Pastor Doug: All right, let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah, chapter 30, isaiah, chapter 30.
Pastor Doug: If you're new, with us visiting or perhaps just coming in, we're going through the book of Isaiah as a study on Sunday mornings and we've moved our way into chapter 30 by this time.
Pastor Doug: The 1930s France built a fortification along their border with Germany, called the Maginot Line.
Pastor Doug: It was named after André Maginot, who was the Minister of War for France, and it was designed to prevent another disaster of invasion that happened like it did in France in World War I, of invasion that happened like it did in France in World War I.
Pastor Doug: The Maginot Line was 280 miles long of bunkers and gun batteries and reinforced concrete structures.
Pastor Doug: It was a marvel of its time.
Pastor Doug: The French believed that this defensive line would act as a deterrent to any forces to come and to attack their border, or would at least slow them down enough to be able to muster the forces to give a response.
Pastor Doug: They thought that this Maginot Line would prove to be successful and they put a lot of trust, a lot of money into it.
Pastor Doug: But it failed spectacularly when World War II happened, instead of attacking this heavily fortified 200 plus mile border, germany bypassed the line completely and went through Belgium and took over France, and that rapid and unexpected maneuver by them led to the downfall of France very quickly and to the British forces having to be rescued off of Dunkirk.
Pastor Doug: The failure of this Maginot Line and the trust that the French people and the Allies put into it stands as a symbol of misplaced trust, of the dangers of false security and of the ineffectiveness of looking to one single solution to fix our problems.
Pastor Doug: In Isaiah, chapter 30, we find the leaders and the people of Judah overcome with a very difficult problem, with a very difficult problem.
Pastor Doug: The kingdom of Assyria has swept down from the north and has destroyed all of the countries around them, has taken away captive the 10 tribes of Israel, has defeated every fortified city in Judah apart from Jerusalem itself.
Pastor Doug: There seemed to be little hope and they had four options in front of them.
Pastor Doug: One option was simply to surrender.
Pastor Doug: But they had been maneuvering behind the scenes and the Assyrians knew that.
Pastor Doug: And if they simply gave up, that would mean that they would open themselves up to all the treachery and tyranny that war brings.
Pastor Doug: They could also resist as long as possible.
Pastor Doug: The people of Assyria, the warriors, were surrounding them in a siege and they could just wait it out and perhaps wear Assyria down, and of course that would mean a lot of death, starvation inside the city, as the resources were gone.
Pastor Doug: But could they survive?
Pastor Doug: They could, thirdly, look for help from some outside power to stand with them in some alliance and coalition.
Pastor Doug: But what cost would that bring?
Pastor Doug: Or, fourth, they could look to God in trust, and so their options boiled down to just a few.
Pastor Doug: They could surrender, they could try to manipulate the circumstances, or they could trust in the living God to bring them through.
Pastor Doug: Just like France relied upon the Maginot Line, believing it would shield them from the aggression of Germany, and then finding out Germany bypassed all of their plans, left them vulnerable and swiftly to defeat.
Pastor Doug: Here the leaders of Judah have put everything in their confidence in Egypt, as they made an ally of Egypt to try to protect them from Assyria.
Pastor Doug: This Maginot line and Judah's coalition with Egypt at the time seemed to be very, very reasonable.
Pastor Doug: It seemed to be a secure defense.
Pastor Doug: It seemed to be the right way to go.
Pastor Doug: But both of them were disastrous.
Pastor Doug: They proved unable to help them when the thing they needed most was help.
Pastor Doug: Their reliance upon this led to nothing but catastrophic circumstances and outcomes.
Pastor Doug: What happens when life throws us all of its difficulties and hardships and challenges?
Pastor Doug: What kind of options do we have?
Pastor Doug: Do we surrender to the problems without a fight?
Pastor Doug: Do we try to hold up inside the walls and just hope it eventually goes away?
Pastor Doug: Do we try to work out all the things that we think are the best?
