WEBVTT 00:00:00.860 --> 00:00:02.604 Turn to Isaiah, please. 00:00:02.604 --> 00:00:06.133 Isaiah, chapter 21. 00:00:06.133 --> 00:00:25.611 We're heading through this Old Testament book and the passage for this morning is going to cover chapters 21 through 23. 00:00:25.611 --> 00:00:29.059 I'm not going to read all three of those chapters. 00:00:29.059 --> 00:00:33.091 I want to read, to start with this morning, a portion from chapter 21,. 00:00:33.091 --> 00:00:41.543 But we'll be looking at that whole section for our sermon text for today, isaiah 21,. 00:00:41.543 --> 00:00:43.490 I'll read the first 12 verses. 00:00:45.843 --> 00:00:51.970 This is what God's word says, a pronouncement concerning the desert by the sea. 00:00:51.970 --> 00:01:00.094 Like the storms that pass over the Negev, it comes from the desert, from the land of terror. 00:01:00.094 --> 00:01:03.188 A troubling vision is declared to me. 00:01:03.188 --> 00:01:08.364 The treacherous one acts treacherously and the destroyer destroys. 00:01:08.364 --> 00:01:12.900 Advance Elam, lay, siege you, medes, I will put an end to all the groaning. 00:01:14.644 --> 00:01:16.487 Therefore, I am filled with anguish. 00:01:16.487 --> 00:01:19.274 Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor. 00:01:19.274 --> 00:01:23.308 I am too perplexed to hear, too dismayed to see. 00:01:23.308 --> 00:01:25.813 My heart staggers. 00:01:25.813 --> 00:01:27.846 Horror terrifies me. 00:01:27.846 --> 00:01:32.090 He has turned my last glimmer of hope into sheer terror. 00:01:32.090 --> 00:01:35.790 Prepare a table and spread out a carpet, eat and drink. 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:38.367 Rise up, you princes, and oil the shields. 00:01:39.561 --> 00:01:45.061 For the Lord has said to me go, post a lookout, let him report what he sees. 00:01:45.061 --> 00:01:46.944 Then the lookout reported. 00:01:46.944 --> 00:01:58.451 Lord, I stand on the watchtower all day and I stay at my post all night. 00:01:58.451 --> 00:02:01.489 Look, riders come, horsemen in pairs. 00:02:01.489 --> 00:02:07.894 And he answered, saying Babylon has fallen, has fallen. 00:02:07.894 --> 00:02:14.681 All the images of our gods have been shattered on the ground, my people who have been crushed on the threshing floor. 00:02:14.681 --> 00:02:23.885 I have declared to you what I have heard from the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, a pronouncement concerning Duma. 00:02:24.968 --> 00:02:33.973 One calls to me from Seir watchman what is left of the night, watchman, what is left of the night? 00:02:33.973 --> 00:02:39.067 The watchman said morning has come, and also night. 00:02:39.067 --> 00:02:51.141 If you want to ask, ask, come back again to ask, ask, come back again. 00:02:51.141 --> 00:02:52.604 Let's pray again briefly, lord, as we always pray. 00:02:52.604 --> 00:02:56.573 We need your Holy Spirit to show us things from your word and we feel our own weakness and need. 00:02:56.573 --> 00:03:04.657 But in that humility we come before you, knowing that you're so gracious to give wisdom from those who ask, to give understanding from those who seek it. 00:03:04.657 --> 00:03:06.383 So give us that understanding. 00:03:06.383 --> 00:03:09.072 This morning we ask in Jesus' name, amen. 00:03:11.980 --> 00:03:29.664 Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence. 00:03:29.664 --> 00:03:34.794 If you're under 50 years old, let me explain that to you. 00:03:34.794 --> 00:03:40.563 I was quoting a song. 00:03:40.563 --> 00:03:53.302 It was the number one hit, first number one hit of Simon and Garfunkel over 50 years ago, called the Sound of Silence, and you might not know it was a number one hit in places like Australia and Japan. 00:03:53.302 --> 00:03:56.288 It's kind of an eerie song. 00:03:56.288 --> 00:03:58.271 Hello, darkness, my old friend. 00:03:58.271 --> 00:04:01.843 What would be so resonant about a song like that? 00:04:01.843 --> 00:04:09.502 Well, people seem to resonate with darkness, whether 50 years ago or today. 00:04:10.163 --> 00:04:15.742 The portion of scripture I just read from the beginning of our passage, there's a lot of darkness. 00:04:15.742 --> 00:04:19.449 In verse number one, storm clouds are gathering. 00:04:19.449 --> 00:04:24.567 In verse number three of chapter 21, the prophet can't see. 00:04:24.567 --> 00:04:30.380 In verse number four, the last glimmer of hope is fading. 00:04:30.380 --> 00:04:34.783 Verse number eight a lookout is standing post all night. 00:04:36.324 --> 00:04:50.014 And in addition to those things, we have this strange pronouncement in verses 11 and 12, where a night watchman is asked what time it is and then he says morning has come and also night. 00:04:50.014 --> 00:04:53.857 Why would he answer that way? 00:04:53.857 --> 00:05:02.242 Remember, in this time period people didn't have cell phones, they didn't have clocks. 