SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we just thank you, God, for this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for your word, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I just pray that you speak to us, Lord, that we would wouldn't just be people that are always hearing, never understanding.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, you would just enlighten us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Just reveal the truth to us.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit of God, just be present.
SPEAKER_00: Open our eyes and ears.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I just pray that we would just have the soil that is fertile, Lord, allowing you to plant whatever seeds of truth you want into us and that they would grow and flourish.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We're currently in a series in Isaiah over 18 weeks.
SPEAKER_00: 18 weeks is very quickly going through Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: So now, Thursday morning men's groups, we're also going to read Isaiah as of this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Last week or last week, if you were here on Sunday, we went through just Isaiah 1 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: And I talked about Isaiah 1 through 5 being just kind of the introduction to the whole book.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think Isaiah 1 through 5 was just added on and compiled at the end, almost as if people are writing a novel, and then they write the introduction for last.
SPEAKER_00: Some people think that Isaiah 1 through 5 was just kind of this summary introduction to the whole book added at the end, just to introduce primarily the key themes of the book.
SPEAKER_00: And we went through the key themes last week, and there are three that I propose: one being the judgment of God.
SPEAKER_00: God judges us as sinners.
SPEAKER_00: The second key theme is the saved remnant.
SPEAKER_00: That in spite of the coming judgment of God, we can trust that there is a saved remnant remnant.
SPEAKER_00: And then throughout the book, we also see this vision of redemption for this saved remnant.
SPEAKER_00: And that vision of redemption is clearly tied to this coming Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah is known as the messianic prophet, continually anticipating this coming Messiah, predicting, prophesying about this Messiah, who is this vision of redemption, who will save this remnant of God.
SPEAKER_00: Some people think that Isaiah 1 through 5 is a chiasm, just organized to introduce these themes.
SPEAKER_00: If there is a sub-theme, it would be the ignorance of the people, always hearing, but never understanding.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see these themes coming throughout Isaiah, the judgment of God, the saved remnant, and a vision of redemption in the Messiah, including today.
SPEAKER_00: Five or six years before Isaiah starts prophesying, right?
SPEAKER_00: We saw the rise of this guy, Tiglaf Pelezer III, who rose up in Assyria, organized the military, and quickly became uh quickly began conquering foreign lands.
SPEAKER_00: So just before Isaiah comes on the scene, this Assyrian Empire is spreading out east and west under this very aggressive leader who had very aggressive policies that as he would conquer new lands, he would deport that existing population to an entirely foreign land.
SPEAKER_00: And then he would substitute this foreign population into this, their their their the other land.
SPEAKER_00: And that transfer of population he learned was a way that you could control people.
SPEAKER_00: So he was a very aggressive, very violent leader.
SPEAKER_00: Um, just before Isaiah came on the scenes.
SPEAKER_00: If you're curious, just where Assyria is, um I said last week it was in modern day Iraq, but it's in northern Iraq.
SPEAKER_00: His capital was in Kalah, which is today Nimrod, which is just south of what we know as Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh is now the city of Mosul.
SPEAKER_00: So we've heard Mosul often in the news, just from Iraq and the Iraq War and ISIS and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: Mosul was previously Nineveh, right?
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was just north of Nimrod, which was the capital of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: And 20 to 30 years before this Tiglath Pelezer III rose up as powerful ruler over Assyria, we see a prophet of Israel going to Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody remember who he is?
SPEAKER_00: It's Jonah, right?
SPEAKER_00: So just 20, maybe 30 years, maybe a little more, before this Assyrian empire, emperor raises up, we see Jonah, and where does he go?
SPEAKER_00: To Nineveh, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just north of the yeah, yeah, well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to, but he eventually did.
SPEAKER_00: But in Jonah, the the command to him, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.
SPEAKER_00: It was a great city in that day, commonly priced around 780 to 760.
SPEAKER_00: At that time, Nineveh repented.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty to thirty years later, this great powerful leader rose up, organized the military, and began conquering lands east and west.
SPEAKER_00: A century later, Nahim, also in the Bible, prophesied against, you're reading Nineveh, Nahum, right?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Nineveh, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it was opposite, it was the opposite response of Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: He begins his book, an oracle concerning Nineveh, and his prophecy was announcing its coming destruction, fulfilled when Nineveh fell to the Babylonians in 612.
