Isaiah 6–12

0:00 Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Third Avenue. Glad you are here with us this morning. Let me invite you to take a Bible, turn over to the book of Isaiah, chapter 6. That's where we're going to be this morning. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. We're going to be looking at seven chapters of the book of Isaiah this morning. We're actually going to be, over the next couple of months, looking at the entire book of Isaiah, all 66 chapters of it, which means that if it's 66 chapters and we're going to look at it in 11 weeks, We've got to be moving through it at a pretty good clip. So something like five to seven chapters a week is what we're going to be looking at, at least on average.

0:36 So let me bring you up to speed before we kind of get going here on this particular section of the book that we're looking at. Bringing you up to speed just a little bit. Isaiah, this book that we're looking at in the Bible, was written about 2,750 years ago. Now, that could just wash over you as a kind of historical thing, or you can sort of soak in it for just a second. This book that you and I are looking at today is about 2,750 years old.

1:08 It's incredible. And you and I have the privilege of looking at it this morning, not only because it's old, but because it is also part of the written Word of God here in the Bible. If you're using one of these pew Bibles in front of you, you'll be able to find Isaiah, the start of our passage anyway, chapter 6, on page 571. Otherwise, if you will drop your Bible open to a little bit right of center, you might hit Psalms or Proverbs, you might hit one of the other prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. But somewhere in there you'll find Isaiah, and you can turn over to chapter 6.

1:42 This whole book, all 66 chapters of it, was written 2,750 years ago by a prophet named Isaiah, who is without a doubt one of the greatest prophets that ever lived in the ancient nation of Israel. He's great for a lot of reasons. For one thing, he's known as one of the major prophets, which means essentially that he just wrote a big book, right? So you've got in the Old Testament, you've got those that are known as major prophets, then you've got those that are known as minor prophets. That has nothing to do with their relative importance, right? all the major and minor have to do with is just that the major ones wrote big books and the minor ones wrote relatively little books. That's what that means. Isaiah is one of the major ones. But even as one of the major prophets that wrote one of the big books of the Old Testament, he's also extraordinary just for the amazing picture that he gives us of the coming Messiah. In our scripture reading this morning, you remember we read about the announcement of the angel to the Virgin Mary that she was going to bear a son, and that that son was going to sit on the throne of his father David.

2:44 Well, that's the sort of thing that Isaiah is talking about from start to finish. He's telling a nation that is sunk down in sin and ultimately in exile and destruction, he's telling them, you, even you, should have hope. Because there's a great king coming, and that king is ultimately going to set everything right. Honestly, we don't know a lot about the prophet Isaiah. We know a lot about what he wrote about. We have 66 chapters of things that he said and things that he wrote, but we don't know a lot about him.

3:16 What we do know from what we can tell from the book of Isaiah itself and also from 2 Kings, what we do know is that he prophesied in the southern kingdom of Judah after the civil war in Israel broke the nation into two pieces, northern kingdom of Israel, southern kingdom of Judah. We know that he prophesied in the southern kingdom over a period of something like 50 years. It's a little bit hard to date it, but it's something like 750 B.C. running all the way up to 700 B.C. So you're talking about, you know, 700 years or so before the birth of Jesus.

3:49 We also know about Isaiah that he prophesied in just a crazy, dangerous time for his nation. His little nation of Judah, which was made up of just two of the 12 tribes of Israel that remained loyal to the throne of David. That little nation of Judah was being pressed on all sides by gigantic empires at this point in its history. It wasn't always that way, but through history you would have these giant empires that would rise up around the nation. Israel remained small. It remained small and relatively powerless for most of its history.

4:21 But these huge empires would rise up around it as the centuries waxed and waned. And at this point when Isaiah was prophesying, it was a particularly dangerous time. because you had an ascendant kind of Egypt to the south. Extremely powerful Egypt. I mean, think Sphinxes and pyramids and pharaohs and gold and all the rest of it. Egypt is insanely powerful during this time. You've got the Babylonian Empire rising up over here in the east, getting more and more powerful. And ultimately, that thing's going to end up dominating the world. And then especially, at least for the portion of the book that we're looking at today, you've got the empire of Assyria in the north.

5:01 So Egypt in the south, Babylon over here to the east, and then this rising empire of Assyria in the north. And all of these countries are pressing in on this tiny little nation of Judah. You wonder what's on the west. It's just ocean. That's all that's on the west. So there's nowhere to run. You can't get away from them in the west. You're completely surrounded if you're the nation of Judah. So it's an insanely dangerous time. Now, why do I tell you all of that? I mean, am I telling you that just because it's kind of political history because you kind of need to know it to understand the book?

5:33 Well, yes, that's part of it because there's a lot of names and there's a lot of nations mentioned in the book of Isaiah. And if you're at least a little bit familiar with that political history, you're going to do better understanding the book. But I don't just tell you that stuff because it's political history, though. I tell you that stuff because the political history that's going on in the nation of Judah and around the nation of Judah, that political history is critical to the spiritual message of Isaiah. And the reason it's critical to the spiritual message is because those political troubles and those political pressures were presenting the people of Judah with their greatest spiritual trial.

6:18 Well, what was that? Well, it was the question. It's the question that drives the book. It's the tension that runs through the entire thing. Were the people of Judah and their kings in particular, were they going to seek security in the midst of all these political dangers? Were they going to seek security by snuggling up to one of those great powers, Egypt or Assyria or Babylon over here? Were they going to snuggle up to those powers to protect them from evil? Or were they going to trust in the promises of God to secure them and save them and keep them safe?

6:51 That's the main spiritual struggle of the book. It's the main spiritual tension of the book, and it's the main question even in our text today, as you'll see as we go through it. Now, if you'll just take your finger, you can leave it in chapter 6 there, but just kind of flip through, you know, just get a feel for how, you know, this is a thick book, right? I mean, it's big, 66 chapters, but it has a structure to it, right? It's not just a big bowl of spaghetti with a few favorite passages in it that make it onto our Christmas cards. It's a book that's got a structure, it's got a feel, it's got a weight. And the main way Isaiah is structured and divided is that it is broken very neatly into three huge parts, you might call them, or books, or chapters, or whatever you want to call them.

