WEBVTT 00:00:00.420 --> 00:00:02.024 Welcome to 2025. 00:00:02.024 --> 00:00:08.846 What a delight it is to, by God's mercies, to have a new year to look forward to, and I'm excited for what God has ahead of us. 00:00:08.846 --> 00:00:14.545 A large part of what we'll be doing through 2025, at least on Sunday mornings is studying the book of Isaiah. 00:00:14.545 --> 00:00:16.891 So let's go there now. 00:00:16.891 --> 00:00:18.501 Let's go to Isaiah, chapter 10. 00:00:18.501 --> 00:00:19.885 Isaiah, chapter 10. 00:00:19.885 --> 00:00:33.311 If you're new here or you don't have a Bible, you'll find one in front of you, and right around page 607 or 808 or 908, you'll find one in front of you or 808 or 908 or 909, somewhere in there is Isaiah chapter 10. 00:00:36.301 --> 00:00:51.268 This morning we're going to be stepping into this chapter, looking at the bulk of it, and this passage is full of names that are unfamiliar to us and places that we don't know, and it deals with a situation that happened a long time ago. 00:00:51.268 --> 00:00:56.743 But it introduces to us two themes that are extremely important. 00:00:56.743 --> 00:01:04.644 There are two major themes in Scripture, and they are the themes of judgment and mercy, judgment and mercy and the concepts of judgment and mercy. 00:01:04.644 --> 00:01:14.454 Judgment and mercy and the concepts of judgment and mercy reveal the character of God and they express the way God deals with humanity. 00:01:14.454 --> 00:01:22.260 These themes are intricately woven throughout Scripture. 00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:23.284 First of all, we have God's judgment. 00:01:23.284 --> 00:01:26.320 God's judgment it's a fundamental characteristic of God and his activity. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:33.373 As I said, it is the outworking of his holiness and his righteousness and his justice. 00:01:33.373 --> 00:01:46.253 The Old Testament has a word, mishpat, and it denotes judgment, and it emphasizes particularly the legal and moral order that's been established by God. 00:01:46.253 --> 00:02:01.727 Contrary to what a lot of people think today that we can do whatever is right in our own eyes, or that our truth is not perhaps the same as your truth, but we can happily get along with each other's truth, even though it's contradictory. 00:02:02.569 --> 00:02:18.384 The scriptures tell us that God is the author and upholder of all things that are right and true, and so his justice and his judgment is his righteous response against sin and disobedience. 00:02:18.384 --> 00:02:31.890 The Bible consistently upholds God as a righteous judge who holds any disobedient and sinful individual or nation accountable for those actions. 00:02:31.890 --> 00:02:51.756 His judgment ensures that evil will not go unpunished, and if we were honest with ourselves, we would say that all of us have a desire for those things which are truly evil to be punished. 00:02:51.756 --> 00:02:55.991 We find ourselves calling for justice all the time. 00:02:55.991 --> 00:03:05.830 In fact, I think my son's first words after learning data and maybe mama was to say that's not fair. 00:03:05.830 --> 00:03:17.841 So we have innately within us this idea of things that are just and right, and if those things are broken, they must be taken into account for. 00:03:19.924 --> 00:03:21.848 But there's also the mercy of God. 00:03:21.848 --> 00:03:30.231 Not only is there just judgment, but there's also mercy, again, another expression of God's activity toward humanity. 00:03:30.231 --> 00:03:44.254 As much as judgment is a reality, so is mercy, and the Hebrew word chesed means loving, kindness or mercy, or steadfast love and compassion. 00:03:44.254 --> 00:03:53.159 It is a covenant-keeping fidelity of God. 00:03:53.159 --> 00:03:59.421 Now, mercy is not merely the absence of judgment. 00:03:59.421 --> 00:04:05.114 Mercy is an active expression of God's kindness and love, as he extends forgiveness to humanity despite our unworthiness. 00:04:05.114 --> 00:04:07.165 It's an active word. 00:04:07.165 --> 00:04:16.572 It is a testament of his loving desire for reconciliation and redemption and communion with people who are sinful. 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:30.845 Now it's easy for us to think that judgment and mercy must stand as opposites of one another and therefore have to act in isolation of one another. 00:04:30.845 --> 00:04:44.591 After all, justice is the dispensing of a deserved punishment against wrongdoing, and mercy is the extension of pardon to someone who is an offender. 00:04:44.591 --> 00:04:51.408 So we think that these two things must be opposite and therefore isolated from one another. 00:04:51.408 --> 00:04:55.380 In fact, some religions even say that is the case. 00:04:55.380 --> 00:05:01.507 In Islam, allah's mercy is exercised at the expense of justice. 00:05:01.507 --> 00:05:10.863 Allah may grant mercy, but he does so by setting aside the penalty that's due the person for their disobedience. 00:05:12.668 --> 00:05:18.122 But the scriptures don't present mercy and judgment as contradictory at all. 00:05:18.122 --> 00:05:28.987 They express judgment and mercy as things that work complementarily with one another judgment and mercy as things that work complementarily with one another, and they reveal the fullness of God's character. 