When God Uses A Nation In Isaiah 10

Power loves to take credit, but Isaiah 10 rips the mask off. When leaders write unjust laws, exploit the poor, and treat widows and orphans as disposable, God calls it what it is and warns that a day of punishment comes for every proud system that crowns itself untouchable.

We walk through Isaiah’s warning to Israel and the shocking twist that follows: God raises up Assyria as a rod of correction. That does not mean God blesses Assyria or approves its brutality. Assyria marches in thinking it’s unstoppable, boasting like an axe bragging about the one who swings it, and God promises to judge that arrogance too. Along the way, we talk about spiritual warfare, why distraction and sin can make faith stale, and how New Testament images like birds and leaven reveal the enemy’s strategy to snatch the Word before it takes root and to spread corruption until it ruins the whole lump.

Pastor Carl also explains how Bible prophecy works not only as predictions and fulfillments, but as repeating patterns that echo through history, including how Assyria can function as a prophetic picture that points toward the Antichrist pattern. The episode ends with a clear call to depend on the Holy One of Israel in truth, because God is both Savior and Judge, a refining fire that burns away what is false and strengthens what is real.

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Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Birds are the ones that come by and eat up the seed that are on the side of the road, so that the seed that's the word of God cannot be implanted in the hearts of men. Satan comes and eats them up after they've been scattered. Birds are the ones that end up in that big tree that is made out of the little mustard seed of faith. And birds are perching in its midst. Some of Satan's greatest work is done in the church. And that was a picture of the church. The church also gets leaven into it, right? Which is a picture of sin, and leaven leavens the whole lump, and a little sin will destroy everything.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

There's warfare happening all around you, all the time. It's a spiritual battle, not a physical one. If you're a Christian, Satan's mission is to distract you with sin and prevent you from sharing the gospel. Like a bird snatching a seed off the ground before it can grow into a plant, Satan will do everything in his power to make your faith stale and weak. Today, Pastor Carl will challenge you to examine your heart closely and identify the areas where you're spiritually vulnerable. Raise your shield and get back in the fight. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Chapter 10, the first four verses, a lot of commentaries believe that they should be included in chapter 9 because they continue on with these admonitions against Israel, the northern kingdom. It was eminent that Assyria was going to come. Israel and Syria had gotten together and they were going to come and attack Judah, the southern kingdom. And Ahaz was trying to, you know, make alliances with Syria and Assyria as well, and he couldn't. Instead, he had them as enemies and they were coming against them. And Isaiah came to him and said, You're not going to be attacked, at least not yet, because you've got the same attitudes as the northern kingdom that they're going to get judged for. Judgment will come to the south, but right now you're going to see the grace and the mercy of God hold them back. So a lot of this was written to the northern kingdom and Syria, warning them the judgment of God was coming. And it continues in chapter 10 when he says, Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune, which they have prescribed, to rob the needy of justice and to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless. Some of the signs of apostasy is when in pride and selfishness Israel made unrighteous laws to legalize oppression. It's the powerful ones who rule. It's the survival of the fittest. And this is what happened. And people got into power and they changed laws which went against God's laws. And it made it right to oppress other people and take other people down. And in a lot of ways, a lot of the laws that have been written in our nation are this way too. Ways to take advantage of people or to lord it over people. And we have judges standing in authority that have no fear of the Lord. They just have an agenda that they want to accomplish. And that's a problem, isn't it? We need judges that are in positions of authority that have a fear of God, that can legislate in a way that reflects the goodness and the righteousness of God. A righteousness that looks out for the innocent ones, the widows, and the orphans. We need legislators. We need leaders who make the laws that have fear of the Lord, don't we? Instead, we have legislators that make the law fit their direction, their desires. This is what was happening in Israel, the northern kingdom. They're making rules that fit their agenda, and they're right at the point of judgment coming upon them. God does not bless this. My ways are good for you, not your own ways. Don't make up laws that take advantage of other people. Verse 3 says, What will you do in the day of your punishment and in the desolation which you've come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory? Without me, they shall bow down among the prisoners, and they shall fall among the slain. You have this pride, you think you're so powerful and you're so mighty, and you're ruling over people, and you're