One of the meanings of a cult is that they're brainless. They're brainless followers of their cult leader. Just follow their leader, whatever he says. Anyway, themselves misguided the blind lead the blind. The priests and the prophets were supposed to be a righteous influence, but now Isaiah says they're staggering drunk around the city, comfortable with the tables of filth that they put themselves around.
They're comfortable with the puke. That's what he says. 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. Isaiah chapter 28 is the text Pastor Rick will be teaching from on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. 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.
He 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 then 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 get stuck. Well, in the millennial kingdom, it will be the other way around. You just 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. Well, 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 spent 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. And 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 you've gotten 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 thirteen, 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 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 until the Assyrian gets his hands on you. The priest and the prophet, it says here in verse seven, have erred through intoxicating drink. How can one function in ministry if they're inebriated? If 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. Anyway, a judge has a lot of power to decide the future of people, and these prophets and these priests, they were pretty much, you know, they had that authority. They were like judges.
They had great influence. Well, you know, you got to say, it's probably even worse when you have sober judges that are unrighteous, because they can't sober up and become clear thinkers. They're like that all the time. Anyway, they are swallowed up by wine. He says they are out of the way through intoxicating drink, and he's a word play here.
He's just a very funny guy, and he's a very clever and intelligent man. He says you're swallowed up by the wine. You swallowed the wine, then the wine swallowed you.
That's what he's saying. First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes the man. Better to not have that first drink. I would say that about any substance that's going to muddle the thinking. Again, it's not a sin, but dangerous stuff.
How do you know if you can handle it or not? Until maybe it's too late. Anyway, they are in vision. They stumble in judgment. Those entrusted with guiding the people are making these calls. So you get somebody in a pulpit preaching heresy and people listening to them, not challenging them. One of the meanings of a cult is that they're brainless. They're brainless followers of their cult leader. Just follow their leader, whatever he says. Anyway, themselves misguided the blind lead the blind. The priests and the prophets were supposed to be a righteous influence, but now Isaiah says they're staggering drunk around the city, comfortable with the tables of filth that they put themselves around. They're comfortable with the puke. That's what he says. Look at verse 8.
For all the tables are full of vomit and filth, no place is clean. I don't ever tell me I'm a hard preacher. You're just complimenting me. Of course, if you're being malicious, that's malicious intent. But when any of you are dealing with the truth and the guilty are around you or the suffering, there's going to be fallout, but it's not maliciously intended.
Dealing with the curse is not a plaything. Anyway, again, it sounds as though the way he writes this is that he's had encounters with these religious drunkards. And whenever that word is one of many other words, the same thing, but when that word vomit shows up, it demands attention. I mean, you just don't dismiss it. You know, if you come to someone and you say, I think I just vomited.
You might not want to hear it, but it's too late. This is what we have in front of us. And one of the things this means about this word that cannot be ignored is that everything that comes out of these drunken, arrogant priests and prophets, these pastors, everything that comes out of them is equivalent to vomit. That's the point he wants to make.
He makes it, and he makes it in front of everybody. When his congregation heard it, I'm sure they said, amen. We know he had students that referred to disciples in earlier chapters. Isaiah must have taught different levels, age levels, because they're going to say, who was he thinking, talking to one of his children now?
Not children, as in students. When he says no place is clean, it's comprehensive failure due to men siding against God. And it is frustrating that most of the people in the church embrace this, and the people we have to go rub elbows with do not.
But that's our mission. Even the priests and the prophet have become compromised by depravity, the lowest level of human behavior. In verse 9, whom will he teach knowledge, and whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk, those just drawn from the breast? So now he gives the taunt, he's writing for us the taunt that he's receiving. The pronoun, he, that's him, Isaiah. And they're saying, who's Isaiah going to teach? There's an ominous reply for them in verse 13 when he says, wait until the Assyrians get their hands on you. You find out if you understand the teachings then, and later he's going to fling their own words back at them. Anyway, in Judah there were scornful people. These are in the northern kingdom, they're scornful drunks. The Judean scorners, they seem to be sober.
They're still, still falling far beneath what they should have been. And so they're saying to the prophet that we're not kids, and you don't talk to us this way. Precept upon precept, we'll open that in a second.
Alright, well I guess a second is here. Verse 10, for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. Now I got to say right away that this verse is often quoted out of context. It's not God saying precept upon precept, here it's not saying that. Although that is what God does teach. Jesus said, not a jot or a tittle will pass away.
I think that's precept upon precept. We read this of Moses in Hebrews. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with the water, the scarlet, the wool, the hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people. So there in Hebrews, Paul is saying, Moses paid attention to the precepts, the expository teaching, the verse by verse, and he itemized all these things that we would otherwise be bored with. My point is the Bible does teach precept upon precept.
Where the misquoting comes in is people are often quoting this not realizing that they were taunting the prophet when they used these words. So a precept is a command, it is a rule, and it is a principle, and there's subtle differences. A principle is a lifestyle.
You go by that fence, you fence yourself with that principle around you, integrity. So a precept may not be in a command in this sense, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Well that's not a commandment. But, but, it is founded on the first commandment, because without that first commandment, you shall have no other gods for me, there's nothing to God so loved the world. Well, what god?
You can have any god. So these little subtle differences are the things that the prophet would teach on. Maybe not on this particular one, but certainly not on John 3.16 yet. But he would just, he would teach like this, and they didn't want it.
They just wanted their next drink and the power that they held over the people. And so they accused him also of repeating himself, and that's why it's repetitive, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line. Well why don't you just say it once, because it's kind of tough hearing a person repeat themselves unnecessarily sometimes, not when pastors do it.
