Share This Episode
Cross Reference Radio Pastor Rick Gaston Logo

Rotten Apples (Part B)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston
The Truth Network Radio
December 19, 2024 6:00 am

Rotten Apples (Part B)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston

On-Demand Podcasts NEW!

This broadcaster has 1340 podcast archives available on-demand.

Broadcaster's Links

Keep up-to-date with this broadcaster on social media and their website.


December 19, 2024 6:00 am

Injustice and oppression will be dealt with. The sinful think that they are getting away with it, but Isaiah states that God is in control and that He has a plan to deal with it. Unfortunately the righteous remnant will have to suffer thru the existence of “Rotten Apples” living amongst them.

COVERED TOPICS / TAGS (Click to Search)
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Truth Pulpit
Don Green
The Urban Alternative
Tony Evans, PhD
Connect with Skip Heitzig
Skip Heitzig
Our American Stories
Lee Habeeb
Our American Stories
Lee Habeeb

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. Amos the prophet, who wrote in the earlier days of Isaiah, but to the north, he says, the prudent keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time. The evil had to wise up, the wisest serpent, harmless as doves.

So not only had public justice warped, but public opinion warped with it, and the individuals are accountable. The sins they did two by two, they're going to answer one by one. 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. Now here's Pastor Rick in Isaiah chapter 54 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Wasting and destruction are in their paths.

This is gangster behavior, ever prowling for criminal gains, always scanning the horizon to see what they can snatch from somebody else. Psalm 34, he devises wickedness on his bed. He sets himself in a way not good. He does not abhor evil. See, that's the difference between the righteous and the—one of the differences—the righteous and the unrighteous. The righteous hate evil, and that definition of evil is handed to us by God. God tells us what evil is because we were just limited to the things that offend us. God says, this is what offends me. These descriptions of their evil doings, verses 7 and 8, were used by Paul in chapter 3 of Romans to say, hey, humanity, you're all messed up.

You need a savior, whether you're Jew or Gentile. Verse 8 of Isaiah 59 now, the way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. Well, the travelers in the hill country of Judea would avoid night travel, at least that's what I've read, because of course in that hill country, there were some slippery slopes, and at night you couldn't see them. And in that darkness, you could die, fall off a cliff.

And if you've been to Israel, you may have seen some of those places, some of the tourist sites, the caves of En-Gedi. I mean, there's some very dangerous spots there. Anyway, whoever takes their way shall not know peace. So don't get mixed up with their unjust ways. You have to learn to spot wicked people from a distance. If not, you know, you get with the wrong crowd and you want them to accept you, and they say, hey, could you just drive us over here? Hey, sit out in the car and wait for us. And they don't tell you they're robbing the bank. And then you're the getaway guy, right? You go down with them.

You've just got to learn that rotten apples, they spoil the whole barrel. Verse 9, therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us. We look for light, but there is darkness, for brightness, but we walk in blackness. Now the prophet shifts and he's lamenting their condition. He moves from the ways of the wicked to the response of the righteous that have to live in that society amongst the rotten apples that are trying to get to them. So he surveys and he summarizes the state of Judah's kingdom at the time he's writing this. He speaks as a citizen among the ruins of his beloved Judah, not by outsiders, by insiders, a fifth column of wickedness, ruins caused by anti-Yahweh policies of that evil culture, and as stated in the preceding verses, but he's not done. So he starts this lamentation of the righteous over the deeds of the wicked.

He says the outlook is bleak because of them. What a beautiful phrase to have righteousness overtake you. But here he says, nor does righteousness overtake us. We're not filled with the spirit. Evil people do not care about waste or sorrow or the misery they cause.

They're just not even interested in that. They know it's evil and they've resigned to it. Verse 10, it's hard for good people to understand that because we say, I wouldn't do that.

Why would anybody do that? Well, they do do it. Verse 10, we grope for the wall like the blind. We grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as at twilight.

We are as dead men in desolate places. This is what the rotten apples have achieved in Judah, a nation that was given righteousness, but now they can't find righteousness because evil has overtaken the land, the politicians and the people who empowered them. Now, granted, they did not have voting booths to elect their leaders, but they did in their wicked hearts.

