Church, it's good to be with you this morning. If I haven't met you, my name is Nick. I've been a member of Covenant Life Church for some time now, and I'm really excited to be with you as we continue our series in the book of Isaiah. Let me invite you again to turn in your copy of God's Word to our preaching text this morning, starting in chapter 13. We'll begin on page 540 in your ESV Pew Bible. I'll address the elephant in the room. There is not a misprint in your bulletin.
We are covering eight chapters of Isaiah today. So go ahead and cancel your lunch plans. I'm going to try and get you out of here on time. But why in the world would we be doing eight chapters in one sermon? Film directors use this tool in storytelling called a montage. A montage is a part of that movie where they show scenes back to back to back that, sewn together, tell a story of what's happening.
Most famous of these are the Rocky movies, where Rocky Balboa is training to take on the enemy, and they show all of his exercises and his workouts stitched together with some cool music in the background. And we know that we're seeing this passage of time, these weeks and months go by as the filmmaker paints a story for us. What I believe Isaiah wants to show us this morning is a bit of a montage. We've been working with a fairly clear outline as we've gone through the prophet Isaiah.
we've met with a people, Judah, who are living in rebellion against their God. And that God has sent them a prophet named Isaiah. In each of these chapters, Isaiah has painted for them pictures of judgment. and pictures of hope. He shows them in chapter 6 the holiness of God that Isaiah meets with and is then purified so that he might proclaim the gospel. And then chapter 7 through 12 is this one big storyline of what happens when King Ahaz fails to trust God. God's wrath comes on him.
But as Justin unpacked for us, God will preserve for himself a remnant from his people. And as Charlie mentioned in chapter 11, he promises a humble king that will reign in righteousness. Last week, Bob preached the joyous song of Isaiah 12 that the people of God will sing in that day when salvation is accomplished. The problem is we still live in a world where we're tempted to trust kings like Ahaz did and trust other people and trust other things.
And just like in Isaiah's day, where they're stubborn, you and I are stubborn. So we need God to persuade us over and over and over again. Don't trust those other people and things. Trust me. The way he does this, starting in chapter 13, is to tell oracles. speeches of woe, warning, the actual language is burdened against those other nations.
These prophecies are organized in cycles, and this morning we're on cycle number one. Eight chapters. Each nation in this cycle condemned for the same thing. But each expression of that thing takes on a distinct character. We're going to read it like a montage because in some sense, Isaiah wants us to understand it like a montage as he travels around the globe and looks at the different nations and tells this story. Last summer, we saw the return of the Summer Olympic Games.
I love watching the Olympics and it begins every year with the opening ceremony. All this singing and dancing and promotion of the host nation is pretty weird last year, to say the least. But then the parade of all the athletes comes through, and it's hours long. athletes from each country in alphabetical or wearing Wearing their native outfits and uniforms and bearing the flag of their nation. Parading through the arena. Huge countries.
fill up the stadium. Team USA always has hundreds of athletes. China always has a big team. Russia, whatever name they're going by at the time, always has lots of athletes. The best part to me are not the big countries. They're these little countries that just send one athlete. Places that I struggle to find on a map. One flag, one athlete amongst the sea of nations coming in. to represent their tiny little space.
I've often wondered what those athletes think. They must be bursting with joy. I mean, here they are on the world stage, carrying their nation's flag with an opportunity to compete against the best of the best. There has to be some sense of despair. Just these massive other countries with all their athletes and all their support staff and all of their resources surrounding little old them with their one flag. I think that's something of what Judah felt like in these chapters.
As Judah looked out at the nations that surrounded them, the nations that were bigger than them, the nations that were stronger than them, the nations that could not only beat them in a basketball game, but could invade and take over and annihilate them. And unlike that Olympic athlete that's despairing a little bit, Judah is wondering if she should switch teams. She should go and make a deal with one of the powerful nations, trust in one of the enemies, because there, maybe there,
will be safety. Maybe by trusting one of the big nations out there, there will be salvation and security. God sends Isaiah to his doubting and distrusting people to say in as many ways as he possibly can, don't trusts the nations. He warns them, encourages them, invites them, calls them in every way he can. The message of these oracles, these eight chapters, is one simple truth. It is foolish to trust the nations. So trust God's death.