00:05:28.987 --> 00:05:35.165 And so, as we think about these concepts of his judgment and his mercy, we need to carefully look at scripture. 00:05:35.165 --> 00:05:46.540 We need to see how it consistently portrays them together, in harmony with one another, and this morning, as we look at Isaiah chapter 10, with one another. 00:05:46.540 --> 00:05:57.769 And this morning, as we look at Isaiah chapter 10, we're going to see judgment and mercy being played out in human history, and we'll also understand how judgment and mercy continue to be played out even in our history, even in our day. 00:05:57.769 --> 00:06:02.704 So let's begin with judgment and then we'll get to mercy. 00:06:03.064 --> 00:06:04.247 But let's begin with judgment. 00:06:04.247 --> 00:06:15.408 And the first thing I want us to understand as we look through this passage of Scripture is God's judgment in action toward Israel and Judah, toward Israel and Judah. 00:06:15.408 --> 00:06:23.444 We'll look at a few passages that display that in just a second, but as we've been going through the book of Isaiah, as we've gone through all the first nine chapters of Isaiah. 00:06:23.444 --> 00:06:41.403 One of the things that we've gone through all the first nine chapters of Isaiah, one of the things that we've understood is that Israel and Judah have been acting as if they can ignore anything that God has called them to do and to follow, that they can refuse any of the demands that he's placed upon their lives. 00:06:41.403 --> 00:06:49.404 And the king of Judah, king Ahaz, who we've been looking at since chapter 7, is a prime example of that. 00:06:49.404 --> 00:06:54.274 Listen to how 2 Chronicles describes him in chapter 28. 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.425 Ahaz was 20 when he became king. 00:06:58.425 --> 00:07:01.009 He reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. 00:07:01.009 --> 00:07:04.524 He did not do what was right in the Lord's sight. 00:07:04.524 --> 00:07:11.149 Like his ancestor David, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made images of the Baals. 00:07:11.149 --> 00:07:34.355 He burned incense in Ben-Hanom Valley and burned his children in the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had disp, only representative of the nation. 00:07:34.355 --> 00:07:44.788 Later on, in that same chapter, it talks about how Ahaz actually shut down the temple and took sacred vessels from it. 00:07:44.788 --> 00:08:01.752 In order to make paraphernalia and to put together a bribe for the king of Assyria, ahaz gathered up the utensils of God's temple, cut them into pieces, shut the doors of the Lord's temple and made himself altars on every street corner in Jerusalem. 00:08:01.752 --> 00:08:10.853 He made high places in every city of Judah to offer incense to other gods, and he angered the Lord, the God of his ancestors. 00:08:10.853 --> 00:08:14.062 And the people were no different than their king. 00:08:14.062 --> 00:08:29.185 They gladly carried on as if God never even existed, and they plunged into religious, moral and societal decay by violating God's laws and being unfaithful to the covenant that the people were required to keep. 00:08:30.468 --> 00:08:37.808 The book of Amos, speaking about the Israelites, is a prime example of what was going on in both Israel and Judah. 00:08:37.808 --> 00:08:46.133 In Amos, chapter 5 and verse 7, it says they turned justice into wormwood and threw righteousness to the ground. 00:08:46.133 --> 00:08:53.586 They hated the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate and they despised the one who speaks with integrity. 00:08:53.586 --> 00:08:56.067 The Lord says I know your crimes. 00:08:56.067 --> 00:08:58.408 There are many and your sins are innumerable. 00:08:58.408 --> 00:09:05.730 They oppress the righteous, they take a bribe and they deprive the poor of justice at the city gates. 00:09:05.730 --> 00:09:09.696 Now, this is why we get to chapter 10. 00:09:09.696 --> 00:09:20.893 And when we get into chapter 10, we understand that God is about to use the nation of Assyria as his instrument of judgment against Israel and even Judah. 00:09:20.893 --> 00:09:33.833 It provides us a broader understanding of what's about to happen in history, and God's just anger against these Israelites and people of Judah will be satisfied through the Assyrians. 00:09:35.061 --> 00:09:36.644 Take a look at verse 5 for a second. 00:09:36.644 --> 00:09:45.063 In Isaiah, chapter 10, and verse 5, it says Woe to Assyria, and we'll understand why the woe is there in just a minute. 00:09:45.063 --> 00:09:50.831 The rod of my anger, the staff in their hands, is my wrath. 00:09:50.831 --> 00:09:53.975 Well, who are these Assyrians? 00:09:53.975 --> 00:10:00.363 We've alluded to them over the past few weeks and months as we've looked through the earlier chapters of Isaiah. 00:10:00.363 --> 00:10:01.346 But who are they? 00:10:01.346 --> 00:10:09.846 Well, if you know the book of Jonah, you've probably heard of the capital city of Nineveh, which was Assyria's capital. 00:10:10.388 --> 00:10:16.850 Assyria was a warring nation that lay in the northern Iraq area of what's modern day Iraq. 00:10:16.850 --> 00:10:38.923 And before the sun never set on the British Empire and before Genghis Khan swept through the steps and before the Roman Empire rose to encircle the Mediterranean region, we had the Assyrians deemed as probably the first major empire of human history. 