7:35 It's broken into three of them, each of which focuses on a central saving figure. So let me tell you what those are, because over the course of these 11 weeks that we're studying this book, I want this division of Isaiah to be driven so deep down in your mind that you can say it in your sleep. That's what I'm going for. By the end of this, I'm going to be like turning to you and saying, hey, how about you tell me the structure of the book, right? I'm catechizing you in this. So here's how it breaks down. Chapters 1 through 37 are the book of the coming king.

8:07 Somebody asked me last week, are you sure it's 37 and not 39? It is in fact 37, Greg. 1 through 37, 1 through 37, the book of the coming king. 38 to 55, the book of the suffering servant. And then 56 to 66, the book of the anointed conqueror. Okay, raise your hand if you wrote those down. That's like 10 of you. I should give you a pop quiz right now and just see how you do with it. I'll say it again so you can write it down or at least get it into your head.

8:38 1 through 37, the book of the coming king. 38 to 55, the book of the suffering servant. And 56 to 66, the book of the anointed conqueror. And what happens in the book is as this coming king and as this suffering servant and as this anointed conqueror are described in the three books. You know what the hook is at the end? You know what the great twist is at the end of the book? It's that the coming king and the suffering servant and the anointed conqueror all turn out to be the same person. Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

9:10 That's Isaiah's hook. Now that may not be super surprising to you because when you as a Christian hear coming king, you think Jesus. When you think suffering servant, you think Jesus. When you hear anointed conqueror, you think probably Jesus, right? It's not a common term in the New Testament, but you think probably Jesus. But to Isaiah and to the people who were reading Isaiah at first, that hook at the end that the king and the servant and the conqueror were all the same thing would have been mind-blowing. Because they would have realized that what God was going to do in order to save them from their sins was to send a divine, conquering, suffering, dying king to stand in their place and be the sacrifice for their sins.

9:48 Would have been utterly mind-blowing to them. Well, today, we're looking at a portion of the book of the king. So a portion of chapters 1 through 37. But these seven chapters that we're looking at, 6 through 12, are not just any portion of the book of the king. In fact, I think you could probably argue that these seven chapters are really the crown jewel of the book of the king. Because these seven chapters, this section, which is very much a contained thing. I didn't just make this up. This is a contained thing.

10:19 And there are reasons for understanding that 7 through 12 is a thing all into itself. This portion presents more clearly than anywhere else in the book a vision of the coming Messiah who was going to save the people from their sins and the destruction that their sin inevitably brings. You don't find another place in the Bible, well, at least another place in the Old Testament, which presents the king as clearly as these seven chapters. Well, as always with Isaiah, understanding any passage that you're reading in Isaiah requires you to understand the structure of that passage.

10:54 It's just completely critical to understanding it. If you dive into a portion of Isaiah without an understanding of how the thing is structured, you're going to be mostly lost. I mean, it's like walking around in a cathedral that you've never been in before, right? There's just this, there's this little nook and cranny and that, and then you go into this huge room with its vaulted ceilings, and you know that's important, right? But what is that room over there, and what's that room over there, and what's going on? And you're just wandering around this cathedral, and there's beautiful stuff, but you have no idea where you are until you see a map. You see a map of the cathedral, and you can go, oh, well, that's how that fits together, and oh, look, that thing is kind of in the shape of a cross.

11:31 It's an amazing thing when you have a map, and you can kind of see where you are as you wander around the cathedral. What I want to do in giving you these little outlines each week that you'll find either in your bulletin or maybe you could have picked one up out in the entryway. But at any rate, this little outline that's titled Outline of Isaiah 6 through 12. I don't get super creative with these things. Outline of Isaiah 6 through 12. This is going to be one of your best friends. So what you should do is set this down on your knee so that as we jump around in this passage a little bit, it will not feel so much to you like jumping around.

12:06 It will look more to you like looking at parallel passages in this thing as we go. So take out that outline. Let me explain to you the structure of Isaiah 6 through 12. So a couple of things that I need to note, first of all. There is a typo near the bottom that should say 11, 1 through 16, not 6, the reign of the Davidic king. If you think that's a 6, you're going to wonder what happened to verses 7 through 16. But they're in there. 11, 1 through 16, the reign of the Davidic king.

12:39 Also, I think most of your handouts are going to have little letters next to some of the lines. A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. Raise your hand if your handout's got the A, B, C, D's. That's the vast majority. If your handout does not have A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, you need to put it in there. So look at one of the 90% of people around you that do have A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. And put the A, the B, the C's, and the D's where they belong by looking at your neighbor's handout. Okay. So looking at the structure now.

13:10 What you've got here in Isaiah 6 through 12 are basically four big sections. You've got chapter 6. That's the beginning of the whole thing. It's kind of a header on this section. You've got Isaiah's vision and call there, this magnificent vision. We'll look at some of the details of that. Then chapter 12, at the end of it, a song of praise for everything that's about to happen in the middle two sections. In the middle two sections, so chapter 7 through 9-8, so chapter 7, chapter 8, and about half of chapter 9, you've got God's message to Judah, the southern kingdom.

13:43 So God speaks to Judah, to the southern kingdom, and he says certain things. From the middle of 9, so verse 8, all the way through chapter 11, you've got God moving his message, so to speak, to the north. And he gives a message to the north, which it turns out is very similar to his message to the south. Hence the A's, the B's, the C's, and the D's, right? So if you look at the A sections, what you've got is a question. Is Judah and her king, is Israel and its king going to believe the word of the Lord?

