Crowns & Cornerstones
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
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!
Two main parts. One dealing with the North, and the other with the South.
Fading Crowns & A Crown of Glory
Fading Crowns & A Crown of Glory
v1-4 Ephraim/Samaria/Israel/Northern 10 are proud drunkards who will be destroyed by Assyria, God’s tempest.
Translation is an inherently difficult task. If you take one language and try and translate it into another you always loose something because, well, they’re different! There’s different families of words and turns of phrase, different gramatical constructions that can have multiple meanings! This is why we have multple versions of the Bible in English because different translators have tried in slightly different ways to bring out the original meaning in a comprehensible way.
But what you end up with is some translations are more preceise, but less easy to read. Some are easier to understand but loose some of the richness of the original text.
In our text today we run into some if that translational difficulty. I don’t want you to hear this and lead you to doubt your translation, I want you to understand, and to thank God that you have such access to multple English translations so that you can easily get a broader sense of the passage.
Why am I bringging this up now, because our first verse has a few translations notes to review. Lets look at it together:
Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!
“Ah” - Hebrew “Hoy” - signalling alarm or grief. aka Woe. Maybe a common way we would say it is “Oh No!”
First section of 6 Woes that will be pronounced through to Ch 33.
What is this woe?
The crown of Ephraim is fading.
Our second translation note, this “crown” may be a refrence to a wreath or garland. This would make sense, especially given that we’re also talking about fading flowers as well!
So we have Ephraim in the North, with dunkards wearing crowns. These crowns are fading.
These drunkards, as we will learn, appear to be a refrence to the leadership of the north. They should be the “crown” of the nation, but they are indeed a useless lot. Debauched.
This is also representative of the nation, in the city of Samaria - The city is the crown of the nation, much like Canberra is ours. As goes the leaders in Canberra, so goes the nation. As goes the Drunkards of Ephraim, so goes the north.
Ephraim is loosing its glory like a bunch of flowers wilting while the people who should be tending the flowers are off partying.
So what is God going to do about it? Is he going to bring a revolution? Is he going to let them continue on until something changes? No. He has waited long enough for them to repent.
Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.
God will bring Judgment against the north. He’s going to knock the crown of their heads.
He will come against them like natural disasters.
v5-6 Then they will value God once more! He will become their glory once their pride is crushed
Yet after humbling Ephraim, he will once again exalt them. This time with a better crown:
In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people, and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
There will be a remnant, because they will be brought low.
God will be their crown. YHWH Sabbaoth, LORD of Hosts.
When he is over them, and his spirit is at work there is justice and there is stregth for victory.
v7-13 The spiritual leaders are drunk and useless, and no one else will listen either, they are like infants who can’t understand the message. God will send them a message through Assyria.
But compare this to the spiritual leaderhip they have now.
These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.
It’s a disgusting image of a party stmbling around, staggering, inebriated. Incapable of even keeping their food down, they cover the tables with vomit.
This is the spiritual leadership, prophets and preists, who have a noble and valuable task to teach the people to follow the LORD, and yet here they are lving out a life of empty pleasure.
Because of their failure to lead and teach, there is a lack of understanding across the whole country! Its as though they have all become babies who can’t understand speech (i’m goin to read from a different translation)
To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from milk, those taken from the breast? For it is blah-blah upon blah-blah, blah-blah upon blah-blah, gah-gah upon gah-gah, gah-gah upon gah-gah, a little here, a little there.
It’s difficult to translate the meaning of this, but I beleive this is what its getting at. It’s a sing-song demostrating how there’s no way for the people to understand. Like trying to teach pre-schoolers calculus. It’s just way beyond them.
They lack understaing, so God will speak to them in a way they understand - with a foriegn power:
For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people,
And what will be thre result of his speaking?
...that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
God is going to break them down.
What import is there in here for us? It was forst and foremost written to OC beleivers to warn them about what God was doing. But all Scripture is God breathed and profitble for us. What does this say to the Christian?
God will not stand idly by while his people are destroyed. He may have to refine them by fire, but he will do so to bring about a better future.
God will not stand bad leaders, he will judge them and overthrow them in time. We need this here in Australia (Aus is not OC Israel) but God’s principles of justice and righteousness are universal. He may need to refine the church by fire if we will not head the call.
God needs to be our crown of Glory, and when he is
Faith in Jesus is not something that merely touches my heart and the stays safely inside here where it can be isolated from the world, no,
to beleive Jesus is Lord leads us to proclaim “Jesus is Lord!” and the to live in the world as if that is the case!
To live as if the Lord is indeed our Crown of Glory and that his Spirit at work in us will lead to justice being executued and give us stregth to withstand the enemies of God.
Put off your pride! Wake up from your drunken stupor!
Death Covenant & the Cornerstone
Death Covenant & the Cornerstone
Switch to Jerusalem/Judah/South; learn from the north!
v14-22 You’ve gone to egypt for help, it’s a "covenant with death”. Your faithlessness is compared to God’s plan of faithfulness (culminating in Jesus).
Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
When Assyria come for North, They went to Egypt for help instead of God.
But it’s no good. it’s like making a covenant with death.
But its stupid on the face of it. It’s like when we say our sin will help us. It’s not going to help.
There’ looking for solutions in the wrong place.
Much like the trans movement of our day.
But God has an alternate vision for them, a better vision.
therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
Jesus!
And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”
Timing is not clear in much prophecy. There is shortening so things seem to happen at once.
Jesus has come, judgement will come too. At the right time.
Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.
Understaing the message will mean coming face to face with the reality of it.
For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!
This is strange because these are locations where God fought for his people, but now he will fight against them!
v23-29 Appropriate things at the appropriate time - Plowing, Threshing, harvesting. GOd knows the right time for pringining judgment.
Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
There is a time for everything, and different strategies for different types of crops. There’s a different time and method to grow tomatoes as opposed to gralic. But you don’t continually turn over your soil, you do it once then plant then water, then harvest, etc.
There is a plan and a purpose at each stage, and God has a plan and a purpose in ancient Israel to bring judgement and upheaval, but also to plant them so that they may grow again.
The lord has purpose for us even in the moment that we find ourselves in. One may despair, but it is not yet the end. Who knows what God will do in your lifetime? But whatever it is, it is planed, it is good and it is wise.
This also comes from the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
So What?
So What?
The LORD and your crown
The LORD & his Cornerstone