Pastor Doug: Or do we give ourselves over to God in his word, to his presence and to his direction and plan and purposes and trust him in the midst of this?
Pastor Doug: As humans, we're very, very prone to try to fix it as best we can, to look to the resources around us or perhaps others might be able to give us and to find those limitations met in their abilities, and we cry out to one another don't just stand there, do something.
Pastor Doug: And we feel compelled.
Pastor Doug: To one another don't just stand there, do something, and we feel compelled to fix it.
Pastor Doug: However, we often find ourselves reaching out to places that are of no help at all.
Pastor Doug: Now, this passage of Scripture will reveal to us the folly of misplaced trust, but it does something far bigger than that.
Pastor Doug: It also reveals to us the character of God and of his demonstrating willingness to forgive and to restore those who come to him, no matter how wretchedly rebellious they've been.
Pastor Doug: It's a remarkable passage of scripture and as we work through this chapter you'll see the movement of folly and false trust, but also the wonderful focus of God in restoring sinners to himself.
Pastor Doug: In the first seven verses I want to introduce you to a rebellious people.
Pastor Doug: A rebellious people, and the first verse introduces us with another one of the woes in these few chapters here.
Pastor Doug: Woe to the rebellious children.
Pastor Doug: This is the Lord's declaration.
Pastor Doug: Now, at first we might think of that like we would if we were parents of children who are full of trouble and resisting our guidance and are living a life that's contrary to our desires, and we would cry out in agony over that.
Pastor Doug: But this is something bigger than that.
Pastor Doug: When God calls the people here rebellious children, he is bringing into play some statements from the law of Moses, particularly Deuteronomy, chapter 21, in which there's a scenario of parents taking a rebellious, stubborn son to the elders at the city gate and taking them into a court of judgment and talking about their abject resistance and rebellion against their parents and against the word of God, and that after a time of consideration, a judgment would be made that this child, this son, was so rebellious that they forfeited the right of life and execution.
Pastor Doug: And what God is declaring here about these people is that their sin was so egregious that it warranted the death penalty, that they had acted with such rebellion that they really had no right to even exist on earth.
Pastor Doug: Isaiah doesn't equivocate at all here.
Pastor Doug: Equivocate at all here.
Pastor Doug: His indictment to them should have struck fear into their heart and moved them to an awareness of themselves that would lead to repentance.
Pastor Doug: However, all it did was provoke them to more anger and led to their death.
Pastor Doug: His specific charges get even more troubling.
Pastor Doug: So let's unpack these few verses here by seeing these rebellious children, by, first of all, the rebellious refusal of God's guidance.
Pastor Doug: Take a look at verse two and three.
Pastor Doug: Well, one and two, rather.
Pastor Doug: They carry out a plan, but not mine.
Pastor Doug: They make an alliance, but against my will, piling sin upon sin.
Pastor Doug: Without asking my advice, they go down to Egypt in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh's protection and take refuge in Egypt's shadow.
Pastor Doug: These rebellious ones had so rejected God's plans and purposes and person that they felt like the only option that they had was to run to Egypt for help.
Pastor Doug: And God addresses that rebellion in their defiance against him and their unwillingness to consult him and their desire to seek anything apart from him in order to gain a victory.
Pastor Doug: And this section paints a vivid warning of the tendency to stray away from God's path, to trust worldly solutions and, like these people, too often we run into decisions without at all thinking about God's wisdom, god's word, god's advice.
Pastor Doug: There's loads of scriptures that tell us that there is a downfall in trusting ourselves and yet safety in trusting God.
Pastor Doug: The next chapter we'll look at soon.
Pastor Doug: In Isaiah 31 says woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and who do not look to the Holy One of Israel.
Pastor Doug: Jeremiah spoke to the same people Cursed is the one who trusts in man, but blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.
Pastor Doug: And then in Psalm 121, my eyes are lifted up to the mountains when does my help come from?