It is foolish, Judah. It is foolish, church. It is foolish, Christian, to trust in other people, places, and things for your security. Trust God instead. How does Isaiah do this? How does he warn them against the foolishness of trusting the nations? He gives them two reasons. Reasons that I hope transcend Isaiah's day into our day as well. The first reason, in judgment. God will shatter the proud.
The nations around you are proud. Don't trust them because in judgment, when God comes on that day, he will shatter the proud and you will be left with no help. no deliverer and with no security because you trusted someone or something that's going to be The second reason that pops up in each of these different oracles is don't trust the nations and trust God instead because in mercy, God will shelter the humble.
You see this in each place, sometimes very faintly, sometimes fairly obviously. Trust in God because he shelters the humble who look on him and look to him. We have five oracles in our passage this morning. Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, or Syria, and Egypt. What we're going to do is make two passes through. We'll go through and see how God shatters the proud, and then we'll go through again and see how God shelters the humble.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Would you pray with me? Lord of hosts, whose counsel stands when nations fall, whose judgment humbles empires, and whose mercy gathers the lowly, we tremble before you right now. We pray that in these few minutes we have together that you would show us Jesus Christ.
but in the mix of all these nations and all these cities and all of these names that we struggle to know where they are and how to pronounce that you, O God, would show us clearly and savingly your son, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the nations, the one and the only one in whom we can turn for escape.
You are the God who shatters the proud and shelters the humble. So we pray that the sermon that is heard would not rest in my strength or in human eloquence, but in the sovereign voice of the king who topples nations and establishes his reign in the world. Turn our hearts, O Lord, away from trust in the nations, away from idols, away from ourselves, and toward trust in your Son alone. In his name we pray, Jesus Christ. Amen.
So first, don't trust the nations because in judgment, God will shatter the proud. In judgment, God will shatter the proud. The pattern, as Isaiah travels through these nations, is that the prideful, pompous, self-exalting kings and peoples and armies will be brought low. You raise yourself up, and God will bring you down. Because when God is exalted, it's sort of like a teeter-totter. You raise yourself up, God raises himself up, you will be brought low.
Now, if you can picture little Judah right here in the middle of the land of Canaan, Isaiah takes us and looks north, looks south, looks west, and looks east. He travels all the way around the points of the compass to show us the various threatening nations. And when he goes north, he names Babylon. Now our threat so far in the book of Isaiah has been Assyria.
But Babylon is coming after Assyria. They're the next bad guy. And Babylon isn't technically in the north, but they do take this northern corridor in order to invade Israel and Judah. So Babylon and a little bit of Assyria is the enemy in the north. And then he takes us to look south. The power to the south is Egypt. The legacy, wisdom, glory of Egypt.
These great superpowers in Isaiah's day, in the north and the south, function like jaws clamping down and putting pressure on all these little countries in Canaan. Judah is going to feel that pressure. Philistia, Moab, Syria, and Israel who have bound themselves together. And the north will feel that pressure. Isaiah is going to travel around these different places and show us that large or small, God is sovereign over all of them.
Chapters 13 and 14 begin with judgments on Babylon. There's also a little bit of judgment on Assyria here, I said that, sort of lumping it together with the enemies that attack from the north. And Isaiah speaks of a day. We've talked about this before. The phrase that day is littered throughout the 66 chapters of Isaiah, and it's going to be a good day for some.
We saw that last week in chapter 12. On that day, there will be joy and singing. What we see here is the completely opposite side of that same day for Babylon. Read with me chapter 13, verse 9. Behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy sinners from it.
For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world. for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. Babylon is a sign and symbol of arrogant pride. It's a pride that idolizes glory and power. It's a haughty self-reliance. Babylon has it all.
Wealth, status, military might, and you'll notice condemnation is on Babylon, but he speaks of the whole world. And so it's every nation, every people, every person who exalts themselves above God. And a fairly obvious application here is how we tend to think of our national identity. It's one thing to love our country. It's another to trust in it above God.
Babylon represents a nation that believed its military and political power made it invincible. When our hope is in national greatness instead of God's kingdom, we've made an idol out of our patriotism. Following Jesus means our sole overwhelming allegiance is due to God and not our nation. It means that the business of the kingdom of heaven must be our primary occupation.