14:17 Are they going to trust God? So that's the question in the A sections. Will Ahaz, the king of the south, believe God's word? And then in the A section in the bottom, you know, chapters 9 through 11, you don't even really get the question. You just get the answer. The northern kingdom rejects God's word. That's where it starts. But the grand drama through the whole thing is will these two nations, Judah in the south, Israel in the north, will they believe the word of God? That's A sections. B sections, both of them, describe the invasion of the Assyrian empire from the north.

14:48 Now, there are some differences, primarily that the northern kingdom gets completely wiped out and the southern kingdom barely survives. They almost get wiped out, but they don't quite. But that's what the B sections describe as this invasion of the Assyrian armies into both of these nations. The C sections, which we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on, have the same exact message. They say different things, but they have the same message. You can read them later if you want to. God's enemies are doomed. They're going to get wiped out. The Assyrian army is going to get wiped out. And no matter what the destruction God has visited on his people, there will be a remnant that's saved.

15:23 There will be a few people whom God snatches out of the fire like a burning twig. That's the message of C. And in D sections, at the end of both of these messages, you've got, of course, the reign of the Davidic king. The reign, that is, of Jesus being prophesied 700 years before his birth. So that's how the passage works. Now, I realize that even this far into this thing, you may be thinking, why are we doing this? Why are we giving up a perfectly good, well, at least almost good, but slightly rainy Sunday to sit in this room with several hundred other people and study this almost 3,000-year-old book?

16:05 And I'm not going to lie to you. That's a good question. It's a good question. And the reason it's a good question is because this book can be sometimes difficult. I mean, anytime we come to a book and I have to give you a handout to explain it, that means it's a particularly difficult book, right? And I'm trying my best to help you understand it. But it can be a difficult book. There's difficult sections. There are names that we don't find familiar. There are structures of language and thought that just are not like ours, and we have to work to get our heads around it. But here's the thing, I think as we study this book, you're going to find out and see that these people who read and wrote this book, the prophet that wrote this book and the people who read it, are really not that different from us after all.

16:50 The defining question of their lives, which comes through loud and clear, even in this section, the defining question of their lives was, will you trust God or not? And it's the same question that defines our lives as well. Will you trust God or not? The main idea of this passage is this. Our God reigns, and therefore your trust belongs in him alone. Our God reigns, and therefore your trust belongs in him alone.

17:22 I want to look at this text in four points, four parts. They just correspond pretty much to the four parts on your handout there. Here they are. Number one, looking at chapter six, our God reigns. Our God reigns. That's chapter six. Point number two, your trust belongs in him alone. And in that point, point two, we're going to be looking at the A sections. Point number three, because he will judge, so your trust belongs in him alone. Point number three, because he's going to judge, we're going to look at the B sections in that.

17:55 And then point number four, and he will save. We're going to look at C a little bit, but spend a lot of time on the D sections in that last one. So our God reigns, therefore your trust belongs in him alone. That's A sections. Because he will judge, B sections, and he will save. Kind of C and D sections. I think there are probably two main mistakes that you can make in a sermon like this one. Two main mistakes that you can make looking at a section of scripture like this one. One is that you can just decide, even like right now, that you're just completely bewildered by the details and kind of check out.

18:29 Like, I'm done with this. There are too many names, nations, things I don't know about, and so I am out. Friend, if you're tempted to do that, I hope you won't do that, at least not yet. I hope you'll stick with me for a little while and see what Isaiah has to say to you. Because, frankly, there's just too much at stake. This is, in fact, the Word of God, and there is too much at stake for you to just say to the Word of God, this is too complicated for me. It's complicated in its structure. It's complicated in some of its names and some of its history.

19:00 But, friend, it's not complicated in its message. And that's what you need to hear today. Be attentive to what God might have to say to you, even in the midst of the details that might cloud out in your mind. That's one mistake you can make. Second mistake you can make is that you can become so fascinated by the historical details and the structure of the text that you also miss what God might have to say to you. So yeah, maybe you're not going to quite get it this morning. And maybe you're going to want to get it.

19:31 Like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Tell me who Syria is again. And what's the difference between us, Syria, and Syria? And what's going on with Babylon and Egypt? And who's this Ahaz guy? I want to know all the details. Maybe you get fascinated with all that kind of stuff. And maybe you fool yourself into thinking that because you're fascinated with that stuff, you're paying attention to the Word of God. Friend, you're not. Not necessarily. You can get so fascinated with the details that you miss his message. Friend, keep in mind, keep in mind why God had Isaiah write this book in the first place.

20:04 It wasn't to give people a history lesson. It wasn't just to write down things that were happening in the contemporary world. It was to put on display the sin of God's people, their deserved judgment, and yet God's incredible grace and mercy to save them anyway. Even if you're fascinated with the details, don't let that be lost on you. Let's dive into it. Point number one, looking at chapter 6 here, your trust belongs in God alone. Your trust belongs in God.

20:35 Well, that's number two, sorry. Backing up. Point number one, our God reigns. I did not skip an entire point. Point number one, our God reigns. That's the first thing we need to understand. So we're looking at chapter 6. You remember last week that the prologue of this thing, which runs from chapter 1 through chapter 5, ended with, I think, just this incredible vision of this sailor who's out at sea, and he's watching this deadly storm roll in. You remember that? I mean, God had spent the first five chapters indicting his people for their sin, and then at the end of it, at the end of those five chapters, there's this sailor, and he's out on the ship, and it's rocking, and the waves are coming in, and darkness and despair are rolling in, and the message of that is judgment is coming, and it's inescapable. And so by the end of chapter five, as you watch the sailor out on the sea, your heart is supposed to be sinking as you watch the last dim lights on the shore blinking out as the winds of the storm start to blow. But then you get chapter 6, verse 1, which begins one of

