Empty the Earth
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Humans are Pattern Recognition machines. It's a bit crude, but it's a fair assessment. A lot of our cognitive functions are for recognising patterns.
When we learn to speak a language, we are learning to recognise certain patterns of sound and then create a responsive pattern of sounds with our own mouth in response called speech.
Our eyes don’ts so much as see the world as observe the patterns of light to construct images in our mind. After we have seen enough chairs, we learn what the pattern of a chair is, and our brain instantly recognises it when we see one.
Our pattern recognition is not limited to the world of our 5 senses, humans have spent thousands of years trying to make sense of the patterns they see in the happenings of human history, and especially how answer the question: “Why do bad things happen?”.
Our pattern recognition software has come to various conclusions:
The deceived pagan says that bad things are the consequences that befall you when you do not please the right gods.
The atheist says that bad stuff is just things that you instinctively don't like because it threatens the survival of the species.
The Hindu or Buddhist thinks bad things happen to you as a result of bad karma from this life or previous life.
God’s people have an interesting history in trying to recognise the pattern. It unfolds across the pages of Scripture.
Famously, according to Job's friends, bad stuff befalls those who fail to honour God. If you lost everything in your life, you must have sinned against God.
Another answer we see is that bad stuff happens because of the choices of our ancestors.
Also the Bible tells us bad things happen because of evil spirits at work.
Now while all these things are true in various circumstances, one of the biggest messages that the Bible shouts across it’s pages is that bad stuff happens to evil-dooers. Those who do wrong should be punished. This pattern is writ large across the pages of the Bible. Everywhere you look you will see various takes on the same theme:
Sinners are smitten.
Covenant breakers are cut-off.
Rebels are routed.
Transgressors are terrorised.
Disloyalty leads to destruction.
There are consequences for actions. God is a God of Justice. When a moral crime is committed, the God of all the World sees that crime, and it is entered into the register of offences to be accounted for in due time.
You could imagine a security guard watching a shop lifter on the CCTV. He sees them take a chocolate bar, and a coke, and a packet of gum, and then he can meet the shoplifter at the door and confidently say:
You took this, and this and this and this. He knows exactly what was taken. He saw it all.
Now consider this. Our Lord, YHWH of Hosts is watching over every molecule of the universe. He knows every crime that was committed, including all the ones that weren't caught on camera. All the ones that were committed in the privacy of your own mind, all the ones where you spoke harshly to your family. All the ones where you manipulated people to get your own way. All the moral crimes you committed on your phone when you through no-one was watching.
He knows all the crimes committed by corrupt cops. By dodgy politicians, by cheating business-owners, by abusive fathers and sabotaging mothers. By rebellious children and disrespectful teenagers.
The Lord sees it all. And it is as if it is all recorded. God knows.
Now this is where the pattern recognition gets tripped up.
We can look around the world and see the evil that takes place, and we can look at the Bible and see that God knows all of these evil deeds, and he is opposed to it.
Yet people who do bad stuff go unscathed. Nothing seems to happen to them. Jeremiah wonders aloud about this:
Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
The wicked seem to get away with it! What happened to “you reap what you sow"? They seem to be reaping a whole lot of good despite the evil that they sowed!
I see soooo much injustice, where is the recompense?
Does God not see? Is he impotent to put an end to the evil?
As you walk through the pages of Isaiah 13-23 you see overwhelmingly that God is not unaware of what’s going on in the world, but on the contrary, he is very aware, and he will respond to it.
God sees the evil, arrogance and pride of nations exalting themselves. He sees those nations that oppress the vulnerable. He sees, and he will bring just judgement against them.
But you know what. Even if God went around an assessed every nation, and metered out an appropriate consequence for their actions, even then, its not like the evil problem goes away. In fact it feels like it keeps growing regardless.
Sin just keeps piling up. Because it’s not just nations that sin as nations, all the individuals that make up that nation also sin.
If God were to sweep up all these sins and collect them in one place, there would be a great stinking pile who’s stench would be smelt on the moon. A great heaving mass of ungodly putrefaction.
Such a pile would be offensive to anyone’s senses, most of all, it would be an offence to God.