No political party can mend our society. No electoral outcome offers true hope or greatness, at least how the Bible understands it. No president can solve our problems or make us more moral or even eliminate structural evils. No candidate can herald the day of the Lord. No politician can bring about the eschaton. And God will not spare the nations or the citizens that refuse to bow to his rule.
Let's think even about our personal sin. We live in a culture obsessed with being first, being known, being impressive. Like Babylon, we chase greatness and glory as if self-exaltation itself will save us. but every tower built in pride will fall. God does not honor those who lift themselves up. They have the admiration of the world.
But to God, status, reputation, and image are but vapor and mist. When we build our life around achievement and prestige and money, we're just adding stones to a tower that God intends to top. And that's what he does. That's what he does to this aggressive, powerful nation that trusts only in his strength. Verse 19, and Babylon, the glory of kingdoms.
The splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them, crushed, judged, ruined, destroyed. Human greatness is brought to nothing. Wild animals will take up residence in the ruin of their crumbled cities. And just as what happens with the Tower of Babel, the forerunner to Babylon, will happen to Babylon as well in your own time. Read chapter 14, verses 12 through 15, and see how Babel and Babylon are compared to the fall of Satan himself.
They exalt themselves to reach up to God, to be above God, and he destroys and reduces them to nothing as a caution against arrogance. God shatters the prowess. We then turn from the north to the west. beginning in chapter 14, verse 28, an oracle concerning Philistia.
In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle. Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken. For from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and from its fruit will be a flying, fiery serpent. Say that five times fast. Now Philistia is Judah's neighbor to the west, and Philistia is planning to revolt against Assyria. It's implied that alongside Ahaz's death, Assyria's king has also died. So Assyria is weakened, and now, now is the time.
Now is the time for the little nation to rebel against the big nation. And if they're going to rise up and fight the bully in the north, How else are they going to beat them but to bring up the bully in the south and bring up Egypt to come and help them? This is really significant because it's exactly what Judah was tempted to do. They think that Egypt can save them from Assyria. But Isaiah's words here warn of Philistia's short-sighted optimism. Rejoice not that the serpent is gone.
Because far worse is coming. From the serpent will come an adder, like a viper, a venomous snake. And from the adder will come forth a fire-breathing dragon. the enemy will come back stronger and more deadly than ever before. See, Philistia's pride, their decision to trust Egypt is rooted in their complete failure to understand what their actual problem was. They thought that the biggest issue was their present circumstance, that their problem was Assyria. It wasn't. Their problem was their sin.
rejoice not that the rod that struck you is broken. I remember when I was younger, five or six, I had deliberately disobeyed my mom. And she decided wisely that this was direct defiance that required corrective discipline. I might get in trouble for this illustration. If you have a problem, she's here. You can take it up with her. But I distinctly remember that in this instance, I fled.
Physically, I bolted and she took off after me. It turned into one of those alleyway chase scenes that you see in the movies. I was diving under tables, jumping over furniture, throwing trash cans down to slow my pursuer. When she finally caught to me, I remember like it was yesterday, the first swat just broke the spoon in half. It wasn't hard. I don't remember it hurting honestly because both of us couldn't help cracking up at the absurdity of the situation.
But I didn't rejoice that the rod that struck me had broken. Why? Because I just went and got another spoon. My problem wasn't the rod. My problem was that I had offended the one who held it. I had disobeyed my parents, disobeyed God, and in their wisdom, they sought to bring me back into the sphere of safety through corrective discipline.
We tend to misjudge the true nature of our problems. We assume that our biggest issue is our present circumstances. When in reality, our greatest problem is always our position before God. If only I could get through school, if only I could get that promotion, if only I could have the right friends, if only I could get the kids to bed, if only God wouldn't make my life so hard just to realize that there's an even harder challenge waiting behind whatever we just got past.
The Reverend Justin Perry once said... This is actually really good. This world simply cannot offer a joy and a contentment that isn't chained to a circumstance. We need to lift our eyes from the circumstances before us and onto the God who governs them.
Until then, we'll keep trusting false saviors and we'll be left just as exposed and disappointed as Philistia. They will be left high and dry, and the little guy who trusted the big guy to keep them safe will be destroyed. God will shatter the prowess. Isaiah travels with us to a third surrounding nations. He travels east across the river to Moab. And how are they characterized? At the beginning of chapter 15, they're wailing and mourning for their situation.
