaiah 33:10-24]

After living with this single chapter for almost a month, I have come to see the scene a bit differently than I did at the beginning.

I think what I preached a couple of weeks ago was accurate – I don’t mean to walk back anything I said then.

But what I mean is that I think I broke the chapter into the wrong place. I had, you can tell, broken the thought between verses 12 and 13.

But now I really see the chapter breaks between verses 9 and 10.

And the reason I view it this way now is this: verses 1 through 9 represent a prayer of God’s people; verses 10 through 24 begins God’s answer to their prayer.

It is easy to see in the way Isaiah frames it: verse 10 begins with “Now I will arise,” says the LORD.

He has heard their prayers; He has heard their praise.

He has seen their plight and their terror and their shame.

And it is His prerogative and His great pleasure to announce to them the rescue they long for.

We will see in a couple of chapters that He will indeed rescue Judah from the Assyrian threat,

But the greater rescue is the one He announces in this passage today.

We take nothing away from the miraculous delivery of the kingdom of Judah in saying so – it is the move of God in His sovereign ordering of creation.

But that deliverance pales in comparison to what He is announcing here in this text.

So often we think we know what we need, and we are so far off.

And then when God gives us what we truly need, we realize how small and, well, faithless our requests were.

It’s like the lame man in Luke 5 who is brought in by his friends, lowered through a new-made hole in the roof.

They all wanted the same thing from Jesus – for their friend to be able to walk.

And the first words of Jesus to him? And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” - Luke 5:20

Now, we know that Jesus intended and accomplished his physical healing, but the greatest need was the forgiveness the Son of God gave.

And, just like us, it was a need the man and his friends may not have even KNOWN he had.

How many times do we pray and only later realize that God’s intention for us was so much greater than we ever thought?

Paul, in considering this surpassing wisdom of God says:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. - Ephesians 3:20–21

That is the message of God here to His people: “You didn’t know what you needed; you only knew enough to fear Me. But I am coming to rescue you – eternally.”

You thought your greatest need was to stop the Assyrians; that is why you went to Egypt to try to do it. That is why you went to Babylon to do it.

But your greatest need is to be able to come to Me.

All the works of people apart from Him, all those things we choose to do to make our lives more comfortable, or more safe, or more controlled – all of those things are chaff and stubble (v. 11)

And our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29)

That’s what we see the people closest to God realize in v. 14:

“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Now some might want to justify themselves and say, “But the verse says this is the cry of the sinners and the godless. I am none of those.”

But if you think so, can you measure up to the standard of righteousness God lays out here?

He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, - Isaiah 33:15

God is not talking about your INTENTIONS here. He isn’t talking about what you ASPIRE to be.

He doesn’t say that these are people who MOSTLY walk righteously,

Who USUALLY speak uprightly.

Who TRIES to look away from evil.

YOU are the sinner in Zion. I am the godless man.

Or so we were before the great gospel of Jesus Christ reached us and made us alive through the Spirit of God.

Together, we cried out to God at some time:

“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Is that not the cry of a heart that has come to know the surpassing holiness of God and its own deep and natural corruption.

Is that not the cry of a heart that knows it has no hope if there is no Savior?

It is the cry of someone who knows their righteousness isn’t good enough – and it never will be.

We hear the same thing David cries out in Psalm 24:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. - Psalm 24:3–5

Brothers and sisters – do anyone of us think so highly of ourselves that we consider WE are worthy of this?

David didn’t. If we keep reading in the psalm, we find who IS the worthy one:

Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! 9 Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory! - Psalm 24:7–10

It is not we, the worshipers, who are worthy to come near to God – it is the Lord Himself who comes.

We make a mistake if we read this like a proverb, thinking that these verses are talking about ANYONE who seeks to do good, who seeks after God.

They are not talking about anyone – they are talking about a SINGLE person.

Let’s look again at our text in Isaiah:

He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, 16 he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. - Isaiah 33:15–16

Notice the subject of these verses – “He”.

But then see the subject of the next verses:

Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar. 18 Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?” 19 You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. 20 Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken. - Isaiah 33:17–20

“He” and “You” are not the same person.