Pastor Doug: And he answers his own question my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
Pastor Doug: So these rebellious people are evidencing the rebellion, first of all by rejecting God's plan, but it's also seen in what they do.
Pastor Doug: They make this rebellious reliance on Egypt and instead of trusting God for protection and provision, these stubborn and rebellious children turn there, to Egypt for help.
Pastor Doug: And look what they do.
Pastor Doug: They send ambassadors to seek help from Egypt Without seeking my advice.
Pastor Doug: They set out to go down to Egypt in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh's protection and to take refuge in Egypt's shadow, and Isaiah denounces that as sin adding to sin.
Pastor Doug: And in verse 4, though his princes are at Zoan and his messengers reach as far as Haines, everyone will be ashamed because of a people who cannot help.
Pastor Doug: What have they done?
Pastor Doug: They've sent envoys down to the major cities of Egypt, to where the power centers lie, and it tells us that they've brought money with them in order to pay bribes or tribute to Egypt to try to solicit their help.
Pastor Doug: Take a look at verse 6.
Pastor Doug: A pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev.
Pastor Doug: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lion, lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent.
Pastor Doug: They carry their wealth on the back of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people who will not help.
Pastor Doug: Okay, they've taken all of their resources and they've gone to the people of Egypt and said here is our money, here is our wealth.
Pastor Doug: Please take these things and we will give you more if you will help us.
Pastor Doug: And they traversed through the deserts, through all the challenges that that was in order to gain some security of help in a time of trouble.
Pastor Doug: This is one of the saddest displays in all of Scripture, because what you see is think about it for just a second a complete reversal of the exodus out of Egypt.
Pastor Doug: They've denied the heritage and the love of God of the exodus out of Egypt.
Pastor Doug: They've denied the heritage and the love of God and they've re-entered Egypt and taken their wealth and given it back to Egypt.
Pastor Doug: The exact opposite of what the exodus was, where God brought them out of Egypt with the wealth of Egypt into the land of promise and hope.
Pastor Doug: But they've rejected the love of God and they desired to weave together an unholy alliance with the pagan people.
Pastor Doug: And I'm sure, after all the contracts were signed, they all sort of slapped each other on the back and said let's have a celebratory state dinner and let's enjoy and let's lift up our drinks in tribute to this great coalition that we've built.
Pastor Doug: God warns them that it's going to come to ruin, and he does so with one word, verse seven Egypt's help is completely worthless.
Pastor Doug: Egypt's help is completely worthless.
Pastor Doug: Therefore, I will call her Rahab, who just sits Now.
Pastor Doug: We were introduced to Rahab a little bit ago.
Pastor Doug: It's translated Leviathan in other places.
Pastor Doug: What is Rahab?
Pastor Doug: What is Leviathan?
Pastor Doug: It is this mythical monster of chaos, this multi-headed beast, the side of which would cause our hearts to melt in an instant, so fearsome it is, and so Egypt is likened to this mythical dragon, if you will, this mighty beast that is more powerful than any human could ever be or any gathering of humans could ever overcome.
Pastor Doug: This is Egypt, and so God calls Egypt Rahab, the mythical dragon of chaos that does nothing.
Pastor Doug: This is the ferocious monster that sits on its hands.
Pastor Doug: You will not get any help.
Pastor Doug: No matter how mighty it looks, no matter how ferocious it seems, no matter how powerful you think it could be, it's not going to help you.
Pastor Doug: These rebellious people need to learn a lesson, but the lesson they need to learn.
Pastor Doug: They've been long, long long rejecting.
Pastor Doug: In verses 8 to 17,.
Pastor Doug: Take us past a description of these rebellious people who leave aside God's plan and make alliances to show us how long they've been down this reckless path and that's our second point the reckless path.
Pastor Doug: Verses 8 to 17, give us a background of why they're going to Egypt instead of trusting the living God, and verses 8 to 11 tell us about their rejection of God's truth.