21:37 the most mind-blowing chapters of the entire Bible. Look with me at chapter 6, and I'll start reading in verse 1. So remember, it's dark, storm rolling in, and then this. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting up on a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke and I said woe is me for I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the lord of hosts then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar and he touched my mouth and said behold this has touched your lips your guilt is taken away and your sin

22:37 atoned for. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then I said, here am I, send me. Now, one of these days, someday, I trust I will have the opportunity to preach a sermon on just this section of scripture, like just chapter six, or maybe even just chapter six, verses one to eight that I just read. And what I will do in that sermon is point out all the wonderful details of it. I will point out the places where it gets quoted in the New Testament. I'll point out the roots of it in other places of the Old Testament, and I'm not going to do any of that today. Oh, I know. Sorry, it's not my purpose. It's not what I'm doing today. What I'm doing today is not taking, you know, one, you know, giant diamond, like a, like a, you know, I mean, some of you watched the coronation, like one jewel in the king's crown. I'm not taking one jewel in the king's crown and doing that with it. What I want to do today is take that jewel and set it in the crown so that you can see how it fits with the

23:40 whole. That's my purpose today. I want to take these most famous passages in the Old Testament, chapter six right here about the vision, chapter nine, you know, until a child is born, a son is given, chapter 11, the branch of the, I want to take those most famous passages and put them where they belong in the crown so you can see how they're functioning in the book of isaiah so back up and think about it how is this vision that isaiah had of the throne room of god functioning in the book of isaiah how's it functioning well a couple of ways right i mean one it's the prophetic call of isaiah right i mean isaiah is having this moment where the lord is calling him into prophetic ministry and he's telling him go speak to the people which gets hairy a little later on we'll talk about that but that's what's going on he's calling him to prophetic ministry but also coming on the heels of chapter five and that sailor out in his boat getting rocked by the waves in the darkness coming in this chapter is a stunning declaration that the darkness that marked the

24:40 end of chapter five is not the last word at the end of chapter five you think it is you think the sailor is doomed but he's not god is still on the throne so that even when everything looks bleak and hopeless, when even the beloved King Uzziah is laying on his bed dying, God still reigns from heaven. That's how it's functioning in the book of Isaiah. I mean, you look at it, everything about the scene is meant to make your eyes wide and your jaw drop in a sense of just absolute unrivaled majesty. Isaiah says he sees the Lord sitting on a throne in the temple, but then he didn't really tell you anything else about the Lord himself. He tells you everything around the Lord. The train of his robe filling the temple. The seraphim, which is just an untranslated word for the burning ones. Seraph is burning. Im is a plural at the end of it. So the burning ones is what that word seraphim means. The seraphim singing praises to God as they swirl and fly around his throne with

25:45 their eyes covered and their feet covered. Look what they say there in verse 3. One called to another. It's like a reverberation around the throne of God. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. What does that mean? You see how holy is used there three different times? Holy, holy, holy. Hebrew, the Hebrew language, would sometimes use repetition for emphasis. So, for example, there are places in the Old Testament where the Bible wants to talk about a very deep pit, for instance.

26:18 And what the Bible will call it in Hebrew is a pit pit. So this is not just a pit, it's a pit pit. And if there's, you know, Solomon's temple with all of its gold, it's not just called gold, it's called gold gold. Because it's like taking gold and multiplying it by itself so that you get gold squared, right? Well, the only time in the Bible where this is done three times is right here with the word holy. And it doesn't just mean holy plus holy plus holy. It means holy times holy times holy.

26:48 It's exponential. This God is holy above all the earth. Okay, so what does that word mean? Holy, holy, holy, that's what God is. But what exactly does it mean? Well, believe it or not, no one is entirely sure what it means. Now, you have probably, some of you have been a Christian for a long time. and you're thinking well I know what it means and I will say well define it and you'll tell me something and I'll go kind of nobody's entirely sure what it means because there are no roots in like earlier language you've got to get the meaning of this word from the Bible what you get from the Bible is basically that it means something like separatedness so if something is holy it is separated from other things that are like it so for example the word can be used of priests as being separated from the other people of the nation, or it can be used of certain tools in the temple, right?

27:48 So this bowl that's used in the worship of God is holy. It's separated from other bowls that might be like it, or this spoon is different from, it's separated from others because it's used in the worship of God. When used of God, like here, it does mean separatedness, but if you look at the other uses of it in the Bible, and even right here, it seems to mean separatedness because of God's absolute moral purity and righteousness. That seems to be what it means.

28:20 I mean, at least that's how people tend to react when they're faced with the holiness of God. They fall on their faces like Isaiah does here, right? He falls on his face, but the reason he's falling on his face is not because the light's so bright or the glory is so big or the splendor is just unlookable. That's not why he does it. You see why he falls on his face. It's because he sees his own unrighteousness and realizes that he deserves to die. You see that in verse 5? I said, woe is me, I'm lost.

28:52 I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And then look what happens there in verses 6 to 7. An angel takes a burning coal from the altar before the throne of God with some tongs. Brings it to Isaiah and touches his lips with it and says, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. What does that mean? Well, in the Bible, what is the altar always connected with?

29:26 Sacrifice. Atonement. Salvation. As the story plays out through the entire Bible and into the New Testament, ultimately with the sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. So the angel's taking with tongs a coal from the altar of salvation, atonement, sacrifice, and touching Isaiah's lips with it and says, your sin is gone because of what happens right here on this altar.

29:58 Why does the angel take it with tongs? That's interesting, right? I mean, is it because it's hot? I mean, Isaiah survives. I assume the angel would survive. I mean, he's a burning one, in fact, right? He's already on fire. So I assume that reaching out and taking it with his hand out of the altar and touching it to Isaiah's lips wouldn't have killed him or hurt him too bad. Why does he take it with tongs? It's not because the coal is hot. It's because the coal, which represents salvation, is not for him.