00:05:02.242 --> 00:05:04.365 So if you wake up in the middle of the night it's hard to know what time it is. 00:05:04.365 --> 00:05:12.625 You could imagine a soldier maybe peeking his head out of the tent, these different watchmen that are posted for night shifts hey, how much longer until morning? 00:05:12.625 --> 00:05:19.502 And the watchman here says, yeah, morning's arriving, but it'll still be dark. 00:05:19.502 --> 00:05:22.980 You can keep asking, but I wouldn't bother, it's just going to be dark, night will stay. 00:05:22.980 --> 00:05:28.367 Imagine the soldier putting his head back inside the tent. 00:05:28.367 --> 00:05:32.391 Did the watchman just break up with his girlfriend, or what's going on? 00:05:32.391 --> 00:05:36.735 Because he just said even when morning comes, night is still going to be here. 00:05:36.735 --> 00:05:42.677 It's still going to be dark. 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.505 Darkness in these prophetic pronouncements, these oracles. 00:05:47.505 --> 00:05:50.793 Darkness is normally here, a sign of God's judgment. 00:05:50.793 --> 00:05:57.353 Darkness falls on those who deny God. 00:05:57.353 --> 00:06:02.192 That's the prophet's message from this section of scripture. 00:06:02.192 --> 00:06:07.471 Darkness falls on those who deny God. 00:06:07.471 --> 00:06:13.391 You might think, well, darkness will be here for a little while, but then it'll get better. 00:06:13.391 --> 00:06:14.242 Morning will come. 00:06:14.242 --> 00:06:19.278 If you're denying God, that thought process is all wrong. 00:06:19.278 --> 00:06:21.463 This is the burden of the word of the Lord. 00:06:21.463 --> 00:06:23.646 Even with the morning, night comes. 00:06:23.646 --> 00:06:26.814 Darkness falls on those who deny God. 00:06:26.814 --> 00:06:32.588 Three points today Number one pain in darkness. 00:06:32.588 --> 00:06:36.535 Number two guilt in darkness. 00:06:36.535 --> 00:06:40.865 And then number three light in darkness. 00:06:40.865 --> 00:06:52.228 Let's look first at the pain that's described here when the prophet gives these oracles and oracles that seem shrouded in so much darkness. 00:06:52.228 --> 00:06:58.060 The pain of this darkness is a universal pain. 00:06:58.060 --> 00:07:00.644 Why do I say that? 00:07:00.644 --> 00:07:05.088 Well, so far in the book of Isaiah, isaiah has given a number of different oracles. 00:07:05.088 --> 00:07:08.052 That just means a divine message certain to come true. 00:07:08.372 --> 00:07:21.286 A lot of oracles or pronouncements about specific peoples or specific individuals an oracle against Egypt, oracle against Assyria, oracle against Israel or an oracle against the king of Egypt. 00:07:21.286 --> 00:07:31.928 But when we come here to chapter 21, verse one, this is an oracle concerning the desert by the sea. 00:07:31.928 --> 00:07:34.733 What did the desert ever do? 00:07:34.733 --> 00:07:41.687 In verse 11, an oracle concerning Duma. 00:07:41.687 --> 00:07:44.670 What is Duma? 00:07:44.670 --> 00:07:45.851 It's? 00:07:45.851 --> 00:07:52.129 We're confident it's not a South American plantain dish, but we're not sure what it is because it sounds very strange. 00:07:54.440 --> 00:07:56.185 Verse 13 mentions Arabia. 00:07:56.185 --> 00:08:02.908 That's a little more familiar to us, but it's a large area, more than a particular nation, arabia. 00:08:02.908 --> 00:08:13.627 Chapter 22, verse 1, look there, here's a fourth pronouncement in this section concerning the Valley of Vision. 00:08:13.627 --> 00:08:17.213 And then, finally, chapter 23,. 00:08:17.213 --> 00:08:24.100 We come to a pronouncement against Tyre, which, if you read your Bibles, that gets us a little more into the realm of familiarity. 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:27.867 Okay, I've heard of Tyre, it's city over there by Lebanon. 00:08:27.867 --> 00:08:29.771 It was a nation at this time. 00:08:29.771 --> 00:08:43.009 So Egypt, moab, tyre Okay, I understand pronouncements against those places Arabia, a little more abstract, but a valley of vision and Duma and the wilderness by the sea. 00:08:43.009 --> 00:08:46.475 Why is Isaiah speaking so cryptically? 00:08:46.475 --> 00:08:51.427 This is how one person answers that question. 00:08:51.427 --> 00:09:03.153 The enigmatic titles are Isaiah's way of showing that he's left the sharp clarity of his contemporary scene and is looking into the future. 00:09:03.153 --> 00:09:10.566 If so, history is not a tale of everything getting better and better, but divine judgments become starker. 00:09:13.471 --> 00:09:20.135 This passage and these oracles, they do relate in some ways to specific people or specific places. 00:09:20.135 --> 00:09:22.000 There are some clues within the oracles. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:27.614 So if you look at chapter 21, verse nine, it says Babylon has fallen. 00:09:27.614 --> 00:09:33.292 So the desert by the sea, which is the title, seems to relate to Babylon in some way. 00:09:33.292 --> 00:09:41.725 And then if you look down at chapter 21, verse 11, it mentions Seir, which is connected in other scriptures to Edom. 00:09:41.725 --> 00:09:46.369 So that pronouncement seems related to Edomites. 