ABC 2016

Prayer for 2016:

1. Available.
• Accessible.
• Approachable.
• Amiable.
• Accountable.
  
2. Bible basics.
• Bible building blocks.
• Back to the Bible.
  
3. Communication.
• Community.
  
4. Discipleship.
• Discipline.
• Direction.
  
5. Encounter.
• Experience.
• Evangelize.
  
6. Friendship.
• Fellowship.
• Freedom.
7. Grace.
• Generosity.
• Gentleness.
• Goodness.
  

Ten Life Lessons from Isaiah for 2016

For about six months in 2015, I preached through the first 28 chapters of Isaiah in 23 sermons: West Loop sermons from Isaiah. Here are some life lessons that we can draw out and apply:

1. Grace: The grace of God (Isa 1:18; 5:4).
2. Stupidity: The stupidity of man (Isa 1:3; 28:23-29).
3. Hypocrisy: The outward Christian life (Isa 1:13; 29:13).
   
4. Authenticity: The Christian life (Isa 2:5, 3; 7:4; 8:12b-13).
5. Disillusionment: The sure disappointment (Isa 2:22; 22:8-11; 31:1).
6. Calling/Theophany: The call and the vision (Isa 6:1, 5, 8).
7. Faith: The challenge (Isa 7:9b; 26:4).
8. Wonder: The perennial solution (Isa 9:6; Isa 26:3).
9. Security: The eternal kingdom (Isa 11:6-9; 25:6-8; 26:19; 28:16).
10. Certainty: The only salvation (Isa 12:2; 25:9).
    

Praise God As Long As I Live (Psalm 146)

"I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live" (Ps 146:2, NIV).

Psalm 1 began with "Blessed is the man" (Ps 1:1) and ends with "Blessed be the Lord" in the last five psalms--Psalm 146-150--the endless Hallelujah. In these psalms there is no reference to personal need and no petition. All is focused on God. All is praise, which aptly conclude the Psalms, as all five psalms begin and end with "Praise the Lord" (Hallelujah!). In early Jewish tradition an established practice is to recite these five psalms, together with Psalm 145 as part of the daily morning liturgy. Notice the step by step progression in this praise. It begins with the individual (Ps 146:1), involves the community (Ps 147:1,12), extends to heaven and earth (Ps 148:1,7) and to a people committed to mission (Ps 149) until everything that has breath praises the Lord (Ps 150:6).

Psalm 146 expresses individual praise.

1. The praise of God (1-2).
2. The power of God (3-6).
3. The provision of God (7-10).
   

I. The Praise of God (146:1-2)

The act of praising the Lord is lifelong: "all my life" and "as long as I live." The Lord is worthy of the praise of the whole person and the whole life.

II. The Power of God (146:3-6)

Ps 146:3-4 guard the praise of God negatively, because all human objects of trust, whether outstanding or ordinary lack ability, continuance and reliability. In mortal man there is no salvation (Ps 146:3; 118:8; Isa 2:22; 31:1). A truly blessed, happy and joyful person is simply a person who adheres to the principle of trusting and hoping in God rather than in human leaders (Ps 20:7). The Lord can be trusted because of his infinite power as Maker of heaven and earth and his faithful character (Ps 146:6; 115:15; Rev 14:7).

III. The Provision of God (146:7-10)

The psalmist then considered the various ways in which God's concern is expressed as provision for His people: He provides justice, food, liberty/freedom, healing, restoration, protection, care and moral justice (Ps 146:7-9).

Praise God (Psalm 150)

Praise God:

1. Everywhere (Ps 150:1).
2. For Everything (Ps 150:2).
3. In Every Way (Ps 150:3-5).
4. By Everyone (Ps 150:6).
   

Unacceptable Worship (Isaiah 29:1-14 questions)

Isaiah 29 (1–4, 5-8, 9-14)

1. [1-4] Note the opening word (Isa 29:1; 28:1). What does Ariel (Jerusalem) think will protect her (Isa 29:1)? What would God do (Isa 29:2-3)? What were they doing (Isa 29:4; 8:19)? Why? Were they genuinely worshiping God?
2. [5-8] What will God do with Jerusalem's enemies (Isa 29:5)? How does God compare with the nations fighting against Ariel (Isa 29:5-8; 40:15-17)?
3. [9-14] What similarities do you see in 29:9-14 and 28:7-13? How is it that the people have blinded themselves (Isa 29:9), yet God blinds them (Isa 29:10; 6:9-10)? Which comes first? Why would God blind us (Rom 8:6-7)? When does reading the Bible become unintelligible (Isa 29:11-12)?
   
4. When does worship lose its sense of wonder (Isa 29:13; Mt 15:8–9)? Can God be controlled by our worship of Him? Is worship utilitarian? Do you think God should bless you when you obey Him? How does one truly worship God (Ps 51:16-17)? What is ironic about Isa 29:14? Compare to Isa 29:2-3; 28:21.

God's Power on God's Terms (Isaiah 29; Ray Ortland)

Isaiah: God Saves Sinners by Raymond C Ortlund Jr.

Did you know that your greatest breakthrough might be when you hit a brick wall? Did you know that the most constructive thing that might happen to you is when your world falls apart? Sometimes we Christians need that, because we think we have God figured out.

We do know something about God, because he has revealed himself to us. But imperceptibly, unintentionally, we can slide into the feeling that if we know God at all, we should be able to explain everything. But the fact is, we can't explain everything. Sometimes God doesn't make sense, to us.

When God surprises you so that you can't see through what God is doing in your life into the reason behind it, when he becomes opaque and mysterious, you are seeing something. You are seeing that God is God and you are not God. You are encountering him at a new level of profundity. You are discovering what it means to trust God and surrender to God rather than control him. If God never shocked you, you wouldn't really know him, because you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between your notions of God and the reality of God.

If you are in Christ, God never gives you what you deserve. In grace, he gives you what you need. You need encouragement. He gives it. You need confrontation. He gives it. At all levels of the multi-layered complexity of your being, right down to the very roots of what you are, beyond your own self-understanding, God can see how you need victory and how you need defeat. And he enters into your subjectivity with mercies both severe and sweet. The gospel equips us with large understandings of God, so that we can make large allowances for the full range of his ways and stop resenting him and meekly surrender to the deep work of renewal he wants to accomplish in us.

The structure of Isaiah 29 highlights three glories of the God with whom we are dealing in every instance of life.

1.       The victory of God over all — his friends and his enemies (29:1-8)

a.       The complacent church brought low (29:1-4)

b.       The malicious world frustrated (29:5-8)

2.       The mystery of God over all — the learned and the unlearned (29:9-14)

a.       Willful blindness made blind (29:9, 10)

b.       Blasé ignorance made ignorant (29:11, 12)

c.        Religious dullness made dull (29:13, 14)

3.       The sovereignty of God over all — the ruthless and the meek (29:15-24)

a.       Practical atheism discredited (29:15, 16)

b.       Moral disorder righted (29:17-21)

c.        Spiritual greatness revived (29:22-24)

[29:1-8] The Victory of God

29:1 - Isaiah is addressing Jerusalem, the city of David, Mount Zion (29:8). Why does he call it "Ariel"? That word means "altar hearth" — that is, the stone surface of the altar where fire consumed the sacrifices (Ezekiel 43:15,16). So, why "Ariel"? What Isaiah can see is that Jerusalem itself is an altar, where sinners worship a holy God through sacrifice. But then Isaiah says, "Add year to year; let the feasts run their round." This is a sarcastic poke at their annual round of worship events and festivals and celebrations — so elaborate, so beautiful, so empty. He's saying, "Carry on with your religious routine. But it's getting you nowhere."

What is the problem? Jerusalem does not see her privilege and her peril. The God she worships is a fiery personality — not erratic but holy (Heb 12:28, 29). For us sinners, God is both high-voltage danger and overflowing salvation. And the only refuge from his holy wrath is his holy love in Christ, our substitute on the altar of his cross. In other words, the only escape from God is in God. But the worship of these people is impervious both to the heat of his anger and to the warmth of his love. They neither tremble nor rejoice in God's presence. They just go through the motions. In God's sight they are wasting their time "worshipping" God. So God pronounces distress, mourning and lament upon them (29:2).