00:10:38.923 --> 00:10:42.908 They were at their height in the 7th century BC. 00:10:42.908 --> 00:10:51.636 They were at their pinnacle right at this very moment that these things are happening in Isaiah, chapter 10. 00:10:51.636 --> 00:11:09.721 As their empire increased, it stretched out, it took over modern Iraq, syria, lebanon, israel, parts of Turkey, parts of Iran and even a large section of modern day Egypt. 00:11:09.721 --> 00:11:20.384 It was an expansive empire and over the course of several hundred years its fortunes rose and fell and eventually crumbled away. 00:11:20.384 --> 00:11:30.544 But at this point in time, they are a major force and they are intimately involved in the life and the history of the people of Israel. 00:11:31.687 --> 00:11:41.053 And here, in Isaiah, chapter 10 and verse 5, god declares that he's going to use this empire as his instrument of judgment against the people. 00:11:41.053 --> 00:11:48.802 You see, assyria, though they're not aware of it, are an instrument in God's hands. 00:11:48.802 --> 00:11:52.692 Despite how they think about it, that's exactly what they are. 00:11:52.692 --> 00:11:55.081 Look at verse 5 again. 00:11:55.081 --> 00:12:02.174 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff in their hands is my wrath. 00:12:02.174 --> 00:12:04.245 This is instrumentality here. 00:12:04.245 --> 00:12:07.312 And if you go down to verse 15, you'll see that again. 00:12:07.312 --> 00:12:14.091 Does an axe exalt itself above the one who chops with it? 00:12:14.091 --> 00:12:18.171 Does a saw magnify itself above the one who saws with it? 00:12:18.171 --> 00:12:22.590 Would it be like a rod waving the one who lifts it? 00:12:22.590 --> 00:12:27.171 It would be like a staff lifting the one who isn't wood. 00:12:27.171 --> 00:12:36.861 And here we see implements, tools of lumbering and tools of warfare or oppression the ax and the saw and the rod and the club. 00:12:36.861 --> 00:12:46.916 And in chapter 6, god said he was going to cut down the tree of Israel's pride. 00:12:46.916 --> 00:12:51.490 And now we have the axe in God's hands. 00:12:52.539 --> 00:12:59.193 These people of Israel are being brought into the land as an expression of God's judgment. 00:12:59.193 --> 00:13:02.605 Now look at why. 00:13:02.605 --> 00:13:03.328 In verse 6. 00:13:03.328 --> 00:13:11.609 Isaiah 10, 6, it says I will send him against a godless nation. 00:13:11.609 --> 00:13:23.594 I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils to plunder and to trample them down like clay in the streets. 00:13:23.594 --> 00:13:26.706 A godless nation. 00:13:26.706 --> 00:13:30.003 The people of Israel must have been crying in protest. 00:13:30.003 --> 00:13:32.528 We're not the godless nation. 00:13:32.528 --> 00:13:35.514 The Assyrians are the godless nation. 00:13:37.841 --> 00:13:59.102 But this word godless is actually the word for perverted or twisted or warped, which means that these people had understood God's clear revelation of what was right and not right and had perverted it, had twisted it to their own personal ends. 00:13:59.102 --> 00:14:02.609 So God turns around and tells them. 00:14:02.609 --> 00:14:13.081 So God turns around and tells them look, you're just as bad, no, you're even worse, because you know better than even they do. 00:14:13.081 --> 00:14:19.726 The people of God knew better, but they perverted God's ways and turned their backs on the God who had delivered them. 00:14:19.726 --> 00:14:31.657 And so the expanding empire of Assyria invaded Israel and, in 722 BC, destroyed the northern kingdom and its capital, samaria. 00:14:31.657 --> 00:14:52.546 And after Samaria's invasion, samaria, the glorious capital, lay in a smoldering ruin, and along with that was a mass deportation of the population, brought into exile into mesopotamia. 00:14:52.546 --> 00:15:11.094 This was one of the tactics of the assyrian people, and that's how they gained such a large group of large area is they would go in and conquer people and then send them all over the place and disperse them into places that they didn't know, so they could never rally enough resistance or opposition to be able to stand against them. 00:15:11.094 --> 00:15:15.844 Indeed, assyria proved to be the rod of God's anger. 00:15:17.626 --> 00:15:22.260 2 Kings 17 gives us a theological understanding of why it happened. 00:15:22.260 --> 00:15:31.688 Now notice their actions and how their actions are portrayed up against what God had done for them and what God had said to them. 00:15:31.688 --> 00:15:47.101 As you hear these words, all of this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt, from under the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. 00:15:47.101 --> 00:15:59.981 They worshiped other gods and practiced and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. 00:15:59.981 --> 00:16:05.452 The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord, their God, that were not right. 00:16:05.452 --> 00:16:10.399 From watchtower to fortified city, they built themselves high places in all their towns. 00:16:10.399 --> 00:16:16.273 They set up sacred stones and asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. 