00:09:46.369 --> 00:09:49.282 And then verse chapter 21,. 00:09:49.381 --> 00:09:54.432 The Valley of Vision in chapter 22 speaks of the destruction of God's dear people. 00:09:54.432 --> 00:09:55.841 22, verse 4. 00:09:55.841 --> 00:10:00.092 And then chapter 22, verse 8, says God has removed the defenses of Judah. 00:10:00.092 --> 00:10:04.171 So the Valley of Vision relates to the city of David in some way, and the people of God. 00:10:04.171 --> 00:10:06.504 So the Valley of Vision relates to the city of David in some way and the people of God. 00:10:06.524 --> 00:10:16.754 But even though there are clues within the oracles about specific people and recipients, the titles are quite abstract. 00:10:16.754 --> 00:10:33.004 The abstraction of those titles, those cryptic titles, that helps to show us that all those people everywhere who bear the image of these idolatrous places will likewise fall into darkness. 00:10:33.004 --> 00:10:42.462 The pain of darkness is not simply for this nation or that time or those people. 00:10:42.462 --> 00:10:48.153 It's a universal darkness, a universal pain. 00:10:48.153 --> 00:10:53.028 It's almost like think about one of those horribly disfigured Picasso paintings. 00:10:53.028 --> 00:11:05.660 He might've begun with a specific subject, but he breaks it up on the canvas to try to say something about the human condition that moves beyond that individual subject that he started with. 00:11:05.660 --> 00:11:12.801 And this idea reiterates a theme that Pastor Doug has brought out a number of times here in Isaiah. 00:11:13.402 --> 00:11:17.389 Isaiah prophesies and he speaks of different horizons. 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:25.572 On the near horizon, in Isaiah's prophecies, we have the events of his own day, peoples of his own day. 00:11:25.572 --> 00:11:38.149 On a farther horizon, Isaiah speaks to the coming of Messiah, the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ascension and the glory of Christ. 00:11:38.149 --> 00:11:47.721 And on a yet more distant, third horizon, isaiah speaks about the second coming of the Lord and final judgment and the end of all things. 00:11:47.721 --> 00:12:01.349 And the section for today leans toward that final horizon of God's final judgment to come, even as it takes into view specific judgments about the people of Isaiah's day. 00:12:01.349 --> 00:12:19.620 So in Isaiah 21, this watchman who's expressing this pain and despair of darkness becomes an emblem of all people everywhere who reject God and can await only darkness. 00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:26.611 That's why scripture can speak of people who are cast into outer darkness. 00:12:27.413 --> 00:12:28.821 Picking up on the same theme. 00:12:28.821 --> 00:12:36.335 So the darkness here, the pain, is universal and the pain is also lonely. 00:12:36.335 --> 00:12:39.451 Chapter 21, verse 11,. 00:12:39.451 --> 00:12:41.474 Look there again at this pronouncement against Duma. 00:12:41.474 --> 00:12:42.351 Who or what is Duma? 00:12:42.351 --> 00:12:45.716 Look there again at this pronouncement against Duma. 00:12:45.716 --> 00:12:46.357 Who or what is Duma? 00:12:46.357 --> 00:12:51.500 We get a little more help from scripture. 00:12:51.500 --> 00:13:00.460 Ishmael has a descendant named Duma, and Esau lives in a place that seems connected to Duma. 00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:01.001 Who were Ishmael and Esau? 00:13:01.001 --> 00:13:02.548 They were rejected brothers. 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:05.426 The pain of isolation. 00:13:05.426 --> 00:13:10.361 Duma is also a Hebrew word that refers to silence. 00:13:10.361 --> 00:13:20.422 So, for example, in Psalm 94, 17, it says if the Lord had not been my helper, I would soon rest in the Duma of Duma. 00:13:20.422 --> 00:13:23.744 The silence of silence. 00:13:23.744 --> 00:13:35.054 When you're in pure darkness, usually you don't want to speak, not because you're tired of gabbing but you don't see anyone. 00:13:35.054 --> 00:13:39.686 It's lonely, that isolation that's there. 00:13:39.686 --> 00:13:43.432 Why is there such pain in darkness? 00:13:43.432 --> 00:13:50.956 There's pain in darkness because of guilt Pain and darkness because of guilt. 00:13:50.996 --> 00:13:57.336 It's true, there are people in scripture, like Job, who experience pain not directly tied to their own guilt. 00:13:57.336 --> 00:14:00.956 Here Isaiah is not speaking so much to the Job's of the world. 00:14:00.956 --> 00:14:12.176 He's speaking to people who have rejected God, who have despised his word, so that the pain that's coming for them corresponds to the guilt of their rejection. 00:14:12.176 --> 00:14:14.769 This is a darkness. 00:14:14.769 --> 00:14:18.058 It's much more than seasonal sadness. 