In That Day
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Do you know the story of “A Christmas Carol”? Written by Charles Dickens. Its been made into a move and other adaptations. One of the key plot devices is that the main character, sour and miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge, is visited throughout a Christmas Eve and given visions of the past present and future. What he sees in those vision helps change to Ebeneezer such that he becomes a better man and changes his ways.
That’s something like what we have this morning - we have a series of little visions presented to us through the prophet Isaiah, 4 windows to a future Day. And these visions teach God’s people about God’s plans and purposes. These visions are a warning and an encouragement that should affect how we live here and now.
Reminder about Isaiah
Yahweh is Salvation
Prophesied “740 b.c., and he lived long enough to record the death of Sennacherib (37:38), datable to 681”, so he was prophesying while the northern 10 tribes were defeated and dispersed by Assyria. He pronounced the judgement of God against all Israel, warning the southern kingdom they too would be judged by God.
Yet, Isaiah is full of hope. In the face of judgement, defeat and he told them that God had a greater future in store. Redemption beyond judgement. YHWH would be their salvation! ANd not Israel’s only, but slavation for the nations!
We’re in the tail end of a group of oracles focused on judgement and redemption.
Our passage has 4 windows into that Great Day of the Lord.
That Day when Leviathan is Slain
That Day when Leviathan is Slain
Elijah saw the sea and was scared, on a clam day! The sea is chaos.
In the ancient mind the sea was chaos, largely unknown and a place of death. Even now we acknowledge that we know little of the ocean and even now we expect every summer to hear news reports of people who loose their lives in the water.
In the ancient mind they perceived that within the chaos of the sea there were giant monsters, and there are! Can you imagine coming face to face with a giant squid or whale?
Now whether they were thinking of animals they had seen, maybe even creatures we would call “dinosaurs”, or it was only the stuff of legend, there was the dragon, the serpent of the sea known as leviathan.
Sometimes in scripture leviathan is spoken about as if he is small compared to God. But sometimes leviathan is mentioned to invoke the idea of threat chaos and as an enemy of God, and it is used in that context here. Lets read it:
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
That Day - The Day of YHWH. Day of judgement and eventual restoration.
The LORD will strike down Leviathan with his hard, great and strong sword!
The sea dragon will be brought to an end
Kids, draw a picture of this!!
This looks forward to the overcoming of evil. Chaos monsters, dragons any enemy of God will be overcome, even those that seem unbeatable. This is a message of hope and encouragement to God’s people: YHWH will slay the monsters that threaten the world.
Now as you try and fit this in with the rest of the Bible you may remember similar scenes from Revelation. Famously in Revelation various monsters appear to terrorise and oppress God’s people, and where do they come from? The sea.
Yet God destroys them all.
Satan, the ancient serpent, the dragon who would devour the Church, he is on borrowed time. When his time is up, he will be thrown into the lake of Fire. Not to rule there, but to be punished in torment.
He has been mortally wounded, Jesus has defeated him already and he is now prowling around trying to take others down with him.
But God, with his hard and great and strong sword will punish him and all the enemies of God.
That Day when the LORD tends his Vineyard
That Day when the LORD tends his Vineyard
In our next window of the great Day we are brought to see a viyard, and God is looking after it:
In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
I, the Lord, am its keeper; every moment I water it.
Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day;
I have no wrath.
Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
I would march against them, I would burn them up together.
We’ve seen this imagery before, but last time it was in expectation of judgment
This time it looks much betters.
God will tend a vinyard, representative of His people.
It is a good vinyard, and God will watch over it! Protects and nurture!
God would have no reason to be wrathful here because things are set right.
In fact its almost too peaceful, the Keeper wishes there was some action so he could defend it!
(Kinda like ADF folks wanting a fight because they have trained so hard and long to fight)
If there were any threats the Keeper would destroy them. He is on the warpath for weeds, they will be burned up!
But destruction is not the only option:
Or let them lay hold of my protection,
let them make peace with me,
let them make peace with me.”
In days to come Jacob shall take root,
Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
and fill the whole world with fruit.
The brambles and briers, the weeds, they have the option to come under the Keeper, and instead of being a threat, to become part of the vinyard.
Let them make peace!
This signifies how God will receive his enemies if they will convert. They can bow the knee.
Israel is God’s vineyard, but this vision looks forward to the day when the gentile briers will be able to make peace with God and come into his vinyard.
And this vinyard will be fruitful - God’s people will fill the world with fruit!
We are grafted into the vine! Into the branch!
You are the brier! Will you be a threat to the vineyard to be destroyed, or will you make peace and lay hold of Jesus’ protection?
He died to atone for your sin.
Now go fill the world with fruit! Clothe the Bride with righteous deeds!
That Day when Guilt is Atoned
That Day when Guilt is Atoned
In our third window we look at the results of judgement. When God brings consequences for rebelion. Notice however that God is measured, he does not utterly destroy:
Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?
Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them;
he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
God rightly brings judgment against Israel, but he is measured and limited.
Israel destroyed by Assyria
Babylon defeats Judah
Why? Idolatry, rebellion,
It’s a kind of atonement, paying for their sin:
Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
They will know when they have sufficiently paid the price when they are pure. When the idols are destroyed and taken away.
Now we can never make enough atonement, but God has sent Jesus to atone for all our sin.
We know when this atonement is having its effect when we bear good fruit. You will know them by their fruit! We will remove the idols, we will drive off sin. True faith goes hand in hand with true repentance.
What sin do you still need to crush to pieces?
For the fortified city is solitary,
a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
there the calf grazes;
there it lies down and strips its branches.
When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without discernment;
therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
he who formed them will show them no favor.
That Day when the Lost come to Worship
That Day when the Lost come to Worship
In our last Window we see a future of worship, where God’s people will bow down, having come from across the world.
In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
A vast land - the land promised to Abraham
Threshing, separating the grain from chaff
God will call his people, and they will come to bow down before him.
Jesus has come to seek and save the lost!!
Form the River to the Sea, more like from the river to the river, God will call his people. From ocean to ocaen, from globe to globe God will bring in his lost. When we are flung out among the stars, even there Christ will find his lost and bring them to himself.
So What?
So What?
That Day is hard to wrap your heads around - but it will be
The slaying of leviathan
A beautiful garden
A place where sin is fully dealt with,
A place where God’s people are separated and called to come bow down, coming to worship.
Jesus has come to bring about all these things!