Will our worship be consumed with God, or will it be consumed by God? But worship without the reality of who God truly is means nothing to him. This is when God does his strange work (28:21): "I will encamp against you... and will besiege you ... and I will raise siege works against you" (29:3). Our God on the attack against us? How does that make sense? It makes sense because we need it more than we know. We need to do serious business with God more than we know. If we are under siege, God is the one we must primarily reckon with, not just Assyria, their immediate obvious adversary.

When he brings us down into the dust, so low we can barely cry for help (29:4), that's when, as the gospel reveals, the Holy Spirit enters in to intercede with groanings too deep for words (Rom 8:26, 27). That's when God becomes more meaningful to us than ever before. Yield to the victory of God. Let him win. In your defeat, God will lift from your heart that old lust for control, and you will be free.

In 29:5-8 Isaiah says that the One who burns like a fire in Jerusalem will confront the world with "the flame of a devouring fire" (29:6). He is showing us what God is like. He is saying that the very forces through which God may afflict his own people — God turns that formidable human power into dust and chaff. He can do it "in an instant, suddenly" (29:5). All by himself, without our help, he frustrates the schemes of those who oppose his cause and his people (29:8).

The victory of God — the one who besieges us is also well able to defend both himself and us. He knows just what to do every step of the way. Surrender to him.

[29:9-14] The Mystery of God

Isaiah is so frustrated with the spiritual malaise he sees in his generation, he blurts out in 29:9-10, in essence, "Go ahead and be blind, if that's what you want! You have so offended God that, even as you continue to worship, he'll darken your minds from understanding the gospel" (cf. Isa 6:9-10). This way of thinking doesn't make sense to us. We don't understand how this can work, much less be fair. But we should respect it. This is very real. There is mystery in the ways of God. The key to this section is the picture of the two men in 29:11-12. You see a literate man, a learned man, in 29:11. Someone hands him a sealed scroll, like a closed Bible. But he's too lazy to open it up and find out what it says. You see an illiterate man, an unlearned man, in 29:12. Someone hands him a sealed prophetic scroll too. But he can't read, and he has no interest in learning. Isaiah sees both responses among the people of God. Both are symptoms of unbelief. And Isaiah is saying that God hardens a distaste for his truth into spiritual blindness. The blindness Isaiah is lamenting is not the darkness of a primitive pagan culture out in the bush. The blindness he is so worried about is the tiring, rote, habitual, ritualistic worship of the people in covenant with God (29:13-14).

Jesus applied this text to the Pharisees, who worshiped God punctiliously (Mt 15:1-9). They were saying all the right things, doing all the right things. They feared God. But their fear of him — even this interior dimension of worship — was only a doctrine taught by human instruction. It was just an idea, a concept in their minds, a catechetical answer, not a Spirit-imparted awareness transforming their hearts. Beneath the beautiful observance, they were using the worship of God as a mechanism for avoiding God, for controlling God, for setting limits on God. They were like Flannery O'Connor's character Haze Motes: "There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin." God-evasion can look good. You can deceive even yourself. In his  teaching on repentance, Calvin says that one way to get real with God is "to flee splendor and any sort of trappings." So which do you really prize — tradition or God? You cannot serve two masters. You must choose between authentic worship and pious blasphemy. "Without love in the heart, the seeming gift of worship is but mockery of the Most High." When form replaces freshness, when rote replaces reality, worship treats God as less than the living God, and he is offended. Isaiah says that God visits such worship with an unlikely miracle (29:14a).

"Wonderful" and "wonder" are OT words for "miraculous"and "miracle." And the age of miracles is not over today. God is able today to transform head-only religion into empty-headed religion with no answers for our real problems. "The wisdom of their wise men shall perish," Isaiah says (29:14b; cf. 1 Cor 1:19). Truly, God is not mocked. Outside the Bible itself, no one has explained the urgency of personal reality with God more helpfully than Jonathan Edwards:

"If we are not in good earnest in religion, if our wills and inclinations are not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, the responses of our hearts cannot be commensurate unless those responses are lively and powerful. In nothing is vigor in the actings of our inclinations so appropriate as in religion, and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious. True religion is evermore a powerful thing; and its power appears primarily in its inward exercises in the heart, its principal and original seat."

The Bible warns us that some people hold to the form of godliness, but their lives deny its power (2 Tim 3:5). They attend church dutifully, but their hearts are far from God. Their religion is orthodox, beautiful nothing. Older people need the power of godliness in their hearts because they have little time left to get ready for Heaven. Middle-aged people need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are strongly tempted to coast, to rest on their laurels, to become dull and mediocre. Young families need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are forging the convictions that will shape their home for a lifetime. Singles need the power of godliness in their hearts because they can gain or they can forfeit single-minded devotion to Jesus. Students and teenagers need the power of godliness in their hearts because they are being targeted by the world with brilliant and attractive seductions. Children need the power of godliness in their hearts  while they are young and open, to be set apart to God forever. We Presbyterians, for example, need the power of godliness in our hearts because the sin of the Presbyterian church is to settle for the doctrine of the power of God rather than pressing on by faith into the experience of the power of God.

If you have a troubled child, for example, what will be most helpful to your child? Wouldn't it help your child for him or her to see your heart enthralled by a sense of the glory of Jesus? Or would that damage your child somehow? Your child might just think, If God can change Dad and  Mom, maybe he can help me too.

The mystery of God — if he has poured out upon you "a spirit of deep sleep" (Isa 29:10), he can also awaken you (Eph 5:14). Bring your emptiness out into the open before him. If you come out of hiding, so will God, and he will do a new miracle of grace in your heart.

[29:15-24] The Sovereignty of God

I hope you love the sovereignty of God. You really can, because his sovereignty is his freedom to do whatever he pleases (Ps 115:3). Aren't you glad that God is free, unbound, supreme in this universe? Our unbelief doesn't neutralize God. Our unbelief is where God starts out with us (Eph 2:4, 5). The practical atheism Isaiah exposes in 29:15, 16 —this very American way of thinking — cannot stop God.

29:17-19   Isaiah sees in the forests of Lebanon a picture of human nobility and might. But God will cut it all down and humble it into a common field. And in an ordinary field the prophetic eye discerns such luxurious growth to come, it will someday be a mighty forest. The values of human society now don't make sense. But God is promising to change things around. "The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD...the ruthless shall come to nothing" (29:19-20). Fresh joy in Christ will flood the world. That beautiful eruption of unpersecuted spiritual vitality will not be a mid-course correction in the plan of God. This "fresh joy" will fulfill God's ancient covenant with Abraham, Isaiah explains 19:22-24. God has been moving in this direction from the beginning. This is salvation. He began it in sovereign grace; he continues it in sovereign grace; he will consummate it in sovereign grace. We should trust him for that, however perplexing his strategies may be along the way.

Our part is meekness. It is the meek and poor alone whom God blesses. In 1971 my dad and mom were ministering to the student body of Taylor University in Indiana. For one week in the dead of winter God visited that campus with fresh joy. I was listening the other day to a recording of my parents' report to their church soon afterward. They said that one night, as the students met in the gym, God gave them the meekness to begin confessing their sins. They began to get real with God and with one another. They yielded to the work he wanted to do. Their confessing went on for hours, because real repentance can't be hurried. Real repentance is not general and vague but detailed and thorough. At one point late into the night, Dad suggested they take a short break to stretch their legs. In my parents' own words,

We were not at all prepared for what was about to happen. When those kids stood up, you would have thought it was the split second after their most crucial basketball game against their toughest opponent, they had just won by a hair and became number one in the nation. They went wild with joy. It was like back in Leviticus, shouting and falling on their faces (Lev 9:24). We had never experienced anything like it. They were hugging each other. They would run for somebody and say, "Did you ever think this would happen to us? Praise God! Isn't this beautiful?" We kept trying to start a song to get them to calm down. But for ten minutes you couldn't stop it. It was like taking a Coke bottle and shaking it up and then taking the lid off. They could not be held down. They had to express themselves.

"The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel." God wants this for us. It is his ancient covenant purpose. He might have to do a strange work to get us there. Will we trust him and follow him in meekness, wherever he leads?