00:14:18.058 --> 00:14:26.832 This is the very undoing of creation, again pointing forward all the way, in the final analysis, to that grand judgment at the hands of the Lord. 00:14:26.832 --> 00:14:33.821 Pain in darkness stems from guilt in darkness. 00:14:33.821 --> 00:14:42.679 And you see that chapter 21 says in verse number two treacherous people act treacherously. 00:14:42.679 --> 00:14:49.378 People are doing wrong things, the way that this passage opens in chapter 21,. 00:14:49.378 --> 00:14:55.389 Things, the way that this passage opens in chapter 21, like storms that pass over the Negev. 00:14:55.389 --> 00:14:57.292 It comes from the desert, from the land of terror. 00:14:57.292 --> 00:15:01.437 It comes what comes. 00:15:01.437 --> 00:15:12.067 It's ominous, it's almost like a horror movie. 00:15:12.106 --> 00:15:14.110 I'm not really a horror movie guy. 00:15:14.110 --> 00:15:15.653 I know some of you like horror movies not really my thing. 00:15:15.653 --> 00:15:18.438 But do you notice in horror movies sometimes who the victims are? 00:15:18.438 --> 00:15:22.369 It's rarely ever a woman who's trying to lead a Bible study. 00:15:22.369 --> 00:15:27.794 You know, it's usually people that are. 00:15:27.794 --> 00:15:29.657 I shouldn't say usually. 00:15:29.777 --> 00:15:35.510 It is sometimes people who are transgressing boundaries in some way. 00:15:35.510 --> 00:15:41.029 It's the teens who are in the backseat of the car and they get attacked by the hockey mask. 00:15:41.029 --> 00:15:47.751 It's the young people by the fire who are drinking too much and they're underage and the chainsaw comes out of the forest. 00:15:47.751 --> 00:16:01.328 It's the children who are out after curfew and the monsters are going to get them that register of I'm transgressing a boundary and it's. 00:16:01.328 --> 00:16:05.717 They should feel wrong and you as the viewer kind of feel like it's wrong. 00:16:05.717 --> 00:16:10.596 And then, if they're doing that kind of bad thing, what greater bad thing might happen to them? 00:16:10.596 --> 00:16:11.750 And then you get hooked in. 00:16:11.750 --> 00:16:15.409 Michael, wait a minute here. 00:16:15.409 --> 00:16:20.875 Underage drinking is not wise, but it doesn't mean you should get chopped in half by a chainsaw. 00:16:20.875 --> 00:16:26.995 They're not that guilty when we come to the horror and pain of the darkness here in these oracles. 00:16:27.966 --> 00:16:29.513 This is God's divine story. 00:16:29.513 --> 00:16:33.187 God never makes an error in judgment. 00:16:33.187 --> 00:16:39.966 Parents sometimes exaggerate threats to their children because they want to control behavior. 00:16:39.966 --> 00:16:42.311 God doesn't exaggerate his threats. 00:16:42.311 --> 00:16:50.375 All that God pronounces in the judgment he makes perfectly accords with the reality and nature of human guilt. 00:16:52.407 --> 00:16:54.875 Look at verse number nine of chapter 21. 00:16:54.875 --> 00:16:59.534 Babylon has fallen has fallen. 00:16:59.534 --> 00:17:04.615 All the images of her gods have been shattered to the ground. 00:17:04.615 --> 00:17:07.775 These are false gods and worthless images. 00:17:07.775 --> 00:17:18.198 The Babylonian civilization crumbles, their light is snuffed out and the darkness is in every way deserved because of its idolatry. 00:17:18.198 --> 00:17:26.848 The book of Revelation picks up this same language and applies it to all the Babylonian, like kingdoms of the world. 00:17:26.848 --> 00:17:30.500 Revelation 18, verse two it has fallen. 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:33.007 Babylon the great has fallen. 00:17:33.027 --> 00:17:35.553 Do you hear the words echoed there from our passage in Isaiah? 00:17:35.553 --> 00:17:48.153 And God tells his people in Revelation come out of Babylon so that you wouldn't share in her sins or receive her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven and God remembered her crimes. 00:17:48.153 --> 00:17:49.917 There's guilt. 00:17:49.917 --> 00:17:50.598 That's there. 00:17:50.598 --> 00:17:53.409 What's Babylon guilty of? 00:17:53.409 --> 00:17:58.105 Well, revelation gives us a little more than this particular verse of Isaiah. 00:17:58.105 --> 00:18:16.854 But it speaks of kings of the earth committing sexual immorality, with Babylon, with wealthy merchants growing in abundance and excess off of the backs of other people in an unjust way that Babylon sits as a proud queen. 00:18:17.876 --> 00:18:21.586 There's a list of some of the guilt sex, money, power. 00:18:21.586 --> 00:18:27.278 There's not unfamiliar themes and those are guilt-inducing themes. 00:18:27.278 --> 00:18:32.487 Guilt-inducing themes. 00:18:32.487 --> 00:18:33.387 But we want to notice how sin works. 00:18:33.387 --> 00:18:37.692 Sin so often takes something God has given to us and twists it. 00:18:37.692 --> 00:18:40.875 God doesn't say whatever you do, avoid sex. 00:18:40.875 --> 00:18:41.715 Whatever you do, avoid money. 00:18:41.715 --> 00:18:43.478 Whatever you do, don't take power. 