I mean, we've got to have a ready response to whatever happens and not complain about the good old days, to stay focused on what the mission is in front of us. And the prophets, they did just that. They had to live through watching their kingdoms fall apart while they preached. But there were righteous people who benefited from what they had to say, not only in their lifetime, but through the ages.
Israel was supposed to be the land of milk and honey, and they turned it into the land of wine and money. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 28 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Isaiah chapter 28, tedious teachings.
I'm not talking about myself. Tedious teachings with a question mark is the title, Direct Prophecy and Predictive Prophecy, taking place at the same time, and that is the habit of the prophets in the Old Testament. The direct prophecy is, this is what you've done against God. Or it could be positive, and this is how the Lord's going to bless you because. But of course, in this case, it's going to be in the negative.
That's the direct part. The predictive part is, here's what's going to happen in the future. And so Isaiah is foretelling the future, the events related to the present conditions, and this is the work of the prophet. Every prediction he made came true, or everything before the last days, which we are leading up to in our lives. Many of his prophecies, his future prophecies, came true in his own lifetime, but others did not.
For instance, the coming of Messiah. He got it so accurate, that fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. And so every prediction he made in relation to judgment did come to pass on the northern kingdom and on Judah, but there are so many other prophecies he made that unfolded as the centuries passed by and are still unfulfilled.
Now he's going to return to the crisis at hand. Remember, he lived his whole life under the shadow of the Assyrian threat. In the last three chapters we've been talking about, Isaiah's look forward into the future kingdom of Messiah. Well, now he comes back to the times that he lives in, in this 28th chapter, where Israel's northern kingdom rebelling against the Assyrian threat, they will be dealt with, they will be destroyed and assimilated amongst the Gentile peoples in that region. This would serve as a warning to Judah to get your act together, which they held it together pretty well for about a hundred years and then it all caved in. Chapters 28 through 35 focus on this very thing, the Assyrian threat. And these woes that come with it in chapter 28, 29, 30, there are six of them, well they are all focusing on Jerusalem and the consequences of disobedience. And what we're getting in this chapter is what the prophet had to put up with, just to tell the truth.
We should all identify with that. You know, what do you have to put up when you tell the truth to someone who is not born again or to someone who is in flagrant sin, blatant sin, and they don't want to hear it? This is what the prophet had to deal with, the scoffs and the threats and the nasty looks.
But he was unswerving in his loyalty, turning neither to the right or to the left, stayed right in his lane of truth and faced those who fought him every step of the way. You would think, someone who says that they are Christian and goes to church and make no attempt to follow what the scripture said, these are the people he had to live with. They were claiming Yahweh, they were claiming to be Jews, well they had their séances and did all the other things that they committed. Now incidentally, when the northern kingdom falls, the Assyrians take the surviving Jewish people out from the north and they disperse them throughout other conquered territories and gentile lands, and then they bring some of those gentiles from those conquered territories into what was once the northern kingdom.
Then it becomes Samaria. And we read a lot about Samaria in the New Testament, Jesus and his parable of Samaritan, because the Jews hated them. They looked down upon them. You say, well who did they not hate?
And it's something we all have to watch. Well, we're looking at verse 1 now. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower which is at the head of the verdant valleys to those who are overcome with wine.
Well, Ephraim's the northern kingdom, it was the larger of the tribes at some points. And the Hebrew word of course, woe, is not good. And so he starts out, you've built up a lot over the years, you've become a beautiful place. God has blessed you even though you have mocked him, but you're going to lose it all. The Assyrian scourge is going to snatch it from you. He says to those overcome by wine, well we have heard of alcoholics anonymous, these were alcoholics arrogant. They were drunkards and they were arrogant and the prophet is calling them out on it. Pride, the alcohol formed a double trouble for the people living in this area. I mean it would have been bad enough if their leaders were drunkards, but on top of being drunkards they looked down on everybody else, they treated the lower class as though they were all servants and insignificant. And they abused them. And the prophets took note of these things. Especially Amos, who they tried to chase him out of the land. They got sick and tired of him daring to tell the truth about them. Isn't that funny? You catch a liar in a lie and he's offended.