30:33 You remember what Peter says, right? That the angels long to look into the mysteries of salvation that you and I as Christians know intimately. They don't know what it's like. They don't know what it's like to stand before God and to be guilty of sin and then to be forgiven. They don't know. Only you and I know that. Only us, as human beings, know what it's like to be forgiven by God. Salvation is something that only we know, not angels. Anyway, verses 8 to 13, God gives Isaiah his commission as a prophet, and it is the weirdest commission that any prophet has ever been given.

31:10 I mean, look at it. Look at verse 9. He said, okay, go. You know, Isaiah said, here am I, send me. And God says, all right, go. Say to this people, keep on hearing, but don't understand. Keep on seeing, but don't perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. So what's Isaiah going to do for his whole prophetic ministry? He's going to speak and he's going to preach. And what he's going to see again and again and again is that his very message, the very words that God gives him to speak into the ears of the people, are not going to do anything except pack the mud deeper and deeper and deeper into their ears so that they can't hear.

31:51 it's not that his message is so complicated i mean he's going to be accused later chapter 28 9 and 10 you can look at it 28 9 and 10 he's actually going to be accused of saying things so simply and so dumbed down that he sounds like a teacher of kindergarten students but the same thing even with that simple message the same thing is going to happen with isaiah's message that happens with jesus's parables and this this passage gets quoted later on in the New Testament about Jesus' parables. That simple message is going to get rejected again and again and again. And every time the listeners hear it, it's just going to pack the mud deeper and deeper into their ears. Now listen to me. Some of you in this room are in danger of being the target of this passage right here. And the reason you're in danger of being the target of this passage right here is because you yourself have heard the gospel over and over and over, and you continue

32:54 to reject it. And you're not rejecting it because you don't understand it. You're rejecting it because each and every time you hear it, you're just putting your fingers deeper and deeper into your ears. And your heart is becoming harder, and your ears are becoming more stopped up every time you come here. And friend, the terrifying thing about being the target of this particular passage, the terrifying thing about being somebody who packs the mud into their ears every time they hear the gospel is that you don't know when your ears are going to turn out to have been permanently stopped up and your heart so permanently hardened that it cracks into you.

33:38 And you know that can happen, right? It happened to Israel. It happened to these people. Friends, don't let it happen to you. Listen. Really listen to the word of God and turn to him in faith and repentance. So God tells Isaiah his listeners aren't going to do that. And he better prepare himself for that. This whole thing, he says, is going to end in judgment. It's going to end in, you can look down through verses 11, 12, 13.

34:11 It's going to end in judgment. Cities laid waste. People removed far away in exile. That's where it's all headed. But look at the very end of the chapter, verse 13. Though a tenth remain in it, the city, it's going to be burned again like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains after it's felled or chopped down. The holy seed is its stump. Now, what's going on there in the very last part of it is that he's saying the casualties in this thing, when I finally wipe Judah out, the casualties are going to be 90%, right? A tenth of it is going to remain.

34:42 It's going to be like an oak or a terebinth, which was another really strong tree. It's going to be like an oak chopped down to the stump. And the stump itself is going to be flame thrown and burned over again. It's going to be charred over on the stump. There's nothing left of it. Now that becomes a really critical image in the rest of the book, right? And that tree is no longer just the kingdom of Judah. It's the dynasty and throne of David. And the problem through the book, like one of the tensions that runs through the book, is that if you've got a scorched, burned-over stump, that doesn't give you a whole lot of hope that the tree is going to grow anymore.

35:14 But look at the last little bit of verse 13. The holy seed or the holy offspring is the stump. Now, that's a strange little sentence coming at the end of chapter 6 there. It's strange in the Hebrew. It's kind of got this, if you look at it in order, it's got this sort of Yoda flavor to it. It actually says, holy offspring stump is. So it's very strange. It's just, holy offspring stump is. But it's a little bit of promise there.

35:48 You're not sure at this point in the book what it means. But if you've read your Bible, that word seed or offspring ought to catch your mind. Because what you ought to be thinking about is first Genesis 3.15. I'm going to send another offspring to crush the head of the serpent. Or you're thinking about the promise to Abraham. Through your offspring, singular, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. And what Isaiah is doing here is just, he's just clicking on those just real quickly. This burned out, scorched, cut down stump is going to produce the holy offspring from Genesis 3 and Genesis 12.

36:28 So God reigns. That's the first point. And therefore, therefore, point two, your trust belongs in him alone. Your trust belongs in him alone. That was the question that was put to King Ahaz starting in chapter 7. Will you trust this God who reigns or will you not? So look with me at chapter 7. We're going to be looking at kind of the A sections here from your handout. So 7, 1 through 17, and then 9, 8 through 10, 4. We're going to spend most of the time on the first one, 7, 1 through 17.

37:01 But anyway, to understand what's going on here in chapter 7, you've got to understand a little bit, just a little bit. So stick with me of the historical situation. You will remember King Ahaz from our study of 2 Kings, I hope, if you were here for that study. He is, Ahaz is the worst king in the history of Israel, either north or south. Which is surprising because you're expecting the worst kings, the bad kings to be in the north, and the Davidic kings like Ahaz to be in the south. But the second king surprises you and says, no, no, no, no. The worst king of all is this guy Ahaz in the south right here in Isaiah chapter 7.

37:37 You remember certain details about him, right? He sacrificed his son in the fire to the false god Molech. He led Judah into the worst period of idolatry in her entire history. And basically he locked it down that Judah was going to go into exile in Babylon. Like it was during Ahaz's reign that God just said, that's it. We're done. You guys are going into exile. That was Ahaz's doing. Here, though, what's going on is that this wicked king Ahaz is facing a really severe political problem. See, the thing was, and you can kind of, you can check out here if this historical stuff doesn't interest you, but basically a nation called Syria, that's not Assyria the empire, that's little Syria, right?