00:16:16.273 --> 00:16:23.153 At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done. 00:16:23.153 --> 00:16:26.389 They did wicked things that aroused the Lord's anger. 00:16:26.389 --> 00:16:30.650 They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said you shall not do this. 00:16:31.780 --> 00:16:46.024 The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers turn from your evil ways, observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants. 00:16:46.024 --> 00:16:50.811 You see, god doesn't respect a double standard. 00:16:50.811 --> 00:17:03.115 The judgment he meets out to the sins in the world is no different than the judgment he meets out to those who call themselves his people. 00:17:03.115 --> 00:17:10.314 Saying we belong to God will not rescue us from judgment. 00:17:10.314 --> 00:17:13.969 It makes us actually all the more accountable. 00:17:13.969 --> 00:17:28.252 If we refuse, we are, practically speaking, godless, just like the Israelites were, and it's a very dangerous thing to think that we can ignore God. 00:17:28.252 --> 00:17:33.842 Dangerous thing to think that we can ignore God. 00:17:33.842 --> 00:17:41.980 You see, the God that we worship is a God who stands justly against evil, and he will move against it in his due time in the ways that he sees fit. 00:17:44.365 --> 00:17:49.965 Now, people who don't know their Bibles are surprised, even sometimes repulsed, at what they read in the Old Testament. 00:17:49.965 --> 00:17:59.553 But they forget that this was Jesus' Bible too, after all, and he never once said anything contrary about the judgment of God. 00:17:59.553 --> 00:18:12.195 You see, when you don't understand what sin is, you can't really fully appreciate why God acts against it the way he does. 00:18:12.195 --> 00:18:37.096 But once you've seen God's holy character, as Isaiah did in chapter 6, and when he got a glimpse of the majesty and the holiness of God, he cried out quickly woe is me, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among an unclean people. 00:18:37.096 --> 00:18:50.244 He didn't walk around with an accusatory finger that wasn't first pointed at himself when he saw who God was. 00:18:50.244 --> 00:19:02.614 The scriptures tell us God acts in judgment, and he begins here by bringing judgment against his own people who have treacherously abandoned him. 00:19:04.421 --> 00:19:08.089 But this section of scripture is largely about something else. 00:19:08.089 --> 00:19:12.509 Interestingly enough, it's about God's judgment against Assyria. 00:19:12.509 --> 00:19:15.527 Take a look at verse 12. 00:19:15.527 --> 00:19:33.095 When the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and for the proud look in his eyes. 00:19:33.095 --> 00:19:41.492 God said that Assyria was his instrument, his judgment against the sinful people of Israel and Judah. 00:19:41.492 --> 00:19:44.348 It was the rod of his anger, the staff of his wrath. 00:19:44.348 --> 00:19:51.953 Assyria is his axe to chop down and to saw and to cut down the pride of the people. 00:19:53.500 --> 00:19:56.028 Now, assyria doesn't even admit this. 00:19:56.028 --> 00:19:58.275 They don't even think this. 00:19:58.275 --> 00:20:05.221 They think that actually, everything that they are has been built up by themselves, that they're the source of all their successes. 00:20:05.221 --> 00:20:14.832 And in verse 5 to 7, it tells us this Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff in their hands. 00:20:14.832 --> 00:20:19.846 As my wrath, I will send him against a sinful nation, a godless nation. 00:20:19.846 --> 00:20:26.446 I will command him to go against the people destined for my rage, to take spoil, to plunder and to trample them down like clay in the streets. 00:20:26.446 --> 00:20:31.763 But this is not what he intends, this is not what he plans. 00:20:31.763 --> 00:20:36.693 It is his intent to destroy and to cut off many nations. 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:45.363 You see, assyria here is denying any accountability at all, denying that they're the product of God's rising. 00:20:45.363 --> 00:20:53.463 And the king of Assyria here has no qualms saying that he's superior to everything on the face of earth. 00:20:53.463 --> 00:20:59.294 He's so great that even his commanders are greater than kings. 00:20:59.294 --> 00:21:01.521 Take a look at verse 8 and 9. 00:21:01.521 --> 00:21:05.970 For he says aren't all my commanders kings? 00:21:05.970 --> 00:21:09.635 Isn't Calno like Carchemish? 00:21:09.635 --> 00:21:11.578 Isn't Hamath like Arpad? 00:21:11.578 --> 00:21:13.282 Isn't Samaria like Damascus? 00:21:13.282 --> 00:21:21.461 He's saying, my commanders stand as greater ones than the kings of these nations that they've conquered. 00:21:21.461 --> 00:21:25.748 This emperor thinks he's truly king of kings. 00:21:25.748 --> 00:21:27.670 Emperor thinks he's truly king of kings. 00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:40.482 And since he's already taken Samaria and its gods, why should he think anything at all about being an instrument of Jerusalem's God? 00:21:40.482 --> 00:21:45.673 In fact, he believes he's superior to God and he can do to Jerusalem whatever he wants. 00:21:47.819 --> 00:21:50.224 Take a look at verse 10 and 11. 