Isaiah preaching schedule Jan-Feb 2016

Over the years, Isaiah has come to be known as "the prince of the prophets." The book of Isaiah seems to address at least two, and perhaps three different settings:

1. 1-39 (740-700 B.C.): Isaiah's own times.
2. 40-55 (585-540 B.C.): Judean exiles in Babylon.
3. 56-66 (539 B.C. onwards): Reflecting on conditions in Judah after the return from exile.

Tentative Plan and Dates for Isaiah Sermons in 2016:

• Isaiah 29 (1/10/16): Hypocrisy Hidden by Heeding Human Rules. Hypocrisy, heeding rules and hiding from God. Enforcing rules blind you to God and his word. Bad leadership emphasizes obeying human rules and tradition. (Link - Bad Leaders Produce Hypocritical Worship.)
  

• Isaiah 30 (1/17/16): God Waits Though Man Rejects Repentance and Rest. God graciously waits for us to repent and rest in him. (Link - God Graciously Waits.)
  

• Isaiah 31 (1/24/16): The Way Woe Enters. God delivers and blesses those who trust him. (Link - What Are You Trusting In?)

• Isaiah 32 (1/31/16): The Way to Quietness and Confidence. (Link - Good Leaders Rule With Justice [32:1-8]. Quietness and Confidence Forever [32:9-20].)

• Isaiah 33a (2/7/16): (Link - Be Our Strength Every Morning.)

• Isaiah 33b (2/14/16): (Link - See the King in His Beauty.)

• Isaiah 34-35 (2/21/16): (Link - Isaiah 34. A Highway Will Be There [Isaiah 35])

• Isaiah 36 (2/28/16): (Link - The Ultimatum [Isaiah 36:1-22].)
  

Michael and Hershey Lanier (Nov 21, 2015)

Romantic 6 minute video: The Wedding of Michael and Hershey Lanier.

"Imagine a man so focused on God that the only reason he looked up to see you is because he heard God say 'that's her.'"

(Isaiah 40)

Isaiah 40 introduces the major section of Isaiah 40-55. The question of God's trustworthiness has been thoroughly answered in Isaiah 7-39 despite man's failure and sins. Now the questions are:

• What will motivate the people of God to trust him and become the servants they were called to be?
• How is it possible for sinful Israel to become God's servants?
• What is to be done about the sin that has alienated them from God?

Isaiah addresses these questions in the future context of the coming Babylonian exile, when he anticipates the questions the exiles will be prompted to ask in that crisis. Isaiah 40-55 answer the questions in two parts:

1. Isaiah 41-48 address Israel's captivity in Babylon. If they are to be the redeemed servants of the Lord, they need to be free in order to worship God in the land of the promises. These chapters speak of God's capacity to deliver and his desire to do so.
   
2. Isaiah 49-55 address what needs to be done about the sin that got the people in their dilemma.
   

Isaiah recognizes that the Exile will bring up questions about these issues. Though the questions are never specifically stated, answers are given again and again to implied questions.

1. The first answer is "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me" (Isa 46:9, NIV).
2. The second answer is "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God" (Isa 41:10, NIV).

What then are the questions? They are:

1. Has not God been defeated by the gods of Babylon?
2. Has not our sin separated us from God forever?
   

To both these questions, Isaiah answers with a resounding "NO." God has NOT been defeated either by the Babylonian gods or by his people's sin. In fact, God will use the evidence of their lives to demonstrate his sole Godhood. Far from being cast off, they will be his witnesses in his case against the idols.

These two themes emerge at once in Isaiah 40. It has two main divisions and a kind of summary conclusion:

1. God's Promised Deliverance (1-11). This first section addresses whether God has cast his people away. Echoing Isaiah 12, where this event is anticipated, God speaks not judgment but comfort. He will deliver them, and they will be in a position to tell the world of the deliverance.
   
2. God's Ability to Deliver His People (12-26). God is the incomparable God, like whom there is no other. The nations of the earth are nothing to him, so they need not fear that they have been abandoned. God is indeed able to deliver his people.
   
3. Waiting in Hope (27-31). For God to deliver them, the people need only to wait in hope for the time to come.
   

The dominant idea here is that of the undeserved grace of God. This is what will motivate people to trust God, just as was intimated in Isaiah 12. When God delivers his people without any deserving on their part, they will at last be willing to cast themselves on him without reservation. So if Isaiah 7-39 is about trust as the basis of servanthood, Isaiah 40-55 is about grace as the motive and means of servanthood.

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah: The New Application Commentary. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2003. 440.

(Isaiah 39)

Merodach-Baladan (Isa 39:1) was twice able to make himself king of Babylon in defiance of the Assyrians (721-710 and 705-703). He was ousted by Sennacherib in 703 and escaped to Elam (modern Iran) where he continued to plot against the Assyrians until his death. That he heard about Hezekiah's illness and recovery suggests that he had a good intelligence system and that communication between various parts of the ancient world was good.

Hezekiah was glad to receive the envoys (Isa 39:2a), because a great world leader was paying attention to little Judah. Surely he felt flattered. What is dangerous about such notoriety is that one can easily succumb to the temptation to convince the important person that he is worthy of the attention given to him. Sadly, Hezekiah falls to this temptation.

This was a wonderful opportunity for Hezekiah to declare the glory of God to the nations. He could have used this visit to tell the story of what the sole God of the universe did for him. But instead of making God look good, Hezekiah, like Moses long before (Num 20:9-12), takes this opportunity to make himself look very good (Isa 39:2b). Hezekiah falls into the trap and fails God's test (2 Chron 32:31).

The dialogue between Hezekiah and Isaiah is uncomfortable (Isa 39:3-4). Isaiah asks what they saw in his palace. This suggests that he knows that Hezekiah has been showing off, just as Elisha knew what Gehazi had done to get something for himself from Naaman (2 Ki 5:25-27). To Hezekiah's credit, he does not lie.

Isaiah announces on the authority of the Lord Almighty (Isa 39:5) that everything the men saw in his palace will one day belong to the Babylonians (Isa 39:6) and that Hezekiah's descendants and family will be eunuchs in the Babylonian king's palace and will be carried off (Isa 39:7).

Hezekiah could be seen in a good light and be regarded as humbly submitting to God's judgment if he had only said "the word of the Lord ... is good" (Isa 39:8a). But when given the reason why he said it, there is no way to clear him. He says/regards that the Lord's word is good because the judgment is not going to fall on him (Isa 39:8b). How saw and how short-sighted. This is not how we would like to remember such a good man. Yet this is how Isaiah has chosen for us to remember him, rather than with Isaiah 36-37--which happened later--where Hezekiah rose above this point in his trust in God when he faced Sennacherib. Why? Isaiah wanted to show that Hezekiah is both mortal and fallible.

Isaiah wants to show that trust is intended to be a way of life (Isa 2:3, 5), not a one-time victorious experience. Also, Isaiah wants to show that there is no final salvation in a human being, no matter how good he might be (Isa 2:22). Our hope is not in the perfectibility of humanity. The Messiah we look for is better than that.

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah: The New Application Commentary. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2003. 435.

(Isaiah 38)

Isaiah 36-39 stand in relation to Isaiah 7-12 as a kind of mirror image. Ch.7-12 show the consequences of Ahaz's refusal to trust God and instead trusting the nations, in particular Assyria. The result was near destruction at the hands of the very nation he trusted. But these chapters (7-12) conclude on a hopeful note because God will not break his promise either to his people or to the house of David. God will send a Davidic Messiah to restore his people and rule them in peace and justice (Isa 7:14; 9:6-7; 11:1-16; 12:1-6). But ch.36-37 reverse the picture. Isaiah's prophecy has come true, and Judah has been devastated by Assyria. However, Hezekiah, Ahaz's son, does put his trust in God and does not surrender to Assyria. As a result God proves his trustworthiness by keeping his word and delivering Judah from Sennacherib.

The mirror image effect continues. Whereas ch.7-12 began badly and ends well, ch.36-39 begin well and end badly. Ch.38-39 depict a Hezekiah who is both mortal and fallible. It ends with the prediction of the Exile under Babylon, with Hezekiah's descendants in the Davidic dynasty serving the Babylonian king as eunuchs. Also the events in at least ch.38 took place before the deliverance in 701 BC. These chapters (36-39) have thus been pulled out of chronological order. Why?