SPEAKER_00: The point is just Nineveh and Assyria on both sides of this rise of this Assyrian Empire are seen throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to chapter 6 in Isaiah, and it starts with probably the most famous phrase from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we quote it in every church I've ever been in.
SPEAKER_00: In the year that King Uzziah died.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that important?
SPEAKER_00: How we date and know that when Tiglath Belezer came on the scene and Uzziah and when it when Isaiah was arriving was primarily through kings.
SPEAKER_00: We're mapping kings across different histories, different books.
SPEAKER_00: In the year that King Uzziah died, we know that six years before that was the Tiglath Belezer rising up in Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: But for the people in Israel, King Uzziah was their stability.
SPEAKER_00: We read in Chronicles and King that he became king at 16 years old, and he reigned for 52 years.
SPEAKER_00: So for the people of Judah, he was their stability.
SPEAKER_00: Many people only knew him, Uzziah, as their ruler, as the leader.
SPEAKER_00: 52 years was a long time for him to rule.
SPEAKER_00: He was actually a very effective leader, a very powerful leader.
SPEAKER_00: They were very confident in him.
SPEAKER_00: His fame spread even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong, we read in Chronicles.
SPEAKER_00: And as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.
SPEAKER_00: But if you remember the story of Uzziah, right, he was very prosperous, very successful, very effective as a ruler, but he didn't finish well.
SPEAKER_00: He was strong, it says in Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: But then he grew proud to his destruction.
SPEAKER_00: For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember the stories from Chronicle, he went in to offer incense.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to burn incense like the priest.
SPEAKER_00: The priest told him, You can't, you're not allowed.
SPEAKER_00: Only sons of Aaron can burn incense.
SPEAKER_00: He got incredibly angry, and God stuck struck him with leprosy immediately in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So he was he was relished to this house alone with leprosy until he died.
SPEAKER_00: Found it interesting.
SPEAKER_00: So many times we see stories like his in the Bible where people start so well.
SPEAKER_00: They have fruitful years, but they still finish so poorly.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line, they become proud.
SPEAKER_00: They reject God.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter, but I think it it's important.
SPEAKER_00: You see a continual theme throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter as much how you start, whether good or bad.
SPEAKER_00: It often matters much more how you finish.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of what Jesus says, where he's talking about the end times when the love of most will grow cold.
SPEAKER_00: But the one who stands firm till the end, to the finish line, will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a danger for us as well as we reflect on Uzai, an effective leader.
SPEAKER_00: That it says very clearly, as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.
SPEAKER_00: But in his later life, he became proud.
SPEAKER_00: He was given leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't finish well.
SPEAKER_00: So encouragement for us, just in reflecting on Isaiah, kind of an Uzziah, just as an aside, is that we not live on yesterday's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday's faithfulness doesn't replace today's obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Or even yesterday's disobedience also doesn't limit our ability to today repent to seek God.
SPEAKER_00: So let every day, this day, be a fresh surrender to God, a day to trust Him, follow Him, and serve Him faithfully wherever He calls, because we never know when our life story will come to a close.
SPEAKER_00: It matters not as much how we start, but it matters much more how we finish.
SPEAKER_00: So the encouragement is that we don't follow in the ways of Uzziah and depend on yesterday's faith, but we are faithful on this day.
SPEAKER_00: And it continues, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The earthly powers come and go, but the Lord remained steadfast on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Isaiah saw the Lord on the throne, even though the stability of Judah, their king, had died.
SPEAKER_00: Continues, and the train of his robe, the Lord's robe, filled the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew, and one called to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: We know from Revelation this chorus continues for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: It never stops, it never gets old, they never get complacent in singing it.
SPEAKER_00: Continually crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrew Hebrew the Hebrew language uses repetition for emphasis, and here the angels are forever emphasizing the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean that God is holy?
SPEAKER_00: That he's exceptionally holy.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness means two things that he is in a class by himself, supremely valuable in every way.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just the strongest and the greatest among peers.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's entirely otherly.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing like him.
