Isaiah 3.7

*ACC Invitation*

Prayer

Carol, Jamison

Cheryl, praise for friend successful surgery this morning, Vicki

Arlene, daughter Christy, waiting for a new port for chemo, starting in Dec.

Bing, niece, kathleen, breast cancer surgery two weeks

Gordon, former business associate, Will

Patti, Christy, open heart surgery tomorrow whenever the timing

Gordon, Ron Caldwell

Mary Jane, grandson is moving to SLO and he has a lease in Davis. Contractor, customer Linda in the hospital walk.

Now let’s move on to chapter 33.

This section now from chapter 33-35:10 represent the sixth and final woe of this section of Isaiah. A couple of things to note: the woe is aimed at Assyria who is referred to as “the destroyer” or “the traitor” here in the passage.

Isaiah 33:1–12 ESV

1 Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you. 2 O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. 3 At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered, 4 and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon. 5 The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, 6 and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure. 7 Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. 8 The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man. 9 The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. 10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted. 11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you. 12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

Here in the opening verses the destruction of the destroyer is framed in the ultimate reality—a reality, a view, much bigger than just the current situation for Isaiah and Judah, but rather an eternal long-view of what is to come. That ultimate reality of salvation and judgment.

Salvation will eventually come! The destroyer will be destroyed, the betrayer will be betrayed and laid waste. Yes, this is Assyria, but in a larger sense, this is all the enemies of God—this is the destroyer that is known as death and sin.

The trouble for an ancient Judahite is that they looked at the world and their enemies—Assyria, Babylon, etc.‚ and they said: these nations are wicked, they commit grievous injustice, AND they’re getting away with it!

That’s the “have not been destroyed…whom have not been betrayed,” like you’ve gone all these things and there are no consequences for you! Amidst the moral perversity of the world, the Lord’s people have resources beyond the earthly ones? Their resources are the hope of the Lord, waiting on Him. His strength, His deliverance, His rescue!

And v. 3-4 give us the picture of the wicked of the world then fleeing, scattering, helpless before divine power of YHWH.

Look, if any of this makes us uncomfortable, I would encourage you to consider if you have an appropriate view of sin in the world. If we bristle at God’s judgment against the wicked and against sin, it is because we have been so influenced by the Western, post-modern individualism of our world. And by the way, there are good aspects of that too. The post-modern worldview invites a level of empathy for our neighbor and for those different than us in a way that would have been different among other cultures.

We don’t like the idea of divine justice, in part, because we’ve so (I think to a good degree!) internalized the idea of non-violence as a way to make change.

BUT, about the issue of justice, Tim Keller used to tell the story of a philosopher who was a refugee from the balkans in Europe. He bore witness to violent civil war, countryman killing countryman in his home of Croatia. He said this: that nonviolence requires, it demands a belief in divine justice, that God will actually do something! And that violence flourishes in the world fundamentally because of the belief that God will not do anything.

But do you see Isaiah’s worldview? God will do something! Be strong and courageous and wait on the Lord. He also never encourages them to take up arms or to bring violence themselves.

The whole point of this section is this: everything we face, every evil, every sin, every enemy, death itself—God Himself will deal with this. Whether it’s in us or out in the world. God, through Jesus Christ, will deal with it. We just need to believe that He will.

God will do something! Then what? That gets us to v. 13-24.

Isaiah 33:13–24 ESV

13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might. 14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” 15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, 16 he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. 17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar. 18 Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?” 19 You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. 20 Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken. 21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass. 22 For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us. 23 Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey. 24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

We’ll start with the first few verses here. They paint a picture of God gathering His people, those who are far off, those who are near. Jews and Gentiles—Israelites and foreigners, all who will be gathered under the name of YHWH. There’s a dimension here of God gathering in those who havea been exiled—Isaiah writes in his present circumstances but his prophecy will be a future consolation and comfort to Judah in exile. Indeed, for us today, we ought to identify with the ancient Israelites who lived in exile—this is the language we see in the New Testament that describes our situation today. We are exiles, our citizenship does not belong to this world, but to Heaven.