They look around at all these superpowers and realize that they're cooked. They have no hope. In verse 5, Isaiah gives his heartfelt lament for their status underneath his judgment. my heart cries out for Moab. So for whatever reason, Moab looks to Judah for help. And Yahweh is sympathetic to her plea. We read of Moab's request in chapter 16, send the lamb. This was Moabite language for sending a tribute sacrifice that would request asylum.
Send the lamb to the ruler of the land from Selah by way of the desert to the mountain of the daughter of Zion like fleeing birds like a scattered nest So are the daughters of Moab at the fords of Arnon. Give counsel, grant justice, make your shade like night at the height of noon. Shelter the outcasts. Do not reveal the fugitive. Let the outcast of Moab sojourn among you. Be a shelter to them from the destroyer.
Second half of verse 4, Isaiah responds saying, when the oppressor is no more and the destruction has ceased and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, then a throne will be established in steadfast love. and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David, one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness. J. Alec Matea writes that when the Moabites come in desperate need, there is held out to them without question the Messianic Beth.
that Zion can offer. Yes, Moab, there is a place of justice, righteousness, and refuge for you, but it is only found under God's promised anointed king who will one day rule all nations. Will you submit to him? Shockingly, we read in verse 6, we have heard of the pride of Moab, how proud he is of his arrogance and his pride, his insolence. In his idle boasting, he is not right.
This is a Quentin Tarantino level shift in tone for Isaiah here. What can we assume but that Moab heard this invitation to trust the king and said, nah, we're all right. Moab wanted protection, but they didn't want it on God's terms. They wanted safety without surrender, refuge without repentance, all of the benefits of the kingdom without bowing to the king. Too often we want the blessings God gives, but we hesitate when they come under the rule and authority of the giver.
Augustine would say we do this because in our hearts our loves are wrongly ordered. We want our sin more than we want a savior. We want our desires, we love our desires more than we love our deliverance. We read verse 7, therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Let everyone wail, mourn, utterly stricken for the raisin cakes of Kier Harrison.
Raisin cakes were often used in pagan fertility rituals. They symbolize happiness and prosperity This is what Moab chooses over the justice and righteousness of Judas future king This is like Edmund Pevese choosing Turkish delight over Aslan, over the king. Moab is utterly destroyed. They have no one to cry for them but themselves, and they did it for raisin cakes. God will shatter the pride. Right in between these two nations, we find the coalition of Syria or Damascus and Israel.
Israel is Judah's sort of separated brother, the northern part of the kingdom of God, but he's separated now, and Israel, sometimes called Ephraim, has made his bed with Assyria. Syria is going to protect them from the approaching Assyrians from the north. Chapter 17 describes how that's not going to work. See, it's an oracle concerning Damascus, but it's Israel that gets most of the judgment.
Starting in verse 4, And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean. And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain, and his arm harvests the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the valley of Rephaim. Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten, two or three berries on the top of the highest bough, four on the branches of the fruit tree, declares the Lord God of Israel.
Israel is described in these verses as an amassia, a starved man who has nothing to eat. Think Christian Baal and the machinists. Like he's a reaped field who has all the good crop taken from him. He's an empty tree with barely any fruit left. And the cause of it Unlike the other nations, the cause of God's judgment on Israel is chapter 17, verse 10. You have forgotten the God of your salvation and you have not remembered the rock of your refuge. This is language of breaking the covenant.
Those who break the covenant with their God are guilty of what? Pride, deep pride. Pride that unlike Moab, who has covenant love extended to them and they reject it, Israel has already received God's covenant love, been made a partaker in it, and they decided after the fact that it wasn't good enough. They want to be like the other nations. Glory, power, safety, security. Israel didn't wake up one day and reject Yahweh.
They slowly forgot him. They traded trust in their covenant God for alliances, strategies, securities that looked more appealing in the short term. Are we really any different? We confess Christ with our lips but forget him in the next breath. We seek security in our jobs, identity in our success, or refuge in our relationship.
Church, don't live like the nations around you when you've been set apart by grace. Remember the covenant. Remember your Savior. Don't trade the God who saves you for the world that enslaves you. What's jarring in these verses is that Israel is no different than the nations that surround her.