They were fine with it all. The law had very clear instructions about handling the things that these wicked kings were doing. There are some times that the people did resist. Josiah the good king, he overstepped, man. He was not supposed to step into the tabernacle of God to offer an incense. That was exclusively for the priest.

He couldn't say, well, I feel I have a calling on my life. They were about to take his life. They withstood him with weapons and had God not struck him on the head with leprosy, he would have gone violent. But that's an example of the righteous people standing up. Well, that means there were other times that they didn't stand up under kings like Ahaz and Manasseh. No, because they really liked these wicked policies.

No, good, this administration is going to change the law. You keep your change. Anyway, they didn't mind trampling the scripture and they committed themselves to their evil kings while the remnant stood firm, but the remnant were marginalized. What are so few amongst so many? You know, there just weren't enough righteous people to achieve anything. What he mentions here that the noonday and the twilight, they should have been able to see. They had the light of the law. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. They had that scripture already, but they couldn't see.

They didn't want to see. Moses called this long ago. Deuteronomy 28, 28. It's going to take Deuteronomy 28 and 29, but verse 28 is one for us to commit to memory. Here's verse 28. Yahweh will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart, and you shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in darkness. You shall not prosper in your ways. You shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.

Well, that's what happened to them, but let me back up a little bit. I said that was a verse to remember, but that's not, and I don't remember the verse to remember, so maybe I'll come to it later, but that's not the verse I wanted. Oh no, that is it. That is it.

See, even my errors are correct. The Lord will strike you with madness. That's the one. So let me put that in our language. The Lord's going to let you go crazy.

That's what that means. Manasseh, if he was the king, whether he was or not, the righteous did suffer under Manasseh, and I've been bringing him up, so now I'm going to give you his fall and then his salvation, which kind of just almost irks the righteous. Second Chronicles 33, 9, Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom Yahweh had destroyed before the children of Israel. Now, what the chronicler is saying is the people that, under Joshua, that pushed out those Canaanites, God listed the things they were doing and said, don't think you're better than them. They're doing this stuff.

Don't you do it, and that's what this reference there. Then 2 Kings 21, 16, Moreover, Manasseh shed much, very much, innocent blood till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other besides his sin, by which he made Judah sin and doing evil in the sight of Yahweh. And there's the rotten apple. He made others sin, but also he filled very much, he spilled very much innocent blood. No wonder the righteous couldn't stand.

No wonder they were marginalized. Second Chronicles 33, 10, And Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen. No, because they would kill those who would come and tell them God's word or persecute them in some other form. But then, by the time we get to Second Chronicles 33, what has happened is the Assyrians came in and they took him captive and they put hooks in his, likely his archeologists have discovered evidence of the Assyrians practicing putting hooks in people's noses with chains and leading them into captivity. Well, that's what they did with King Manasseh. Again, 55 years he was king.

Not all those years was he wicked. He did, and that's what I'm getting to. Well, anyway, the Assyrians come and they put the hook in his nose and they caught him off to Babylon, because the Assyrians at that time ruled Babylon too, until Babylon kicked back and overthrew them. But anyway, at that time, in his misery, we pick it up, Second Chronicles 33, 13, he prayed to Yahweh and Yahweh received him his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew Yahweh was God, and he goes on to then purge the land. But the damage was so extensive, it just really didn't take, and God brings that up later.

But what an amazing event. If a rotten man like him can get saved, then we should never lose hope, no matter how rotten we think someone has become. This is the opposite of verse 2, where Isaiah said, your sins have separated you. God's not listening. Well, here God heard the prophet, I mean the king, because his heart was genuine.

He called out, he supplanted, he asked God to help him, and God did. The most powerful force in life without Christ is the blinding power of sin. But Christ can overcome that.

Unfortunately, most people just don't care to avail themselves. In the dark ages of European history, it's better to say dark ages than middle ages, because they were dark. And they just didn't care about what God said, even though they used his name all the time, or spoke of him, how different the history will be for the righteous in heaven. Paul writes of the Colossians, he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his glory. That convoy into heaven, that conveying into heaven, doesn't remind me of Lazarus the beggar, and the angels took Lazarus to Abraham's bosom. Well, the thief on the outlaw on the cross, and all those left in Sheol when Christ died, he took them into heaven.