Many commentators suggest that this was done to put the prediction of the Babylonian exile at the end of the segment and thus to provide a transition from the Assyrian section of the book (ch.1-39) to the Babylonian one (ch.40-66). A more complex reason is that it is not just to provide a chronological transition, but also a theological one.

Who is this promised Davidic Messiah? Is it not Hezekiah? He is the one whose faithfulness secured continued life for the nation and the one who manifested te kind of spirit that makes true leadership possible. Both Kings and Chronicles tell how he restored both justice and religious faithfulness in the land during his reign. Is he then not the child of Isaiah 9, the stump of Jesse in Isaiah 11, the man of the throne in Isaiah 16 and the righteous beautiful king in Isaiah 32-33?

Isaiah 38-39 tell us that this is not the case. However good a man Hezekiah may have been, he is just that, a man. Even if he receives extended life (ch.38), death is still his fate, as emphasized in Psalm 38:9-20. He is not the one who can usher in an eternal kingdom. Nor is he the almighty God (Isa 9:6). His behavior, however commendable, is not infallible (39:1-8). Instead of using the opportunity to glorify the God who delivered him from death, Hezekiah tries to impress the Babylonian envoys with his wealth and armaments.

Trust is a way of life, not an affair of the moment. So ch.38-39 not only prepare us for the coming Babylonian exile, they also prepare us for a further revelation of the nature and character of the promised Messiah. If not Hezekiah, then who is it? Ch.4-66 address the question, and ch.38-39 prepare the reader for it.

1. Hezekiah's Prayer (38:1-8).
2. Hezekiah's Lament (38:9-20, 21-22).

(Isaiah 37)

Some scholars believe that 37:9-38 to be a second account of the same event narrated in 36:1-37:7. But a particular difference is that the challenge has moved to focus exclusively on God's ability to deliver, and that Hezekiah's own commitment seems much more forthright and direct, and that the oracle from God is much more forceful and direct. A plausible explanation of the facts is that Hezekiah, encouraged by Isaiah's words in Isa 37:6-7, has moved beyond a hesitant faith and responded to the field commander's challenge with the assertion that the Lord will deliver Jerusalem (Isa 37:10). Thus, Sennacherib's letter is a response to Hezekiah, and Hezekiah's prayer is indicative of his now-total reliance on God.

1. Hezekiah's Prayer (37:8-20).
2. God's response to Hezekiah's Prayer (37:21-38).
   

The Ultimatum (Isaiah 36)

Isaiah 36-39 forms the last section in ch. 7-39 called "Lessons in Trust": Shall we put our trust in God or in the nations?

• Isaiah 7-12: Ahaz gave the wrong answer to Isaiah.
• Isaiah 13-35: Isaiah explains why trust in the nations is so foolish.
• Isaiah 13-23: All people/nations are under God's judgment by the Holy One of Israel.
• Isaiah 24-27: God's judgment of all nations of the earth will bring history to a close with the redemption of the faithful of all nations, as well as his own people.
• Isaiah 28-35: Isaiah speaks forcefully against the folly of trusting Egypt instead of God in the specific circumstances leading up to the attack by the Assyrian Sennacherib in 701 BC.
• Isaiah 36-39: After the above lessons in trust, the test as to whether to trust God or the nations is administered once again, this time to the son of Ahaz, Hezekiah. These chapters are the climax of the whole argument of Isaiah to this point. Isaiah asserts over and over again that God can be trusted. But is that all just rhetoric? No, everything Isaiah said is true in his specific historical context and significance. The main question is whether anyone is listening or not? In brief, it is a short-term "yes" but a long-term "no."
  

Because Hezekiah says "ues," God's sovereign power and unique trustworthiness are demonstrated by his miraculous deliverance. Isaiah makes the point that God's absolute rule over the world and his ability to care for those who trust him is clearly seen by an overnight destruction of Sennacherib's 185,000 troops (Isa 37:36-37, 38).

Yet Hezekiah's failure to witness to these same truths to the Babylonian envoys is also important to what follows. At this point it might seem that this devout and trusting Hezekiah is the promised Immanuel (Isa 7:14) with the kingdom promised in Isaha 9, 11 and 32-33. But by Isaiah placing this failure at the end of the secion (ch. 39), he is not merely pointing ahead to the coming defeat by Babylon. Much more importantly, Isaiah is saying that Hezekiah is not Immanuel and that we must look to someone else yet to come for the fulfillment of the messianic promises. In the view of some commentators and commentaries, this is the only satisfactory explanation for reversing the chronological order of Isaiah 36-37 and 38-39. [The promise of Isa 38:6 that God will deliver the city from the Assyrian king means that Hezekiah's illness and the visit of the Babylonian envoys occurred prior to the destruction of the Assyrian army described in Isa 37:36-38.]

A Highway Will Be There (Isaiah 35)

"And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it" (Isa 35:8, NIV).

Isaiah 35 is the mirror image of Isaiah 34 about the fate of the arrogant nations and all who trusted in them. Isaiah 35 speaks of the destiny of those who turn from that path to a resolute trust in God. Though there is no mention of trust in ch. 34 and 35, yet it is the major theme in the larger context. In Isaiah 28-35 the central issue was the stupid advice of the leaders for Judah to trust Egypt, instead of God. Isaiah 34 poetically expresses that trusting in the nations results in a desert, while Isaiah 35 shows the drastic and dramatic contrast when one trusts God. In brief, God will turn the desert into a garden (Isa 35:1). "The burning sand will become a pool" and the places "where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow" (Isa 35:7). This is in sharp contrast to the desolation that endured from generation to generation (Isa 34:10, 17). Even such desolation can be changed by God if we let him. God will reveal his glory by making them as rich and abundant as the forests on Lebanon and Carmel or the grasslands of the plan of Sharon (Isa 35:2; 33:9). When the rains of God fall, a barren waste springs into splendorous color almost overnight.

Isa 35:3-6a, 8 make it plain that this restoration is a spiritual one. The discouraged and fearful are given courage and strength (Isa 35:3-4). They remained faithful while the nation has gone down and down. They saw evil triumph again and again and wondered when or if God's day would ever come. But the Lord will balance the scales of justice, and they will see the day when both wickedness and righteousness receive their true reward from God (Isa 34:8, 16-17). In contrast to Isa 6:9-10, those who remain faithful--the blind and the deaf, the spiritually lame and mute will be delivered from their afflictions and become full participants in the community of faith (Isa 35:5).

Finally there is the image of a highway (Isa 35:8-10). In each case in Isaiah the occurence of "highway" is either to provide a way for people to come to God or for God to come to his people (Isa 11:16; 19:23; 40:3; 43:19; 49:11; 62:10). In the rugged highlands of Judah and Ephraim as well as in the desert east and south of Judah's central ridge, a straight and level highway would be a wonderful thing. This is what God promises to those who will turn to him in trust. He will make a way through the most difficult circumstances. This is another contrast with Isaiah 34, where Isaiah says that the conditions of the desert would obstruct all passage (Isa 34:10). But that is not the case in God's country. There is ready access to him and to all the blessings of his creation.

This highway is the way to God (Isa 35:8). Negatively, there will be no one "unclean" on it, there will be no "fools" there, nor will there be any devouring animals (Isa 35:8-9). Positively, God's way is a way of purity, obedience and safety. It is the way of holiness on which the redeemed walk. The end result is to come to the city of God, Zion, where gladness and joy will forever displace sorrow and sighing (Isa 35:10; 25:7-8).

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah: The New Application Commentary. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2003. 391-395.

(Isaiah 34)

Isaiah 34-35 offer a conclusion not only to chs. 28-33, but more largely to all of chs. 13-33. Throughout chs. 7-39 (entitled, "Lessons in Trust") God through Isaiah has been showing the people of Israel why they should trust God and not the nations. Now in ch. 34-35 the alternatives are depicted in glaring contrast. To trust the nations is to become a desert (Isaiah 34), but God can be trusted so that even if we have chosen the nations, God can make the desert burst forth with flowers (Isaiah 35). The singular point is clear: Trust God!