It's like you're called to look at a police lineup of who has harmed you, and you see all of these strangers, and then in the midst of them is your own son. God sees Israel just there, in the police lineup, with all of his transgressors. It's a lesson that God's grace alone is what sets us apart from the nations. And Israel, who has chosen to go her own way and trust man instead of God, is treated and judged just like the rest of them. God shatters their pride.
And finally, God takes his direction south in chapter 19, and he looks to Egypt. whose glory was once to rule over North Africa, to rule over all of this region, has now fallen on hard times, and they come under the wrath and judgment of God. So much promise as the bully that they can call up to help with Assyria and Egypt.
fails them. Verse 1, an oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. This is dramatic, prophetic imagery. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is riding into Egypt, not as a helper, not as a guest, but as a warrior king. The idols tremble, the people melt. If you keep reading, civil war breaks out, the economy collapses,
The Nile, this great source of their strength, dries up. Their wise men and counselors, those magicians, scholars, officials Egypt prided herself on, are made into fools. From top to bottom, the whole society crumbles. Egypt's strength was always an illusion. Its gods can't stand, its leaders don't know what to do, its economy can't save them, and its traditions and wisdom are useless. in the face of the living God. The Lord says plainly, Egypt will not save you. Egypt can't even save Christ.
Just like Babylon trusted in glory, Egypt trusted in its systems, in its government, in its economy, in its elite class, and in its cultural... We find comfort in the idea that the structures around us, our job, our education, our insurance, our institutions, our connections, they'll carry us. Then something breaks, and when it breaks, we panic. And we panic because we put our trust in something that is so fragile and so fleeting.
We say we trust in the Lord, but when the systems of our support falter, when the job is lost, when the market crashes, our leaders disappoint us, the plan falls apart, we realize that our hope was not as vertical as we said it was. God will shatter the proud, including the confidence we place in our systems. Don't trust human institutions. Don't trust in credentials. Don't trust in cultural cloud.
God brings down Egypt so that his people will stop looking there for help. He will bring down whatever in your life you trust more than him, not because he's cruel, but because he's good. Every one of these nations is under judgment, and they will all prove to be helpless on that day when God has promised, that God has promised.
When you go to buy a house, you have an inspector come and check out the house for you. You want to know if it's safe. Now you're assuming that the inspector is going to tell you that there's a leaky faucet there, there's some water damage here. Fix those things up and you're good to go. Isaiah is like the inspector that comes back and says, every room in the house is about to collapse. Don't live anywhere in it. Don't even set foot in this house again. Don't make a counteroffer. Walk away.
And Judah is thinking, like we all tend to think sometimes, it can't be that bad, right? Isaiah says yes. It is that bad. Don't trust a single room. Don't trust a single nation. God is sovereign over all of them. Their pride will be shattered. Again, Alec Mateer writes, wherever Judah looks, to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south, she sees only nations whose glory is fleeting and whose fate is sealed.
There is nowhere she can look for her own security but to the Lord who is Lord and judge of all. God knew, Isaiah knew that we're stubborn. So God gives Isaiah a sort of second part of this mission. Not just the words that he preaches, but the life that he lives. Chapter 20 is this graphic illustration of the foolishness of trusting the nations.
He's sent to his neighbors, right? The Philistines have revolted against Israel. They're looking to Egypt to come up and help them. Isaiah is sent as a sign to walk naked through the capital of Ashdod for three years. He pairs his life with his message. God has sent him to live as a sign and a portent, just like, as a sign and a portent in this capital city to show people that Egypt, the ones who they trusted, will be led away in shame. Just like Isaiah is walking around in shame right now.
Every Asian will be laid bare in their own shame one day. And the Philistines get it. In the final verse, they look around and say, wait, if this is what happens to the Egyptians whom we trust, what's going to happen to us? If they're the power we look to to help us in our time of trouble, if they're the ones we look to to deliver us, and they're led away in shame, the final line, how shall we escape? How will we escape? If we can't trust any nation, then who can we trust?
It shows us all five of these surrounding nations and how each of them crumble into the dust. But now we're going to go back around and go through them like those after a hurricane, go back through their home to see if there's anything left there. And there we'll see the second truth. In mercy, God will shelter the humble. In mercy, God will shelter the humble. Even out of the rubble of each of these places, there is life.
Back to chapter 14. As he looks north to Babylon, as she is humbled, what does God do? God remembers his promise to his people. He exalts the humble that are among him. Verse 14, for the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel and will set them in their own land. and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. God will have compassion on his own people.