SPEAKER_00: He's incomparable.
SPEAKER_00: He is above all, incomparable to Allah, the only creator, the only Alpha, the only one not dependent on anyone but himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is holy, entirely unique.
SPEAKER_00: He is holy in all his attributes.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just holy in some attributes.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is not just an attribute.
SPEAKER_00: He is holy, he is unique, he is supremely valuable in every attribute.
SPEAKER_00: He is exalted above every creature, valuable in every way.
SPEAKER_00: So every approach to him must be marked by reverence and awe, not because it's out of duty that we must fear him, but because he is worthy of our fear.
SPEAKER_00: So when we see him, our response is reverence, is awe, is fear.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness also describes his absolute ethical purity as the holy God.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly separate from sin, entirely detached from anything that is sinful, anything that is not of him.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly holy.
SPEAKER_00: And it continues the whole earth is full of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: One, a promise of what is to come.
SPEAKER_00: But also it's it the response to this holiness is glory.
SPEAKER_00: Glory is a word that we use often in the church in songs, but we often don't define it.
SPEAKER_00: What is glory?
SPEAKER_00: What is the glory of God?
SPEAKER_00: Glory is just the revealing of his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: We said his holiness is that is he is in a class by himself, entirely otherly, entirely indescribable.
SPEAKER_00: There is none like him, not he is holy in every attribute, supremely exalted.
SPEAKER_00: Glory is the revealing of that holiness.
SPEAKER_00: When we see his holiness, when we know how remarkable, how awesome he is, that is glory.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we know God, when we see God, when we understand any part of God, there is glory.
SPEAKER_00: Glory is the revelation of his holiness, of his supremacy, of his awesomeness.
SPEAKER_00: At times we can sense some, we can seek some sense of glory, I think, outside of this revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're seeking a feeling through music or dance or just energy in the room, or maybe we even can translate it to our blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We want glory in our life.
SPEAKER_00: But really, glory is the revealing of God.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime God is revealed, anytime God is known, there is glory, and we respond in worship.
SPEAKER_00: I gave a vision for the last couple weeks of us becoming a people of praise and prayer, a people of worship.
SPEAKER_00: We become a people of worship, but how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's becoming a people knowing the holiness of God, amazed by God, struck by his beauty, enamored by how awesome he is.
SPEAKER_00: We respond in worship.
SPEAKER_00: So you say, Well, Vernon, how do we get there?
SPEAKER_00: We seek him, we seek to know him, we want to know his holiness, and as we see and and it's revealed to us, we respond, there is glory.
SPEAKER_00: As we seek him with all our heart, we will find him.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately it says the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
SPEAKER_00: This shaking signals an encounter with God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've you've experienced that at some point in your life where there is there is a revelation of the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You felt like this is a moment of glory.
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing and knowing, understanding, having insight into how awesome God is.
SPEAKER_00: The foundations shake, something in us moves, and encountering God's presence destabilizes the created order.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing remains unmoved when the holy God manifests Himself.
SPEAKER_00: We see it often through scripture.
SPEAKER_00: For example, on Sinai, when Moses was on the mountain, it says the whole mountain trembled greatly at the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: The revelation of God or the glory of God, it always shakes us, it moves us, it does something within us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think we might find ourselves complacent in our walk with God, even falling away, tempted to wander from the faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe our complacency is not a matter of boredom or frustration with the other people or even frustration with the church, all the things that we don't like, or things that we like to blame in our complacency.
SPEAKER_00: But in reality, that complacency, I think we're losing sight of the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: We've lost sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because when we see God, the response is always glory.
SPEAKER_00: When we are moved, the foundations and the thresholds shook.
SPEAKER_00: We've lost that encounter with God that shakes us, that moves us.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we know the holiness of God, we are shaken.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only response to the revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: It continues.
SPEAKER_00: The house was filled with smoke.
SPEAKER_00: Similar to Kings, this idea of a cloud or smoke was connected to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We saw it in the tabernacle with Moses or Kings.
SPEAKER_00: The house of the Lord was filled with the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house.
SPEAKER_00: So the revealed holiness of God fills us in the room with glory, shaking everything.
