Isaiah10a Restoration to holiness5
Restoration through judgement
Rebels and sinners ashamed
Doxology: Hymn no 69: “Fill your hearts with joy and gladness”(Tune 262)
Votum
For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15)
Grace to you from God the Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord.
Invocation and the Lord’s Prayer
Invocation
Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. (Nehemiah 9:5-6)
Before You, O Lord, we now bow in adoration and worship. You called us together on this, your day. The worship is yours. Hear us Father as we now pray together in the Name of Jesus Christ.
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn No 149: “To the Name of our salvation” (Tune 102)
Scripture Reading 2Thessalonians 2:1-12
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
Heavenly Father,
All things are possible to You who made the universe,a ll truth is in the grasp of You above. All power is Yours to use to accomplish Your perfect works; all grace is manifested through Your sacrifice of love. Wisdom perfuses Your character, You are God who cannot lie, You alone have the ability, to sanctify our lives, Yours is infinite purity. You are holy God above; You alone can make us righteous through Jesus' love. There is nothing You do not know; Yours is intellect sublime. Yet You care for your children, though our sins extend through time. There is nowhere You cannot be, all our faults You know full well; Though You stand as Eternal Judge, Your grace conquers hell!
As Creator of everything, You possess and control, yet You want us close to You, filled with transcendent majesty. You deserve all reverent fear, but condescends to our estate, to draw us near.
Forgiveness
Declaration of pardoning
I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me— the breath of man that I have created. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, (Isaiah 57:16, 18)
Hymn No 503: “I waited patiently for the Lord”
Announcements
Offering and Dedication
Prayer of Intercession
Scripture Reading Isaiah 1:27-31
Hymn 435: “Lord, who shall come to You?”
Sermon
Introduction
On December 2nd 1855 in the Church of New Park Street, Southwark, a preacher got into the pulpit to preach a sermon with the topic, “Free will – a slave”. After he dealt with the effect on sin on the spiritual life of man, Charles Spurgeon went on to describe the eternal effect of sin. He said:
Oh, had I words that I might this morning attempt to depict to you what eternal death is. The soul has come before its Maker; the book has been opened; the sentence has been uttered; "Depart ye cursed" has shaken the universe, and made the very spheres dim with the frown of the Creator; the soul has departed to the depths where it is to dwell with others in eternal death. Oh! how horrible is its position now. Its bed is a bed of flame; the sights it sees are murdering ones that affright its spirit; the sounds it hears are shrieks, and wails, and moans, and groans; all that its body knows is the infliction of miserable pain! It has the possession of unutterable woe, of unmitigated misery.
The soul looks up. Hope is extinct—it is gone. It looks downward in dread and fear; remorse has possessed its soul. It looks on the right hand—and the unyielding walls of fate keep it within its limits of torture. It looks on the left—and there the rampart of blazing fire forbids the scaling ladder of even a dreamy speculation of escape. It looks within and seeks for consolation there, but a gnawing worm hath entered into the soul. It looks about it—it has no friends to aid, no comforters, but tormentors in abundance. It knows nothing of hope of deliverance; it has heard the everlasting key of destiny turning in its awful wards, and it has seen God take that key and hurl it down into the depth of eternity never to be found again. It hopes not; it knows no escape; it guesses not of deliverance; it pants for death, but death is too much its foe to be there; it longs that non-existence would swallow it up, but this eternal death is worse than annihilation.
It pants for extermination as the labourer for his Sabbath; it longs that it might be swallowed up in nothingness just as would the galley slave long for freedom, but it comes not—it is eternally dead. When eternity shall have rolled round multitudes of its everlasting cycles it shall still be dead. Forever knows no end; eternity cannot be spelled except in eternity. Still the soul sees written o'er its head, "Thou art damned forever." It hears howlings that are to be perpetual; it sees flames which are unquenchable; it knows pains that are unmitigated; it hears a sentence that rolls not like the thunder of earth which soon is hushed—but onward, onward, onward, shaking the echoes of eternity—making thousands of years shake again with the horrid thunder of its dreadful sound—“Depart! depart! depart! ye cursed!” This is the eternal death.
This is what Isaiah 1:28-31 talks about.
The context
Punishment on the unrepentant
Rebels and sinners – the context: those who forsake the Lord – to act as if God does not exist, to have no regard for God.
Broken: Crushing, devastation, trample.
Perish: a state of ruin or destruction, with a focus on a lack of state of existence
False Gods cannot save
Sacred oaks, gardens: worshipped idols and committed act of sexual immorality.
Ashamed: to have a painful feeling and emotional distress (sometimes to the point of despair), by having done something wrong, with an associative meaning of having the disapproval of those around them.
Disgraced: have dismay, be in confusion, be abashed, i.e., have feelings of anxiety and distress. Dishounered.
Delight: wealth, formally, coveted, i.e., pertaining to a collection of objects which constitute far more that normal in society.
Choose: make a selection between two or more options; preferred, chosen, i.e., pertaining to a preference between two or more options; to try and learn the genuineness of an object by examination, and observing reaction to a standard.
Mighty man: Feels good as a result of his choices. He hoarded many things by his choice. This word can also mean wealth. But destruction awaits.
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:18-21)
Verse 31: Destruction: Fire ! Ashes!
You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you. The peoples will be burned as if to lime; like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.” You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge my power! The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?” (Isaiah 33:11-14)
Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch!
It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again. (Isaiah 34:9-10)