It's not like, well the lepers remember what the lepers did? And you go do it and you find out, oh man, this was a bad idea. Don't go blaming God. Take your wounds, learn your lessons, keep moving forward.
That's the response. Others have gone, stepped out and been shattered. I trusted God and look what happened.
Well, what are you going to do now? You're going to lose your faith. You're going to lose your God because it didn't turn out the way you wanted to.
You better fight that resentment, that flesh rearing its ugly face. The coming indwelling of the Holy Spirit on their nation. Isaiah had a lot of reason to mope. He had a lot of reason to be a righteous man. You know, Solomon says this in the Song of Songs in chapter 2, verse 2.
Like a lily among thorns is my beloved. Well, that's what the Lord says to the church. Whose fault is it that a church is not what it should be? Revelation chapter 2 and 3 tell us it's the church's fault. The church that is aberrant or apostate cannot blame anybody else but themselves. They cannot say, well, the news media made me do it, the universities, the seminaries. You know, righteousness is about the people. And Isaiah, living in the times that he lived in, he saw the majority of wickedness amongst people who claimed to be the people of God, and he never let it drag him. We have no evidence of it dragging him down. Could you imagine?
Who'd want to hear from him? He goes up to the pulpit moping. Well, let's turn to Genesis chapter 1.
We're doomed as doomed can be. In the 17th verse, he says the work of righteousness will be peace. Well, peace is a fruit of righteousness because the turbulence comes from unrighteousness.
Imagine if you didn't have to have locks and keys and weapons and things like that. Verse 19, though hell comes down from the forest and the city is brought low in humiliation. You know, when I'm prepping for this many times in these harder chapters of Isaiah, it's going to change again later. It becomes, it is a forced march. It is one foot and step in front of the other and don't faint. Don't pass out.
Just make it to the finish line. And then I come up to the pulpit and it's like the lights turn on. It all comes to life. It all comes together. And it is probably that way with you if you get to tell your children Bible stories. You know, you open up, maybe you're not in the mood and you open up and you want to tell them the story of, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah. Kidding.
It's really not your first choice. But it comes to life. And that is the Spirit of God indwelling in us that does that. And that's okay because the flesh is the one that has to be beat down. And it is beat down by being addressed or ignored. Sometimes you have to let it just die from neglect or resist it from neglect or resist it from action. It's not, you have to resist it but you're not going to kill it. So when James says resist the devil and he shall flee, what a perfect choice in our English language because that's the best we can do to the devil is resist him. We cannot execute him.
One of the many complaints we have about this life. Verse 20, blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out freely the feet of the oxen and the donkey. So there's going to be just this freedom. Hosea chapter 10, sow for yourselves righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your follow ground for it is time to seek Yahweh till he comes and rains righteousness on you. Now Hosea is a little bit older than Isaiah in the northern kingdom gone.
But that's what we tell our flesh. Sow righteousness, reap mercy, break up the ground that needs to get the seed. When Jesus said some of the seed fell by the wayside, that's the ground that was not followed. It has to be broken up if that seed is going to get in there.
Isaiah 33 now. Now we come back to the Assyrian aggression. Verse 1, woe to you who plunder though you have not been plundered and you who deal treacherously though they have not dealt treacherously with you. When you cease plundering, you will be plundered. When you make an end of dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you.
Yeah, because their power is going to be zapped. The Babylonians will do that to them. This is the sixth woes given by Isaiah beginning in chapter 28. The first one was to the drunkards, the arrogant drunkards of Ephraim.
Big difference between someone struggling with an addiction versus the arrogant one struggling with an addiction. Then the second woe was to Jerusalem, to Ariel. You were supposed to be the lion, the place where sacrifice to God took place, but you became something else. Then the woe to those who were making plans without Yahweh for deliverance, God's people.