SPEAKER_00: And then we find Isaiah's response.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Woe is me.
SPEAKER_00: The woe to the drunkards and revelers, the woe to the mockers and the cynics, the woe to the moral inverters calling evil good and calling good evil.
SPEAKER_00: There is woe to the conceited who are being wise in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: There is woe to the corrupt leaders and judges.
SPEAKER_00: We often read those, and there are genuine woes.
SPEAKER_00: There's real consequence to their mocking, their cynicism, their moral inversion.
SPEAKER_00: There's genuine woe to that, those people.
SPEAKER_00: We can read chapter 5 and be thinking, woe to those people.
SPEAKER_00: All those people who are so greedy, buying up all the land where the poor poor are left helpless.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to all those people.
SPEAKER_00: And before encountering God's holiness, Isaiah clearly saw Israel sin.
SPEAKER_00: Look how much they are sinning.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to all of this sin.
SPEAKER_00: But after encountering God's holiness, Isaiah sees his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: Woe is me.
SPEAKER_00: For I am lost.
SPEAKER_00: I am being destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: I am cut off.
SPEAKER_00: I am brought to an end.
SPEAKER_00: I am undone.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah was broken in the revelation of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Woe is me.
SPEAKER_00: For I am a man of unclean lips.
SPEAKER_00: Man of unclean lips, probably referring to the idea that out of our heart overflows from or out of our mouth overflows what's in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Just what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: These defile them.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is saying, He is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: His heart is sinful and it overflows and unclean lips.
SPEAKER_00: His sinful is not merely internal, though.
SPEAKER_00: He continues, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
SPEAKER_00: His sinfulness is bedded, is embedded within a community-wide condition.
SPEAKER_00: For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: That we are a people of unclean lips.
SPEAKER_00: That are we are in need of his cleansing.
SPEAKER_00: We see this in the Gospels when Jesus is telling Peter where to fish at the very beginning of his calling.
SPEAKER_00: We read in Luke, when Simon Peter saw this of the fish, he went and fell at Jesus' knees and said, Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.
SPEAKER_00: For he and all of his companions were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.
SPEAKER_00: And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: From now on you will fish for people.
SPEAKER_00: For Peter at that moment, in realizing who this Jesus was, he came to a similar sense of his own need for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.
SPEAKER_00: Your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for.
SPEAKER_00: From the sacrifice on the altar, ultimately foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus on the altar of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Say it again, he does nothing to cleanse himself other than acknowledging his own sinfulness and looking to God.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send?
SPEAKER_00: And who will go for us?
SPEAKER_00: Then I said, Here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Send me.
SPEAKER_00: For Isaiah begins with an encounter with the holy God.
SPEAKER_00: There was glory.
SPEAKER_00: There is a shaking.
SPEAKER_00: His response is, Woe is me.
SPEAKER_00: I am a I'm I'm full of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The response is cleansing and then a commissioning.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important.
SPEAKER_00: The commissioning begins with an encounter with the living God.
SPEAKER_00: I also find it interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Whom shall I send and who will go for us?
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah doesn't know the assignment, it's not given to him.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah's surrender isn't tell me the job, and then I'll decide if I'm interested, if I want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: His response, here I am, send me.
SPEAKER_00: It's essentially, I am yours.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender isn't saying yes once you know God's plans.
SPEAKER_00: Or it's not saying yes to part of God's plans.
SPEAKER_00: I will do certain things.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do a few things.
SPEAKER_00: I get to choose which ones I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: No, surrendering our life is saying yes because we know God.
SPEAKER_00: We often want to know the plan so we can decide whether we'll agree to it, whether we like it.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not biblical surrender.
SPEAKER_00: We surrender because we trust the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that surrender is with open hands and it's open-ended.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, whatever you want to give, I'll receive.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you ask me to release, I'll release.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you send me, I'll go.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever obedience costs me, I'm yours.
SPEAKER_00: That surrender is a reaction to knowing the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: With closed hands, we like to negotiate with God, but with open hands, we trust Him.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important that surrender doesn't start with His sacrifice like we often think of it, like Isaiah's sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like Isaiah is sitting there saying, I will sacrifice everything for you.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That surrender is the result of encountering God.