I mean how does that work? You catch a thief stealing something and he's offended. It's the madness that sin, what it can do to us, clouds judgment and how it makes fools of human beings. So by themselves, again, drunkenness is destructive enough to those within its reach and you add to that this pride that made an archangel a devil and you really have a problem. And that's what the prophet starts out saying. He says you had such potential, the northern kingdom. So beautiful, so verdant.
Even to this day you go to northern Israel, it's beautiful there. And they threw it all away and Ephraim, once so powerful, will now have its head on the chopping block. And you look at America and the false religions that are running wild here in America, you find that people are honoring what is false and trampling what is true. It's like they're committed to hating Christianity without which there would have been no land of the free home of the brave. But they bypass all that trying to revise history and we're looking at them and you're saying how can God bless us in the face of the Chinese communists that are growing larger all the time?
You have this insanity of the homosexuality, the false religions, this trans stuff. You say how can God bless the land? What's the church supposed to do? I would like to see churches be more churches. Just buckle down and be churches. What a privilege, what an honor to just be able to preach God's word, to assemble, to sing songs to the Lord, to shake hands with your brothers and sisters once or twice a week because that's about all we could take. It's a joke.
What a privilege. But what we have, new churches starting up and it's the same thing as the other churches. There's nothing new. Why start a new one?
Why not double down with the other guy? Anyway, this is weakening us. The word of God is, you say well, this verse by verse, this expository teaching, is it useful? Well let's point to some times in history, of course in the book of Acts it was very useful.
There we read that the word of God was magnified and the church multiplied because of the simple preaching of the simplicity of the faith, the simple preaching of God's word, not going to God's house expecting something other than to hear from God, from his word, from those who he has assigned the pulpit and those who have a word in season. And then we come to let's say the dark ages, the middle ages of western civilization, where the word of God was hidden from the people, withheld from them. You'd get punished if you knew scripture. And when they found someone that was trying to give scripture to the people, they would try, they often did kill them.
I mean they tried to get John Wycliffe but he died before they could get to him but they did get to William Tyndale. They burned him at the stake. Their hatred for God's word in the name of the church was so vehement that almost 80 years later they dug his corpse up to drag it through the streets. Punish you for liking God's word. So we know what happens when God's word is gone from a society. You look at the history in Asia, the treatment of people in the Arabian world, wherever God's word was withheld or blacked out, people run amuck.
They become places you don't want to live. And so as Christians hopefully we're going to fight and stand our ground and not turn to the left or right and learn our lessons from men like Isaiah who had to deal with people who mocked Bible teaching. This is too tedious and doesn't apply to us and who do you think you are? That's what he got. And he kept moving forward.
Of course when we get to chapter 40 he just turns it on completely. So in a single paragraph the prophet epitomizes the warnings that Amos gave to the people, this pleasure-loving drink-sodden city of Samaria. Amos says, but you gave the Nazarite wine to drink and commanded the prophets saying do not prophesy.
You stumbled them. People who are trying to draw close to God, you did everything you could to stop them from doing that, to corrupt them. And then you told those who preached the scripture to shut up. Amos continues, hear this word you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands bring wine, let us drink. That's all they wanted to do is get a high or worse, again in Amos chapter 6, who drink wine from bowls.
If you could drink from a swimming pool you would. You drink wine from bowls and anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. In other words just trample on the lower classes. You don't have a middle class because then you'd have opposition and that's what we're trying to do, seeing this takeover attempt in America. Let's get rid of the middle class. We just have the upper people who know how to get elected and nothing else, and we'll have the poor dependent on us.
So this is all Satan's work. We should be in tune to it and have a ready response. So I was speaking with someone and he says at the rate this is going we'll be speaking China in a year. It started out by me saying pray for our president, because if anything happens to him you know what's going to happen to us, because who steps in his place?