38:15 Assyria is the empire. Syria is not the empire, right? Different nation. This nation called Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel had allied together and decided that they were going to invade the southern kingdom of Judah and kill Ahaz, kick him off the throne, and install somebody else as king. That's the political threat. So what happens in these first few verses is that Isaiah goes to King Ahaz. He tells him, look, God is aware of this plan between Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel to invade your land, kill you, kick you off the throne, and put somebody in.

38:47 God is aware of that plan, and he's not going to allow it to happen. Right? So you look at verse 7 there. It shall not stand. It shall not come to pass. That was Isaiah's message to Ahaz. Don't worry about it. The Lord is not going to let it happen. And then he calls on Ahaz, listen, all you need to do is trust in the Lord, and God is not going to let this thing happen. Well, in verse 10, you might need to turn the page, But in verse 10, the Lord makes an extraordinary offer to Ahaz.

39:20 He tells him to ask for a sign. And he even tells him, you can ask for the sign in the heavens. I'll do it in the stars if you want me to. Ask for it in the earth. It doesn't matter. Ask for any sign you want, and I'll give it to you. But Ahaz refuses. Now, he cloaks this refusal in some pious language about not testing the Lord. But the real reason is he doesn't trust God. He hasn't trusted God for his entire life. Hasn't trusted God for his entire reign. and he's got plans instead to go cut alliances with either Egypt or Babylon or Assyria or somebody to save him from these two little kingdoms.

39:52 So because of that, because Ahaz won't trust the Lord in the face of this threat, look what God says in verse 13. And God said, Here then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. You're not going to ask for one, but he's going to give you one anyway. All right, now that's one of the most famous promises in the entire Bible, right?

40:44 And as Christians who have read the New Testament, we know that this promise of Emmanuel being born of a virgin is fulfilled in Jesus, right? Like that's the punchline at the end of the book. But how is it functioning here in Isaiah? Why is Isaiah giving Ahaz this promise of a future Messiah? Well, it's a promise to Ahaz that within a very short time, these two nations, Syria and Israel, that are threatening him are going to be destroyed.

41:18 That's what it is. It's a promise that within a very short time, like before a baby boy who's born learns how to determine the right from the wrong, in that short amount of time, three years or so, both of those nations are going to be wiped out. That's the promise. Okay, so how does that work? Well, as is so often the case in prophecy, this prophecy has two fulfillments, right? One of the ways that we can mess up in looking at prophecy is to think that prophecy has one and only one fulfillment. So, Emmanuel born of a virgin, that's going to be Jesus, period, and it can have no other fulfillment.

41:53 This is not true. Sometimes a prophecy will be made, and you'll move through time, and pretty quickly you'll have one fulfillment of that promise. And then centuries later or years later, you'll have another fulfillment. And sometimes in the Bible, you even get four or five fulfillments of that promise and that prophecy as you make your way through time. Well, that's what happens here. So if you look at chapter 8, verses 1 to 4, not going to spend a lot of time on it. But basically, this prophecy of a time-keeping baby, so to speak, right?

42:23 Baby born, and by the time he learns to speak good, these two nations are wiped out. The first fulfillment of that timekeeping baby promise happens in chapter 8 verses 1 to 4 with Isaiah's own son. So I'm not going to go into the details, but that's what happens. You get timekeeping baby number one. That's Isaiah's son. And by the time that kid makes it to three years old or so, Israel and Syria are wiped out, right? They're gone. Timekeeping baby does his job. But then you've got this other thing that happens in a much longer horizon where Emmanuel, God with us, is born.

42:55 Okay, now don't get lost in the details, because I want you to see the point of this. The point of this is that God made a promise to King Ahaz that in a very short time, like three years or so, these enemies that he so much feared were going to be destroyed. And the question that Isaiah is presenting to Ahaz is, are you going to believe that or not? Are you going to believe that the Lord is going to keep that promise to destroy your enemies, or are you going to run away from the Lord and cut some alliance with Egypt or Assyria, the big empire in the north, in order to protect you.

43:29 I mean, it was actually amazing that God was even putting that offer to Ahaz. Will you believe the word of God? Because if you look at the other A section, we're not going to go there, but if you look at the other A section, 9, 8 to 10, 4, what you find out is that the question is not even put to the northern kingdom of Israel. It's just, you have rejected the word of the Lord, and that's that. It's over. So it's an extraordinary act of mercy that God even gives it to King Ahaz. Look, here's the lesson of this section.

44:01 What God wants from his people, what he wanted from Ahaz, even in the midst of this horrific threat, not just to his own life, but to his whole dynasty. What he wanted from Ahaz and what God wants from his people is trust. He wants faith. He wants reliance. You look at chapter 7, verse 9, and you can see that God just puts it straight to Ahaz in the very end of 7, 9. If you are not firm in faith, Ahaz, you will not be firm at all.

44:35 In other words, go find your alliance with Egypt. Go cut your alliance with Assyria. You can do that, but it's not going to keep you firm. The only thing that's going to keep you firm is faith in me, he says. See, faith isn't something that you just do at one moment, at the beginning of the Christian life, say. You know, we talk about it like that sometimes. Put your faith in Jesus, right? That's a momentary thing that you do. You do it in an instant. I put my faith in Jesus. I'm trusting in him. But it doesn't stop there.

45:08 You know, what God wants from his people day after day after day, what he wants his people to be marked by is faith. He wants us to trust him, to rely on him, to know beyond any doubt that he's got the power and the desire to finally work things out for our good. So friends, especially if you're a Christian, if you are a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, does that kind of faith mark your life? Not just as a thing you did some years ago, but as a day-to-day thing.

45:40 Does that kind of trust of God that Ahaz ultimately did not have, does that kind of faith mark your life? Do you find your sense of security, your sense of well-being in God and his promises? Or do you find that elsewhere? It's not always the easiest question to answer. Because most of the time when it comes to self-reflection, we're pretty quick to take a kind of glancing look at ourselves and say, yeah, trust in God. When our hearts are actually subtly looking for safety and security and well-being in other things.

