Isaiah 30. This is a pretty long chapter.
We'll just kind of take off. I think we'll be able to cover
it all, but we won't be able to look at every word, of course.
Let's read a little bit of it. Woe to the rebellious children,
saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me. and that cover with a covering,
but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, that walk
to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, to strengthen
themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the
shadow of Egypt. Therefore shall the strength
of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt
your confusion. For his princes were at Zoan,
and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people
that could not profit them, nor be in help, nor profit, but a
shame and also a reproach. The burden of the beasts of the
south into the land of trouble and anguish from whence come
the young and old vine, the viper and fiery flying serpent, They
will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses
and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people
that shall not profit them. For the Egyptians shall help
in vain and to no purpose. Therefore have I cried concerning
this. Their strength is to sit still. Let's pray. Father, bless us
as we look into your word. Teach us by your Holy Spirit.
Don't leave us to our own just inability, Lord. We have
no ability to understand anything without your grace. Teach us. Show us our Savior. May your words be precious and vital unto our
souls. And may Christ be exalted in
his precious name. Amen. Now, woe here again is
pronounced upon the Jews, the children, the people of God,
the national Jews. And as you know, all through
the word of God, the Jews are typical of the believer. The
spiritual Jew is the one who has the faith that God gave Abraham,
Paul said. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. And that is circumcision. It's not just that of the flesh.
He is a Jew which is one inwardly. If you are Christ's, then you
are Abraham's seed and heirs according to God's promise. And
so here we are, the believer. And all of our evil is described
in this chapter, as in many places in the Word of God. First of
all, we're rebellious, verse one. stiff neck that means resisting,
despising. And this is not just, don't think
necessarily of just a child that refuses to obey. You know how
they bow up and they just say, no, no, I'm not going to do it.
Well, it's worse than that. That does describe us. But think
more of a military rebellion, hell bent on eradicating the
influence, the authority of God. That's the picture. You read
Psalm chapter 2 again. That's the picture. Despising,
militantly despising and opposing God. With all of our resources,
which we wouldn't have any of without Him. We rebel against
God's will. We rebel against His word. We
rebel against His way. But all of that boils down to
rebellion against Christ. Again, Psalm 2, God said, I've
set my king on my holy hill. And that's the one we hate. That's
when we bow up. When our Lord Jesus Christ said,
hereafter, you're going to see the Son of Man sitting on the
right hand of the majesty on high. That boy, that's when they
gnashed their teeth and they spit on him. Then did they spit. That's when
people can't stand to see the Son of God exalted. Turn to Acts
chapter 4. I know you're familiar with this,
but I want to look at it anyway. Again, the language of it, Acts
chapter 4, in regard to our... Here's what our rebellion against
God looks like. It's not just, as I said, just
an obstinance. It is a hatred. It is a fiery
hatred. Acts 4, 18. And it's a hatred, not just of
things, and we hate His providence, we hate His grace, we hate everything
about God, but all of that is just symptomatic of hating God. And our hatred is directed toward
His Son, because His Son came down here where we could hate
Him. We've never even seen God the Father. Look at Acts 4.18. And they called
them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the
name of Jesus. We can't even stand to hear the
sound of his name. Don't you even use his name anymore.
You think about that. This is not, you know, and that's
true today, isn't it? Even people that don't know him
use his name and they're hated. Isn't that right? Oh, if you
brag on Mohammedan, be tolerant now toward the Muslims. But boy,
don't even mention the name of Christ. Don't even mention it. Don't even speak in his name.
But Peter and John answered and said, whether it be right in
the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, you judge
that. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard. So when they had further threatened
them, they let them go. finding nothing how they might
punish them because of the people. They didn't let them go because
they were tolerant, they let them go because they were cowards.
For all men glorified, and God arranged that that way, to spare
his sheep. For all men glorified God for
that which was done. For the man was above forty years
old on whom this miracle of healing was showed, And being let go,
they went to their own company and reported all that the chief
priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that,
they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said,
Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth and the
sea and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant
David hast said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine
vain things? Psalm chapter 2. Well, they've all risen up against
your king. God set his king on his holy
hill. And everybody said, we will not. Let's cast his cords
from us. We're not going to have him reign
over us. We don't even want to hear his name. Verse 26, the
kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ, forever true, against
thy holy child Jesus. whom thou hast anointed, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel, were gathered together, and they did what God purposed
for them to do. But if you want to know how people
feel about God, look what happened to Calvary. That's God letting us do what
we wanted to do, and in doing what we wanted to do, we did
what He had purposed from eternity. Refusing the counsel of God. That's also in verse 1. Refusing
God's counsel. Back in our text. Rebelling and
not listening. Refusing to listen. Don't speak
in his name. Don't say what he said. Don't teach that way. Refusing the counsel. Notice
they take counsel now. They take counsel but not of
me, God said. Everybody following somebody.
Everybody listening to somebody who advises you. What do you
listen to? And then he said they're adding
sin to sin. Once you abandon and oppose Christ, once you despise
God's Son, everything you think and everything you do and everything
you say will be foolish and evil. Your thoughts, your actions,
and all of your words, based on evil counsel, proceeding from
your own evil heart, will just lead to more and more evil. You
just get in deeper all the time, adding sin to sin. It's a death
spiral. It's a spiritual death spiral.
Because all of your decisions are based on evil and error,
foolishness, and so the effects of those decisions
and thoughts to sink you deeper and deeper into your rebellion.
Verse 2, it said they go down to Egypt. Why are they going down to Egypt?
Egypt's always a picture of the world. We got business in Egypt,
that's why. We got business we gotta do.