Well I thought you would be yep, okay, anyway, let's do hand puppets now. It's true. I mean if the vice president becomes president we'll be speaking Chinese very quickly, and so my response when he said that was well then we'll be preaching in Chinese. I mean we've got to have a ready response to whatever happens and not complain about the good old days, to stay focused on what the mission is in front of us, and the prophets they did just that. They had to live through watching their kingdoms fall apart while they preached, but there were righteous people who benefited from what they had to say, not only in their lifetime, but through the ages. Israel was supposed to be the land of milk and honey, and they turned it into the land of wine and money, and God is calling them out. You see you're a bunch of drunkards who abuse people, they've taken all my blessings and ruined them, and Assyria is, you're on Assyria's to-do list, and Judah you too, because much of Judah suffered during this time, just because Jerusalem was spared a hundred years, the rest of Judah did not do so well. Verse 2, behold the Lord, and he's going to come back to calling them drunkards, behold the Lord verse 2, has a mighty and strong one, like a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty waters overflowing, who will bring them down to the earth with his hand. Well he's talking about the king of Assyria when he says a mighty and strong one, and this is from chapter 8 and verse 7, and so we don't have to guess about who he's talking about, God is saying the Assyrian king is going to come and he's going to deal with you drunks, and not that God hates the drunkard, but these people, anything God came up with they resisted, they felt it was their duty to disagree with God, and that's why the prophet suffered so much, as I read from Amos, and the same with the arrogant people, you know, God didn't hate them, he gave them every opportunity to repent, we'll come back to that later, verse 3, the crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim will be trampled underfoot, yeah, because they were causing so much destruction in the lives of so many people, it wasn't like they were home harmless, not bothering anybody, they had political power, and they hurt people with it, how God is a God of love, but he is also a God of wrath if provoked, and they were masters at provoking him by this time in their history, these are lessons for us says the apostle Paul, says the Lord Jesus, do not be deceived, Paul wrote, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap, you sow in hope to be righteous, to be like Christ, you will reap that, in spite of your failures, but if you sow in evil and could care less about what Christ has to say, that you will reap also, it's judgment, John 3 19, and this is the condemnation that the light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, well the Christian that struggles loves the light, that's why the struggle is going on, there would be no struggle if he loved the dark, he wouldn't care, and that's Christ calling them out, he continues the Lord does, John giving us these intense lessons, he who believes in the son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him, so the New Testament continues, it doesn't stop, it doesn't say oh you know what, the Old Testament was so harsh, it says let's get this out in the open, let's make sure you understand what's taking place here, it is about faith because without faith you can't please God, it's not possible, once exposed to his truths you have a decision to make, verse 4, and the glorious beauty is a fading flower which is at the head of the verdant valley, like the first fruit before the summer, which an observer sees, he eats it up while it's still in his hand, I think he's a little wordy here, but he's saying whatever blessings you enjoy now will abruptly stop, and when you look at the ruins of great civilization you say at one time this was the happening place, this was where people came, they would come from other lands, just be here, and now it's ruins, it didn't last, they were not righteous, the Roman Empire, the Greekian cities, all of these things are subject to the authority of God, verse 5, we'll take 5 and 6, in that day Yahweh of hosts will be for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people, verse 6, for the spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. Now he just briefly shifts, it's sort of like someone saying well what about the righteous Isaiah, what's going to happen to us, and he says well in the day of the Lord, glancing forward the prophet says to the end times, when the Lord finally judges humanity and he becomes the judge who is not going to be arrogant or drunk, and then he says those of you who persevered, those of you who plowed in righteousness to the honor of the Lord will be honored by the Lord, that's us too, that doesn't stop with the generation Isaiah was preaching to, well Isaiah's generation to whom he was preached, his audience ongoing, here we are part of the audience of what he had to say, things did not originate with him, they came through him from God.
And so this contrasts to the crown of pride in verses 1 and 3, the arrogant, a crown of glory, a diadem of beauty here in verse 5, for that remnant, that surviving minority that believed in the Lord in spite of what was going on around them, it says here in verse 6, for the spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and for strength, the earth mourns for the spirit of justice, there's this injustice everywhere, and the most intelligent beings are the most guilty, because it's not instinct that causes them to be evil, it's sin, it's choice, and in the millennial kingdom it won't be tolerated. So today, suppose you're a policeman and your partner is a crooked cop, and you're watching him stealing drugs and money from drug dealers, you're afraid to blow the whistle on him because your colleagues might turn on you, and should things get nasty out there in the streets, maybe they'll shoot you in the back, by mistake. And so you have to, you know, you're stuck, well in the millennial kingdom it would be the other way around, you do something dirty, you will be called out instantly, it will not be tolerated, largely because we will be in government positions, in our glorified bodies, we'll not be subject to temptation and sin anymore. We won't be frightened to withhold what we say, what we feel. Today if you go in the workplace you say, that is crazy what you people are doing, you're fired.