It was okay for godless people to do it, the idolaters, but those who claimed Yahweh doing it, that's unacceptable. The fourth woe came to Judah's politicians and now we have Sennacherib is going to be judged at this point. And we've got a little bit to say about him because he was treacherous in unbelief. Righteous King Hezekiah tried to buy his way out of the Assyrian army coming. There were two invasions by the Assyrians about 15 years apart, not exact, but they're about. And the first time Isaiah just stripped the temple, just paid, just leave us alone, here's the money. And they made a covenant with Hezekiah. Well, Hezekiah broke the covenant, the agreement, and he invaded Judah anyway in time. He was a thief, and a traitor, and a tyrant, and God is promising to deal with him, to judge him for that. He destroyed others.
And so he would be destroyed. God is not mocked. The sinner will reap what they have sown in unrighteousness, they will reap in judgment. The righteous are forgiven.
It's really a fair deal when you think about it, not to God to us, it's not a fair deal, it's a great deal. Anyway, the destroyers will be destroyed for his treachery. King Hezekiah, a good king, made a foolish call and God was so merciful to him and he appreciated that mercy.
He did not, it was not wasted on him. When we get to Isaiah 37, that parenthesis in Isaiah, we read, Now it came to pass as he, Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, was worshiping in the house of Nishrok, his god, that his sons struck him down with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat and his other son became king. So that's how it's going to go for him. Well, Isaiah is calling it before it happens. He's saying the Assyrian king will be dealt with. I mean, that's fantastic.
Who can do that? Someone that's filled with the Spirit of God. Verse 2, O Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you.
Be their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. So here's this outburst of intercession and an appeal to God, interceding for the people and himself when the Assyrian army arrived. And God's response was, I am going to spare Jerusalem, but I'm going to use them to judge you because this idolatry has got to be dealt with.
So he says, we have waited for you. And the righteous suffered during that waiting period, incidentally, and remained righteous. And the wicked, of course, they opted to go to Egypt for help and attempted to silence the prophets. Verse 3, at the noise of the tumult, the people shall flee.
When you lift yourself up, the nations shall be scattered. Verse 4, and your plunder shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar and the running to and fro of locusts. He shall run upon them. Well, I guess he was into insects a little bit, too.
He's a lot of nature. He's a lot of things that he brings up in his writings, flowers and things like Solomon, and it's admirable of him. Well, this part of the prophecy looks beyond actually Assyria, but it includes them, the Lord's protection over Israel. A similar thing had taken place with Elijah, the prophet. This is the problem Gideon had. Gideon said to the angel of the Lord, which is Christophany, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. He said, you know, where's the God of our fathers?
How come our fathers had miracles? But I'm hiding in this winepress threshing wheat. I should be up on a high place threshing wheat, but I've got to hide. Where's the blessings? And the angel never answers him, old man of valor. So coming back to this, when Isaiah, in his day, the angel of the Lord comes, wipes out 186,000 of the Assyrian troops.
Well, before that, in the northern kingdom under Elisha, the prophet, the Assyrians surrounded Samaria. And the four lepers, they were, listen, there's a siege going on. We're starving to death.
We're going to die either from starvation or they're going to kill us when we go ask for food, or they're going to give us food. So they decided, let's go ask the enemy for food. And so in the middle of the night, these four lepers are trekking through, you know, the area, and it's a hilly area.
Samaria was a natural fortification, and that's one of the reasons why. And the Assyrians, they hear this clunking, it's amplified in their heads. They think it's the Israelite army coming at night and doing a night mission on them.
And instead of, you know, fortifying the line, they panic and they run. And it was dinnertime. So these lepers show up, hungry and leprous, and what's a leper to do? They gorged. So they became fatter lepers, and they just ate the food and they, you know, realized this is just not right. We've got to go tell the people that are starving, which I would have said if I were one of the people. Okay, you found the food. Which one did you touch?
You were like, did you touch that pear? Because if you did, I'm not eating it. All right, anyway, I'm the only one that can envision these things, I guess.
Maybe you get it. Anyway, anyway, anyway, God is able to deliver his people. It's a wonderful story. It's a venture of faith. But here's the thing about a venture of faith. You can step out in faith and get slammed around pretty good. So it's not something to be trifled with.