SPEAKER_00: Then he's being cleansed by God.
SPEAKER_00: Then he's responding in complete trust to God.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes I think for us, we'd like to surrender parts of our life.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we just surrender times of our life.
SPEAKER_00: But the true encounter with God leads us to surrender all of our life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jim Elliott kind of says.
SPEAKER_00: He who's no fool gives what he cannot keep to gain which he cannot lose.
SPEAKER_00: So then, as we surrender our totality to God, we are sent on the mission of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the order is important.
SPEAKER_00: We first encounter God to know God.
SPEAKER_00: Then we surrender God and totality to God.
SPEAKER_00: Then we are sent on the mission of God.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Go and say to this people, keep on hearing but do not understand.
SPEAKER_00: Keep on seeing but do not perceive.
SPEAKER_00: Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.
SPEAKER_00: If that sounds familiar to you, it's because Jesus quotes it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I'll record it.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, Isaiah is the second most quoted book by Jesus and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the first most quoted book by Jesus in the New Testament?
SPEAKER_00: The Psalms that we just went through.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is quoting this.
SPEAKER_00: They will keep on seeing, but they will not perceive.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says the same thing to the people in his day.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine we could say the same to the people in our day.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, how did that come about?
SPEAKER_00: How did that come about?
SPEAKER_00: All these people were hearing the message, right?
SPEAKER_00: But they never were understanding.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' day, in Isaiah's day, lots of people were in the quote unquote church.
SPEAKER_00: They were reading the Bible, they were hearing the right things, they were hearing the same things.
SPEAKER_00: But some understood.
SPEAKER_00: Many they didn't see, they didn't hear, they didn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine the same could be true for us today.
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah responds, Well, well, how long, O Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Will they not understand forever?
SPEAKER_00: For like one year?
SPEAKER_00: For one month?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how long will they not understand?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
SPEAKER_00: And though a tenth remain in it, it will then be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felt.
SPEAKER_00: The response is, it will take a long time, and there will be a lot of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It finishes the holy seed is its stump.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about the themes last week, one of those that we see throughout Isaiah is this idea that there is a remnant.
SPEAKER_00: Who does see, who does understand?
SPEAKER_00: Here, the holy seed is its strump, is its stump.
SPEAKER_00: There is still a remnant.
SPEAKER_00: The land will be devastated repeatedly, with only a small remnant surviving.
SPEAKER_00: Yet this remnant is not merely survivors.
SPEAKER_00: They constitute the holy seed, a people set apart by God's purpose.
SPEAKER_00: A stump represents what remains after devastation.
SPEAKER_00: Something seemingly dead or useless if we cut a tree down.
SPEAKER_00: It seems dead, it seems useless.
SPEAKER_00: Yet that stump possesses hidden vitality that can regenerate, sending forth new growth from roots that remain alive beneath the surface.
SPEAKER_00: This stump also anticipates messianic hope.
SPEAKER_00: A righteous branch will be raised up for David, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right.
SPEAKER_00: The holy seeds stump becomes the genealogical and spiritual root from which the ultimate restoration, Christ Himself, emerges.
SPEAKER_00: Again, what I find fascinating in Isaiah and Jesus' day and still today is that the same word was preached to the people.
SPEAKER_00: While most rejected it or ignored it or missed it or confused it, even though they were hearing it, they never understood it.
SPEAKER_00: Even if they were very close to it, right up next to it, somehow only a few received it.
SPEAKER_00: It's how we receive it.
SPEAKER_00: And in Isaiah's day, it was only a small remnant left who eventually received the word of turning to God and repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Then we move on to chapter seven, chapter six being the call of Isaiah, the beginning of his ministry, after the five chapters that are a preface to the book, then chapter seven moves into the beginning with the history, describing the Syro-Ephraimite war that's that's also mentioned in Kings and Chronicles.
SPEAKER_00: Continues, in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, King of Judah, Rezan the king of Syria, and Packa the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it.
SPEAKER_00: We read in King Kings and Chronicles that there is there is this there's this alliance between the king of Syria and the king of Israel, and they wanted Judah to join the alliance.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they form this alliance?