controlling the population. You think you've got it all down, you've made alliances with other nations and you've made yourself strong. What are you going to do when the judgment of God comes upon you? You've been working against God, and when the judge comes, who judges in absolute righteousness and holiness, he is just in his judgments, isn't he? What are you gonna do then if you're not on his side? Where are you gonna run? You're gonna be with the prisoners, you're gonna be among the slain. From an enemy nation far away, they're gonna come and judge you. They're gonna be my hand of judgment upon you because you did not follow me. You who are called by my name have gone astray. So I need to use the heathens to come and judge you. And for all his anger is not yet turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. He says that again. He's actually said this for the fifth time. He said it once in chapter 5, and he said it three times in chapter 9. That's why I guess a lot of commentators believe that it fits really well in chapter 9, because that would be the fourth time in chapter 9 that he said it. Are we listening? He said it five times. His anger is not turned away, his hand is stretched out still. They were in pretty bad shape. This wasn't enough to appease his anger, his wrath. There was more to come. He was going to send Assyria to come and judge the Lord. So Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Syria and Assyria are two different places. You know, Lebanon and all those areas today are in that area. And Assyria, as Syria was becoming very powerful, Assyria was becoming even more powerful. And they came and they took over Syria, and they came down and took over the northern kingdom of Israel. And this happened between 734 and 732 BC and 724 and 721 BC. So it took time for them to come, but they came and eventually they took them all over. Later, a hundred years later, um, Babylon would take the southern kingdom captive. And within those hundred years, Babylon actually took Assyria captive. So Assyria takes the northern kingdom captive, Babylon takes Assyria captive, and then Babylon takes the southern kingdom captive. And in the midst of that, they start bringing in Gentiles. Uh there is this idea that they they repopulated the area with non-Jews. And that's that's what we're dealing with. And this is what uh Isaiah is saying by the word of the Lord is going to happen. He's warning Israel, specifically the northern kingdom, as well as Ahaz and the southern kingdom. And in verse 5, it says, Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. Now, this is interesting. Should this read something like, and your woe is coming from Assyria? That would fit. Assyria is coming and bringing your judgment. But what he's saying is, Assyria, I'm gonna use you as my hand, as my rod of correction, to bring judgment upon this nation. But woe to you. Because it could be argued, you are bringing you bringing judgment on your own people, and you don't say anything about the enemies of God, they've done a whole lot worse than we've ever done. And you're just gonna give them a pass, you're gonna use them and bless them. And God is saying, I'm gonna use them, but I'm not gonna bless them because they're not serving me. God is saying, Woe to Assyria. See, God will use our enemies to correct us, to bring judgment upon us, but that does not mean he's on the side of our enemies. It means he's sovereign and he will accomplish his purposes in any way he sees fit. And now he says, Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and there's kind of a play in words here, the rod of my anger sounds a lot like the name of Isaiah's second son that was born in the last chapter. Do you remember the name of his son? Of course you do. It's Mir Shall Hazbaz. Right? And you're writing it down just in case you have some children or grandchildren that are about to have children. You say, This is a great name, you should try this one out. Okay, skip it. All right, so it sounds a lot in the Hebrew, that name sounds a lot like the phrase rod of mine. And the definition again for mare shall hazbaz is swift as booty and speedy as prey. In other words, this is my rod of correction, and they're coming in fast. They're coming in powerfully, and yet they will be judged as well. I will send him against the ungodly nation and against the people of my wrath, I will give him charge to seize the spoil and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. I'm giving authority to Assyria to come in and be my judge, to exact my judgment upon my people Israel. Verse 7. Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so, but in his heart is to destroy and to cut off not a few nations. For he says, Are not my princes altogether kings like Kelno is like Keshmish, and is not Hamptha like Arphad, or not Samaria like Damascus, as my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose carved images excel those of Jerusalem and Samaria, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, shall I not do it to Jerusalem and her idols? What is he saying? Well, let me try to back up a little bit and explain. He's going to use Assyria, but Assyria thinks they're doing it in their power and in their might. They think they've got it all together. They're more powerful than anybody else, and they're taking over the kingdom. They compare these towns that they've gone through, and he's even threatening Jerusalem. They're even threatening to come and take over all of Israel, the northern and the southern kingdom. They're full of pride. They're