Isaiah 3.5

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Prayer

Jamison

Gordon, Will Swain an employee and partner health is failing—pray for healing

Suzanne, Nancy Rogers grandson!

Nan, prayer for Bob, health/legs/balance

Jeanette, Arlene driving to Colorado

Jean, God’s guidance and peace

Camille, brother Steve, health episodes while driving.

Marlin,

A reminder of the context of Isaiah 30 and 31. It contains WOES 3 and 4 and these are directed at Judah, a stubborn people who continually find their trust in Egypt and the horses of Pharaoh rather than the mighty hand of YHWH. If you remember from last week, we looked at 31:1-17 and then the first few verses of chapter 31 as they are reflections of the same concern the Lord has for this people. But what we hadn’t covered yet is the middle section, Isaiah 30:18-33. So that’s where we’ll start today.

Now, let’s head back to chapter Isaiah 30:18-33

Isaiah 30:18–33 ESV

18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. 19 For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. 20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. 22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” 23 And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, 24 and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25 And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

The LORD waits to be gracious to you. GOD wants to be gracious to His people. He does not offer his grace begrudgingly, he wants to give it! Blessed are those who wait on Him. It’s a call to repentance but it’s also a promise that God will be gracious to this people.

Look at v. 18, He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice.

This is fascinating to me because this shows just how marvelous his mercy is because we know that His justice is true and holy.

The Lord will be gracious and this grace will lead to repentance. Look at v. 20: Though God gives them affliction and adversity, He will not hide Himself, they will see their teacher and they shall be given ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts that want to walk in His way.

God’s grace leads to repentance, for they will turn away from their idols, they will scatter their idols and all their unclean things. And a part of this promise is also of future provision. There will be a day when they will reap a great harvest, their lives will be lit by the light of God and their wounds will be healed.

I think we’ll see this fulfilled in part in places like the book of Ezra when God’s people return to Jerusalem and then weep over their unfaithfulness and sin and attempt to return to covenant faithfulness. BUT this passage, of course, finds it’s ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the good teacher, it is Jesus who Himself takes the bread of adversity and the water of affliction on Himself so we can be saved and so He could give us His spirit that we may walk in his ways.

III. Call to repentance and assurance (31:4-9)

Isaiah 31:4–9 ESV

4 For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill. 5 Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.” 6 Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel. 7 For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you. 8 “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor. 9 His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Look at the image chatper 31 leaves us with. Yes, it is a call to repenance, but it is an assurance of what’s to come. The promise is that day all the idols will be cast aside, you will destroy your statues of silver and gold, everything made by human hands.

Look at the assurance it gives Judah with regard to their great enemy Assyria: “Assyria will fall by a sword, not of man, and a sword not of man shall devour him.”

We know it is Babylon that will crush Assyrians, but it says not a sword of man. Again, it’s this ever-present reminder in Isaiah that God is sovereign, God stands above the nations. He is over all things!

Repent, that’s the invitation. But the grounding of that invitation is this: God will prevail so you should repent!

Now let’s turn to chapter 32 and the image of the coming redeemer and king is here.

Isaiah 32:1–8 ESV

1 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. 2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. 4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly. 5 The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable. 6 For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink. 7 As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right. 8 But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.

Here Isaiah explores the glories of the Day of the Lord, after judgment, after the wicked are done away with here, coming is a King who reign in righteousness. His judgments will be true and good.

One commentary put it this way: Isaiah has a vision of a coming King, this King is the Messiah who is necessary because human beings as Kings could never live up to the ideal, the high standard of a good, just, righteous King.

No longer will the leaders of Judah be threats to the people, oppressors or predators, but rather this King will be safety, a refuge, a safe and secure rock of protection for this people.

And this leader, this king will make possible spiritual transformation for His people—the blind will