Isaiah 34 is composed of two parts:

1. A general announcement of judgment on the nations of the earth (1-4).
2. Particularizing this announcement by applying it to Edom (5-17), which is three times as long as the general statement it illustrates.
   

I. General Announcement of Judgment (1-4)

34:1-4 sounds a good deal like the opening stanzas of Isaiah 13 and 24. The judgment does not merely involve the "earth." It affects the entire cosmos, with the "stars" being "dissolved" and the "sky rolled up" (Isa 34:4). God's anger is particularly directed against the "armies," which aptly symbolize the arrogance and pride of the "nations." He will devote them to complete destruction (Isa 34:2, 5). This speaks of ritual destruction of offenses (Jos 6:17; 1 Sam 15:3). It is the result of a conflict between the Creator and those who have rebelled against him, a conflict with cosmic consequences.

II. Edom As an Example (5-17)

Edom is singled out to represent the nations of the earth in their hostility to God and their eventual destruction. It is because as as early as the entry of Israel into Canaan, Edom opposed God's plan (Num 20:14-21). This hostility continued through the kings, with one king after another having to face warfare with the Edomites (Ps 60:9 uses Edom in a representative way), including their ultimate antagonism by assisting Babylon in sacking Jerusalem (Ps 137:7; Obad 10-14).

1. Bloody destruction on Edom for Zion's sake (5-8).
2. The desert that Edom will become (9-17).
   

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah: The New Application Commentary. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2003. 384-390.

See the King in His Beauty (Isaiah 33:17-24)

"Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; you will see a vast land" [a land that stretches afar] (Isa 33:17, HCSB).

33:17-24 concludes Isaiah 32-33 by stressing the beauty of the divinely provided leader (Isa 33:17). He is the opposite of their drunken, blind, and confused leaders who secretly oppose God's intention (Isa 28:7; 29:10, 15; 30:1). This King is the gracious promise for which they long and wait (Isa 33:2). This promise was fulfilled in multiple ways (in at least four different historical settings) throughout Israel's history.

• It was immediately fulfilled in Isaiah's own day when godly Hezekiah, the anointed king, trusted God for deliverance and in so doing led his people into a wonderful experience of God's power and trustworthiness.
• It was fulfilled later when God delivered his people from Babylonian captivity and restored them to their own land; this was completed during the time of Nehemiah, Ezra and Malachi.
• It was fulfilled in the more distant future when God revealed his Messiah in Christ. It is what we can experience today since God's Messiah has been fully revealed by His Spirit.
  
• It will finally be fulfilled in the last days, in the consummation of all things, when the Messiah rules the earth and there will be no rival to God's kingdom.
  

Who is this King? Isa 32:1-8 depicts a realm in which humans are active. On the other hand the king described in the context of Isaiah 33 can be none other than the Lord--but he is the Lord who somehow fulfills the role previously filled by humans: judge, lawgiver, king (Isa 33:22). He is the One to whom Hezekiah goes in humble submission (Isa 37:16-20), and who thereby removes the Assyrian siege "towers" and tribute (revenue) officials from Jerusalem (Isa 33:18). This divine king makes it so that the alien Assyrian speech is not heard in Judah for a long time (Isa 33:19; 28:11). Now there is "peaceful [secure]" Zion, a place whose festivals will no longer be disgusting to God (Isa 33:20; 29:1-2). In a sense all of our human habitations are as fragile as a "tent" (Isa 33:20b), and always will be, no matter how many security measures we may try to implement in order to protect ourselves. But if those tents are given over to God, he can make them more secure than the mightiest fortress that is only dependent on human power for its survival (Isa 54:2).

From the metaphor of the tent, Isaiah moves to water imagery (Isa 33:20-21). The city will have peaceful "rivers and streams" flowing through it. As in Psalm 46, a river is a symbol of peace and abundance (Ps 46:4). The waves of the sea crash and roar destructively. But a river flows quietly along, providing water for all sorts of constructive uses. Isaiah underscores the peaceful nature of God's supply when he says no vessel of war (galley) will sail on the rivers of Zion (Isa 33:21b). Why?

It is because of the righteous character of the Lord, who is Israel's "judge," "lawgiver" and "king" (Isa 33:22). He is Samuel, Moses and David all rolled together in one. With One like that in charge, peace and prosperity are assured--even better, salvation. Such a One can deliver us from any situation of life, whether it be aggression from enemies, or a broken law, or a world of disorder.

The final promise for the Zion ruled by the Messiah is that it will be a place of health, both physical and spiritual (Isa 33:24). All the effects of sin will be done away with, and creation will be seen again in the manner in which it was first intended.

The first Christian creed is "Jesus is Lord" (Rom 10:9). It recognizes Jesus as the God-Man. He is the God who rules both on earth and in heaven. He does not rule from heaven as an absentee ruler, nor does he rule on earth as a limited and finite human. He is both the human Messiah and the divine King. [In Mal 3:1, the "messenger of the covenant" will come, but then it is said that the Lord himself is the Coming One. Which is it, the messenger of the Lord or the Lord himself? It is both.]

From this passage, Christ the King offers us beauty and wide opportunity (Isa 33:17), security (Isa 33:18-20), deliverance (Isa 33:22) and health in its most comprehensive form (Isa 33:24). God created man to appreciate beauty (Gen 2:9). Indeed, when we look at creation we see an abundance of things beautiful (Rom 1:20a). Why is beauty a characteristic of this heavenly-earthly King? Among the factors that make for beauty are:

• harmony,
• symmetry,
• rhythm,
• balance.
  

When Christ become the King of our lives, these are some of the things he brings to us. He is in perfect harmony with the Father as he lives out a life of rhythmic giving and receiving. He is never off-balance, attempting to secure his own will. In the quiet confidence of the Father's provision, there is a serenity and a wholeness that shines out of him. He offers this same beauty to us.

In Christ there are endless opportunities (Isa 32:17b). He does not press us into a mold in order to produce robots who will serve him. Rather, he calls us friends (Jn 15:15), allowing each of us to achieve the maximum of what we were designed for. He allows each of us to develop in our own way because he, our King, delights to serve us. In such a relationship and with all the power of heaven at our disposal, even the most restrictive of earth's situations offers endless openings.

In Christ there is complete security (Isa 33:18-20). When we know that even in our darkest hour we were loved by him, we know that there is nothing we can do to make him stop loving us. Nothing can wrench us out of his hand (Jn 10:28). Could a day come when we demand that he let us go? Yes, that possibility exists. But until such a time, we are held in an unfailing grip. Inside that shelter we dare anything, knowing that in even the most tragic failure, we are his and he is ours.

In Christ there is health (Isa 33:24). Like beauty, there is both outer health and inner health, and the two are closely connected. When our sins are forgiven and our future is assured, and when we have the confidence of full provision for our needs, we can rest in him. In a rest like that, there is a soul health that will have an impact on our physical health. And even if the "earthly temple" is falling into that inevitable decay that is the fate of all until Christ returns, our inner life may radiate health and wholeness through Christ.

Be Our Strength Every Morning (Isaiah 33:1-16)

"Lord, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble" (Isa 33:2, HCSB).

Isaiah 33 continues the description of the kingdom of the true messiah. It is introduced by the 6th and final woe in this section that began in Isaiah 28. But this woe is not addressed to the people of Israel or its leaders, but to the enemy of Jerusalem, almost certainly Assyria. The true king is the one who can bring about the deliverance that the drunken blind leaders cannot. 33:1-16 has two parts:

1. The woe and an appeal to God (1-6).
• the woe (1).
• an appeal to God (2), which is based on
• God's character and power (3-6).
  
2. Deliverance to come from God (7-16).
• the hopelessness of the situation (7-9).
• a promise by God to take action (10-16).
  

I. The Woe and an Appeal to God (33:1-6).

The emphasis on betrayal (Isa 33:1) suggests that the specific occasion for this woe was when Sennacherib accepted Hezekiah's payment to break off his attack on Judah and then did not (2 Ki 18:13-16). But Assyria is not named indicating that Isaiah has in mind a much larger theological context. All the destructive and deceptive character of earth's nations is used as a foil to depict the radically different character of the biblical God and of the kingdom he will build.