Pastor Doug: God tells Isaiah go, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll.
Pastor Doug: It'll be for the future, forever and ever.
Pastor Doug: They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not want to listen to the Lord's instructions.
Pastor Doug: And those three descriptors are followed by four demands that the people make.
Pastor Doug: Look at what it says there.
Pastor Doug: They say to the seers do not see.
Pastor Doug: And to the prophets do not prophesy the truth to us.
Pastor Doug: Tell us flattering things, prophesy illusions.
Pastor Doug: Get out of the way, leave the pathway, rid us of the Holy One of Israel.
Pastor Doug: Well, the first thing that they insist upon is that the prophets do not see, and basically what they're saying is we don't want to know any more about God.
Pastor Doug: Don't give us anything that might reveal more about him.
Pastor Doug: The second thing that they ask for is for them to be given things that flatter them, that tickle their ears, that are pleasing to them, that are conditioned toward their favor and their bias.
Pastor Doug: They don't want God's word to speak into their life.
Pastor Doug: They want a message that will make them feel better about their life.
Pastor Doug: Thirdly, they don't want the truth at all.
Pastor Doug: Do not prophesy to us the truth.
Pastor Doug: Speak to us of smooth things.
Pastor Doug: Luther translated this verse preach soft things to us.
Pastor Doug: They wanted the half truth of God's promise, then no truth about his judgment, and then, fourth of all, their demand get out of the way, leave the pathway, rid us of the Holy One of Israel.
Pastor Doug: Now, the prophets would often sit in court with the rulers, and they would be there as part of the council of wisdom that would help the rulers of Judah and Israel to make the decisions that they needed to make.
Pastor Doug: And what's happening here is that the man of God, isaiah, is being ousted out of the council of the king.
Pastor Doug: Now.
Pastor Doug: The king was required to write out his own copy of the law.
Pastor Doug: It was to meditate upon it and to act out of it.
Pastor Doug: And now the king is saying here I don't even want the prophet to be there because I don't want anything that represents God to be in my presence.
Pastor Doug: I want no reminder of him, not even you being near me, isaiah, not even you be near me, isaiah.
Pastor Doug: And so God tells him to make a placard, to put a sign up, and said this is a rebellious people, these are a stubborn people, these are people that don't want to obey the Lord, and I'm sure Isaiah was walking around the cities of the streets of Jerusalem, just like this.
Pastor Doug: You know, you know the guy that's in Times Square.
Pastor Doug: You know it says repent, right?
Pastor Doug: Yeah well, isaiah started that and it was a warning to them, because it was a reflection of what their hearts were and they couldn't stand it.
Pastor Doug: Christopher Leish, in his book the Culture of Narcissism, said that our modern society fosters self-absorption and a focus on personal gratification, and we're all about what makes us feel good.
Pastor Doug: We're all about ourselves in every way.
Pastor Doug: And when we don't find the fulfillment that that self-gratification that we pursue in self-gratification, we end up going to therapy and we look for help to cope.
Pastor Doug: We go from comfortably numb to neurotic, but never living out the fulfillment of the fullness of life that God intended for us as his creation.
Pastor Doug: And in this shift of our culture, we've rejected God, we've rejected his moral obligations, even in society itself.
Pastor Doug: And here the people of Israel are running headlong down that same pathway, prioritizing their own desires, rejecting their communal and moral responsibilities before God, rejecting God's word at all and even not wanting his people and his representatives to be in their presence.
Pastor Doug: And verses 12 to 17 tell us more about that.
Pastor Doug: This reckless path is also full of a resistance to repent.
Pastor Doug: Verse 12, the Holy One of Israel says because you've rejected this message and have trusted in oppression and deceit and have depended on them, this iniquity of yours will be like a crumbling gap, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse will come in an instant, suddenly.
Pastor Doug: And look at verse 15.
Pastor Doug: We'll get back to some of those images in a moment.