He set the captives free. That's what we have to look forward to. Verse 11, continuing to describe the condition of the righteous, we all growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none for salvation, but it is far from us.

Verse 12, for our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us, for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. Well, verse 11, the righteous sighing and grumbling over the ruined blessings. God wanted to bless Judah, but they were determined not to be blessed by him.

They had a better way to do it. This happens to people, churchgoers, you know? They love the Bible stories and the studies and all, but after a while, it doesn't achieve the goals that they had set for themselves, and they're done with it. The wicked, they hated the one who could bless them, especially when he stopped blessing them because of their wickedness. Now, Isaiah is including himself in this prayer.

The remnant was helpless amongst the lovers of sin. Well, there's a mouthful, but this is the same thing that Daniel does in chapter nine of his prophecy. Ezra does it in chapter nine, and Nehemiah does it in his chapter nine. In each case, those men offer up prayers to God on behalf of the people, and because they were not self-righteous, they did not pray like the Pharisee that Jesus spoke about, I'm not like this Pharisee. They prayed with sobriety. Of course, they weren't as bad as these people, but they also knew they were, as Isaiah said, a man of unclean lips, and there's very much to gain from that. Those are sermons, the series of sermons right there.

They identified with the sinners, as Christ did when he went to be baptized and when he was crucified, though he never sinned. So, Isaiah 6-5, so I said in the presence of God, woe is me, for I am undone because 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. Christian humility is the recognition of who you are before the throne of God. I mean, when you pray, especially in corporate prayer, if you pray as though God is there in the room, I think it's a much more, it's more rich in prayer. You're speaking to Him, He's right there, and just that's what I do at least, and anyway, I don't want to toot my horn. I've got others to do it for me. Anyway, verse 13, in trespassing, yeah, the only way to stop that is to flatten the tires. Anyway, I hope it's not one of you, and if it is, it's okay.

I just don't want to make you feel bad, any more than I've already done. Verse 13, in transgressing and lying against Yahweh and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Man, He's got them. He knows who these guys are, and you know, God forsakes those who are determined to forsake Him, and it's not easy. So we'll go back to David. When he committed his egregious crimes, God did not forsake him. David, he gave David space. He would have if David not eventually responded. Well, how much time does it take?

Well, that's between God and the sinner, and for David, again, the best we can calculate is probably almost a year, and you know, he tells us about that process of sin unto mercy. Verse 14, justice has turned back, the righteous stands afar off, or truth has fallen in the street, and iniquity cannot enter. Imagine that. It's a black hole.

A black hole is said to have so much gravity that even light cannot escape from it. There are people like that. There are countries like that. There are a bunch of countries on my do not go to. There are a bunch of cities on my do not go to list. I mean, look what they've done with San Francisco.

San Francisco is a beautiful piece of property, but who wants to go there? I mean, just what they've done with it is horrible. That's just one place. Verse 15, so truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then Yahweh saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice.

Well, if you're ignorant of Yahweh, maybe you grew up in a society that talks about Yahweh, but you still know nothing about Him, because is that possible? Well, absolutely. How many people grow up in a church and know nothing about the Bible, and they go to a Bible-teaching church, and everything just starts percolating and turning on for them, and oh, can I be baptized?

I didn't know what that was. Yeah, well, it's the same in Israel. Yahweh's name was thrown around, but there was no witness for Him, not much of it, and so in such a culture as this that's run by rotten apples, that is upheld by rotten apples, the first casualty is truth. That's where the rot begins, when truth is slain.

In Isaiah chapter 3, he covers this right there in Isaiah chapter 3. Without truth, society, the goodness of society collapses. It may look okay on the surface, but it's not, and he who departs from evil here in verse 15 makes himself a prey. This is a powerful statement. Good people punish for pursuing good.

He who departs from evil makes himself a target. You know, many drinkers are insulted if you don't drink with them. Well, we're going to the bar, I don't drink, I don't want to go, oh, you got to hear that, but if they said, well, I'm going to get coffee, I don't want one.