00:21:50.224 --> 00:22:09.209 As my hand sees the kingdoms of worthless images, kingdoms whose idols exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria, as I did to Samaria in its worthless images, will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols Now? 00:22:09.209 --> 00:22:15.356 He's not speaking against the false idols of Samaria and Judah and Jerusalem. 00:22:15.356 --> 00:22:16.945 He's speaking against Yahweh. 00:22:16.945 --> 00:22:36.152 He's talking against the Lord God and he's seeing it as just another local, tribal deity that couldn't save just as much as all the conquered city-states that he had just mentioned couldn't stand against his mighty force. 00:22:36.152 --> 00:22:41.144 Yahweh was just another idol. 00:22:41.144 --> 00:22:47.021 The Lord God was just some small deity of a small nowhere. 00:22:47.021 --> 00:22:52.574 People, nobody people in this little faraway place of Jerusalem. 00:22:55.801 --> 00:22:59.250 He did not see himself as an instrument in the hand of God. 00:22:59.250 --> 00:23:06.380 Rather, he boasts that it's his hands, his hands that have captured the nations. 00:23:06.380 --> 00:23:11.215 His hands that have captured the nations. 00:23:11.215 --> 00:23:15.924 I have done this by my own strength, he says in verse 13. 00:23:15.924 --> 00:23:16.866 And my wisdom? 00:23:16.866 --> 00:23:18.631 For I am clever. 00:23:18.631 --> 00:23:25.391 I abolished the borders of nations and plundered their treasures. 00:23:25.391 --> 00:23:26.420 Like a mighty warrior, I subjugated the inhabitants. 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:33.663 My hand has reached out, as if into a nest, to seize the wealth of the nations. 00:23:33.663 --> 00:23:38.333 Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered the whole earth. 00:23:38.333 --> 00:23:43.008 No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped. 00:23:43.008 --> 00:23:45.432 His hand, his hand captured the nations. 00:23:45.432 --> 00:23:48.940 His hand, his hand captured the nations. 00:23:48.940 --> 00:23:51.326 His hand seized their wealth. 00:23:51.326 --> 00:24:01.851 His hand looted them, as if he was simply plucking eggs out of an abandoned nest, without even a wing daring to flap in protest. 00:24:01.851 --> 00:24:13.954 And here he makes no appeals to the gods as energizing him or being gracious to him or helping him in any way. 00:24:13.954 --> 00:24:17.911 This is all him, him, him, him. 00:24:17.911 --> 00:24:25.772 He repeats the first person pronoun some 13 times in these verses. 00:24:25.772 --> 00:24:30.547 He is the center of the world after all. 00:24:31.750 --> 00:24:57.605 The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, another Assyrian emperor, a couple hundred years before this, speaks with the same sort of mentality In these days and here's a quote from ancient Near East literature in these days when, at the command of the great gods, my lordly sovereignty had manifested itself, going forth to plunder the goods of the lands. 00:24:57.605 --> 00:24:59.307 Now listen to how he speaks. 00:24:59.307 --> 00:25:20.384 I am royal, I am lordy, I am mighty, I am honored, I am exalted, I am glorified, I am powerful, I am all powerful, I am brilliant, I am lion brave, I am manly, I am supreme, I am noble. 00:25:20.384 --> 00:25:23.208 Wouldn't you want to meet that guy in? 00:25:23.208 --> 00:25:34.096 But one thing that we learn in the Bible is that God will not stand human pride. 00:25:34.096 --> 00:25:49.852 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against the one who wields it. 00:25:52.961 --> 00:26:08.192 100 years later, assyria crumbles and is no more, and the only thing that we have left of Assyria are wall reliefs smattered around a number of different museums. 00:26:08.192 --> 00:26:10.928 The kingdom is gone. 00:26:10.928 --> 00:26:17.230 Babylon walked in literally walked in, and took it over. 00:26:17.230 --> 00:26:21.323 What do we learn from this? 00:26:21.323 --> 00:26:25.371 God judges Judah and Israel. 00:26:25.371 --> 00:26:31.681 God judges the Assyrians, judah and Israel. 00:26:31.681 --> 00:26:32.182 God judges the Assyrians. 00:26:32.201 --> 00:26:36.531 What we learn here particularly is, though God may work through people's sinful activities, he never condones it. 00:26:36.531 --> 00:26:49.731 Once his purposes have been served, the people that have been used to operate his purposes will be brought under the same moral authority as any other people. 00:26:49.731 --> 00:27:00.943 And just because a nation has been used by God as a tool doesn't mean that those people can live without accountability to God. 00:27:00.943 --> 00:27:09.336 God is able to use evil, but he's also not compromised by it. 00:27:09.336 --> 00:27:19.194 He will hold every villain accountable and no one will get away with anything, not even arrogant speech or boastful looks. 00:27:19.194 --> 00:27:30.799 And one of the things we learn here is the Lord is the Lord of history over all people, in all generations, and that includes ours, and that includes ours. 00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:32.345 And that includes us. 00:27:32.345 --> 00:27:43.648 It includes us as individuals, it includes us as peoples, it includes us as nations, it includes us as humanity. 00:27:43.648 --> 00:27:49.431 You see, the Lord calls and dismisses nations. 