Pastor Doug: But verse 15, the Lord, god, the Holy One of Israel, has said you will be delivered by returning and resting.
Pastor Doug: Your strength will lie in quiet confidence.
Pastor Doug: But you are not willing.
Pastor Doug: You said no.
Pastor Doug: Why is this past so reckless?
Pastor Doug: Because they've completely rejected the promises of God and they are refusing to repent of their reckless life and behavior and direction.
Pastor Doug: And here God is, if you will imagine this caravan of representatives of the court of Jerusalem making its way down to Egypt and God is calling out to them in the middle of the desert as they've made their way down through there on their pathway to Egypt, made their way down through there on their pathway to Egypt, and he's saying turn it around, turn the caravan around, bring all of yourselves back and you'll find rest and you'll be able to sit in quiet confidence instead of the fear that's gripping you right now.
Pastor Doug: And they said no, no.
Pastor Doug: And once again this image of Egypt and the Exodus comes into play here.
Pastor Doug: Come back to the promised land, come back to the God who promises you the land.
Pastor Doug: Nope, nope, nope, nope.
Pastor Doug: We're going to escape.
Pastor Doug: We've got fast horses, we will be able to get away from our troubles.
Pastor Doug: And God says to them you're going to face tragedy Verse 13.
Pastor Doug: You're going to face tragedy, verse 13,.
Pastor Doug: Your collapse will be like a wall bulging out.
Pastor Doug: It's just there.
Pastor Doug: It's stable one minute and it's rubble the next.
Pastor Doug: That's going to be your future.
Pastor Doug: You are on the very brink of falling because of your misplaced trust and your rejection of the living God.
Pastor Doug: You're going to be verse 14, like a shattered piece of pottery that's going to be so broken that it can't be used for anything.
Pastor Doug: Not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains.
Pastor Doug: No fragment large enough to take a fire from the hearth or to scoop water from a cistern.
Pastor Doug: It has no useful purpose other than to be underneath someone's marching feet.
Pastor Doug: In verse 16, we will escape on horses.
Pastor Doug: We will ride on fast horses, but those who pursue you will be faster.
Pastor Doug: The people's trust in Egypt is symbolized by them getting on the back of a swift horse, but the judgment of God rides a swifter steed.
Pastor Doug: It's a tragic metaphor In verse 17,.
Pastor Doug: They're left to the humiliation of ruin.
Pastor Doug: One thousand will flee at the threat of one.
Pastor Doug: At the threat of five, you will flee until you remain like a solitary pole on a mountaintop or a banner on a hill.
Pastor Doug: You're going to be left weak and vulnerable.
Pastor Doug: You're going to look pathetic.
Pastor Doug: You're going to be isolated and easily defeated.
Pastor Doug: That's the end of your plan.
Pastor Doug: And if this chapter ended just there, all of us would have to say it sounds like it's deserved.
Pastor Doug: They've recklessly rejected God's plan.
Pastor Doug: They've refused his person.
Pastor Doug: They've turned aside from his word.
Pastor Doug: They've tried to eradicate anybody who represents him from any places of influence.
Pastor Doug: They've stiff-necked, have refused to bend.
Pastor Doug: They've laughed at the promises and the extensions of invitation to God.
Pastor Doug: They deserve what they're going to get.
Pastor Doug: That's not how this chapter ends.
Pastor Doug: What is God's response to all this stubbornness going to be?
Pastor Doug: And that leads us to our third point, and it's astounding Verse 18, a redeeming plan.
Pastor Doug: The Lord is waiting to show you mercy and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God and all who wait patiently for him are happy.
Pastor Doug: That's the last thing we would expect verse 18 to read in light of the first 17 verses.
Pastor Doug: While Israel is flying futilely flying to find hope in Egypt, god is there waiting to show grace and mercy.
Pastor Doug: Amen.
Pastor Doug: What patience, what willingness to forgive.