It's not like, well, the lepers remember what the lepers did, and you go do it, and you find out, oh man, this was a bad idea. Don't go blaming God. Take your wounds, learn your lessons, and keep moving forward.
That's the response. Others have gone, stepped out, and been shattered. I trusted God, and look what happened.
Well, what are you going to do now? You're going to lose your faith? You're going to lose your God because it didn't turn out the way you wanted to?
You better fight that resentment, that flesh rearing its ugly face. Verse 5, the Lord is exalted. He dwells on high. He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. Now, he's not talking about his lifetime. He's moving forward.
He weaves in and out, and you've got to keep up with him. Verse 6, wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times and the strength of salvation. The fear of Yahweh is his treasure, spoken as if already fulfilled. If he was preaching this, these kind of things, how would the people know when he's shifting gears? Content is one. Tone might be another. His tone may shift. So when you get to the Song of Solomon, which I think was a play also, a song part of the play, we don't have a lot of the music that went along with it. It's very difficult to sort out, okay, who's speaking now?
But it is possible. Verse 7, surely their valiant one shall cry outside. The ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly. Verse 8, the highways lie waste. The traveling man ceases. He has broken the covenant.
He has despised the cities. He regards no man. And so now he's coming back to Assyria. He's talking about Sennacherib. Your Bibles might have the pronouns he, the pronoun he capitalized, indicating that this is Yahweh that is being spoken of. But in the Hebrew, it's not that way. There's some debate amongst good Bible teachers. I think that the proper understanding is Isaiah is talking about Sennacherib. He is the one that has shut down interstate travel with his army. So when you look at it again, he has broken the covenant. Well, God didn't break the covenant, but Sennacherib broke it with Hezekiah.
He has despised the cities. Well, he's conquering, as I read from Kings, he's conquering these fortified cities. He regards no man.
I think it fits best to say that this is Sennacherib. It fits best on him. If you were to say this is God, well, you could, but I think it would be, in the back of your mind, you would be saying to yourself, this doesn't fit. Again, back to Song of Solomon. You know, you say to yourself, if this is a love song, why does he show up with his harem?
She's kind of like, wait a minute. The beloved can't be Solomon. That's the shepherd. And the Shulamite is the one Solomon wants to take as his wife. But she doesn't want him. She wants the shepherd.
And she hangs tough the whole time. And that's the glory of the story. And it probably was based on, at least, Abishag, maybe Solomon, who knows where he got his idea. He was a really smart guy, even though spiritually he was dumb. But he got too smart for his own good.
He felt that he could use politics to make Judah super strong. Anyway, verse nine. Did I complete my thought with that on Solomon?
The thought was, the point was, things have to make sense to draw a conclusion. And when you go through the Bible, if it doesn't make sense, you're either missing something, or you are missing something, more than likely. And in the Song of Solomon, as I used to read it, I said, but this doesn't fit. Solomon can't be the lover.
It's just not right. And most modern, almost all the modern Bible scholars say, you know, that Solomon is the lover. And the older ones don't. I go with the old timers on that one.
The old timers don't get it all right, but they get a lot of stuff right. Sometimes I go back to Matthew Poole, who was a Puritan. Some of the other guys don't want to, they want to skip a verse. Matthew Poole or Matthew Henry, if you want to read 50 pages to get to one sentence of a point, Matthew Henry's your guy. Even Vernon McGee said, he's one of the most boring of all. But he's deep.
He's worth it. Anyway, verse nine. The earth mourns and languishes. Lebanon is ashamed and shriveled, and shriveled. Sharon is like the wilderness. Bashan and Carmel shake off her fruits. Well, Bashan, those cows, you know, that ain't misreferenced.
They were known for their cattle. Carmel, not Carmel by the sea, Mount Carmel not there. This is in southern Israel, south of Jerusalem. Sharon by the Mediterranean Sea, verdant, you know, just fruitful.
But because of the Assyrians, everything was all messed up. Verse 10. Now I will rise, says Yahweh. Now I will be exalted. Now I will lift myself.
