Isaiah 21 And The Call To Be A Watchman

Babylon looks invincible right up until the night it falls. That’s the tension Pastor Carl brings to Isaiah 21, where a watchman sees the threat coming, sounds the alarm, and watches a city keep eating and drinking as if walls and wealth can block God’s judgment. It’s a vivid Bible prophecy passage, but it’s also a mirror: when life feels stable, do we mistake comfort for security and noise for peace?

We walk through the burden against Babylon, the poetic “wilderness of the sea,” and the line that echoes through history: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Along the way, we connect Isaiah’s urgency to the way modern crises expose what we really trust. If our hope is tied to the stock market, status, or control, it disintegrates fast. If our hope is in Jesus Christ, the solid rock, we can endure trials, repent of building our own kingdoms, and become people who bring calm, truth, and courage to others.

Then the tone turns sharp and mysterious with the burden against Duma and the question, “Watchman, what of the night?” We talk about the danger of asking God for answers without any desire to change, and how spiritual hardness can lead to silence. From there we get practical: what it means to be a Christian watchman today, how to discern both God’s movement and the enemy’s tactics, and how to warn wisely with Scripture and prayer.

If you’re searching for clarity, Christian hope, and a deeper grasp of Isaiah, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the teaching. What part of your life needs to hear the watchman’s warning right now?

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_00 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.

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I've relied on all this stuff and all these ideas and all these dreams I've had, and instead of relying on you, Lord forgive me, restore me, and use me during this time to bring hope to others, to encourage others. Say there's no hope in the things of this world unless you have your hope in Jesus. And the Lord gives us all things to enjoy.

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Everyone has that spark to achieve something meaningful in this world. Some folks are all about raking in the big bucks, while others are on a quest to snag that dream prize they've been eyeing. But hey, is it all worth it? Will you find that sense of peace in your heart? Today, Pastor Carl invites you to explore the beautiful journey of discovering God's purpose for your life. There's truly nothing quite like the satisfaction and peace that comes from walking in the path that God has laid out for you. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