00:18:43.478 --> 00:18:46.000 Satan wants you to think that God says that. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:47.221 That's not what God actually says. 00:18:47.221 --> 00:18:56.688 Sex is a good gift in the context of a home and a man and woman in marriage. 00:18:56.688 --> 00:18:58.210 Money is a wonderful tool to be used for your family, for society. 00:18:58.210 --> 00:19:03.945 Authority, rightly exercised, can model and bring God's loving rule and reign to bear in the world. 00:19:03.945 --> 00:19:15.432 But it gets distorted and the guilt comes when we fail to listen to God's instructions about those things and we listen to Babylon voices instead. 00:19:15.432 --> 00:19:17.557 That's the crux of the matter. 00:19:17.557 --> 00:19:23.903 Are we going to listen to the Lord's identification of all that's wonderful and good and true? 00:19:23.903 --> 00:19:25.727 Are we going to listen to Babylon? 00:19:27.931 --> 00:19:32.538 Look at Isaiah, chapter 22, one chapter over verse number nine. 00:19:32.538 --> 00:19:33.220 I'll start there. 00:19:33.220 --> 00:19:40.278 You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the city of David. 00:19:40.278 --> 00:19:44.451 You collected water from the lower pool. 00:19:44.451 --> 00:19:49.028 You counted the houses of Jerusalem so you could tear them down to fortify the wall. 00:19:49.028 --> 00:19:52.718 You made a reservoir between the walls for the water of the ancient pool. 00:19:52.718 --> 00:20:07.747 They're trying to protect themselves against an enemy possibly a reference to what happens with Hezekiah in 2 Kings, chapter 20, where, through his ingenuity, he allows a way for water to still be able to come into the city amidst a siege. 00:20:07.747 --> 00:20:10.070 Well, that sounds like a good thing, right? 00:20:10.070 --> 00:20:12.193 But then look what Isaiah says here. 00:20:13.556 --> 00:20:20.353 But you did not look to the one who made it or consider the one who created it. 00:20:20.353 --> 00:20:27.430 Long ago, you trusted in your own engineering and you didn't look to God. 00:20:27.430 --> 00:20:38.377 Guilt is there, judgment is coming, and a little verse like this, a passage like this, is a powerful reminder of the nature of our guilt. 00:20:38.377 --> 00:20:48.213 When I say that darkness falls on those who deny God, I don't mean merely people who deny that God exists. 00:20:48.213 --> 00:20:54.260 There's many people in our day like Israel of old. 00:20:54.260 --> 00:20:59.356 They acknowledge God exists, but they live their lives with little or no regard to him. 00:20:59.356 --> 00:21:03.872 It's not just people that are shaking their fist at God. 00:21:03.872 --> 00:21:05.997 It's like chapter 22,. 00:21:05.997 --> 00:21:10.194 Verse 13 says people that are just content to eat and drink and be happy. 00:21:10.194 --> 00:21:17.546 Let's tear down our barns and build bigger ones, but don't you know that your soul is required this night. 00:21:20.392 --> 00:21:24.940 God personalizes the accusation of guilt in verse 15. 00:21:24.940 --> 00:21:28.547 He speaks of a specific palace steward named Shebna. 00:21:28.547 --> 00:21:31.655 I'll pick up at verse 15 of chapter 22. 00:21:31.655 --> 00:21:40.430 The Lord of armies said go to Shebna, that steward who was in charge of the palace, and say to him what are you doing here? 00:21:40.430 --> 00:21:50.916 Who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here, carving your tomb on the height, cutting a resting place for yourself out of a rock? 00:21:50.916 --> 00:21:51.959 Look you, strong man. 00:21:51.959 --> 00:21:54.354 The Lord is about to shake you violently. 00:21:54.354 --> 00:21:59.974 He will take hold of you, wind you up into a ball and sling you into a wide land. 00:21:59.974 --> 00:22:00.817 There you will die. 00:22:00.817 --> 00:22:04.230 The self-reliance. 00:22:04.230 --> 00:22:07.753 Shebna thinks I'm quite the piece of granite. 00:22:07.753 --> 00:22:09.932 I'll make a monument for myself. 00:22:09.932 --> 00:22:12.352 The Lord says you think you're a piece of granite. 00:22:12.352 --> 00:22:17.968 I'm going to crush you into a pebble and, like a slingshot, hurl you into oblivion. 00:22:17.968 --> 00:22:21.769 Because you didn't acknowledge me, you trusted in yourself. 00:22:23.685 --> 00:22:36.711 The guilt of people like Shebna or Judah, or Babylon or Tyre in the next chapter, it's a staggering guilt because of who they are sitting against. 00:22:36.711 --> 00:22:40.999 They're sitting against the God of all creation, the Lord who made them. 00:22:40.999 --> 00:22:49.814 When we jettison God's word, we're saying no to the almighty God word. 00:22:49.814 --> 00:22:51.076 We're saying no to the almighty God. 00:22:51.076 --> 00:22:52.798 So it gets so bad here. 00:22:52.798 --> 00:22:54.861 It's so thick with judgment. 00:22:54.861 --> 00:23:02.963 Look what God concludes in chapter 22, verse 14. 