God made a beautiful and good world, and what we have done is pollute it with stinking sin. He filled it with a good creation, we filled it with sin.
The world is sick. It needs to be emptied out.
The LORD will make it desolate.
God is a God of Justice. God is the God of Goodness. God created a good World. God filled the world, but the day will come where he must empty it out.
Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
Once God filled the seas, he filled the air, he filled the land, he filled the heavens!
But, in response to the evil in the world the creator and filler of the World will empty it out and deform it. He will “decreate" creation.
But he will be fair.
He will render to each according to their deeds. Everyone is on a level playing field. No one gets off.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, 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 creditor, so with the debtor. The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the Lord has spoken this word.
When God brings his Judgement, he will wipe everyone away. All Gone.
Just as God spoke to fill the earth, God will speak to empty it.
The earth itself has been polluted and it is desperately sick and sad:
The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.
Nature itself has been defiled. Here we are concerned for our environment, and rightly so, it is ours to care for and nurture under God. Yet, it is as though we plant saplings with one hand, and pour toxic sludge over them with the other.
What good is environmentalism while we keep filling up the earth with sin and transgression?
But, you say, my spiritual state and the state of the climate are two different things, totally separate!
How thoroughly we have been deceived by Greek pagan thinking! To think that my sin is a thing over here that has nothing to do with the world around me. Horseradish! God made you an embodied being! Spirit in a body. Life in the dust. Flesh that breaths.
Your body and your spirit are not meant to be separate, but together. One affects the other.
Similarly, you are not separate from the world. God made you to live here. And sin defiles this world.
The original time of this message from the lips of Isaiah had already seen great many evil perpetrated on the earth. How many more have been added down to the present day?
The world is sick. It needs to be emptied out.
The LORD will make it desolate.
The LORD is bringing judgement. Fairly. In Justice.
Joy must be taken away. The Whole Earth must face the consequences for what we have done.
The Lord made a fruitful world, where the vine grow and bears fruit. God made a fruitful world where there a natural yeasts on the grape fruit, so that when you crush the grapes they mix, and over time the juice ferments into a delicious drink. The Psalmist says that God causes this drink to come forth from the earth to gladden the heart of man.
It is a gift from God for our joy an pleasure. God gives us dangerous gifts! Ones that can be used to glorify God or to sin against him.
In the world under God’s judgement, creation is confounded. Wine is no longer for joyful celebration. Wine is no more for fun. It is as though joy has been swapped from creation. Parties are pitiful, music is silent.
The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled. No more do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
Joy is sapped out. The cities will be made desolate. All the people are shut up at home and refuse to come out.
The wasted city is broken down; every house is shut up so that none can enter. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has grown dark; the gladness of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city; the gates are battered into ruins.
Under God’s Judgement joy is gone. Darkness settles. The people are depressed and defenseless.
What hope is there?
Is hope gone too?
Will the earth be utterly empty and devoid of joy?
No.
Not utterly.
There will be a remnant.
A Tiny remnant.
A Remnant that is like the leftovers on a fruit tree after harvest.
A Gleaning will remain.
For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.
There will be some leftovers among the nations after God is finished bringing Judgement. Some will survive the thrashing that is coming for the world.
And not only will they survive, they will sing!
<Excitement>
They will praise the God of Judgement and of Justice!
They will have Joy!
Like Israel at the banks of the Red Sea they will extol their God who throws down the enemy!
Their Joy is in the LORD!
Isaiah 24:14–16 (ESV)
They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of the Lord they shout from the west. Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One.
Give Glory! Give Glory to God! They call from the West, and the east responds!
All the earth, the coast lands, everywhere the will praise the LORD!
YHWH of Hosts, the Righteous one will be praised. They will sing for Joy!
This very day, this very morning there are such song raised, glorifying the RIghteous one, the LORD!
We sang them here, and we will sing yet more!
But,
do you sing for Joy?
Do you sing for Joy?
I look out upon you and I see you dear brothers and sisters, how few of you look like you have Joy.
Where is your joy?
Are you trapped?
Why is your mirth stilled?