The outcome desired throughout this section is that the people will wait/long for the Lord (Isa 33:2; 30:18). Perhaps the Israelites have been forced to because the promised Egyptian help has proven useless (Isa 30:7; 31:1). They are now no longer trusting the nations and have nowhere else to turn but to God, who is always able to deliver (33:3-6).

The Lord is the One who is truly "exalted" (Isa 33:5). But he does not use his position as a justification for oppression. Instead, his character will provide a "foundation" on which people can live with confidence (Isa 33:6; 28:16-17). That foundation is "justice and righteousness" (Isa 33:5) and on it can be erected "salvation," "wisdom and knowledge" (Isa 33:6). All of this is available to the person who acknowledges that God is the Lord and gives him reverent obedience: "the fear of the Lord" (Isa 33:6b).

II. Deliverance to Come from God (33:7-16).

33:7-9 paint a picture of hopelessness that is consistent with the situation after Sennacherib took Hezekiah's tribute and then refused to leave. There is no relief in sight, nor is there cooling breeze or restorative rain (Isa 33:9 depicts the situation in terms of a drought). But there is hope. There is no Assyria that is greater than God, and God will make that fact plain. Assyria's own peoples will be consumed in the blaze (Isa 33:12). The destruction of Sennacherib's army in Judah is only a foretaste of the destruction of the entire empire less than a hundred years later (621-609 BC).

The Assyrians and all the other mighty nations of earth are not the main actors in this scene; the Lord is. It is his power (Isa 33:13) that rules the earth and brings the empires down to ashes. If the nations produce the tinder and provide the spark, the "consuming fire" is the Lord himself; he is the everlasting burning (Isa 33:14) with whom people must somehow come to terms.

What is required of us to live in the presence of "the consuming fire"? All that is required is a change of character on our part (Isa 33:15-16): Do and say "what is right," that is, what is in keeping with some standard, a standard that is obviously determined by God, which is splled out in the specifics of "right behavior" (Isa 33:15-16). As is usually the case in such lists, the behaviors are primarily relational.

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah: The New Application Commentary. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2003.

Across the years, Isaiah has come to be known as "the prince of the prophets." The book of Isaiah seems to address at least two, and perhaps three different settings:

1. 1-39 (740-700): Isaiah's own times.
2. 40-55 (585-540): Judean exiles in Babylon.
3. 56-66 (539 onwards): Reflecting on conditions in Judah after the return from exile.
   

Isaiah is like a modern symphony, with themes appearing and reappearing in fascinating harmony.

Quietness and Confidence Forever (Isaiah 32:9-20)

Isaiah 32:9-20

"The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence (trust, assurance) forever" (Isa 32:17, NIV).

32:9-14 and 32:15-20 seem unrelated. But they show a consistent train of thought as they address the issue that everything in Isaiah 7-39 ultimately goes back to Trust and Security. 32:9-14 condemn women who are "complacent" and "secure" (Isa 32:9), apparently because of a good harvest. Isaiah says that their complacency is terribly misplaced, for in only one year, all that will change (Isa 32:10). They should start mourning now (Isa 32:11-12) because of the agricultural disaster about to come on them. "Thorns and briers" (Isa 32:13a) speak not only of a mere physical disaster, but speak also of the spiritual condition of the nation (Isa 5:6; 27:4). "Merriment" and "revelry" will soon cease (Isa 32:13b), and all the places where strength and rule could be expected will be abandoned (Isa 32:14). All the false trusts will have failed. But this does not mean that God has failed.

As with so many previous times, the prediction of tragedy and defeat is immediately followed with God's promise of hope (32:15-20). If the nation has trusted in all the wrong things and become barren and unproductive, God has something in mind that will make possible true productivity and security, namely, his own "Spirit" (Isa 32:15).

The bad leaders and counselors have exhibited a spirit of confusion, self-service and rebellion, resulting in disaster and profound insecurity. But in the context of the messianic kingdom, God has a solution. He will pour out his Spirit from "on high." Just as rain falls and springs formerly barren earth to life (Isa 32:15), so the Spirit will fall on barren hearts and produce what the covenant requires--justice and righteousness (Isa 32:16).

Self-dependence produces frantic busyness. But those on whom the Spirit falls will be able to live in continual "quietness and confidence (trust)" (Isa 32:17), because they have truly relinquished their lives into God's hands. Their "homes" will be places of peace, security and rest (Isa 32:18). Such rest cannot be disturbed by physical disaster (Isa 32:19-20), unlike the rest and peace of the world (cf. Jn 14:27). Resting in the Spirit of God, they have inner resources of blessing that transcend the changing physical and material world (Phil 4:7). They have "streams" by which to plant the "seed" of their lives and from which to nourish those who depend on them (Isa 32:20; Ps 1:2-3).

Good Leaders Rule With Justice (Isaiah 32:1-8)

Isaiah 32-33 (32:1-8; 9-20; 33:1-16; 17-24)

"See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice" (Isa 32:1, NIV).

• Isaiah 28-29 spoke of false leaders.
  
• Isaiah 30-31 spoke of false counsel.
• Isaiah 32-33 speak of the true leader and the characteristics of his reign. This section can be divided into:
1. The nature of true leadership (32:1-8). His reign is characterized by righteousness and justice (Isa 32:1).
   
2. The Spirit as being necessary for true leadership (32:9-20).
3. The necessity of divine intervention on Judah's behalf explained (33:1-16).
4. A graphic illustration of the rule of the King (33:17-24).
   

I. True Leadership (32:1-8)

Who is the king in Isa 32:1? There is some debate as to whether this is a prediction of the messianic king because the language is more prosaic than in 9:1-6 and 11:1-16. But what is described is more than the best of human kingdoms and leaders. There seems good reason to see this as God's promise of his Messiah in view of the failure of all human leaders. [Even if human leaders will all fall short, they are nonetheless still responsible for their failed or sub-optimal leadership.]

Rulers under the messianic king will be a blessing to their people. "Each man" (Isa 32:2) probably refers to the "rulers" (Isa 32:1). Rules who are a blessing are described in four vivid similes:

1. "shelter"/hiding place from the wind.
2. "refuge" from the storm.
3. "streams of water" in the desert.
4. "shade"/shadow of a great rock in a weary/arid/parched/thirsty land.
   

This is a drastic reversal of conditions that resulted from Isaiah's ministry (Isa 6:9-10). Instead of deafness, blindness and dull, insensitive hearts, eyes will see, ears will hear and listen (Isa 32:3), and hearts will understand (Isa 32:4a). Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel make similar promises about the human heart in the new messianic age (Jer 31:3; Eze 36:26), where the king's subjects will want to know his will and obey it. Also, as intimated in 2:1-5 and Isa 66:19, the Israelites will be able to declare God's Word to the nations with fluent and clear speech (Isa 32:4b).

Contrast between the fool and the noble (32:5-8). As in the Hebrew language it is easy to confuse the fool (nbl) and the noble (ndb). In Hebrew thinking, the fool, like the scoffer (Isa 28:14) is a strongly negative term. It describes someone who has consciously rejected God and his ways (Isa 32:5; Ps 14:1; 53:1). It is not merely, as in English, someone who is stupid and ridiculous. In fact, the fool in the Bible may be someone who is brilliant and attractive. He has simply built his life on a lie: I am accountable to no one but myself. He has also dedicated his life to propagating that lie. Thus, the ethics of the Bible is foreign to him. The only language he understands is power and control.

A "noble" is gracious, giving and generous to others. Many times in life, a fool is treated as someone honorable--a noble--simply because he has gained power, status, positions of influence and wealth. This is NOT the pattern in the Messiah's kingdom. Those are called noble whose actions are noble, that is, generous and giving (Isa 32:8). The plans and deeds of noble persons are for others, not themselves, not necessarily just their own families or clans or ethnicities. They have learned that the gracious God can be trusted to supply their needs, and thus they no longer need to be grasping but can be giving.

What Are You Trusting In? (Isaiah 31)

Isaiah 31

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!" (Isa 31:1, ESV) "Return, you Israelites, to the One you have so greatly revolted against" (Isa 31:6, NIV).