00:23:02.963 --> 00:23:13.007 The Lord of armies has directly revealed to me, that's to Isaiah this iniquity will not be wiped out for your people as long as you live. 00:23:13.007 --> 00:23:13.647 The Lord of armies has spoken. 00:23:13.647 --> 00:23:15.290 This dark saying of iniquity is remaining. 00:23:15.290 --> 00:23:17.534 Guilt is such a heavy weight to bear. 00:23:17.534 --> 00:23:21.019 Darkness will fall on those who deny God. 00:23:21.019 --> 00:23:28.964 Pain in darkness, guilt in darkness. 00:23:30.244 --> 00:23:32.730 Now I said at the outset, the third point of the sermon, final point, is light and darkness. 00:23:32.730 --> 00:23:36.298 I'm not hearing a lot of light, micah, that verse, your iniquity is going to remain on you forever. 00:23:36.298 --> 00:23:45.047 That doesn't sound very light-giving. 00:23:45.047 --> 00:23:46.690 We might have some Simeon Trust graduates here saying Micah, stay on the line. 00:23:46.690 --> 00:23:48.273 Darkness, don't you get off the line. 00:23:48.273 --> 00:23:50.538 Don't you bring optimism into this text. 00:23:50.538 --> 00:23:51.527 It's a minor key. 00:23:51.527 --> 00:23:59.172 Don't try to modulate to a major key and I might be guilty of bringing too much optimism and I'll admit that from the outset. 00:23:59.172 --> 00:24:03.188 If you want to come up afterwards and explain the way of God more perfectly to me, I welcome that. 00:24:03.188 --> 00:24:04.289 That would be great. 00:24:04.289 --> 00:24:07.856 But every passage has a text. 00:24:07.856 --> 00:24:10.653 Ultimately, our text is the entire Bible. 00:24:11.578 --> 00:24:15.269 Paul did say, he determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. 00:24:15.269 --> 00:24:24.371 And it's true that the passage from last week in Isaiah 19 had a greater amount of hope than our passage for today. 00:24:24.371 --> 00:24:27.234 But there's some glimmers of light, I think, even here. 00:24:27.234 --> 00:24:32.121 Look first at the end of chapter 23. 00:24:32.121 --> 00:24:37.737 So Isaiah speaks of this great city of Tyre with all of its shipping prowess. 00:24:37.737 --> 00:24:39.869 It compares Tyre to a prostitute. 00:24:39.869 --> 00:24:41.733 Prostitutes want money. 00:24:41.733 --> 00:24:44.058 This merchandising place. 00:24:44.058 --> 00:24:46.010 They were basically business prostitutes. 00:24:46.010 --> 00:24:47.275 So it doesn't sound like much light. 00:24:47.275 --> 00:24:55.673 But look at the last verse of the chapter, the last verse of the passage for today, isaiah 23, 18,. 00:24:57.496 --> 00:25:01.730 But her profits and wages will be dedicated to the Lord. 00:25:01.730 --> 00:25:11.992 They will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live in the Lord's presence to provide them with ample food and sacred clothing. 00:25:11.992 --> 00:25:14.880 Wait a minute, that sounds good. 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:17.025 Dedication to the Lord's people. 00:25:17.025 --> 00:25:22.683 They're able to help out providing sacred garments for the temple, for the priests, food perhaps. 00:25:22.683 --> 00:25:27.960 Where did the good come from amidst all of this darkness? 00:25:29.242 --> 00:25:32.096 Isaiah doesn't give us a full explanation right here in the passage. 00:25:32.096 --> 00:25:33.580 Remember those horizons? 00:25:33.580 --> 00:25:39.016 He goes back and forth in those horizons, those horizons. 00:25:39.016 --> 00:25:39.897 He goes back and forth in those horizons. 00:25:39.897 --> 00:25:40.980 But it sounds like what we read about in Egypt. 00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:43.307 Egypt was an idolatrous place, just like Tyre. 00:25:43.307 --> 00:25:46.896 Remember from last week, those that were here last week? 00:25:46.896 --> 00:25:53.287 Egypt is going to offer sacrifices and vows to the Lord, isaiah 19. 00:25:53.287 --> 00:26:01.977 Here's Tyre getting judged, but they're going to be providing sacred clothing and vows, in a sense, for the Lord. 00:26:01.977 --> 00:26:14.758 It sounds like what we read about in Revelation where in one chapter in Revelation these proud profiteering merchants who are selfish and greedy have only their own success in mind. 00:26:14.758 --> 00:26:20.027 They're judged along with the fall of Babylon the great. 00:26:20.027 --> 00:26:28.756 But then you get to a later chapter in Revelation and the kings of the earth are bringing the glory of their wealth into the new Jerusalem. 00:26:30.578 --> 00:26:40.835 Darkness falls on some, even as representatives, a remnant from all kinds of places walk into the light of God's glory. 00:26:40.835 --> 00:26:59.089 Derek Kidner writes just as Egypt, the political oppressor, became the bearer of hope back in chapter 19, so Tyre, the religious corruptor, becomes the hope symbol here in chapter 23. 00:26:59.089 --> 00:27:06.508 So the big question for us this morning is what group do we expect to find ourselves in? 00:27:06.508 --> 00:27:12.101 Are we a part of the city of Babylon or the new Jerusalem? 00:27:12.101 --> 00:27:18.830 Is darkness falling on us or are we walking in the light? 