Isaiah 33:1 - When You Finish Destroying
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
[READING - ISAIAH 33:1]
1 Woe to you, O destroyer, While you were not destroyed; And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him. As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
[CONTEXT] Sennacherib took the throne of Assyria during widespread revolt.
A number of states in Phonecia and Palestine were throwing off Assyrian oppression.
They were led by King Hezekiah of Judah.
When Sennacherib heard about this, there was trouble.
[SLIDE #1]
First, Sennacherib intended to go to war against Judah.
1 After Hezekiah’s faithful deeds, King Sennacherib of Assyria came and entered Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities and intended to break into them. 2 Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he planned war on Jerusalem…
But Hezekiah paid the ransom Sennacherib demanded.
13 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. 14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15 Hezekiah gave him all the silver which was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house. 16 At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
But even though he was paid, Sennacherib still threatened Judah (2 Kgs 18:28-32).
Then Hezekiah prays and everything changes. (2 Kgs 19:15-19).
The Lord answers and promises to deliver His people from Assyria (2 Kgs 19:32-34).
That night, the angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers.
Sennacherib returns home and is later killed by two assassins in the temple of his false god (2 Kgs 19:37).
[SLIDE #2]
Perhaps it’s after Hezekiah pays and Sennacherib still threatened that Isaiah 33 was delivered.
If that’s so, it may have moved Hezekiah to pray.
Or perhaps Isaiah 33 was delivered after Hezekiah prayed as a part of God’s answer.
Either way Isaiah 33 was (and still is) a call for God’s people to wait on Him, believe in Him, and rejoice in Him.
[TURN]
God doesn’t make wicked people do wickedly; He doesn’t have to, but He does use wickedness to accomplish His purposes.
In the context of Isaiah 33, when wicked Assyria finishes being used by God for His righteous purposes, it will be finished; it will cease to exist.
Just think of it: The world’s foremost superpower at the time was Assyria, and our God held Assyria in His hand, doing with it as He pleased.
When it had accomplished what He wanted, He would flick the switch, and Assyria would be done.
Do y’all remember what God said to Job about the sea in Job 38?
He said…
8 “Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; 9 When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, 11 And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’?
The raging sea is often a biblical symbol for evil or wickedness, and just as God says to the sea, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther,” so God says to evil, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther.”
When He is finished uses wickedness for His righteous purposes, wickedness will be no more.
[INTER] How can this truth be of use to us?
[TS] Let me give you three WAYS...
MAJOR IDEAS
MAJOR IDEAS
Way #1: This truth teaches us to trust.
Way #1: This truth teaches us to trust.
1 Woe to you, O destroyer... As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
This truth—that God uses wickedness for His righteous purposes and dispenses with it when He is finished with it—is a truth that teaches us to trust the Lord.
We might ask, what God can come from wickedness? How can God possible use something evil to bring about something good?
We need look no further than the cross of Jesus for the answer.
Our salvation came through the wicked acts of evil men as they murdered the Son of God.
Through wicked acts of evil, God sovereignly redeemed us through the death and resurrection of His Son.
On the day of Pentecost, as Peter preached this same message, he said to the crowd...
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
But someone might say, “But, Rocky, it is easy to look at the cross as see how God brought good from it; it’s not so easy to see that with other terrible things.”
But God doesn’t call us to see all that He sees, know all that He knows, or even understand everything He understands; God call us to trust that He is completely good and completely sovereign.
The people of Judah didn’t see how God would use Assyria to discipline them, and turn them back to God.
And they certainly didn’t see how God would deliver them from Assyria.
But it wasn’t their job to see; it was their job to trust.
That’s our job too.
[TS]
Way #2: This truth is our comfort.
Way #2: This truth is our comfort.
1 Woe to you, O destroyer... As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
No evil escapes God’s notice; no wickedness is outside His sovereign control.
This should be a great comfort to us.
[ILLUS] Recently, Cheryl and I were driving along in stop-and-go traffic.
The brake lights on the car ahead lit up as we approached from behind.
Cheryl raised her knee to press that imaginary brake pedal she has on the dashboard...
...and as she did she began asking loudly, “Do you see!? Do you see!?”
On that occasion, I did see; but I don’t always see.
There are things that I miss.
But God doesn’t miss anything. Listen to Proverbs 15:3…
3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.
In every place! Watching everything! By the good and the evil!
He misses nothing, and He will call every act of evil to account.
11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.
10 Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.
The wicked may think the Lord doesn’t see; they may think they have gotten away with it, but it isn’t so.
[ILLUS] When I was in elementary school, I was sent home with a bad grade on some worksheet. I thought I would get away with it by wadding it up and throwing it away.
My Dad later found in the trashcan, and when I came home from school the next day, it was called to account if you know what I mean.
The wicked may think they’ve gotten away with whatever, but they wills step into eternity and find that they have been caught by God.
This should be a terror to them, but a comfort to us.
God sees every evil thing.
He sovereignly uses it to accomplish His purposes.
He will call all evil acts to account.
[TS]
Way #3: This truth is a warning.
Way #3: This truth is a warning.
1 Woe to you, O destroyer... As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
Time was running out for Assyria. God would soon be down with that evil nation.
If we are wicked, our time is running out too. God may soon be done with us, and then the bill will be due.
[ILLUS] I had a friend in high school that went out one night with some other guys.
When they got bored, they decided that they would start pegging on-coming cars with small rocks.
As the car passed them going in the opposite direction, one of the guys would toss a rock out the window to ding the car as it went by.
My friend apparently tossed a rock that cracked someone’s windshield, and then the man with the cracked windshield followed him home.
My friend had to spend the Summer working to earn enough money to replace the man’s windshield.
If we are wicked, we may think there are no consequences to our wickedness.
Perhaps we fool ourselves into thinking, “Well, the consequences won’t follow me home. Surely, I won’t have to pay for my actions.”
But they will follow you home, and you will have to pay, and not just for a summer, but for an eternity.
If your sins don’t find you out here on earth, they certainly will find you out in eternity.
So, let this warning turn you to Christ.
He paid for your wickedness.
His Spirit will make you righteous.
Trust in Jesus tonight...
...because you never know when the Lord may be through using your wickedness for His purposes.
[PRAYER]
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Well, God is sovereign.
His sovereignty is a warning to us if we are wicked.
His sovereignty is a trust we can trust even when we don’t understand the wickedness around us.
But His sovereignty over us is, perhaps most of all, our comfort.
We are going to respond to God’s word by singing Sovereign Over Us.
It’s slow in the verses, picks up in the chorus, but think on the words.
They express well the comfort we have in a good God who is sovereign over us.