00:27:49.431 --> 00:27:56.852 He determines the destinies of people, he divides the ages and determines the eventual course of mankind. 00:27:56.852 --> 00:28:05.692 And he will stand over every person and stand over every nation and call every single one of us into account for our sin and our rebellion. 00:28:07.020 --> 00:28:10.391 This concept is front and center here God's judgment. 00:28:10.391 --> 00:28:14.366 But the scriptures, even in the New Testament, speak about this. 00:28:14.366 --> 00:28:23.292 We've seen Jew and Gentile, assyrian and Israelite mentioned here as both under the scrutiny and the judgment of God. 00:28:23.292 --> 00:28:25.903 The book of Romans does the same. 00:28:25.903 --> 00:28:29.309 Romans, chapter 3, says what then? 00:28:29.309 --> 00:28:31.433 Are we any better off? 00:28:31.433 --> 00:28:39.432 Not at all, for we've already charged that both Jew and Greek are all under sin. 00:28:39.432 --> 00:28:44.491 As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. 00:28:44.491 --> 00:28:48.171 There is no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God. 00:28:48.171 --> 00:28:49.820 They've all turned away. 00:28:49.820 --> 00:28:52.025 All alike have become worthless. 00:28:52.025 --> 00:28:56.733 There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 00:28:56.733 --> 00:29:00.682 And he says this now. 00:29:02.385 --> 00:29:12.972 Whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God's judgment. 00:29:12.972 --> 00:29:21.614 For no one will be justified in God's sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 00:29:21.614 --> 00:29:39.314 You will never get to heaven by saying to yourself I will keep the commands of God, because those commands, mixed with our hearts, will do nothing but expose just how wrong we actually are. 00:29:39.314 --> 00:29:49.789 That's its purpose, and its purpose brings us all to the same place, to the place of judgment. 00:29:49.789 --> 00:29:56.741 But, as I said, judgment is not all that Scripture talks about. 00:29:56.741 --> 00:30:03.541 It also talks about mercy, and here we see God's mercy in play in this chapter. 00:30:03.541 --> 00:30:07.970 As heavy and as hard as it is, it's also full of mercy. 00:30:07.970 --> 00:30:10.094 Take a look at verse 12. 00:30:10.094 --> 00:30:24.153 But when the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes. 00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:29.872 Now the Assyrians wouldn't accept the idea that they were no more than a tool in God's hands. 00:30:29.872 --> 00:30:33.843 But look at what it says there. 00:30:33.843 --> 00:30:37.569 God limits Assyria's reach. 00:30:37.569 --> 00:30:41.403 They wanted to do more, as it said earlier in there. 00:30:41.403 --> 00:30:44.432 They wanted to subjugate all of the nations. 00:30:44.432 --> 00:30:53.821 They thought they could mow down all the nations at their will, but even with all of their might and their power. 00:30:55.325 --> 00:31:05.625 It says here that they were God's tool to serve God's purposes to the extent that God determined, and no further. 00:31:05.625 --> 00:31:12.435 They could go, no further than what God said they would do. 00:31:12.435 --> 00:31:16.724 You see, god is not only just in His judgment. 00:31:16.724 --> 00:31:23.482 Even His judgment is marked by mercy because it has an end. 00:31:23.482 --> 00:31:34.777 It's not capriciously free and just wantonly rages and sweeps over all without a measure of movement. 00:31:34.777 --> 00:31:47.412 The promised destruction by Assyria is temporary and not permanent, and God is not going to allow them to wholly wipe out the people. 00:31:47.412 --> 00:31:49.826 He's not going to let them do. 00:31:49.826 --> 00:32:08.798 That, and in the midst of this statement of judgment, is a word of consolation to the people of Judah Don't be afraid of Assyria, because they can only do what I'm letting them do and they can't do anymore. 00:32:08.798 --> 00:32:12.105 They can only do what I'm letting them do and they can't do anymore. 00:32:12.105 --> 00:32:17.153 God will eventually remove the Assyrian yoke and he will bring them to an end. 00:32:25.319 --> 00:32:31.317 And the prophecy abruptly stops the discussion of the destruction of Assyria in order to lead us to another statement, that God is going to rescue a remnant. 00:32:31.317 --> 00:32:33.586 Take a look at verse 20. 00:32:33.586 --> 00:32:51.981 On that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. 00:32:51.981 --> 00:32:58.334 The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God, Israel. 00:32:58.334 --> 00:33:03.332 Even if your people were as numerous as the sands of the sea, only a remnant to them will return. 00:33:03.332 --> 00:33:05.961 Destruction has been decreed. 00:33:05.961 --> 00:33:13.075 Justice overflows, for throughout the land, the Lord, God of armies, is carrying out a destruction that was decreed. 00:33:13.075 --> 00:33:21.193 Isaiah's firstborn son was named Shir Jashab, which means a remnant will return. 00:33:21.193 --> 00:33:32.102 And here God is telling them that the people will not be utterly wiped out, even as they succumb to the mighty empire of Assyria. 00:33:34.185 --> 00:33:36.910 Now, this lesson is double-edged, but it is merciful. 00:33:36.910 --> 00:33:48.193 It tells us, in one sense, that it's only a remnant that will survive, telling us that the judgment was indeed just and necessary. 