00:27:18.830 --> 00:27:23.084 The first thing to do is submit to God's word. 00:27:23.084 --> 00:27:26.565 If we're looking for light, first thing to do is submit to God's word. 00:27:26.565 --> 00:27:36.885 If denying God begins with denying his word, rejecting his word, then the first step in coming to the Lord is receiving his word. 00:27:36.885 --> 00:27:40.644 There's so much guilt heaped up. 00:27:40.644 --> 00:27:42.442 He's the only one that can give us the answers. 00:27:42.442 --> 00:27:43.921 We got to listen to him and his word. 00:27:46.615 --> 00:27:50.787 That Simon and Garfunkel song that I mentioned, the sound of silence, it's a. 00:27:50.787 --> 00:27:51.980 It's a haunting song. 00:27:51.980 --> 00:27:53.298 It's not a Christian song. 00:27:53.298 --> 00:28:01.317 Paul Simon, the writer, said it's a song about the inability of people to communicate with one another. 00:28:01.317 --> 00:28:08.318 If you want to sound really sophisticated, you can say it's a song about technological alienation. 00:28:08.318 --> 00:28:12.996 But let's just go with what he said inability to communicate with one another. 00:28:12.996 --> 00:28:17.223 We find that on a horizontal level. 00:28:17.223 --> 00:28:18.787 We find isolation. 00:28:18.787 --> 00:28:26.542 But those problems on a horizontal level exist ultimately because there's a vertical problem. 00:28:26.542 --> 00:28:28.988 There's isolation between us and God. 00:28:28.988 --> 00:28:31.400 That's the bigger problem. 00:28:32.281 --> 00:28:38.383 One of the lines of that song says the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls. 00:28:38.383 --> 00:28:47.436 I can assure you, if you want to hear a prophetic word from God, don't go to Lexington Avenue subway station and scour the walls. 00:28:47.436 --> 00:28:49.642 That's not where you're going to find it. 00:28:49.642 --> 00:28:52.008 You've got to come to this book. 00:28:52.008 --> 00:28:56.002 You've got to submit to scripture to find God speaking here. 00:28:56.002 --> 00:28:58.728 That's where we see light, in his light. 00:28:58.728 --> 00:29:11.250 As you get into scripture, you'll find that we as mere human beings can never through our own engineering, our own self-reliance and pride. 00:29:11.250 --> 00:29:15.521 We can never ultimately come to light on our own. 00:29:15.521 --> 00:29:18.067 We need God's revelation, we need his grace. 00:29:18.067 --> 00:29:23.143 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 00:29:23.143 --> 00:29:25.977 We're called to receive the light of the world, god's son. 00:29:27.801 --> 00:29:29.586 Go back to Isaiah 22 with me. 00:29:29.586 --> 00:29:33.375 We were there earlier, so if you're, chapter 23,. 00:29:33.375 --> 00:29:34.597 Now back to chapter 22. 00:29:34.597 --> 00:29:39.792 Late in the chapter we meet these two court figures. 00:29:39.792 --> 00:29:41.518 I mentioned Shebna earlier. 00:29:41.518 --> 00:29:48.480 That's the guy from verse 15 who thought he was the piece of granite, and God puts him up like a golf ball and just drives him in the next week. 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:56.641 Then we find another figure, a historic figure, a court steward named Eliakim, in verse 20. 00:29:56.641 --> 00:30:09.926 And in verse 20 and 21, god says he will clothe Eliakim with Shebna's robe and hand Shebna's authority over to Eliakim. 00:30:09.926 --> 00:30:12.597 So it's like this guy Shebna is proud and arrogant. 00:30:12.597 --> 00:30:17.509 He's ousted, and then Eliakim gets put in his place Verse 23,. 00:30:17.509 --> 00:30:21.977 Ousted, and then Eliakim gets put in his place, verse 23,. 00:30:21.977 --> 00:30:24.160 God says that he will drive him in like a firm peg to bring honor for his family. 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:31.435 Wonderful, all is good for Eliakim, but look at verse 25. 00:30:33.401 --> 00:30:45.567 On that day the declaration of the Lord of armies the peg that was driven into a firm place will give way, be cut off and fall, and the load on it will be destroyed. 00:30:45.567 --> 00:30:47.856 Indeed, the Lord has spoken. 00:30:47.856 --> 00:30:53.145 You can't hang your hopes on mere human beings. 00:30:53.145 --> 00:30:56.109 There's Eliakim the new guy. 00:30:56.109 --> 00:31:08.000 Hey, we've got a new leader in the palace, everything's going to be great and we can just put our fur coats and hang and next thing, you know, it broke off and it's on the ground and all of our coats are muddy. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:13.878 Because we weren't supposed to hang all of our hopes on the new palace figure. 00:31:13.878 --> 00:31:17.064 We were supposed to trust in the Lord, god, the Almighty One. 00:31:17.064 --> 00:31:27.395 Okay, bring us. 00:31:27.455 --> 00:31:28.378 How does this relate to Jesus Christ? 00:31:28.378 --> 00:31:31.367 We're speaking about submitting to God's word, not trusting in ourselves that's the way of darkness but receiving God. 00:31:31.367 --> 00:31:32.996 How do we find Christ here? 00:31:32.996 --> 00:31:34.598 Well, think a moment about Eliakim. 