46:15 Let me ask you another question that gets at this same issue. Think about your life as a whole From beginning to end What is it in your life that gives you a sense Or would give you a sense if you had it That your life was finally worth it That life was worth living That life was good That I was here for a purpose And I'm glad I was What is it that would give you that sense That life is worth it Some people might say It's success in business or success in politics.

46:49 I got elected to this office. Some people would say, I did well in sports. For other people, it wouldn't be anything quite so grand. It would just be, look, I got to live a quiet life. I brought up my children to be happy and healthy and well-adjusted. I brought them up even to be Christians. But whatever you've got in your mind in answer to that question, what would make your life worth it? Here's the question that I want you to pause and consider. What if that thing doesn't happen? What if that thing doesn't happen?

47:20 What if your child doesn't grow up to be happy and healthy? What if your life turns out to be wracked with disease and loss? What if you fail in your job or in your career? Maybe even worse, what if you fail in your career, but your best friend succeeds in hers? What would that do to you? Would that leave you bitter and angry? Would it take away your joy? Would it leave you crushed? Or if God were to do that to you, if he were to take away everything, would it just kind of clear away the brush of this world and reveal all the more brightly that your trust and your joy is in the Lord himself?

48:03 Look, friends, I don't ask those things just as some kind of hypothetical thought experiment. I don't ask those things because they never happen. I ask because those things do, in fact, happen. Jobs fail. Children get sick. spouses die, dreams fall apart. And you've got to be clear in your own mind and heart before those things happen where your trust, where your sense of security and well-being really lies, in those things that you want or in God. The first president of the United States, George Washington, in his inaugural address, or I think it was his farewell address actually, warned this young nation, the United States of America, against getting involved in what he called entangling alliances.

48:48 Now, what he meant by that was entangling political alliances, right? Like with France or with England. He didn't want the nation to get involved in that. But we, as individuals, like Ahaz, tend to get ourselves involved in entangling alliances with the things of this world, don't we? For what is there in your life that has you entangled, that has you convinced that it has the power to give you satisfaction and joy. Whatever that is, friend, whatever it is, whether it's your spouse or your children or your job, whatever it is, if that thing is competing with God, it is an idol. And when that happens, when you start counting on those things, when you start finding your security and your satisfaction and your identity in them, that is when you, like Ahaz, have not just gotten yourself into an entangling alliance, but you have gotten yourself into a covenant with death.

49:46 Brothers and sisters, guard against that. Your trust does not belong in the things of this world. Ahaz learned that lesson the hard way. Your trust belongs in the Lord alone. Why? Well, point three, because he will judge. This is looking at the B sections on your handout, the invasion. So by 718 or so, it's clear that Ahaz just, he's not going to believe God. He's not going to trust in the promises of God. So God tells him, excuse me, what the result is going to be.

50:17 So look at 718. In that day, the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt and for the bee that's in the land of Assyria. They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and the clefts of the rocks and on all the thorn bushes and on all the pastures. And it just goes on and on and on. It's about these armies of Assyria like flies and bees coming into the land. So you remember in chapter 5, that almost supernatural army that the Lord whistles for, right? He whistles for this army, and they come rolling over each other, not even breaking a strap of a sandal, and they invade the land.

50:49 Well, this is that army. I mean, we saw it in chapters 1 to 5, but here it is again. And look how he describes it in chapter 8, verse 5. The Lord spoke to me again, because this people have refused the waters of Shiloh that flow gently. and it's a strange way of saying you're refusing me, you're refusing God, right? Because you've refused me and you're rejoicing over King Rezin and the son of Remaliah, these alliances that you've made. Therefore behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the river, mighty and many the king of Assyria and all his glory, that's this army, and that army will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck.

51:35 And its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Emmanuel. You see what that's saying? What it's saying is that the armies of Assyria that God is bringing in judgment, they're going to destroy the northern kingdom. There's going to be nothing left of it. And those waters of Assyria, the judgment that Assyria is bringing, are going to rise all the way up to the neck of Judah. Right up to the point that they've got the city of Jerusalem, the capital, surrounded. Remember how that ended? From 2 Kings? The Rav Shaka? What happened to him?

52:06 We'll look at that in a few weeks, even in Isaiah. If you look at that other B section, though, chapter 10, 5 through 15, you'll see a whole other facet to this. It's still talking about this invading army of Assyria. But look at 10, 5, what the Lord says about this invading army now. He says, Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger. The staff in their hands is my fury. Against a godless nation I send him and against the people of my wrath I command him to take spoil and seize plunder and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

52:41 But he does not so intend and his heart does not so think. But it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations, not a few. Then just skip down to verse 15 where the Lord kind of asks the big question. Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it. As if a rod should wield him who lifts it or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood. It's fascinating, isn't it? It's just a fascinating thing to see what God says because what he's saying is, yes, I'm using Assyria to bring judgment against my people, but I have total sovereignty over all of this.

53:24 They may have it in their hearts that they're destroying nations. In their arrogance, they may think that they are overpowering God's people. They may think they're overpowering God himself. That's what the Rav Shaka says, right? If you remember that from 2 Kings, he literally exalts himself against God and says, I am defeating the God of hosts. Well, they may think that, but God says, no, no, no, no, no. You're just an ax in my hand. You're just a hammer that I am using for my own purposes. It's an incredibly important lesson to learn.

53:57 Brothers and sisters, you and I have to remember that even as we walk through a world that often seems like it is bent and determined to destroy the people of God. All those enemies of the people of God are just a hammer in his own hand that are accomplishing his purposes. Friend, it shouldn't be a surprise to you. If that's true, it shouldn't be a surprise to you when the world stands opposed to us and what we know from the Bible to be true. It's not something that we should be surprised by.