Pastor Doug: These people have rebelled, but he tells them if you return, you're going to find healing and you're going to find compassion and you're going to find restoration.
Pastor Doug: There's a man by the name of Robert Hawker.
Pastor Doug: Robert Hawker lived in a cave in the north side of Cornwall, in a hermit's hut of all places, and I've been to that hut many, many years ago and in that hut he did some good thinking besides doing some strange living.
Pastor Doug: Listen what he has to say about this verse Reader.
Pastor Doug: Observe the workings of grace and how the Lord's love breaks out Before the weapons of sin in the rebellious child's hands have even fallen down.
Pastor Doug: Sin in the rebellious child's hands have even fallen down.
Pastor Doug: Observe in this sweet scripture not only the waiting in the Lord to be gracious, but to be very gracious, not only in his yearnings to pardon, but in his receiving into his favor.
Pastor Doug: Isn't that beautiful and as proof of it, whereas in times past the Lord's prophets and teachers had been prohibited from speaking to the people here in the name of the Lord.
Pastor Doug: Yet now the people should not only hear God and see these prophets, but feel the power of grace in their hearts.
Pastor Doug: What a wonder this is.
Pastor Doug: God has called them to turn around.
Pastor Doug: Come back.
Pastor Doug: Quit trusting in Egypt.
Pastor Doug: Put yourself in the hands of the one who made the heavens and the earth.
Pastor Doug: Trust him.
Pastor Doug: Listen to his word.
Pastor Doug: You'll be delivered.
Pastor Doug: You will find your deliverance in your returning and your resting, and your strength will be in quiet confidence.
Pastor Doug: When we're faced with troubling things those options of just surrendering to the problem or just ignoring it and holding out and hopefully it goes away, or trying to find our own solutions to it all there's another option.
Pastor Doug: It's called trusting the living God, and that answer isn't just blind faith at all.
Pastor Doug: This is not what God's calling them to.
Pastor Doug: He's calling them to trust the one who made all things and who displays himself as one full of mercy and grace and deliverance to help those in need who seek it from him.
Pastor Doug: You see, once you've tasted that the Lord is good, once you've realized that Jesus is your wisdom from God, your righteousness, your justification and your redemption.
Pastor Doug: You don't want to look anywhere else, you certainly don't want to just give in to trouble and you certainly don't want to just hold out and hope it just goes away.
Pastor Doug: And you certainly don't go making your own solutions.
Pastor Doug: You trust in this God who has saved you, who has redeemed you, who has been merciful to you, who shows his personal favor to you undeservedly.
Pastor Doug: You learn to live life in light of him, you learn to live life in reliance of this one who is full of character and promises and control.
Pastor Doug: And so the rest of this chapter moves into some of the blessings that the people receive by turning around and heading to God, encountering all of their rebellious attitudes, encountering all the devastation of that refusal to listen.
Pastor Doug: We find these wonderful truths given to us and we're just going to move through them very, very quickly.
Pastor Doug: Verse 19,.
Pastor Doug: You will weep no more, the people who live in Zion and Jerusalem.
Pastor Doug: You will never weep again.
Pastor Doug: Well, they were going to sorrow and mourn in light of their trouble and in light of their conquest and exile, in light of their rebellion.
Pastor Doug: But if they turn to the Lord, he tells them that he will wipe away their tears.
Pastor Doug: The scriptures tell us at the very end of the Bible, in Revelation, chapter 21, that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
Pastor Doug: Death will be no more.
Pastor Doug: Grief, crying and pain will be no more.
Pastor Doug: You see, this passage speaks into a situation, but then it lifts up and then it speaks to an eternal perspective that God will take all that's wrong with us and all that's wrong with the world and transform it, so that the things that we experience here, such as pain and grief and loss and tears, will be gone.
Pastor Doug: And here he's speaking the whispers of what he fulfills greater and fully and completely through Christ in that eternal day.
Pastor Doug: Verses 20 and 21, speak to a rebellious people that refuse God's word, but now will hear it.