And even as he crushes the high and mighty Babylon, the Lord shows compassion to his own people and he exalts them and he comforts them and he restores them. The remainder of chapter 14 is a time. Israel taunts the king of Babylon. Their victory is so sure that this tiny nation can mock the great big bully who will threaten them so severely. It reminds me of the Apostle Paul taunting death itself. Oh Babylon, where is your pain of exile? Where is your sting of death? Where is your victory?
We have to ask, why is Babylon even mentioned here? Isaiah chooses to begin this cycle of oracles with a judgment against them, but they're not going to rise to power for another hundred years. All of this is prophecy from Isaiah. His prophecy shows us that God is not just reacting to history. God is governing history. While Judah trembles under the present threats of Assyria, God declares the future downfall of an empire that doesn't even exist yet.
This is so that his people would know your present enemies may be real, but your future is secure. God does not forget his people in judgment. Even when he disciplines them, he remembers them. He humbles the mighty, but he exalts the humble. He lifts the head of the lowly. He restores those who have been crucified. And here's where we begin to see a stunning picture of how God extends mercy to all peoples, even in his judgment. Isaiah's vision is of the nations.
streaming to Zion, outsiders being brought into the people of God. It's a great reversal. On that day, the once despised, lowly, weak nation will become a light to the world, and the nations will cling to them, not as conquerors, but as co-heirs of the promise. And it's not just a future hope. It was available to the proud nations if they would have humbled themselves then. Look with me again at the Philistines, chapter 14, verse 32. We read there that they had sent messengers to Judah for help.
And how are the faithful people of God to answer their neighbors who come and ask them for help? What will one answer the messengers of the nation? Here's the answer that God gives. The Lord has founded Zion, and in her, the afflicted of his people find refuge. The messengers come looking for an ally, and they get the gospel instead. Don't trust Egypt. Don't trust this. Don't trust that. Don't trust anyone or anything. Felicia, lift your eyes past your circumstances. Come and trust God.
come to Zion, come to the city that God has established, that God has built, and there you will find refuge, you will find shelter. There you must humble yourself, but there you will find blessing. Beloved, this is our task too. When the nations come to us, when lost friends come to us, when neighbors, coworkers, and people we know are looking for safety, for stability, for something solid in a chaotic world.
we must be ready to open our mouths. We must point them to the king. The afflicted will find refuge in him, but only if someone tells them where to look. The gospel isn't going to spread through silence. It spreads through messengers, through stewards, through ambassadors of the church, those who answer the cries of a weary world with the name of Jesus Christ. Moab. as well spirits is the crushing weight of judgment but if you remember that offer of salvation was freely extended to them
There was a promise of a king who would reign in righteousness, and they refused him, verse 5. They still wanted their sin, their idols, their raisin cake. Friend, if you don't yet know Christ, don't miss the grace in this very moment. Moab was not cast off without a call to repent. They were offered mercy, and yet they chose misery. And that same offer of mercy is extended to you today. The judgments against the pride of the nations are not abstract.
These are not symbolic warnings for someone else or philosophic lessons. There is real condemnation for real pride that is real sin against a real and holy God that culminates in a real place called hell. Moab's fall, Babylon's fall, Egypt's fall, they are all warning shots for every soul that says no to God and yes to self. God has established a place of refuge.
not in a physical city, but in a person, Jesus Christ, the son of David, the king of righteousness. He is the one who judges justly and shelters completely. He is the refuge for the afflicted. And if you will humble yourself, Dear friend, turn from your sin and trust in him. You will find what Moab rejected. Mercy, peace, and eternal shelter in the presence of God.
Jesus Christ came, lived, died, made payment for the sin of all who would trust him even better. He rose from the dead to secure that redemption. Don't choose ruin for the sake of your raisin cake. whatever form they may take in your life. I can't count the amount of times Justin has stood up here and said the same thing, and it bears repeating. The great paradox, the great irony of the gospel is that it is completely, absolutely, unequivocally free, but it will cost you everything.
The same thing happens in Syria and in Israel. They are judged just like their surrounding neighbors. Their judgment Their judgment, though, induces them. It calls them, brings them to repentance. Look at Isaiah 17, verses 7 and 8. What is the life and the rubble of judgment that we find here in Syria and Israel? Verse 7.