haughty. They have no idea that God is using them to accomplish this purpose. And because they have no idea that God is using them, they too will have judgment exacted on them. Now, when we look at prophecies like this, there are two different schools of thought on prophecy. One is the Greek method. The Greek thinkers look at prophecy like I think a lot of us would. Prophecy means predictions and fulfillments. And we see that. Isaiah is a prophet, and he's making a lot of predictions, predictions that happened, predictions that still have to happen, they're still coming up. Now the Hebrew mindset is a little bit different. Prophecies mean patterns. These things have happened this way, and they will happen in this way. If you dig deeper into Isaiah, you can see Isaiah uses this a lot. You remember a couple chapters ago when he was talking to Ahaz and he asked Ahaz for a sign. And the sign is the virgin shall bear a son, and we'll call his name Emmanuel, which is God with us, which is obviously pointing to Jesus. But then the next chapter, Isaiah has a son, and it has a fulfillment of a prophecy to Ahaz at that time. It's a pattern. Ahaz would not see the Messiah that's coming, but he would see some things that are like it in that time. Assyria in Bible prophecy is often used to describe the Antichrist or the false prophet that's to come. So the king of Assyria, when you see that phrase in prophecy, it's it's talking about this coming world leader, this antichrist that's coming, as well as this nation, because they have similar attitudes, they have similar desires because they have a similar drive, and that's by the king of the darkness. The devil is is empowering Assyria, and he's empowering the Antichrist that's to come. So when we look at some of these things, we're looking at immediate events that are happening right after this is given, but it's also a picture of things that are to come and things that happen in multiple stages. Israel was taken captive a few times, wasn't it? And Israel was restored to their land a few times. The most recent time they were restored to their land was when? 1948. That's very contemporary, isn't it? And Israel, much like the northern kingdom, and as the southern kingdom goes on, it becomes more apostate as well. Israel today is a very secular nation. Israel denies their God in many ways. And so they're setting themselves up for the same sort of thing. Where nations will be used by God to judge Israel for their unbelief. And ultimately that will bring them into the faith of Jesus Christ, into the family of God. So when we look through these things, just realize that there are patterns in this prophecy. There are things that we're going to see repeated again and again, and it points to an ultimate fulfillment that's still to come. Just like we conquered this city, we're going to conquer the next city. And Samaria, just like we conquered Samaria, we're going to conquer Damascus. Samaria was conquered in 1722 BC, and Damascus was conquered in 732 BC. Of course, they took Damascus first because they came down and they swept down. Just as they took Damascus, they're going to take Syria and Samaria. Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom. And of course, in their pride, they're going to come down and take Judah as well and Jerusalem. So they're bragging about it. They're throwing their weight around. And we took over this nation, and I'm coming after you. Just like I came after that one, we're coming after you, and we're going to flatten you. They're just threatening, and they're coming with this pride, not realizing that they're a pawn of the Lord in his judgment on his people. Verse 12, therefore it shall come to pass when the Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that he will say, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant hearts of the king of Assyria and the glory of his haughty looks. I am going to, after I'm done using them, I'm going to punish them. And they would have been taken captive by Babylon and destroyed in that way. They're also destroyed, and I think we'll take a look at it a little bit later. When they come down, after they take Samaria, they do come down further, right to the edge of Jerusalem. And they're about to take Jerusalem, but there's a night when they camped before they they continued their conquest the next morning, where 185,000 of them were wiped out. God wiped them out on the edge of Jerusalem. And I think in the King James said, the next morning they woke up dead. But so the Lord stopped them there. The Lord caused them to be uh taken captive by Babylon. The fact is, he used them, and they could have been blessed by God, but in their pride and their arrogance, they thought they were doing the work. And God said, No, I'm doing the work. And he says, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent, and I have removed the boundaries of the people, and have robbed their treasuries, so I have pulled down the inhabitants like a valiant man, and my hand is found like a nest in the riches of the people, and as one gathers eggs that are left, I have gathered, gathered all the earth, and there was no one who moved his wing, nor even his mouth, or even a peep. This is Assyria talking. This is their pompousness, their pride, their arrogance, their taunting against the people. We're gonna run over them, they're not even gonna know what happened. And we're gonna go in and take their nests and take their little eggs, you know, as they have no strength. There's no way you're gonna stop us. Now, you know, one