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Let's get into a study of God's Word. Today we'll be in Isaiah chapter 21. Isaiah chapter 21. If you turn into your Bibles there, we'll get started here. Now, we've been hearing some burdens that Isaiah has had on some surrounding neighbors of Israel. First, Isaiah has been speaking the word of the Lord to the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel, Israel and Judah, and warning them of the coming judgment that Assyria was going to come and take over the northern tribe of Israel, and then Babylon would later come and take over the southern tribe of Israel called Judah. And there's this idea that, yes, I'm going to be using your enemy nations to discipline you. However, they will get judged as well. And there were a number of nations that got judged that we've talked about. There was Babylon, there was Moab, there was Damascus in the Syria area, and Egypt as well as Ethiopia. And it's interesting, these are all neighbors of Israel. But if we back up a little bit, and if you see that first map at the bottom, you'll see this sort of a triangle-looking thing. And this triangle is based on a passage in Genesis that describes all the land that God had promised to Abraham. And that includes all these nations that these woes have come upon, these burdens of the Lord have come upon. Just something interesting to think about. Israel is not inhabiting all the land that they've been promised. This is the covenant land given by God. And someday they will. And they'll comprise of all these nations that we've talked about. We'll be talking about a couple other, uh, three more. Actually, one will be a repeat of Babylon, but then a couple other woes to pronounce on the neighbors of Israel. And it's very poetic. In fact, I'll I'll start reading the first burden of the Lord and just go through it so you can just feel the passion and the poeticness of Isaiah. Chapter 21, verse one. The burden against the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through, so it comes from the desert, from a terrible land. A distressing vision is declared to me. The treacherous dealer deals treacherously, and the plunderer plunders. Go up, Elam, besiege, O media. All its sighing have I made to cease. Therefore my loins are filled with pain. Pangs have taken hold of me like pangs of a woman in labor. I was distressed when I heard it. I was dismayed when I saw it, my heart wavered, fearfulness frightened me. The night for which I longed, he turned into fear for me. Prepare the table, set a watchman in the tower, eat and drink. Arise, you princes, anoint the shield. For thus the Lord has said to me, Go and set a watchman, let him declare what he sees. And he saw a chariot with a pair of horsemen, a chariot of donkeys, and a chariot of camels, and he listened earnestly with great care, and then he cried, A lion, my lord. I stand continually on the watch tower in the daytime, and I have sat at my post every night, and look, here comes a chariot of men with a pair of horsemen. And then he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the carved images of her gods he is broken to the ground. O my threshing and the grain of my floor, that which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you. So this first burden that uh Isaiah shares with us in chapter twenty-one is the burden against the wilderness of the sea. And that's uh simply another name for Babylon, but it's a poetic description of the area. This is where there were all these desert sand dunes, is how one commentator described it. Uh waves of sand coming over, and this is where this great powerful nation, this powerful empire of Babylon began and grew all over. But this was a burden, this is a heavy saying, and you feel the passion of Isaiah in this feeling of the moment. As whirlwinds in the south pass through, so comes from the desert from a terrible land a distressing vision which is declared to me. It's coming. It's like a whirlwind in the desert. I grew up in the desert of Southern California, and we'd get dirt devils. They're like tiny uh tornadoes, and they'd spin around and they go through and they'd zoom through, and and it's like this. There's an army that's coming, like a whirlwind, through the desert. And they're coming treacherous, and they're they're coming to plunder, plundering the plunderers, and just the passion of Isaiah coming through. He could feel their pain, is what he's saying. He could feel the urgency, he could see the danger coming. And and today we we sort of see the same thing. We we kind of saw it off in the distance, and we we kind of saw how things were going through the whole world, and we looked at China, and we looked at Iran and what was going on there, and then we start looking at Italy, and all of a sudden we start seeing here at home, and and we realize what we're seeing here with this virus is just beginning. But but we see it coming now, and it's becoming more and more real, and and and this army is coming, and and Isaiah is is is sensing the the import of this, and it's and it's a pain, it's a burden for him to share. And yet the people of Babylon in the city, they're busy eating. It said, prepare the table, said a watchman in the tower, but eat and drink. But as you're eating and drinking, you better arise and prepare your shield. And we we've talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago when we talked about the burden of Babylon, and we will again in a few chapters. But um, Babylon was such a fortified city. The walls were were wide and high, almost as big as the walls that President Trump is building down on our southern border. There was something else. You could not penetrate them. And so there was this night where the king of Babylon decided to have a feast and bring all of his servants and all of his warriors and everyone. And I'm not even sure if they had a watchman on the walls because they didn't worry about nobody's gonna get through tonight. Just come on in and let's have a celebration. And he broke out all the silverware and the vessels that were were used in