00:33:48.193 --> 00:34:13.940 But it also tells us that, once that judgment is over, there is a remnant after all who are saved, telling us that God is still keeping his promises, even to a people who have utterly proven the lack of worthiness of being deemed carriers of God's promise of deliverance. 00:34:13.940 --> 00:34:19.505 And it goes in line with all of the book, of all of Scripture. 00:34:19.505 --> 00:34:22.474 From Genesis forward, we see this happening. 00:34:23.528 --> 00:34:27.771 When the world was in ruins, god delivered a remnant of Noah and his family. 00:34:27.771 --> 00:34:34.349 He called Abraham out away from idol-worshiping people. 00:34:34.349 --> 00:34:44.755 He gave Isaac promises to receive, and out of Isaac were two twins and Jacob was the son who would carry forth that promise. 00:34:44.755 --> 00:34:51.797 And out of Jacob's sons there was Judah, narrowed down down to one line. 00:34:51.797 --> 00:35:03.315 Little by little, in the period of the wilderness, the whole first generation succumbed to God's judgment and the remnant of the second generation entered into the land. 00:35:03.315 --> 00:35:12.134 And the remnant of the second generation entered into the land During the time of Ahab's apostasy, elijah found out there were 7,000 who had not bowed to Baal. 00:35:12.134 --> 00:35:18.161 In the day of Jehu's reform, the Rechabites were the only people faithful to God. 00:35:18.161 --> 00:35:28.010 In every age, god secures a few that he prepares to serve him. 00:35:28.030 --> 00:35:29.592 Isaiah will speak about this remnant. 00:35:29.592 --> 00:35:32.338 He calls them one man left out of every seven. 00:35:32.338 --> 00:35:36.108 He calls them a tenth in chapter six. 00:35:36.108 --> 00:35:40.619 He calls them the gleanings left on a harvested olive tree in chapter 17. 00:35:40.619 --> 00:36:09.831 And the apostle Paul quotes this passage of Scripture in Romans, chapter 9, along with another verse in chapter 1 of Isaiah talking about a remnant telling us that this is God's way of dealing with the people of Israel in Isaiah's day and in Paul's day, that there are a people for his name, but not a majority of people. 00:36:12.034 --> 00:36:26.226 What lies behind all of this is grace, because for every single one of these people, including the ones who are delivered, there's absolutely no reason why they deserve to have deliverance. 00:36:26.226 --> 00:36:32.217 None, it's not because of their merit that they were spared. 00:36:32.217 --> 00:36:35.586 It was because of God's mercy they were spared. 00:36:35.586 --> 00:36:47.813 The fact that any of them were saved from destruction is because God is also a merciful God, and this is a lesson we need to desperately hear. 00:36:47.813 --> 00:37:04.110 We need to understand that we have nothing to boast about, that God has been merciful to us to deliver us and the only reason why we even have that next breath is because a merciful God grants it. 00:37:04.110 --> 00:37:24.940 Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, or the strong man boast in his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on this earth. 00:37:24.940 --> 00:37:28.632 Let's bring this to a close. 00:37:30.025 --> 00:37:37.134 The concept of judgment and mercy it's a recurring theme, as I said, throughout the scriptures. 00:37:37.134 --> 00:37:49.697 It's very clear here in the history of the people of Israel and it reflects the character of God and it reflects how he operates and extends himself into the affairs of humanity. 00:37:49.697 --> 00:37:58.867 Understanding God's judgment and his mercy means that we understand that they're actually complementary roles in God's divine plan. 00:37:58.867 --> 00:38:16.856 And just a few minutes we're going to be celebrating the Lord's table and this is a demonstration of this very thing that the cross of Christ stands at the pinnacle spot of the convergence of judgment and mercy. 00:38:16.856 --> 00:38:23.458 You see, christianity shows us that God's mercy is shown through judgment. 00:38:23.458 --> 00:38:33.297 God's mercy doesn't act in opposition to judgment and it doesn't stand by setting aside judgment. 00:38:37.065 --> 00:39:21.010 The scriptures tell us that Christ died as a satisfactory substitute in the place of sinners, that all of our injustices and all of our sins and all of our disobedience and rebellion and godlessness was placed on Christ, who bore the wrath of God in the place of undeserving people, and that it is only because of that sacrifice that mercy is shown and extended to undeserving people who look to Christ as their deliverer. 00:39:21.010 --> 00:39:26.780 You see, this is what the scriptures say and this is what the gospel is. 00:39:26.780 --> 00:39:34.393 Paul says it in chapter 3 of Romans All are justified freely by his grace. 00:39:34.393 --> 00:39:39.635 How, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 00:39:39.635 --> 00:39:49.309 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. 00:39:49.309 --> 00:39:57.556 He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. 00:39:57.556 --> 00:40:09.717 He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and also to be the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 00:40:09.717 --> 00:40:24.335 See, god will never set aside his justice, but he will meet his justice and he meets his justice for redeemed people in his own Son, people in his own Son. 00:40:24.335 --> 00:40:28.219 God's justice and his mercy are seen at the cross. 