way you can dig a little deeper is going, okay, in the New Testament, we recognize that there are a few prophecies, a few uh parables that the Lord spoke about birds. And what do birds represent? Birds represent in these parables, Satan. Birds are the ones that come by and eat up the seed that are on the side of the road, so that the seed that's the word of God cannot be implanted in the hearts of man. Satan comes and eats them up after they've been scattered. Birds are the ones that end up in that big tree that is made out of the little mustard seed of faith. And birds are perching in its midst. Some of Satan's greatest work is done in the church, and that was a picture of the church. The church also gets leaven into it, right? Which is a picture of sin. And leaven leavens the whole lump, and a little sin will destroy everything. We have these birds that are in the tree that are working. So, this idea that Assyria in prophecy is a picture of the Antichrist. He already has that attitude. The nation of Assyria already has that attitude that I'm just going to take over. It's demonic. And the Lord doesn't stand for it. And the Lord talks back to Assyria in general, if they're to listen. He says, Shall an axe boast itself against him who chops with it? Or shall the saw exalt itself against him who saws with it? As if a rod could wield itself against those who lift it up, or a staff could lift up as if it were not wood. He's saying, these are tools. An axe just doesn't get up and do its own thing. A rod, a piece of you know, wood that's on the ground, doesn't just get up as if it's got flesh and bones. Look, you're a tool of the Lord. You're my weapon in my hands, you're my rod and my staff that I'm using to correct my people. It's not about your strength, it's not about your accomplishments, about your victories. It's the fact that I'm using you. And because they didn't acknowledge this, therefore the Lord in verse 16, the Lord of hosts, will send leanness among the fat ones, and under his glory he will kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. God's judgment will come upon them. So the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his holy one a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in one day, and it will consume the glory of his forest and all the fruitful field, both soul and body, and they will be as when a sick man wastes away, and the rest of the trees of his forest will be so few in number that a child might right them. So God is saying he's using Assyria to exact judgment on Israel. The light of Israel will be a fire. God is both our judge and our savior. If we don't submit and accept and serve our Savior, He's going to be our judge. Which side are we going to be on with the Lord? And so he brings judgment against Israel using Assyria, but at the same time, he will bring judgment against Assyria because they're not acknowledging the faithfulness of God. They think it's in their way, in their power. Israel thinks that you know what they're doing is in their power. They don't see the judgment coming because they think they have built themselves up to this place where they can never be, never be conquered. But the problem is we're thinking in human terms. We're thinking in military terms. We're not thinking in God's terms. If I'm serving the Lord, He's on my side. The Lord's armies are behind me to protect me, to guide me, to use me for his glory and his purposes. Let your fire fall down. You know, fire is a connotation of both judgment and power. It's a refining thing, but it burns up the chaff, doesn't it? It makes us pure, but it destroys everything that's not done in faith. Two-edged sword, two-sided coin, the fire of God coming upon us. Then we have the appropriate fire fall on us, amen. Verse 20, and it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Jesus, such as have escaped the house of Jacob, will never again depend on him who defeated them. Who did they depend on? They were depending on their alliance with Syria. But Assyria was greater than that alliance, and no longer will we depend on people. We will no longer depend on other governments. We will no longer depend on our might. But they will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

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Isaiah is an important book for us to read in the Old Testament because this is where we read many prophecies about the coming Messiah. While we now know Jesus as our one and true Messiah, the people who originally read Isaiah's prophecies did not know when the promised Savior would arrive. So while the book of Isaiah calls the nation of Israel to repentance, it also inspires its readers to have hope in the coming Messiah who will establish a new heavenly kingdom on earth. Well, if you would like to learn more about what it means to follow this Messiah we know as Jesus, we have some resources online to help get you started. Just visit us at themountaincross.com and head to our How to Know God tab. You can also find a link to our podcast feed in case you want to catch up on past teachings from Pastor Carl. If you'd like to get connected with us in person, we'd love to have you join us here at the Mountain Cross. We meet every Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville, North Carolina. We also host a Faith Film Night on the first Monday of each month. To learn about our next film, visit us online or search for Faith Film Night on Facebook. Thanks for tuning in today. Well, that's all for today. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.