in the temple of of Israel in Jerusalem that were taken when Babylon took Judah away. And he thought, I've got the power, I've got the might, I've got uh, you know, everybody nobody can get through. We're just gonna have a good time tonight. And then in Daniel, there's a story about this, how there was a hand that came up on the wall and started writing and basically writing out a prophecy about what was going to happen to him that night. That it was over. And you see the writing on the wall, you know, that's where that phrase comes from. But how did they get in? And and the the the the Mitoes and the Persians, they came along in 539 BC. They there was a river that came through, the Euphrates River came through the middle of Babylon, and upstream they dammed it off and dried it up. And they went underneath the walls, and they came out and they took over the city in one night. And so he says, get a watchman, let him declare what he sees. And it turned out that Isaiah was the watchman, and he's calling out and he's describing these armies that were coming, but they're not listening. And we as Christians ought to be declaring the word of the Lord, calling out to whoever might listen, saying, the Lord is at work, the Lord is about humbling his people and the rest of the world. And hasn't he done that in the last three months? Everything has come to a stop. The Lord is trying to get our attention. It's not, the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but all would come to repentance and knowledge of him. How can we come to repentance if we don't recognize the trouble that we're in? If we don't recognize the coming army of sin that's coming after us, that we're part of, that we've fallen into, and we ignore the watchman's call. But Isaiah is calling out, and he's saying a lion is coming, and that lion could represent Cyrus coming with his armies. And yet nobody's listening. Nobody's listening. Verse 10 is interesting. It says, Oh, my threshing floor, and the grain of my floor, that which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you. This idea that God used Babylon in order to thresh Israel, in order to bring discipline, to bring judgment upon his own people. When you do a threshing, when you thresh wheat, it's to take the chaff away and to keep the grain. Israel is the grain. And Babylon had been the threshing floor. But God, in his judgments, and we've seen this before earlier in the book, not only does he bring judgment, but he brings hope. I'm judging you, I'm cleaning you up in order for you to be restored. And in 1948, we saw Israel restored. And yet, even today, they're a secular nation. They're not fully serving the Lord. And there will be come a time, and a time coming soon, I believe, where Israel will know that Jesus is their Messiah. That Jesus is Yeshua, He is Yahweh, He is the great I Am. He is the creator, He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He's the one that they've been waiting for. And he's here. And he's for them, not against them. So Babylon acted as the threshing floor, as the thresher, as the instrument of the threshing. Israel was disciplined in this and cleaned up. And at some point they were restored. And even today we're looking for that full restoration of Israel and that culmination of what they've been waiting for, what God has been promising them from the very beginning. And Babylon played a part. And when times of trouble come our way, when when waves, like we see a tornado of evil coming our way with this virus, we look at the numbers and we see them growing, and we recognize where it's headed, and it's it's it's a fearful thing. And what does it cause us to do? It either causes us to pray, to turn back to the Lord, to recognize uh some attitudes and some thoughts that we've had that are in essence in rebellion to God. I'm gonna build my world my way, I'm gonna build my own kingdom, to recognize those and turn to God. Lord, I'm sorry. I've I've relied on all this stuff and all these ideas and all these dreams I've had, and instead of relying on you, Lord, forgive me, restore me, and use me during this time to bring hope to others, to encourage others, saying there's no hope in the things of this world unless you have your hope in Jesus. And the Lord gives us all things to enjoy, He meets our needs, He blesses us, and He gives us strength to endure in times of trial and tribulation. But if I'm putting all my hope in the things that are falling apart today, if my hope is in the stock market, my hope is quickly disintegrating, isn't it? But our hope needs to be in Jesus Christ because he's the solid rock, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. If we're in him, we can go through anything. In fact, we can not only go through things, but we can thrive in things and be used by him to bring other people to him, to recognize that he is our hope, he is our strength, he is our shelter. Well, this next section is real short and very interesting. The burden against Duma. He calls me out of sear. Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, the morning comes and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire, return, come back. Very short, very mysterious. And so when I don't understand something, uh sometimes a good idea is to go back to the founder of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith. And um, this is what he commented on with these two verses. I frankly don't understand what the watchman is saying, so I'll just leave it alone. That's what Chuck Smith said, and he did, he kept going. Now, the burden against Duma. Duma was the area of Edom. And you remember, Edom were the Edomites, the offspring of Esau. And Esau, of course, was the firstborn. You had Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You had Jacob and Esau. Esau was the firstborn, he should have been the one that got the blessing that uh the chosen nation would come through. But it was Jacob who got that blessing. And ever since the Edomites had been a thorn in the side of Israel, the cousins that you never really got along with at all. And they would join