Pastor Doug: Will hear it Says there the Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your teacher will not hide any longer.
Pastor Doug: Your eyes will see your teacher and whatever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you.
Pastor Doug: This is the way.
Pastor Doug: Walk in it.
Pastor Doug: The people that didn't want to listen are now straining to hear a whisper.
Pastor Doug: The people that refused the cry of the prophet are now longing for the Spirit to speak, the quiet guidance that he gives.
Pastor Doug: What a wonder this is.
Pastor Doug: And these are echoes of the new covenant in Jeremiah, where Jeremiah speaks of the day when people will know the Lord and they won't have to be told to know him, because they will know him, because he will be with them.
Pastor Doug: He said I'll be their God, I will be their God and they will be my people.
Pastor Doug: And no longer will one teach his neighbor or brother saying know the Lord for sure they shall all know me.
Pastor Doug: And I love this beautiful picture of the word of God standing behind us.
Pastor Doug: And if we're going down life and we kind of veer this way or we kind of veer this way, god is behind us, going this way, no, no, this way, no, this way.
Pastor Doug: And the sensitivity of our spirit to hear the whispers behind our head giving us the direction of life.
Pastor Doug: Not only will they no longer weep, now they start to hear and heed God's word Verse 22, they rid themselves of idols.
Pastor Doug: And whenever it says then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images.
Pastor Doug: You will throw them away like menstrual cloths and call them filth, the things that they once worshipped they don't want to have in their life at all anymore.
Pastor Doug: They throw them away.
Pastor Doug: Paul commended the church at Thessalonica because they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and these people who had constructed their religion and the idols that they had worshiped and had looked to them for help in all of their life, they said this is worthless, just like Paul did in Philippians 3.
Pastor Doug: He said I count all these things but filth for the excellency of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus.
Pastor Doug: Verses 23 to 26 talk about their healing, but it starts with the healing of the land, then it moves to the healing of their hearts and there's a land of plenty described here.
Pastor Doug: But it starts with the healing of the land, then it moves to the healing of their hearts and there's a land of plenty described here.
Pastor Doug: God will give them rain in the land instead of drought.
Pastor Doug: That will help them to sow seed and to reap a harvest.
Pastor Doug: He will provide for them large green pastures that will be grazing land for herds of cattle and choice fodder for the oxen, and young donkeys will work the land.
Pastor Doug: The mountain streams are going to flow again and empty rivers will bubble into life-giving waters.
Pastor Doug: The moon and the sun, whose lights have been darkened by judgment, are now going to shine with a greater splendor than ever before.
Pastor Doug: And all of it is culminated in verse 26, where it says this on the day that the Lord bandages his people's injuries and heals the wounds he inflicted, how fully does God restore the repentant heart?
Pastor Doug: Absolutely, that's how much, every way you can possibly think.
Pastor Doug: In an agrarian society, the best life ever has just been described, with all of the plentiful resources needed for abundance and flourishing and peace and fulfillment.
Pastor Doug: And it says this is the image of God's grace, this age of peace and security.
Pastor Doug: Verse 27 and 28,.
Pastor Doug: You will see God destroying your enemies.
Pastor Doug: The name of the Lord is coming from far away, his anger burning and heavy with smoke, his lips full of fury, his tongue like a consuming fire, his breath like an overflowing torrent that rises to the neck.
Pastor Doug: And he comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction.
Pastor Doug: All of their enemies will be no more.
Pastor Doug: It is peace in every way.
Pastor Doug: And finally, one thing they will do is they will sing.
Pastor Doug: They will sing Verse 29,.
Pastor Doug: Your singing will be like that on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the Lord, to the rock of Israel, the Lord will make the splendor of his voice heard and reveal his arm.
Pastor Doug: God will cause his people not to gloat over their enemies and not just to be full of gluttonous pleasure by taking in all the bounty, but by giving God glory for his merciful grace to turn toward them, not in the judgment that they deserved, but in the grace of receiving, as he gives them the gift of repentance and return.