Okay, see you later. How come it's like that? Why can't they be that way? We're going to get Twizzlers.

I don't want any Twizzlers. Oh, you're evil. Well, that one might make sense, but Peter talks about this in Revelation.

I'm sorry. He does not. Testing, testing one too. First Peter chapter 4, verse 4. In regard to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. You don't run off to sin, they're going to badmouth you. Bring it on is your response. You younger Christians, it's an honor.

It's a combat ribbon to say that, yeah, they tempted me and I did not take it. I got away from them. They corrupt morals. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Amos the prophet, who wrote in the earlier days of Isaiah, but to the north, he says, the prudent keeps silent at that time for it is an evil time. The evil had to wise up, wise as serpent, harmless as doves. So not only had public justice warped, but public opinion warped with it. And the individuals are accountable. The sins they did two by two, they're going to answer one by one.

They're going to answer for. And I will add, especially to you youth, and for us all, if you have convictions, you will have critics. I don't mean opinions, I mean convictions.

You know this is it. You know this is right or wrong, whatever your view is, you're going to make enemies. And if you need more information on that, you come because sometimes I feel like I wrote the book on it. It's just, you know, people don't want you to stand your ground when it is your place to stand your ground. Well, anyway, then the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no justice.

What a wonderful segue into the next verse. Because what is, what do they, did they honestly think God saw these things and he chuckled? Well, look at that. They're stealing from each other. Look at that. The righteous are terrified at being righteous.

Of course not. Verse 16, here comes the segue. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, his own arm brought salvation for him and his own righteousness.

It sustained him. So this segue is radical and it is anthropomorphic. It is prophetic proper. In other words, he's speaking about a future event as though it already happened. And they do this, these prophets, they do it quite a bit. The past tense to them is in the present tense.

They're that sure of it. He was wounded for our transgressions and by his stripes, we are made whole. He's speaking, you know, 700 years before the event as though it happened already. And that's, I'm of course taking that from Isaiah 53. And so now he is talking about the Messiah. He's going to move Messiah, the people, the wicked.

He's going to float around with this. And giving us the scripture in a puzzle seems to us disappointing, but it shouldn't. And I believe the reason why it's like this is because scripture interprets scripture and the scripture has to speak to every generation and every culture and every language over the millennium. And it does that. And it does it through imagery and symbols and the puzzles that can be put together and you come up with this full picture. So don't be, you know, it's not like reading a novel where, you know, you can just, oh, that makes perfect sense. It does make perfect sense, but it's not always on the surface.

And this is one of them. So the translators have properly marked the pronoun nouns and capital casing in verse 16 to signify that it is a divine character. And we know this to be Messiah. So what he's saying is God noticed the amount of men who had succumbed to irrational and rottenness of sin. And it's startling from our perspective. Here's the anthropomorphism is that they're saying, okay, let me, let me kind of like the prophet or God is saying, let me act like I'm a human just for a moment so you can understand what I, what I'm seeing. I'll put it in your language. So if God were to say, I'm guessing, he does not guessing. He doesn't have to ever guess, but he's putting it in a language that we might, we might understand. And so here we have this, these irrational rotten characters in the kingdom of Judah.

This is crazy. I can't find a righteous man. Well, of course it's not an absolute statement because he has Isaiah and Isaiah is making the statement and he's an intercessor as were the other prophets.

And that's how the puzzle goes. Those courageous enough to intervene were not strong enough. They were marginalized. And as I mentioned from Amos 5, 13 and verse four and verse 10 and verse 14 of this Isaiah 59. So this has to do with higher events and over the ages, finding those who will stand against evil in an evil society.

Are there any good apples left in this barrel? This is a kind of approach. I'm surprised there are none concerning the wicked that he is addressing. And if you're listening to this in Isaiah's day, you're either that remnant that's going, amen, I wish I could preach this at my job.

Or you're one of the wicked and you're either getting offended or you're, you're being blessed and convicted. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. You can also connect with us through YouTube. We hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue spending time reading God's Word and learning together. Make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick again right here on Cross Reference Radio.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-19 08:45:24 / 2024-12-19 08:54:54 / 10

Get The Truth Mobile App and Listen to your Favorite Station Anytime