with other nations to come and attack Israel, and there was just a history of always causing trouble. And um Seir was the main place where they lived. And it is, like Chuck Smith says, something that I don't totally understand. But there's this idea that, okay, what's the burden against them? What's going to happen to them? And the word Duma, which was used to describe Edom in this in this section, that word means silence. They'll call out. They'll say, Watchman, what do you see? What do you know? What what what's happening? And and kind of this idea that the Lord says, You've been rebelling against me all this time, you've been rebelling against my people for all these years, you never seek me, you never find me, you have no desire to know my heart, I'm not gonna tell you anything. And so, what does it mean to eat them? Their big answer is, like Chuck Smith says here, I don't know. They're trying to find out what it is that is coming. Not because they want to repent, they just want to know. And sometimes the Lord doesn't bother to speak to us. If we've hardened our hearts so much against the Lord, we've gone in our own way, we fought against his people, sometimes the Lord will just not give an answer. This idea that the Pharisees come and they want a sign, they want a sign from Jesus. And I could just see Jesus scratching his head saying, I've given you signs. I'm not gonna give you any other signs, I'm not gonna do a dog and pony show. Is that the right phrase? I'm not gonna do these little tricks for you to try to convince you who I am when you've already decided in your heart who I am and you want to destroy me. I've come to those who know that they need uh a physician. I've come to those who know that they need a savior. And, you know, how do we we apply this to what's going on today? You know, there are things that are said that a lot of the world isn't listening to. Um, the world seems to be, in some ideas, this is good. We're unified in fighting this common enemy. But we're unified in our own strength, we're unified in our own wisdom. We ignore God completely. And when we put ourselves in that place, we put ourselves in a dangerous place where God won't give us an answer because we're really not asking. The Edomites really weren't asking at all. But what what is it that we're called to do as Christians then in times like these? I mean, we are to submit to the governing authorities, um, but we're to bring some clarity to what's going on. We're to be declaring the word of the Lord to the world that desperately needs a savior but doesn't recognize it or fights against it. And with the uh the uh the mention of this word watchman so many times, I wanted to share something with you. The the same author that wrote the book that we're going through on the story of Jesus, he's actually the president of a ministry that I've been working with and we produce a radio program for called I Am a Watchman. I am a Watchman, and uh they're a ministry that encourages uh Christians to be watchmen. And what are watchmen? Watchmen are ones that go out on a spiritual tower and they recognize the evil that's that's coming their way, the enemy that's coming, how he's at work. And we apply scripture to the situation and declare the truth of the gospel to the world that needs to hear it, and warning the world that says Jesus is coming back to judge an unbelieving world, but that same judge is the savior of the world. Would you accept that savior and be saved and have your life changed and be at peace? The author Gary Ray also wrote this article on how to be a watchman in today's world. And I want to just share with you five little things from this article as it ties to being a watchman. The first thing that watchmen need to do in today's world, they're to watch for signs that God or Satan is moving. Sometimes can be, can actually ignore God and just look at the work of the devil. He's always doing something, a demon under every bush. And then we totally miss Jesus. The other side of it is looking at Jesus and praising him, and which is good, wonderful. We need to do that. Our focus needs to be on the Lord. But we totally ignore that the enemy is at work. And before we know it, the lion comes and eats us up. So we need to be aware that the enemy is working. As well as the Lord is working. In Ezekiel 33, verses 3 and 4, it says, if the watchman sees the sword coming upon the land and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, then the sword comes and takes him away. His blood shall be upon his own head. So a watchman actually warns people in the world as to what is coming. And then if they don't take heed, it's not on the watchman's fault. It's on the head of those who didn't listen. Watchmen are to know the word and to prayerfully watch for the rise of evil and signs that God's moving is imminent. Remember, these signs can be subtle. Only a few noticed a baby boy born in a stable and laid in a manger two thousand years ago. And today few are aware of how the enemy moves to desensitize the masses to the evil embedded in media and the internet. Watchmen must pray to see with eyes of faith and be able to discern what God and the enemy are doing or are about to do. Can you sense how the enemy is using all this technology today? Can you join with the Lord in using the technology to promote the kingdom? And can you see the enemy working against that? That's the first thing watchmen do. They watch because they're watchmen. The second thing is that watchmen are to warn. It's not enough to watch or to see or to have a special insight into what God or the enemy is doing or about to do. When an extraordinary movement of God is near, such as the rapture, watchmen are to sound the alarm and to work to ensure as many as possible are spiritually prepared. Watchmen are to be bold and wisely persuasive.

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You're listening to Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross as he teaches through the book of Isaiah on today's episode of Come On Up. 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.