YOUR eyes will behold the King in HIS beauty.

That is REALLY important.

You may remember that near the beginning of his service as a prophet, Isaiah wrote this in chapter 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. - Isaiah 6:1

And here he is telling the people YOU will see Him!

His message to the sinners and godless people of Zion was this:

“You will see the King in all His beauty, all His glory.

You will see the Lord high and lifted up.

That vision Isaiah had in the temple has become his heart as he proclaims God’s message to the people:

Our God reigns! He is Lord over all!

And the sight of Him is GLORIOUS!

And who did Isaiah see in the temple on that day?

He saw our Lord Jesus Christ in all His pre-incarnate glory.

John tells us: Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. - John 12:41

Isaiah saw the glory of Christ. Isaiah is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the promise in our passage today is that all the people God calls, from near and far, will see the glory of Christ and be partakers of that glory with Him.

Because it is HIS righteousness that causes us to stand in the consuming fire of God’s judgment.

It is the righteousness of Christ that frees us from our slavery to sin and destruction.

It is the righteousness of Christ that is given to us, imputed to us, making us righteous before our holy God, at peace with Him and adopted as sons and daughters to Him.

And it is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, that converts us from godless sinners to holy saints, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. - Ephesians 2:10

And it is the righteousness of Christ that means that our holy God’s forgiveness of our sins is entirely just.

Because God is not simply declaring us forgiven – He is declaring our sins completely paid for, the sentence carried out on our behalf.

He doesn’t just wave His hand and pretend our sins never happened – He unleashed the full power of His wrath against OUR sin upon Jesus Christ.

That is why John can say in 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful (meaning He will always forgive His children now) and just (meaning that His justice is entirely satisfied in Christ) to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And it is that day Isaiah is looking forward to – the day when the Lord he saw upon the throne takes the throne God has prepared for Him as the Savior:

But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass. 22 For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us.

Now you may look at this and wonder what it means that the Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers.

You see, Assyria and Babylon, the two great enemies of Judah, are surrounded by two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

They provide a natural border, a point of defense, like a natural moat protecting that side of their cities from invaders.

I don’t know if you have ever been down to Horseshoe Bend, but it has the same layout on a smaller scale.

The river bends around this point of land, so that the Native Americans who were fortressed there had to defend only one small strip of land with a barricade.

But Jerusalem has no rivers, no natural protection to keep an army from marching right up to its gates with siege weapons and warriors.

What Isaiah is saying here is that the Lord is a greater protection than a great, broad river.

And more formidable than a river that would not allow troop boats to cross it.

A marsh or swamp that cannot be waded through and cannot be floated over.

God’s protection was better than any advantage on earth.

But then he wraps up in verse 22 with a great summary:

For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us.

Each of these things gives HOPE to God’s people:

His judgment – How can we, who are sinful people, have HOPE in the God’s judgment?

Because we have been delivered from that judgment by God Himself,

Converted from enemies and rebels into beloved children, destined for glory in His kingdom.

We HOPE in His law – because it is always right and never changing.

God’s standards don’t change because God’s character doesn’t change.

He does not react to the world around us – He moves the world around us.

Consider how many things RELY on the unchangeableness of God’s law:

If God’s laws changed, there could be no justice.

There could be no science, which relies on predictable outcomes, not capricious chance.

There could be no assurance or hope in salvation, because that relies entirely on the sure promises of God.

We hope because He is our King.

We are not ruled by flesh and blood;

We are not defended by fallible people.

Our God is mighty; He is all-wise.

He is loving and kind and merciful.

And he care for His people, needing nothing from us, but meeting us at the point of our need.

And we hope because He is our Savior.

Our God did not stay distant, ruling as an absentee sovereign.

He is “God with us” – Emmanuel.

His name is “God saves” – Yeshua – Jesus.

And as our Savior, He did not wait for us to make the first move, to make the first step,

He made us alive in Him prior to anything else.

Like the paralytic man we looked at earlier, Jesus did not wait for him to ask for forgiveness – He gave it.

The thing the man might never have realized he was in need of, Jesus looked and saw his greatest need – to be forgiven and cleansed from his sin.