The major theme of this section--chs. 28-33--is "Woe to those who do not trust (wait on) God" with Isa 31:1 being the key verse; it is also the 5th woe in this section. To recap:

1. the 1st woe was against the drunken leaders of Ephraim (Isa 28:1).
2. the 2nd woe was against those in Jerusalem who presumed on their status as God's people (Isa 29:1).
3. the 3rd woe was against those who hid their counsel from God (Isa 29:15).
4. the 4th woe was against those who stubbornly insisted on their own plans (Isa 30:1).
5. this 5th woe is specifically against those "who go down to Egypt for help" (Isa 31:1).
   

Thus, the climax (or nadir) has been reached. Drunken leaders seeking their own glory gave ungodly advise which stubborn and rebellious people adopt without seeking God's counsel. They have chosen to trust men and horses instead of "the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 31:1). They chose to trust created things rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). Isaiah 31 duplicates, in shorter form, the structure and content of Isaiah 30.

1. Don't trust Egypt (1-3). [The folly of dependence on Egypt.] This will not help and necessarily involves rejection of God. They choose a poor and useless option and reject the true.
2. Trust the Lord (4-9). The Lord is the only One who can deliver you. He will fight for Jerusalem and destroy Assyria. This is similar to 30:19-33. Negatively, Isaiah abolishes the false hope, and positively, he depicts the grace of God in such a way as to attract the people to God. He makes three points:
1. God will defend Jerusalem (4-5). The Lord cannot be diverted from his gracious purpose. Isa 31:5 uses an image from nature to depict the Lord--as a mother bird hovering over her nest, seeking to distract the attacker or, if necessary, to give her own life to protect the nestlings.
   
2. Turn back to God and away from idols (6-7). Since the promises of the Lord's care are assured, then surely they should cease their revolt against God and return to obeying him (Isa 31:6).
   
3. Assyria is no match for the Lord (8-9). Just as 31:1-3 is the most specific in denouncing the counsel to trust Egypt, so 31:8-9 is the most specific in promising deliverance from the Assyrian threat (Isa 37:36). Isaiah's main point is that it is much wiser to trust God than Egypt in the face of the Assyrians. The Assyrians will put the Egyptians to flight, but God will put the Assyrians to flight. God is the flame that burns in "Zion," and anyone who puts a hand in that "furnace" will likely get burned.
   

A Different Gospel

There are many "different gospels" that Christians may mistake as "the gospel." Here are a few of them:

Formalism. Formalism is blind to the seriousness of my spiritual condition and my constant need for God's grace to rescue me. It is replaced by church activities, meetings, conferences and gatherings. There is nothing wrong with participation simply as one healthy aspect of a good life. The gospel is reduced to participation in the meetings and ministries of the church. One friend told me a told me he was a slave of formalism. Whenever his members didn't attend a meeting, he didn't ask how they were doing, but rather he would say in an angry tone, "Why did you miss the meeting?"

Legalism. We Christians might have "rules" for everything: I must read 10 chapters per day, I must go to church, etc. Again there is nothing wrong with these disciplines. Legalism is not just a reduction of the gospel, it is another gospel altogether, where salvation is earned by keeping the rules we have established for ourselves and others. An insidious result of legalism is that you evaluate others based on your own standard. We can easily crush others under the weight of our legalism.

Biblicism. It is good to love and dedicate your life studying the word of God. You can study the word like a surgeon. But the danger is using the theological scalpel on others. Biblicism can drive you to become proud, critical, condescending and intolerant of anyone who lacks your "superb and superior," "excellent and exemplary" fine-grained understanding of the Bible.

Activism. The gospel is reduced to participation in Christian causes. Christianity becomes nothing more a defense of what's right rather than a joyful pursuit of Christ. You begin to see "us" and "them." Your energies are focused more on external evils rather than the evil that plagues one's own heart. As a result, it can take on the form of a modern monasticism. The monastics essentially said, "There is an evil world out there, and the way to fight evil is to separate from it." But monasteries failed because they forgot to focus on the evil inside every monk who entered their walls!

The Gospel Gap-2 Peter 1:3-9. Sermon at West Loop on 11/8/2015 by Rhoel Lomahan.

God Graciously Waits (Isaiah 30)

Isaiah 30 (1-7, 8-18, 19-26, 27-33)

"This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it'" (Isa 30:15). "Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him" (Isa 30:18, NKJV).

Isaiah 28-33 can be titled "The Folly of Trusting the Nations" (or "Woe to those who do not trust or wait on God"). Isaiah pronounces "woe" [the funeral word] six times in this section (Isa 28:1; 29:1, 15; 30:1; 31:1; 33:1), because the refusal to trust God will only lead to destruction.

• Isaiah 28-29 covering the first three woes (Isa 28:1; 29:1, 15) deal with bad leadership. General denouncement.
  
• Isaiah 30-31 critique with the proposed solution: dependence on Egypt. Specific denouncement of depending on the very power which once enslaved them.
  
• Isaiah 32-33 present the true solution: reliance on the true Leader, the righteous King.

The first woe (28:1) is against Ephraim for their drunken leadership, and for the priests and prophets mocking Isaiah's words (Isa 28:9-10). The second woe (29:1) is against Ariel [meaning "altar hearth"] or Jerusalem for her presumption (Isa 29:1, 13) and blindness to God's word (Isa 29:9-10, 11-12). The third woe (29:15) accuses the counselors of trying to hide their counsel from God and likely also from Isaiah, whose position against placing trust in human nations is well known.

The fourth woe (Isa 30:1) is the first of two aimed specifically at the alliance with Egypt that the royal counselors are urging. To Isaiah, this is foolish because Egypt cannot offer any real help; she is an utterly useless and toothless old monster (Isa 30:7). Rahab is another name for the chaos monster Leviathan (Isa 27:1), that terrifying dragon who is always threatening to destroy the order on which human life depends. But this Rahab is far from terrifying. She is "Rahab the Do-Nothing" or "Rahab the one who sits." She is a toothless old monster, too lazy to move.

1. Foolishness of Looking to Egypt (1-7). Scorning the idea of Egypt offering Judah any substantive help. Fundamentally, it is a refusal to trust God (Isa 30:15), which is what the entire section of chs. 7-39 is about.
   
2. Judah's Coming Devastation (8-18). God has to wait until they come to their senses. Having decided to trust Egypt rather than God, they do not wish to hear anything which would call their choice into question. They have refused to wait for the Lord's help and have rushed off to help themselves. So the Lord must wait for them, as he did for Jacob, until circumstances will have reduced them to helplessness. The good news is that God waits to be gracious (Isa 30:18).
   
3. Promises of Redemption and Restoration of God's People (19-26) and Defeat of Enemies (27-33). Isaiah relates again the certainty of God's salvation. Although Judah's failure to trust God would indeed result in destruction, that destruction would be followed by redemption and a corresponding destruction of Judah's enemies.
   

There is a reiteration of the great themes of the first part of Isaiah: an appeal to trust God (Isa 30:15), a promise of judgment on those who stupidly rebel against God by trusting human nations instead of God, but then the assertion that after the judgment has come, there will yet be hope for those who turn to him (Isa 30:18).

Love by C. S. Lewis

The will. "Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will." "Love in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion.  It is a state not of feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people."

Feeling after acting. "The rule for all of us is perfectly simple.  Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did.  As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets.  When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.  If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.  If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."

Love is never too much. "God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less.  We love everything in one way too much (i.e. at the expense of our love for Him) but in another way we love everything too little…. No person, animal, flower, or even pebble, has ever been loved too much—i.e. more than every one of God's works deserve."

We can never love a person too much, only God too little. "It is probably impossible to love any human being simply 'too much.' We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the many that constitutes the inordinacy….But the question whether we are loving God or the earthly Beloved "more" is not, so far as concerns our Christian duty, a question about the comparative intensity of two feelings.  The real question is, which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, choose, or put first?  To which claim does your will in the last resort yield?"

True love for others. "You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God." "To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin; though we shall not be well so long as we love and admire anything more than we love and admire God."

Vulnerability. "To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy is damnation.  The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

No fear. "Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear.  But so do several others things—ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity.  It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that state, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear."

Bad Leaders Produce Unacceptable Worship (Isaiah 29)

Isaiah 29 (1-8, 9-14, 15-24)

"The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught'" (Isa 29:13, NIV).