And so now he's going to intervene. The prophet sees this coming. You shall conceive chaff, which is very, you know, kind of creative writing. You shall bring forth stubble. Your breath as fire shall devour you, verse 12. And the people shall be like the burning of lime, like thorns cut. They shall be burned in the fire. Well, that happened to their army. He is talking about the swift destruction of the Assyrians, that their plans will amount to nothing.
It will be a thorough thrashing, a rout of the entire army. Verse 13. Here, you who are afar off, what I have done, and you who are near, acknowledge my might. That's what the preacher should say. Verse 14. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites, who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire.
Who among us, is the question, who among us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? And so now he calls for conviction. He's warning them things are not going to go the way you think. The hypocrite is going to be convicted.
Going to have an opportunity to fix it or not, Peter said. But there are also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you. Unfortunately, many Christians just gobble them up, gobble it up.
Anyway, verse 15. He who walks righteously and speaks unrightly, he who despises the grain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from seeing evil. Now he makes this contrast of the righteous man, who, I don't want to hear more about this violence and stuff. I don't want to hear anymore. Stop, you know, he's kind of like, shut that off. Shut the news off or something. He cannot stomach evil, getting away with evil.
Bribes, I don't want that. So, the New Testament says it this way. Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, are of good report, meditate on these things. Because those other things will just suck you down. It's harder to pull up someone than it is to pull them down. Well, God never said that he didn't promise us a rose garden.
It is a struggle, but it's worth it. And so, verse 15, the righteous man, he gestures with his hands, he refuses to bribe, he stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, he shuts his eyes from seeing evil. If he can't do anything about it, he's not going to wallow in it. Verse 16, I love that verse. Verse 16, he will dwell on high, his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. Bread will be given him, his water will be sure. So, God delivered and God governed. Verse 17, your eyes will see the king in his beauty, they will see the land that is very far off. Well, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Verse 18, your heart will meditate on terror. Where is the scribe? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts towers? You see, this is why the Bible is so hard to understand sometimes for us, right? Like, what is that? Well, to meditate on the terror, it's a memory. Yeah, I remember when. And so the Isaiah is saying, there's going to come a time when these things are just going to be a past memory.
He's not being literal, he's just saying they're going to end. The government clerks, where is the scribe? Where is he who weighs the national accountants? Where is he who counts the towers and military commanders?
He's very poetic in his question and answer format as Paul adopted. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? So, Isaiah is saying the day is going to come where there will not be this need for military and accounting.
Everything is going to be honorable and it's going to be radically different. Verse 19, you will not see a fierce people, a people of obscure speech, beyond perception of stammering, a stammering tongue that you cannot understand. And so the foreigners coming into your land, not going to happen. Verse 20, look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feast. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home, a tabernacle that will not be taken down. Not one of its stakes will ever be removed, nor will any of the cords be broken. This sounds like heaven to the Jews in those days.
Can this possibly be? You know the Bible tells us more about heaven by telling us what's not there than what is there. What is there is the throne of God, but what is not there is sorrow and tears. And that's what means so much to us. Well verse 21, but there the majestic Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams in which no galley with oars with sail or majestic ships pass by. So commercial shipping will be drastically decreased because they'll be self-sufficient.
They won't need to import anything and there won't be much need to export either. Verse 32, for Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh our lawgiver, Yahweh our king. He will save us. And there's the king, our king now, moving from a king, the king, these authoritative titles of judge, lawgiver, and king. Verse 23, your tackle is loosed, they could not strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail. Then the prey of great plunder is divided, the lame take the prey. And so the animal that was being chased, Israel, by Assyria ends up the winner.
Assyrians ended up shipwrecked is the idea. Verse 24, and the inhabitant will not say, I am sick. The people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity.
And that's the kingdom age, where Messiah is on earth, reigning Jesus Christ, the same one that was crucified, risen again, and no more, you know, I'm feeling a little sick today. It won't happen. But we'll be marrying mass because Fauci will have control over that part.
No, that would be a nightmare. I know we might have gone late, but this is what graduate school is about. 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.