00:40:28.219 --> 00:40:54.945 At the cross, god's justice was meted out in full upon Christ, god's perfect mercy is exercised in his perfect justice. 00:40:54.945 --> 00:41:01.273 The question is are you going to go into the presence of God holding on to your own right for justice? 00:41:01.273 --> 00:41:14.318 Are you going to go into the presence of God clinging to the offered mercy of God found in the justice of God's punishment against sin in his Son? 00:41:14.318 --> 00:41:20.152 That's the gospel, that is the message that we declare. 00:41:20.152 --> 00:41:27.809 Flee from the wrath of God by going to the only place you can be delivered, and that is Jesus Christ. 00:41:29.452 --> 00:41:44.760 God gave us a great picture of that as the people of Israel were in prison, in slavery in Egypt, and the last plague that came would be the plague that would rip from every household the firstborn in death. 00:41:44.760 --> 00:42:15.219 And with that statement of coming judgment there was also the instruction to take a spotless lamb into the household and there sacrifice that lamb and lay its blood on the lintel and the doorposts, and when the angel of death would go by, anyone who had that blood on the outside of their house would be spared judgment. 00:42:15.219 --> 00:42:25.536 Now the threat of judgment was against everyone, egyptian and Israelite alike. 00:42:25.536 --> 00:42:30.286 And if an Israelite said I can stand on my own through this. 00:42:30.286 --> 00:42:32.050 I don't believe judgment will come. 00:42:32.050 --> 00:42:34.717 I will just simply go to bed tonight. 00:42:34.717 --> 00:42:38.931 They would have woken up to the reality of death. 00:42:38.931 --> 00:42:43.398 It was only the ones who took the lamb. 00:42:43.398 --> 00:43:00.532 It was only the ones who took the lamb that trusted the fact that this puzzling thing of lamb's blood laid on the outside of their door was actually going to deliver them from judgment. 00:43:00.592 --> 00:43:02.273 And here we are, proclaiming to humanity something just as puzzling. 00:43:02.273 --> 00:43:18.867 Are we saying that the death and crucifixion of one person, jesus the Christ, can actually deliver me from eternal judgment? 00:43:18.867 --> 00:43:27.771 Yes, if it's applied to you, if it's applied to you, if you trust the deliverance that God has offered you, you shall be saved. 00:43:27.771 --> 00:43:29.952 The scriptures tell us that. 00:43:29.952 --> 00:43:48.168 So now we, whether we're Jew or Gentile, we don't need to be afraid of judgment, because judgment has been placed on our Savior and there's now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. 00:43:48.168 --> 00:43:54.500 Paul said now that we've been justified by his blood. 00:43:54.500 --> 00:43:59.971 How much more shall we be saved from God's wrath by him? 00:43:59.971 --> 00:44:04.878 There's a song that we sing, and we should sing it heartily. 00:44:04.878 --> 00:44:08.507 Not that I've gotten, but what I've received. 00:44:08.507 --> 00:44:11.954 Grace has bestowed it and I have believed. 00:44:11.954 --> 00:44:14.465 Boasting excluded pride. 00:44:14.465 --> 00:44:15.067 I abase. 00:44:15.067 --> 00:44:18.534 I'm only a sinner saved by grace. 00:44:18.534 --> 00:44:19.818 Let's pray. 00:44:19.818 --> 00:44:23.050 Let's pray, father. 00:44:24.835 --> 00:44:34.048 Lord, as we walked into this chapter, it certainly is something well outside of our normal conversation day by day. 00:44:34.048 --> 00:45:02.985 We do not like to speak about judgment, we don't like to understand that we are culpable, that we are accountable before you, a holy God, and instead of facing that truth, we often run from it, covering up the thought of it, trying to stifle our conscience and to swallow it down so it will never rise up and haunt our thoughts. 00:45:02.985 --> 00:45:12.315 But, lord, you tell us that that doesn't make it go away, that simply ignoring you is not the answer. 00:45:12.315 --> 00:45:25.039 And so, father, we pray that we might understand the reality of judgment, but also understand the wonderful welcome of mercy. 00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:45.516 And, lord, I pray that we who know you might not ever think lightly about sin, to know that we cannot live a double standard of saying that we're your people and yet continue to walk in the ways that displease you, that we are not saved merely by saying we're yours. 00:45:45.516 --> 00:45:51.146 We actually have to be yours, father. 00:45:51.166 --> 00:46:00.173 I also pray for any in this room who do not yet know the Savior, who have not yet called upon him, who have not gone to the place of mercy. 00:46:00.173 --> 00:46:04.266 Father, I pray that you would move their hearts to flee. 00:46:04.266 --> 00:46:22.045 Flee to Christ, to cling to him, until they have an understanding that he is their most merciful and wonderful Savior and that they are truly in Christ and delivered and no longer have to fear Father. 00:46:22.045 --> 00:46:29.396 We pray that they might see Christ now and believe on Him, and we pray this in Christ's name Amen. 00:46:29.396 --> 00:46:31.382 All right, let's stand, let's sing, please.