Of course not. Anyway, they're rejecting his style of ministry, and refusing to take him seriously, that he was to teach children, that's why they make the reference to those who are just weaned. It's idiomatic in the Hebrew, told by those who study the language that is a little jingle to this.
And the end result is blah, blah, gar, gar. But the words precept, that's what it is in the Hebrew, but it's the idea behind what is being said, monosyllables, because you know, we're not little children Isaiah, talking to us like, you know, in baby talk. All of that is baked into the Hebrew, and it gives us a picture into who these men were, those smart alecks that they were, mocking, Isaiah's going to mock them back.
He's going to, don't mess with him, he's too smarter than all of them, and not bashful about it, you know. Paul, when Paul dealt with the Corinthians, he put on kid gloves, he really did, especially when he tells them about tongues, we may come to some of that, he's just very gentle with them. Isaiah's not going to be gentle with these guys, but there's a wordplay, a poetic wordplay that he is using here, he's mocking, in this speech he's sort of sounding like a drunkard, because they accused him, because they were drunkards. It's baby talk, that jab they took at him in verse 9, who are you going to teach? And then, he's also baking into this intelligible language, coming from the Assyrian conquerors. So verse 11, for which stammering lips and another tongue he will speak to this people. Yeah, that's the Assyrian foreign language that he's talking about, if you can't understand my Hebrew, try understanding the Assyrian Akkadian language, that's where this is going. Make nonsense of God's sense, and you will find yourself in a place where you don't understand the things you must understand or suffer.
And which is ultimately in the judgment, where this chapter ends, this chapter ends with the judgment to come. And soon these people in the north will be deported to foreign lands, and they will be forced to hear the babble of the foreigner's tongues, along with the false and seductive religions that they will be subjected to, the gibberish of lies about God. So when Rabsheka comes, the general of the Assyrians, he gets to the gates of Jerusalem, we get to the latter chapters of Isaiah, when he gets there, he's speaking in the Hebrew. And the representatives of King Hezekiah ask him not to speak in the Hebrew, because they don't want the people on the walls to hear what the conversation is and become frightened.
And of course Rabsheka, obnoxious as he is, he doubles down and says it louder. But the idea is that they spoke Rabsheka's language, the people did not. Well when the people of the north are taken captive, they're not going to understand the Assyrian language, and that's what Isaiah is saying, you're going to be conquered. And because you wouldn't understand the plain truth of the prophets, you'll just get what you want, you won't understand the plain truth of those who conquer you either. Now when you get to Corinthians 14, Paul quotes this verse from Isaiah, and he's saying to the Corinthians, he's saying Corinthians, Isaiah is not applauding that which is unintelligible. When Isaiah used these words that I'm quoting to you, he was saying to a people who were against God, that they were going to be judged. And he's saying to the Corinthians, understanding is critical as Christians. You're not to come to church and start speaking in tongues and nobody knows what you're saying, and then say this is a blessing. And don't hide behind Isaiah's verse, saying well God's going to speak in this language, no he's not. He's not out trying to confuse people, he wants his people to understand, and you're going to redirect the blessing of tongues into something it never was meant to be. And so Paul and Corinthians, I guess I should just take that, well let's just take verse 15 where Paul says to them, what is the conclusion then? I will pray with the Spirit, and I will also pray with understanding, and that's it right there, they weren't doing that in Corinth, many of them. He says I will sing with the Spirit, I will also sing with the understanding.
And so you had this madhouse, this element in that church that was just emotional and bringing a lot of pagan stuff in, and Paul's trying to get a hold on it. And then when he finally gets to this he says in verse 21 of 1 Corinthians 14, you know why is this complicated? Well because people have complicated the whole thing of tongues, tongues are like.002% of your Bible and like 20% of the problem many times. He says in the Lord is written with men of other tongues and other lips, I will speak to this people and yet for all that they will not hear me, says the Lord. And so when Paul quotes that he is saying God is not applauding ignorance, he's condemning it. And when Isaiah told that to the people it was because they were mocking what God had to say, don't use Isaiah to try to defend unintelligible tongues, that's what he was saying to them. So I hope that clears some of it up to you. The Bible is not condemning one speaking in tongues, it is condemning one speaking in a way that nobody knows what they're saying and then acting like, see that was God.
No that's not. It offends a lot of people to hear that, they want to be, they want to be unintelligent. I attended a church that when someone would stand up and speak in tongues I would go like that and sometimes no one would stand up to give the interpretation, but their doctrine was that you can only speak in tongues if there's an interpreter. So the pastor would do it and that's just like wait a minute, that's not right. You're waiting for someone to give the interpretation when no one does you just magically have it. He said well maybe he had the gift, well either way. He was interrupting what he was teaching anyway. So you have two problems there and then he would give the interpretation and it would be like that was the same thing he said last week.
It was a mess I thought. Anyway, coming back to this, verse 12 and again if you pointed out to people it's so ingrained, it's become a sacred cow in many circles in Christianity. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God because we understand it and that's why. Verse 12, to whom he said this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest and this is the refreshing, yet you would not hear. Verse 13, but the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and caught. And so the prophet says yeah, oh here's your own words back at you.
And by the way, here's the conclusion, you're falling backwards, you're going to be ensnared. God tried to reach you, he tried to refresh you with truth, but you couldn't be bothered. Bible stuff was just tedious teaching to you, so boring. That's what Isaiah is doing when Peter, he and John go into the temple in Acts chapter 3 and the man is begging for money, which is understandable. Peter says I don't have any money, silver and gold have I none, such as I have give I thee and in the name of Jesus Christ arise and walk and the man was cured. And then Peter drew a crowd and this is what he said to them, repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
Well that's what Isaiah is saying here in verse 12. This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest and this is the refreshing, yet they would not hear. 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.