54:28 It's something that we should expect. Do you know what the prophet Daniel calls this time between the first coming and the second coming of Jesus, like this whole thing, like right where we are? Do you know what he calls that time? He gives it a name. He calls it the time of the shattering of the holy people. It's an incredible phrase, the time of the shattering of the holy people. Do you know what's going to happen to us in this age?

54:58 We, the people of God, Christians between the two comings of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are repeatedly going to be shattered by the world. And the only thing that's going to hold us together, the only thing that's going to give us hope is knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God stands behind it and is in total control. Friends, I think that of all the theological truths in the Bible, that one is ballast in my ship more than anything else. It's what gives weight to my ship.

55:30 It's what pulls me down into the water so that by God's grace, I don't, I hope, get blown around by every wind that comes along, but no, there's this ballast. Yes, that's happening. Yes, that's hard. Yes, that's difficult, but God wins in the end. It's what holds me together. But friend, if you're not a Christian, it shouldn't be something that's encouraging you to know that God wins in the end, it ought to be incredibly sobering. Because this is the sovereign God with whom you have to deal.

56:01 The God who always wins. I don't know how many times, I don't know how many times I've heard people say in one form or another, I will not bow my knee to that God. Oh friend, yes you will. Yes, you will. You will either bow it now when he offers mercy or you will bow it at the end under his iron rod. But you will bow your knee to him. What are you gaining?

56:34 What are you gaining by standing against him? What are you gaining by staying in rebellion against him? Nothing. You're not gaining anything because he always wins in the end. Friend, put your trust in him. Put your trust in him. He is the sovereign God and he will win And at least for now, his hand is outstretched offering you salvation. Our trust belongs in him, not only because he's judged, but also because he is savior.

57:04 That's the last point. He will save. Just looking real quickly at these C and D sections. We're not going to spend any time there. In those C sections of your outline, God promises that even with these Assyrian invasions, even as the army is sweeped through, he's not going to totally destroy his people. He's going to keep a remnant who are faithful to him and whom he will save. But the question is, okay, how? How does God save this remnant, right? If he's judging his people, if the fire of judgment is sweeping through in the form of the Assyrian armies, how does he save them?

57:36 And the last section of both of these messages, the D section, gives the answer. So you remember that burned over stump at the end of chapter 6, right? That the Yoda thing, holy seed stump is, right? You remember that? Well, that's how he does it. He does it by setting a new king on David's throne, by causing a little shoot to come out of that burned over stump that ultimately grows into a great oak. Our scripture reading from today said it. The angel said to Mary, you will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus.

58:10 He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. Well, again, we're not going to look at the details. But turn over to chapter 9, verse 1 to 7. That's the first D section. I actually did a whole sermon on this at Christmas. So if you want to go back and look at that, you can focus in on verses 1 to 7 and get all the details there. But look with me at verses 6 and 7. To us a child is born.

58:41 To us a son is given. and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor Mighty God Everlasting Father Prince of Peace of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end and he will sit on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this do you see what it's saying there in the midst of all the judgment in the midst of all the destruction there's a king coming who will bring peace who will bring an end to grinding oppression who will bring an end to grinding poverty to grinding evil who will be the prince of peace and of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

59:25 He's a wonderful counselor. He's an eternal father. He is mighty God. A phrase that's used only here and of God himself who rules in heaven. This king would be divine. Look at the other D section, chapter 11. same guy same king you can tell from what it says there in verse one there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord he shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins it's another picture of the king who's going to rule with unquestioned knowledge unquestioned wisdom and understanding

1:00:26 because the spirit of God rests on him he's a king who's going to rule with justice and righteousness not with oppression and selfishness and if you keep reading what you find out is that The most astonishing thing of all is that under this king's rule, the world itself is finally going to be remade. You keep that reading down through chapter 11, and you see that the child puts his hand in an asp's nest. Verse 6 there, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb. It doesn't really mean dwell. What it means is the wolf shall visit with the lamb. In other words, the wolf shall be under the lamb's hospitality.

1:00:57 It's like the lamb calls out from his sheep in, hey, hey, wolf, my friend, come on in. And the wolf is under the hospitality of the lamb. It's incredible. Christian, I wonder if you live your life in the blinding light of the hope of that new world. Because if you don't, if the light of that new world is not shining in your eyes, then life is going to be grindingly hard. Mike and Brandon and I did some hiking this past week.

1:01:31 And there's a big difference when you're hiking. Anybody that's been on a hike knows it. When you're in the portions of that hike where all it is on either side of you is just trees, it is a grinding, grueling thing after a while. Because you can't see anything. But man, when you pop out of that tree line and the mountains open up in front of you and you can see from miles into the distance, you know what that does to you? It says, I'm going higher. I got to get higher. I got to keep going. You pop out of that tree line, you let the light of eternity shine in your eyes.

1:02:06 What happens to you is not that you say, I think I'm going to make it. I think I can make it. No, you say, yeah, I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it because I know where I'm going. Friend, if that's you, if you're a Christian, if the light of eternity is shining in your eyes, then you know what happens? What happens is exactly what happens here in Isaiah at the end of this section. You break out in praise. Just as happens here in chapter 12.

1:02:40 You know what? I'll tell you what. We're going to do something just a little bit different to close the sermon today. We're going to end by doing just that. We're going to read chapter 12 together. So turn to Isaiah chapter 12. And read it with me. It's people who have that day shining in their eyes. You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord. For though you were angry with me, your anger turned away that you might comfort me.

1:03:14 Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted, sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

1:03:56 Amen. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and praise you that you are the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You are the child who was to be given, the son who was to be born to us, and so you were. You are the one who reigns. You are the one who lives. You are the one who is resurrected from the dead. And you are the one who has promised us that you are making a new place for us at the throne of your Father. Lord, we thank you for all of these things and we pray that you would let the light of eternity shine always in our eyes so that we might follow after you faithfully until that day.

1:04:29 We ask all of this in Jesus' name, amen.