SPEAKER_00: Because Assyria was quick to march down the west down the down down the western side of the Mediterranean and toward Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They needed to fortify themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So the Syrians and northern Israel, they formed an alliance.
SPEAKER_00: Judah said they did not want to be a part of the alliance.
SPEAKER_00: So if you remember the story, they said, well, let's go attack Judah, and then we'll install our new king, our king, the one that will realign with us.
SPEAKER_00: We see similar things throughout wars today, right?
SPEAKER_00: We want we're going to attack them so that we can install a new leader that will join our alliance against Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a very difficult time for Judah, right?
SPEAKER_00: They were attacked by Syria, northern kingdom of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, the Philistines were raiding the western part of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: The Edomites were moving up from the south.
SPEAKER_00: And in the time Judah was being surrounded, attacked not by Assyria, but by their neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah continues, when the house of David was told, Syria is in league with Ephraim, Ephraim being the tribe that was the main hub where the northern kingdom of Israel was, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook, as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
SPEAKER_00: We just read in chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is shaking before the holy God, while Ahaz is shaking before men.
SPEAKER_00: Continues.
SPEAKER_00: Within sixty-five years, Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is giving a promise to Ahaz, king of Judah, that you will not be destroyed by this.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they will be destroyed within sixty-five years, they being the northern kingdom of Israel and Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't trust what is firm or God, you won't stand firm.
SPEAKER_00: Zay then goes on to tell him, Ask a sign of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.
SPEAKER_00: Ahaz's response, it seems like it's on the right side, right?
SPEAKER_00: It seems righteous, it seems good, it seems religious, spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: I will not put the Lord to the test.
SPEAKER_00: But what on the outside looks right had very clear, corrupted motives on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Because we read in Kings that it wasn't that he he was wanting to honor God.
SPEAKER_00: It was in fact that no, he was not trusting God, but instead trusting Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: He sends messengers to the Assyrian king and tells them, I am your servant and your son.
SPEAKER_00: Come up and rescue me.
SPEAKER_00: So what seems spiritual to him, I will not put the Lord to the test, was in reality inside a very corrupted motives.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes the same can be true of us.
SPEAKER_00: We may do things that look spiritually right, say things that are spiritually right, but inwardly our motives are corrupted.
SPEAKER_00: So Ahaz sends a message to the Assyrian king.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of aligning with these closer neighbors to form an alliance, he sends a message saying, If I align somehow with the Assyrian king, maybe he will not kill us, maybe he will not destroy us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm depending on his power.
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah responds, Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall we shall call his name Emmanuel, or God with us.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if that sounds familiar with to you, it's because again, it's quoted in Matthew when Joseph was considering leaving leaving Mary because she was pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: He has this dream.
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
SPEAKER_00: A clear reference given from Matthew back to Isaiah of a messianic promise that the virgin will conceive and bear a son, called God with us.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important in understanding Isaiah to understand there's different horizons of prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they overlap.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see this even in this verse today.
SPEAKER_00: There's an immediate or historical fulfillment, often.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there's a near future judgment.
SPEAKER_00: So it's events beyond Isaiah's lifetime, such as he's foretelling the Babylonian exile or the Babylonian Babylon's fall, or even in the passage we'll see later today, a Syria's fall.
SPEAKER_00: There's vision of restoration and return back to Israel, return from Babylon, Cyrus releasing the exiles.
SPEAKER_00: There's many messianic fulfillments, such that we see here today.
SPEAKER_00: He will give us a sign that virgin will conceive and bear a son.
SPEAKER_00: There's also kingdom or gospel age prophecies.
SPEAKER_00: There's also eschatological fulfilled at the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: The point is in this passage, we have parallel fulfillments, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's an immediate historical fulfillment of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's a messianic fulfillment that we see in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The historical we see continues, for before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.
SPEAKER_00: This boy that was born to Isaiah before he knew how to refuse evil and choose good.
SPEAKER_00: Two kings, the two kings, Assyria and northern Israel, would be deserted.
SPEAKER_00: It's a promise historically that's also filled in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that historical promise we clearly see play out as Assyria destroyed Damascus in 732.
SPEAKER_00: Pekka was removed from power.