In that day, man will look to his maker and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the asherim. Or the altars of incense. What a beautiful Old Testament picture of repentance and faith. Man will look to God. and man will look on God. They will look away from his idols and to the Lord.
God will humble his people that they will repent of their sin. They will finally turn afresh to the Lord in repentance and in faith, and they'll know the forgiveness of the gospel. This hope, this life. in the midst of the rubble of judgment. Because here's actually the role that Israel broadly, Israel and Judah together, was to play amongst the nations. Israel was called to live a holy life according to the law of God. She could not do that, and so she sinned.
What does a sinful people in a sinful nation do? Repent. Turn to the Lord afresh. Know the forgiveness established and offered in the gospel of grace. And there, Israel is to be a light to the nations. But she doesn't flee to God. Instead, she turns to the nations, and therein lies the problem. It's just bad enough that Israel trusts in the nations around her. That's bad because they let her down. The problem is that she also lets them down because God's people were intended to trust
We're intended to trust God in so doing to be a light to the nations that are around them. Number one, the nations will fail you. That's bad enough. Number two, you will fail the nations. It's a danger of trusting the nations. It's twofold. You're supposed to be telling them about the throne of David. You're supposed to be telling them about the shelter that can be found in Zion. And instead of going to the place that God has established, you're fleeing to the nations.
As you look to them for safety, you're showing their own defeat because you're not pointing them to God, to peace, to faith, and to blessing. That leads us to the most shocking life that's found in the rubble in Egypt. Chapter 19, these verses are confounding. That Egypt, that great oppressor of Israel of old, is somehow God's people. God's enemy has made his people.
That Egypt is named and blessed alongside with Assyria. This is worse than the wolf lying down with the lamb, right, that we read about a few weeks ago. This is a radical turning upside down the rebellious nations of the world to find healing. and peace and blessing. Look again at Isaiah 19, verse 24. In that day... In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people.
Those who were once not a people have become my people. This is the kindness of God that spreads out from one nation to the very ends of the earth to call rebellious Egypt. And Assyria, that rod of his anger that Justin talked about in Isaiah 10, now called the work of my hands and Israel my inheritance. In wrath, God remembers mercy as he strikes. and shatters the proud. He is a refuge and shelter for the humble.
That's in fact the working out of the gospel. The king of kings and the Lord of lords, the sovereign of sovereigns, sends his son into the world, not as an arrogant, prideful, pompous king, ruling the powerful nations of the world, but as a lowly king, born in humility, suffering in this life, lowering himself, humbling himself, that by his work, that by receiving
upon his shoulders, the wrath of God, he might turn away, as we read last week, he might turn away God's anger. And as he turns away the anger of God, he brings forth comfort of the gospel. That our Lord Jesus, who was risen from the grave, who suffered at the hands of the nations, rises life from the rubble, who bore the shame on his body as Isaiah prefigured.
To turn away the anger of God so that believing Egypt can be called God's people and repentant Assyria can be a blessing to the nations, the Moabites, the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Philistines, the Persians, and on and on and on it goes. they can find shelter by humbling themselves. Go back for a moment with me to the Olympic opening ceremony. The best part in that, in the parade, is the entrance of the torchbearer, the Olympic flame that has been kept burning all along.
The picture that Isaiah gives in these chapters is that this tiny nation with their one little flag is also the torchbearer. It is the only one holding the light, the only one holding the flame. That's God's will for his people. That's God's will for his church. Don't turn to the nations. Trust in Christ and hold him forth that the nations would come, that they would flow to Zion, that they would flock and find shelter in God.
So even as we take of the supper this morning, as we repent of our pride, as we ask God to grant us humility, as we proclaim Christ's death until he comes, Let this be a display, a light to the nations, to the lost, to the world. Dear friends, it is foolish to trust the nations. Trust God instead. I'm going to pray. We'll have a moment of silence and John will come up and fence the table. Our Lord, you know the stubborn and disbelieving and rebellious heart.
that need encouragement and warning and calling. Lord, how will we escape? I pray this morning that by your spirit, you would put to death in us disbelieving hearts that would seek comfort and security and strength in the nations and in the powers and the offerings of this world.
We renounce it, oh God. And we renew our faith in Jesus this very moment. Show us the foolishness of our ways in the next moments. Show us the hope and security of your way and your path and your people and your nation and your son.