Are you living in the city of destruction while you have a house in the Celestial city awaiting you?
Are you within the walls of the broken down city? Or do you belong to the new Jerusalem?
Have you been plucked from the maws of death by Jesus? Then where is your joy?
There is no condemnation for those who are found in Christ Jesus!
Jesus has come and he will judge the earth. He will empty it out of all it’s evil. And God’s people will sing for Joy!
Are you ready to sing for Joy at the emptying out of the earth? Will you lift up your voice and celebrate?
Israel sang to God on the shores of the Red sea
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
There’s more, but that's a taste.
When God brings Judgement, His people praise Him!
Don’ts believe me? Read revelation. In Ch 15 after a sequence of judgement on the earth
And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!
When Babylon the great falls, the people worship God!
So here, in Is 24, when God judges the earth, God’s couple lift up their voices and sing for Joy, because God has brought judgement. God has brought Justice.
We praise God when he wins! We celebrate Judgement of God!
If you cannot praise God and celebrate his Judgement, then you likely have an idolatrous picture of God.
<sad>
Isaiah, ever the relatable man, feels torn. He knows that many will perish, and he feels the weight of those headed for destruction, even while he acknowledges that they deserve it:
Isaiah 24:16 (ESV)
But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.”
God's judgement is inescapable. There's nowhere to get away:
Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth! He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.
Whether you run or hide, there is no escape for the one under judgement. One way or another, you will be trapped and the world is decreated.
The foundational things are undone, the foundations of the earth shake. The firmament is not firm.
The earth will be broken
The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.
God will bring the defiled earth to nothing. Like a black-out drunk, it will fall down flat on it’s face never to rise again.
This is what is in store on that great Day of the LORD.
Every good action film has a climactic scene where the bad guy gets his comeuppance, and the good guys win. This is that day.
Palpatine is thrown down.
Souron’s tower crumbles.
The Nazi’s are defeated,
Hans Gruber Falls to his death.
<rising fervour>
We love it when the good guys win, and the bad guys get that's coming to them. But some of us are uncertain about that when it comes to God's judgement, to eternity.
Sure Haman deserved to be hanged on his own noose, Herod should have been eaten by worms, the “mighty” Abimelech deserved to die at the hands of a woman. But not me. Not us. Not our community. Not our nation.
We want to justify ourselves. Make excuses for us, and why we should be let off the hook.
But the sooner we understand we’re the bad guys, the better equipped you will be to find your redemption arc.
You will not find redemption until you realise you are in need of redeeming.
You need to come to grips with the fact you have been contributing to the problem, your sin have been defiling the earth, and so now God needs to come and re-create the world so that this muck can be dealt with.
The world is sick. It needs to be emptied out.
The LORD will make it desolate.
Judgment day is coming. And even though sometimes it looks like the bad-guys get away with whatever they like, God does see, God keeps account, and he will punish the wicked. Whether the wicked be on the earth, or the spiritual beings like angels in heaven:
On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.
The guys in charge will be held to account. On earth as it is in heaven.
They will be locked up, and they will be punished. We call this place Hell.
They will face just compensation for their crimes against God and man.
Creation will be undone, so that even the Sun and moon will be affected, but God's glory will shine through:
Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.
Sun and Moon were created to rule over day & night, but they will be ashamed. Their brilliance will fade and God's glory will rise. God will reign, and his council will reign with him.
Who are these elders? Dunno, but in Rev it mentions 24 - possibly representing 12 Tribes of Israel, and 12 Apostles.
Now the next chapter picks up from here with lost of good news, but I think I need to say a little more to tie this off.
Heavy Judgement makes the Gospel all the sweeter.
God will reign
The Father has given all judgement to the Son
The son Jesus Christ came to save the gleanings from judgement
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
You do not escape by trying to clean up the muck heaps yourself, you need to be plucked up and cleaned up by the LORD.
The world is sick. It needs to be emptied out.
The LORD will make it desolate.
But the LORD is making a New Heavens and a New Earth.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Is there a pattern to God’s Judgement?
How can you sing with joy at God’s Judgement?
What Will happen to God’s enemies?
What will happen to the Earth?