Pastor Doug: What a wonderful chapter.
Pastor Doug: This is A chapter in which we've seen the people of Israel come full circle from rebellion to redemption.
Pastor Doug: The warnings in it are real.
Pastor Doug: The prospect of ruination for those who continue to live a life apart from God and his word are real, but so are the promises of hope and restoration to the repentant.
Pastor Doug: And I have a question for you Is your life got a Maginot line?
Pastor Doug: Have you built up your defenses and have you put your securities in all of those things that you think are going to protect you?
Pastor Doug: Do you think, well, come what may, I'm good and perhaps for a while it looks like it'll defend you?
Pastor Doug: Perhaps for a while you feel like you live in safety and abundance.
Pastor Doug: You feel like you live with security and perhaps even success.
Pastor Doug: But there's more to life than just how big your bank account is and how secure your job is and how wide your house is.
Pastor Doug: There comes a day that all of us have to face, when our eyes will close in death and the scriptures say that we will awaken to face the living God in a judgment.
Pastor Doug: What will your line of defense be for that?
Pastor Doug: Will it withstand that coming day?
Pastor Doug: Will it be able to exonerate you on the day?
Pastor Doug: God, who is thrice holy, looks into your life and examines it, or will he bypass it in a moment and bring you to swift destruction, like France when it fell?
Pastor Doug: What are you trusting, not just for life, but for eternity?
Pastor Doug: You can't just hope it goes away, because it's not going to go away and you might get on the horseback of a swift beast to carry you away from him and his presence.
Pastor Doug: But I have to tell you, god has some very, very fast horses in his stable and they're a lot faster than yours and they're a lot faster than yours.
Pastor Doug: You see, the remedy is to receive the sweet invitation that's here, and I dare say there's none of us any worse than the folks listed in the first 17 verses of this chapter?
Pastor Doug: Now we might be just as bad, but I doubt we can be much worse.
Pastor Doug: And if God would speak the sweet invitations and hope and reconciliation to them, he can speak it and does speak it to you.
Pastor Doug: Isn't that wonderful.
Pastor Doug: So what do you do?
Pastor Doug: Read verse 15 again for yourself, for the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, has said you will be delivered by returning and resting.
Pastor Doug: Your strength will lie in quiet confidence.
Pastor Doug: What will your answer be?
Pastor Doug: Will you say yes?
Pastor Doug: Will you say yes, will you say yes To repent of rebellious actions, to look to God for his salvation?
Pastor Doug: It will lead you to a place where you can be calm rather than fearful, where you can rely upon his strength rather than your own ingenuity, where you can let go of all your strivings and find a place of peace.
Pastor Doug: Let's pray.
Pastor Doug: A place of peace.
Pastor Doug: Let's pray.
Pastor Doug: Oh Father, we pray to you and we ask Lord, as rebellious as we are and as unworthy as we are, of the least of your mercies.
Pastor Doug: We pray for your sake, for the glory of your grace, that you would let our protection be the least of your mercies.
Pastor Doug: We pray for your sake, for the glory of your grace, that you would let our protection be the protection of you and, lord, that you would stop our striving to seek the strength from the Egypts of this world, the arm of flesh and the false confidences of the heart.
Pastor Doug: Oh, lord, jesus, be our strength, be our salvation, be our sure help in every time of need, and let that sweet promise of yours be ever in our hearts that you are the Lord who waits to be gracious, who waits not only to give mercy in the best time, but in the time of our deepest need.
Pastor Doug: Let that be our hearts, lord, and grant us the ability to fully understand you and to understand all of your mercies, and to make room in our poor souls for you.
Pastor Doug: Drive out every other thought, every other interest, every other affection, so that you, the living God, may come and take entire possession and reign and rule in us, you who are the Lord of life and the Lord of glory, and we pray this in Christ's name, amen.