Well, that would be the other way around, if you come out and say something crazy, you're going to have trouble. Revelation 2, Jesus, speaking of his people that stick with him, he shall rule them, his people will be deputized, this belongs to Christ, he shall rule with a rod of iron, and then he extends it to those that are ministering with him in the millennial kingdom. And he says he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels, there's no tolerance. In verse 10 of Revelation 5, this is the second time it's said in Revelation, it's said elsewhere in scripture, that he has made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on earth. And in that reign, in that position of authority, there'll be no corruption, there'll be no taking bribes.
Again, someone goes to cover up a crime or a sin, it'd be dealt with right away. So it'd be a rude awakening for anybody who has nefarious intentions, who will not be like it is today. For that, Jesus would say, let's just keep going the way we are.
It's not going to go on, things will not be as they are. Thank you, Lord. He says, and for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate, evil makes it all the way up to the gates, it's a serious force. I think we do well to remember when we're dealing with sin in our lives and those around us that when we say it is war, spiritual war, it is every bit spiritual war. We might not see limbs flying off of people and people zipped up in body bags, but we see people become apostates and backsliders, we see troubles in homes, we see what sin does.
It is very serious business. And I find the older I get, except when I'm in the pulpit, the more quiet I become. I spend a lot of time talking to God, but he doesn't talk back so much.
I'm telling you that so in case you, he does talk, but he's done a chatterbox and aren't we glad. Well, anyway, those giving resistance to evil, they are the ones that God will honor. And when Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth, that's what he's talking about. You're resisting the evil, you're doing something about it, you're not joining them.
You're in the light of the world, it's not enough to resist, that's just defense. The offense is you're shining the light, the very light that the world wants to snuff out, the very light that many Christians have died shining. Verse seven, but they also have erred through wine, so he goes back to that, and through intoxicating drink, the priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink, they are swallowed up by wine. They are out of the way through intoxicating drink. They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
He's just warming up on this group. Now he's dealing with the clergy, he's dealing with the pastors. The priest and the prophets were to shepherd the people, spiritually. And of course, not only were they failing, they couldn't care.
All they were interested in was themselves, and I'm sure whatever monies they gained from the contributions of the people, they drank it. So verses seven through 13, the prophet now reveals how the message was received when he said, you know, you're the drunkards, you're the arrogant. Now he's going to tell us, and this is what they said in return to me. This is such a vivid picture, you'd think that, well, maybe Isaiah actually saw these things that he's about to say and dealt with it, and I believe that is the case. Unhallowed, carousing with the wicked, the priest and the prophet alike, overcome by strong drink. And then, their taunting of the prophet is recorded when he says, Isaiah repeating them, who's he going to teach? Who does he think he is? Teach us.
And his response will be, you're going to find out. Wait till the Assyrian gets his hands on you. The priest and the prophet, it says here in verse seven, have erred through intoxicating drink. Well, how can one function in ministry if, you know, they're inebriated, if, you know, their judgment is now off, how can you trust what they're going to say when they're giving you advice or scripture, are they sober-minded or not? Where's the integrity?
You have to work to guard these things. And again, I'm not bashing people who struggle with these things. I'm bashing those who are guilty and don't struggle and I'm not doing it, the scripture does that. And that's true for all the sins. If you're a thief and you don't like being told that God condemns the thief, then it's on you. Not in the mean spirit about it, just these are the cold facts.
Maybe no one ever told you these things. I know this audience, you have heard it, but maybe you will encounter those who need to hear it from someone else. Anyway, alcohol clouded the judgment and that can't be good for anybody, especially when it's clouding the judgment of people in authority. Would you want the guy who fixes your breaks to be under the influence of some substance?
I would rather not. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick, right here on Cross Reference Radio.