SPEAKER_00: Then he went on to attack the northern kingdom for 10 years, conquering it in 722.
SPEAKER_00: So the prophecy has immediate relevance to Ahaz, while it also has this messianic fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see this throughout Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Many of the prophecies have parallel fulfillments.
SPEAKER_00: But the judgment is not just to northern Israel and Syria, it also is to Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Continues towards Judah, because this people have refused the waters of Shiloh.
SPEAKER_00: The waters of Shiloh being the spring that fed Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It was the life of Jerusalem, the waters that they drank from that flow gently, because they have refused them, and they rejoice over resin and the son of Remalia.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the river, mighty and many, the king of Assyria in all his glory.
SPEAKER_00: It's profound irony by rejecting God, dependent on God's gentle provision.
SPEAKER_00: Judah opened themselves up to the very judgment they feared from Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in God's quiet faithfulness proves far more secure than reliance on human strength or maneuvering.
SPEAKER_00: Depending on our own understanding and calculations, the very reliance on our human strength, our ideas, it can be a rejection of his lordship, his leadership, his strength.
SPEAKER_00: And for Israel, that rejection led to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Their dependency on Assyria to rescue them eventually led Assyria to destroy them.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just also the people of Judah that were judged.
SPEAKER_00: Continues, the pride of Assyria will also not stand.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9 Be broken, you peoples, be shattered.
SPEAKER_00: Give ear all you far countries.
SPEAKER_00: Strap on your armor and be shattered.
SPEAKER_00: It's said twice.
SPEAKER_00: Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.
SPEAKER_00: In this chapter, the the prophecies also anticipating the destruction of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: How do we respond?
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is told by God in verse twelve, do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.
SPEAKER_00: Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
SPEAKER_00: As we know his holiness, what is our response?
SPEAKER_00: The fear of God.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we are afraid of him, but because we know him.
SPEAKER_00: And as we know him, we are shaken by his glory.
SPEAKER_00: As we are shaken by his glory, we depend on him and him alone.
SPEAKER_00: And as we depend on him alone, we surrender to him with open hands, with an open life.
SPEAKER_00: As we surrender to him in all things, we are then sent by him.
SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to us today, just in reflecting on this on this these three chapters in Isaiah, is that we trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: We're not depending on what our eyes make sense to us of how we save ourselves in this situation.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're depending on God.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Psalm, some trust in chariots, some in horses.
SPEAKER_00: We trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: So let him be your fear, let him be your dread.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah's calling began with an encounter with God.
SPEAKER_00: That encounter with God, he saw the holiness of God and there was the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: His response was, Woe is me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in need of God.
SPEAKER_00: God cleansed him, not by his actions, not by his movement, not by his work, right?
SPEAKER_00: But by the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then God, and after the cleansing, it led to his commissioning.
SPEAKER_00: His commissioning wasn't just this, in this passage, at least, not this specific sense.
SPEAKER_00: It was just who I who will go for me.
SPEAKER_00: And it was open-ended, open-handed response of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: That dependence on God is contrary to what we see.
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom of Israel, the people of Judah, Syrians, right, which they find their destruction.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I just say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Let him be your fear, let him be your dread.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in God, depend on God.
SPEAKER_00: As we surrender to him, we are sent by him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we do just thank you, God, that Lord, you've given us just the story of Isaiah for us to reflect on, Lord, that Lord, we want to be people who understand and respond truly, honestly, Lord, if with open hands and surrender, not controlling our life, not dictating our life, not defining our life, but Lord, just looking to you, allowing you, Lord, and to lead it as as you sent, as you desire.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I just pray that we would discover that, not in a place of just our sacrifice, but in the place of encountering the holiness of God, that you are the trustworthy place to depend on, to look to, that the gentle waters, Lord, we can we can depend on.
SPEAKER_00: So Lord, I just pray that Lord, we would just have that moment each day.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, not living on yesterday's faith like Uzziah, but Lord, today would be a day where we can encounter you, know you, love you, surrender to you, Lord, and in that be sent by you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, not hardening our hearts like we see throughout most people in Scripture, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we are tender, gentle, listening quickly.
SPEAKER_00: We just thank you, God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.