There is a comfort, for anyone in exile, that God will bring all His people together. It moves on though to the hearts of the people. They will be gripped by the seriousness of their sin (v. 14) and, ultimately, the impossibility of sinners to dwell in the presence of a Holy God. That’s the question posed: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

This is the same question posed in Psalm 24:3-4

Psalm 24:3–4 ESV

3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

The answer in Psalm 24 is the same as in Isaiah 33: the righteous. In the Psalm it is the one with clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands and a pure heart—that phrase, clean hands and a pure heart, encompasses both the quality of a person’s deeds (their hands) and their inner life, their thoughts, etc. (their hearts).

In Isaiah 33, it is someone who walks righteously and speaks uprightly. Now, what does that sound like? YES! Psalm 1. This person, who does not abide sin, does not deal with the evils of the world, this person will be one who dwells in the house of the Lord and whose dwelling place is secure and safe.

And I will add this: thankfully, we will not be judged on our own righteousness, but rather on the righteousness of Christ. Let us find our hearts and minds then totally transformed in Christ Jesus.

V. 17-24, this person will see, behold, the king and his beauty. It’s not just they will see the glory of this king, but they will see his deeds. v. 19: you will see no more the insolent people—you will notice a difference! Your enemies, the wicked, the sinners, the scoffers—they will be gone.

Instead, the people will see the heavenly city: Zion. this city will be “an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent.” It will be untroubled in that there will be no more pain or sorrow or suffering; it will be immovable in that it will be eternally rooted as the city of God.

One way to think about these promises is this: they will stand for all time but they take on different meaning or comfort to different people through the ages. To Isaiah’s first audience, it was meant as a comfort to the faithful, that though enemies surrounded them, God will establish his city forever. To the next generation that would be exiled from Jerusalem, it’s the promise that their city will be restored. For us today, it is a promise of that eternal, heavenly city.

The rest of this chapter gives us a picture of the Lord as being over not only all the land, but also over the seas and rivers and all the water. It ends: “And no inhabitant will say: “I am sick” the people who dwell there will be forgiven of their iniquity.”

Forgiveness and healing are the marks of this new city.

Now let’s move on to chapter 34, Isaiah’s 2nd universal judgment!

Let’s look at Isa. 34:1-10

Isaiah 34:1–10 ESV

1 Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it. 2 For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter. 3 Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood. 4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree. 5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction. 6 The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 7 Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat. 8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. 9 And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.

Isaiah’s message is for all people! Draw near, o nations, give attention! What’s the message he wants the nations to hear?

“for the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against their host!” The language here reminds me of a Psalm. Yes, Ps. 1, but also something else—

Psalm 102:25–27 ESV

25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.

The image is that the whole of the earth and creation is, to God, like a garment that when it has worn out, can be rolled us and thrown out to be burned away.

Here’s the message from the Lord: Nations, everything you think you are, all your glory, all your prosperity, all your scheming, all your pride—it is as nothing to the Lord. It will rot away and be rolled up because of the corruption and wickedness of sin. The whole universe, the whole cosmos has become infected with sin, God will roll it up.

Isaiah 34:11–17 ESV

11 But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness. 12 Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing. 13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14 And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place. 15 There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate. 16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them. 17 He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

This is a devastating picture, but we can be comforted by this: any destruction or judgment comes from the mouth of the Lord and is carried out by His Spirit. God will carry out his decrees. This might seem like cold comfort to us, but we know we are not of Edom—Edom becomes this stand-in here for all the pagan nations. We are not like Edom, though Edom was related to Israel, they turned from God, and thus they face the judgment of God. I think of Romans 11, in which Paul talks about us, about Gentiles, and the imagery is this: we are grafted into the family of God—God has brought us into the family of Israel and thus protects us from this judgment. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, anyone who believes will be saved and grafted in.

The image Isaiah leaves us with here is one of destruction, but we see it is perfectly within the will and hands of God. We also know, there is yet room for redemption for anyone who believes.