00:31:34.598 --> 00:31:39.788 Here's this strong peg, but he's temporary and he crumbles. 00:31:39.788 --> 00:31:47.965 Jesus was a human being in the line of David, but not a mere human like Eliakim. 00:31:47.965 --> 00:31:57.443 He's the firm peg that, as Michael Barrett says, can hold up under any weight and load, so that we can hang it all on him. 00:31:57.443 --> 00:32:08.098 And if you think that's a that's a little stretch, this will help you see Christ even more clearly. 00:32:08.118 --> 00:32:08.921 Look again at verse 22. 00:32:08.921 --> 00:32:12.907 I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder. 00:32:12.907 --> 00:32:18.898 What he opens, no one can close. 00:32:18.898 --> 00:32:20.826 What he closes, no one can open. 00:32:20.826 --> 00:32:29.865 In Isaiah's historical context, that first horizon, eliakim is going to become the right hand palace steward. 00:32:29.865 --> 00:32:32.130 He gets the keys. 00:32:32.130 --> 00:32:35.038 He, the people that have keys, have authority. 00:32:35.038 --> 00:32:36.681 They can lock things and open things. 00:32:36.681 --> 00:32:43.390 So Eliakim, on behalf of Hezekiah the king, can do all kinds of things with the keys. 00:32:43.390 --> 00:32:50.928 But if you read your Bibles, that's not the only place we come across a passage like this. 00:32:50.928 --> 00:32:53.823 It should sound familiar. 00:32:53.923 --> 00:32:57.580 Right Revelation, chapter three, verse seven, write to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. 00:32:57.580 --> 00:33:07.887 Thus says the Holy one, the true one, the one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will close. 00:33:07.887 --> 00:33:13.855 Who closes and no one will open. 00:33:13.855 --> 00:33:18.962 Revelation takes those words about Eliakim and applies them directly to the resurrected and exalted Lord Jesus Christ. 00:33:18.962 --> 00:33:25.708 Revelation 3.12 goes on to say the people of Christ become pillars in God's temple. 00:33:25.708 --> 00:33:28.479 They get a new name from a new Jerusalem. 00:33:28.479 --> 00:33:48.017 So the Jerusalem from below, the Jerusalem of Eliakim's day, is going to give way in God's story to the Jerusalem from above, because the son of God has descended from the heavenly Jerusalem and he's come to bring light to people who dwell in the land of darkness. 00:33:48.017 --> 00:33:53.247 Humans like you and me take hold of him, trust in him. 00:33:53.247 --> 00:33:55.016 That's where you find light. 00:33:58.383 --> 00:34:00.688 And I don't want to overlook one church application here. 00:34:00.688 --> 00:34:01.977 Where else are keys mentioned? 00:34:01.977 --> 00:34:09.989 Matthew 16, jesus gives Peter keys of the kingdom and, by extension, the church. 00:34:09.989 --> 00:34:20.719 Matthew 18 corroborates that by talking about the church binding and loosing, the same thing the keys did back in chapter 16. 00:34:20.719 --> 00:34:27.878 So we, as the people of Christ, we have authority to do things on behalf of King Jesus. 00:34:27.878 --> 00:34:30.347 What an amazing privilege. 00:34:30.347 --> 00:34:40.889 It doesn't mean we'll always do those things perfectly, but we want to announce the gospel clearly and guard the gospel carefully as people of the king. 00:34:44.016 --> 00:34:50.409 It's not a coincidence that during the crucifixion, darkness falls on the land for three hours. 00:34:50.409 --> 00:35:06.929 The gospel writers are making a theological point that God, in his providence, allowed darkness to fall for those three hours during that moment of the crucifixion as a sign that judgment was falling. 00:35:06.929 --> 00:35:11.047 It's not every time there's ever darkness, but here there's a significance. 00:35:11.047 --> 00:35:15.139 Judgment was falling as darkness fell for those three hours. 00:35:15.139 --> 00:35:18.367 But who was judgment falling on? 00:35:18.367 --> 00:35:23.181 It was falling on that man hanging on the cross. 00:35:23.181 --> 00:35:28.936 It was falling on him so that it wouldn't have to fall on us. 00:35:28.936 --> 00:35:31.739 Three hours of darkness. 00:35:31.739 --> 00:35:35.043 Three days later it's morning. 00:35:35.043 --> 00:35:37.186 The tomb is empty. 00:35:37.186 --> 00:35:52.527 An angel in bright clothing announces he's not here because he's risen, as he said, so that all those who turn from their sin and trust in that Christ, they experience an eternal morning, eternal light, eternal life. 00:36:03.335 --> 00:36:07.900 Isaiah 22 begins with a pronouncement concerning the valley of vision. 00:36:07.900 --> 00:36:12.605 I briefly mentioned earlier that it speaks of my dear people. 00:36:12.605 --> 00:36:25.536 It seems to be a reference there in that pronouncement to Judah, more narrowly Jerusalem, but calling Jerusalem the valley of vision. 00:36:25.536 --> 00:36:25.958 It's a strange title. 00:36:25.958 --> 00:36:32.889