Isaiah 28-33 continues the discourse (which begun in Isaiah 7) of the foolishness of trusting the nations instead of the Lord, by dealing particularly with the specific political situation in Judah: Would Judah trust God or not? The same approach was seen in ch. 13-27 where particular nations were addressed (13-23) before addressing the world as a whole (24-27).

The structure of this segment may be:

1. 28-29: foolish leaders, a multitude of enemies, false counsel that something must be done at once rather than waiting on God.
2. 30-31: the proposed solution: dependence on Egypt and the folly of this.
3. 32-33: the true solution: the revelation of the King and his presence in their midst.
   

Isaiah 28 (Mocking Isaiah's Words) describe what bad leaders do:

1. Seek their own glory (1-6). What Ephraim foolishly did and Judah is not learning from and thus repeating.
   
2. Reject and mock Isaiah's words to trust God (7-13). They mocked his Bible teaching as simplistic and childish.
   
3. Depend on themselves--a covenant with death--rather than on God, the tested and sure foundation (14-22).
4. Reject God's instructions and wonderful plans, which uneducated farmers embrace (23-29).
   

Isaiah 29 continues the theme of bad leaders and bad leadership. What are some attributes of bad leaders?

1. Presume that God is their God and they have immunity from judgment (1-8, 13). But instead, God, not Assyria is their primary enemy (Isa 29:3).
2. Blind to what God is doing (9-14). Though they "know" the Bible, it is unintelligible to them (Isa 29:10-12). Their habitual worship, based on man-made rules, has no encounter with God (Isa 29:13). Their worship is their attempt to manipulate God to do for them what they want and what they have already decided. They don't really want God but only what God can do for them by fulfilling their own agendas.
   
3. Hide their plans from God because they already have their own plans (15-24). God pronounces "woe" on their secretive, clandestine, furtive and surreptitious behavior that lacks honesty, openness and transparency (Isa 29:15).
   

Sun (11/1/15): Mocking Isaiah's Words (Isaiah 28).

• Thank God who helped us study 28 chapters of Isaiah by this Sunday.

• Pray for me as I leave on Nov 4 for Manila and to attend my mother's 98th birthday in Malaysia.

• Check out Mocking Isaiah's Words (Isaiah 28) and the attached powerpoint.

Our One Security: God's Sure Foundation (Isaiah 28)

I. Two Crowns (1-6): Pronouncement Against Ephraim. What are you proud of?

In 28:1-6 there is a play on "crown" or "wreath." This is the circlet of flowers or vines worn on the had of champions or revelers in Greek and Roman cultures. The drunken partygoers in Samaria wear these wreaths on their heads as they try to forget the terror facing them. Isaiah sees a day when all these wreaths, both the real and the symbolic, will be thrown to the ground and trampled. The "pride" of the northern kingdom is going to be snatched up like a ripe "fig" (Isa 28:4).

In contrast there is another "wreath," the Lord himself (Isa 28:5). He will be the source of beauty and glory for those who have abandoned their own pride in glad submission to him. He will give "justice" to the judges and "strength" to the soldiers (Isa 28:6). The mention of "crown" in Isa 28:5 puts the issue in clear light: Who is the King, the drunken political leaders or "the Lord Almighty"?

II. Two Words (7-13): Continuing Pronouncement Against Ephraim. What are you hearing?

28:1-4 spoke of the political leaders and the nobility, whereas 28:7-8 show that the priests and prophets are no better off. They too are besotted with the attempt to please and satisfy themselves. Alcohol abuse is a problem for them, but it is also a symptom of their deeper problem, an unwillingness to surrender their needs and desires to the Lord (Mal 2:1-9).

So instead of giving clear guidance and teaching in that desperate hour, they are staggering, reeling and befuddled in a stupor (Isa 28:7). The tables (Isa 28:8) used either for judgment or for partying are covered with vomit.

Isa 28:9-10 express the mockery of these religious leaders toward Isaiah. "Who does he think he is, treating us like little children?" Alcohol and refusing to face reality causes one to become childish, while unable to recognize what is truly going on. They denounce the repetitive simplicity of Isaiah's teaching, clearly wanting something more nuanced and ambiguous as befits their supposedly sophisticated understanding.

Isaiah responds in Isa 28:11-13 by saying that since this is what they think they are getting, then it will be exactly what they will get, only from lips other than his. Since they refuse God's invitation to rest in him by abandoning their petty pride and demeaning pleasures, they will learn his truth through "foreign lips and strange tongues" (Isa 28:11), the Assyrians who will teach them that what Isaiah said is true. Their demands as conquerors will really be repetitively simple. If they will not learn the easy way of faith, then they must learn the hard way of experience.

III. Two Covenants (14-22): A Message to the Leaders in Jerusalem

The focus shifts to the leaders in Jerusalem. "Therefore" (Isa 28:14) calls them to pay attention and learn from Ephraim, the northern leaders who are facing imminent judgment. If Judah continues in her present ways, she too will face the same fate. Isa 28:15a may not be an actual quote from the Judean leaders but Isaiah's sarcastic restatement of their words, for they have made a lie their refuge.

Isaiah's serious and unflattering epithet to the leaders is to call them "scoffers" (Isa 28:14). They not only reject the truth, but also make light of it. Like the northern leaders, these Judean scoffers have laughed at the foolishness of trust God and made their covenants "with death" (Isa 28:15, 18), which is probably an alliance with Egypt whom they think will guarantee life for them and their nation when Assyria, the "overwhelming scourge" (Isa 28:15b) comes. They ally themselves with the "lie" (Isa 28:15b) that human power is better and more reliable than simply trusting God (Isa 28:12).

Isa 28:16-19 is God's response to the "covenant of death" (Isa 28:15a, 18a). God asserts that He alone is trustworthy (Isa 28:16). God is the "tested stone" (Isa 28:16) in contrast to the "lie" on which the leaders have built their "refuge" (Isa 28:17b). God's measurements are the "justice" and "righteousness" of God (Isa 28:17a), which can stand whatever shocks might come to it. Anyone who builds on it "will never be stricken with panic" (Isa 28:16b). They can be calm and deliberate by experiencing the place of quiet rest and repose (Isa 28:12). When any other trust is measured against God's "sure foundation," its faultiness becomes apparent at once, as with the "covenant with death" (Isa 28:18).

IV. Two Methods (23-29): Illustration from the World of Agriculture. Can you trust God's ways with you?

Isaiah concludes with two graphic illustrations. Scoffers and drunkards, literal and allegorical, have refused to listen to God's word. Isaiah has been saying that there are simple cause and effect principles that rule the spiritual world, which if they are flouted will result in disaster (28:23-29).

The least educated peasant farmer, just a serf, knows that there are some things you do and some things you don't. "Listen and hear my voice" (Isa 28:23) has overtones of wisdom literature. The comparison of one activity with another, royal counsel with farming, is characteristic of wisdom literature.

A time of rough plowing before planting new life (28:23-26). A farmer knows that there are certain appropriate ways to do things. He does not keep on plowing forever (Isa 28:24), as though that were an end in itself. When he plants he does not mix up all the different seeds together (Isa 28:25). Each has to be grown separately. Though just a peasant serf, he is smart enough to know that the upheaval of plowing is only temporary and that plowing changes to planting. Therefore God knows that endless upheaval and disruption in our lives would be fruitless. Yes, God does break up the rock-hard soil of our hearts. Yes his work of plowing does get rough with us. But not continually and only in order to plant new life there. God always has a life-enriching purpose. Yield to him.

Each crop requires its own unique special treatment and refinement. When he threshes, he uses appropriate tools according to the size of the grain involved (Isa 28:27-28). To use a heavy threshing sledge or a stone roller on the tiny "caraway" and "cummin" seeds would crush them to dust (Isa 28:27a). Instead, he uses a jointed "stick" called a "flail" in English. And even a correct method must not be overused. Therefore, God knows exactly how to work with each of us (Jn 21:20-23). God has just the right touch for you. Trust him.

Isaiah is saying that these peasants have learned these principles from God (Isa 28:26, 29). God's natural revelation has taught them how life works. Why can't these wise counselors, who have the benefit of both natural and divine revelation, be as intelligent as the uneducated peasant when it comes to understanding that God can be trusted and humans cannot?