We're going our own way. God said don't go to Egypt. God
takes his people out of Egypt. Be ye separate from them. What
communion hath the light with darkness? Come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. They're going to go down to Egypt,
their own way, to pursue their own interests, to pursue their
ambitions, without asking God for any direction or wisdom.
You see that there in verse 2. You've not asked it, my man.
If you ask God, he'd say, don't go to Egypt. You're delivered
from Egypt. But they didn't ask God. They
want what they want, and they set about to get it, and where
they can get it is in Egypt, in this world, in this wicked
world. They have their own wisdom, their own way, their own will
to follow, and that's what they follow. Their strength is in Pharaoh. You're looking for strength in
Pharaoh. What does Pharaoh represent? Proud, exalted, haughty man. Everything Pharaoh was about
was what? Who is this God you're talking
about? I'm king around here. That's where we find our strength
by nature. In the flesh. In man. They trust in man and
not God. God's counsel, had they bothered
to ask, he said, you didn't ask at my mouth, but had they bothered
to, God's counsel is this, don't have any confidence in the flesh.
Don't trust in Pharaoh. The flesh profiteth nothing,
cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils. They exalt,
though, the will and the authority of man. They worship man. They
advocate for man's right to determine his own destiny. Even in the
churches now they do this. God has nothing to say about
it. We determine our own destiny. It's not fair for God to intervene
in our lives or our destiny. Well, he can make things available
to us all he wants to, but we're going to make the ultimate decision.
We're going to determine our own destiny. suggest things to us, make things
available to us if he wants to, but we will choose. We will determine
good and evil. In verse 2 it says they're trusting
in a shadow. To trust in favor, to trust in
man, is to trust in a shadow. In other words, they're complete
fools. They're trusting in that that has no substance. And think about this, what they're
trusting in, think about what's a shadow. What they're trusting
in is darkness. Their place of trust is a place
from which the light of God has been blocked. That's what a shadow
is, when the light is blocked by something it creates a shadow.
And they, with their own will, and self-righteousness, they
reject, they block out the light of God and say, we'll stay right
here in our own shadow and we'll be just fine. They block the light out with
their own pride and rebellion and hatred for God. Egypt is
a picture, as I said, always of the world. They trust in man,
this world, the riches and strength and counsel Would man really
trust in riches? Yeah. Scriptures are full of
warnings about that, aren't they? Don't trust in the deceitfulness
of riches. They make themselves wings and
fly away. Well, we could say a whole lot
about us, couldn't we? Verse 9 says we're liars. And look also at verse 9. What
else is in verse 9? Rebellious people, lying children.
Children that will not hear. Will not hear. This is not just,
you know, the way religion presents it. Oh, you know, poor sinners
just have never heard the word of God. They've just never been
given a chance, you know. If they just heard the gospel,
you know. No, this is willful closing of the ear against God.
Don't romanticize sin. Say, oh, the poor sinner, you
know. The poor sinner hates God and refuses to hear what God
said. It's not just, oh, you know,
they just, poor sinner, never have heard it. They just heard
it. They only heard, God said, they know who I am and they refuse
to glorify me as God. Even those who have never heard
the gospel. In the things that God made, they clearly see my
power in Godhead and refuse to bow. And aren't thankful for
what I've given them. And he said, I give you over
to a reprobate man, too. Unless you're one of his loved
ones. So it's not no poor sinners and
all that, you know. This is willful. Christ said,
you will not come to me that you might have life. You will
not. And in that statement, the word
will, it's an indictment against those Jews, and it means to resolve,
to determine in purpose, to desire, to wish, to love, to take delight
in. You will not. In other words,
you take no delight in me. You resolve to reject me. You determined not to come to
me. You see, it's not just you're
not going to, you will not. This is our problem. Pride, rebellion,
idolatry, refusal to hear God, unbelief in all of our sin, it
all boils down to one thing, we hate God's Son. This is the condemnation, that
light came into the world and we loved our darkness and hated
God's light, Christ, the light of the world. Verses 10 and 11. Which say to
the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us
right things. This is what they say. They say
unto God's prophet, don't tell us. Isn't that what they said?
Don't preach in his name. We don't want to hear about him.
We don't want to hear from God. Don't prophesy right things to
us. Speak unto us smooth things. Prophesy deceits. Does anybody
actually say that? Does anybody go into these so-called
churches that the truth has never been told in, not one time. Do
they actually go in there and say, tell lies to us? No, but
that's what God said they're saying. Because that's what they
want to hear. They don't use those words, but
God said, you see, He hears better than we do. He hears what they're
really saying. What they're really saying is,
tell us lies. Tell us lies, we want to hear
lies. Verse 11, get you out of the
way, turn aside out of the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel
to cease from us. What have we been saying? We
hate God's Son. We don't want His Holy Son, the
Holy One of Israel anywhere near us. We don't want Him to have
anything to do with us. No control over us. We don't
want to hear from Him. We don't want to hear about Him.
Cause Him to cease from us. That's our problem. And not just
that we like apples a whole lot. We hate God's Son. And the tragedy of man, the tragedy
of sin, the terrible, sad catastrophe of this, is that the one thing
that we will not have is the one thing needful. The one thing that our children
will never tolerate is the one thing that they must have. And that's Christ. That's why we must pray. They need the Savior. And they
will not have it unless he has them. And the very thing you trust
in, verse 3, will be your shame. Back up to verse 3. Therefore
shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame. The very thing
that you trust in. will be your shame and the trust
in the shadow of Egypt is your confusion. Now let me say it again. The
tragedy of sin is that the one thing we need is the one thing
we despise. And the very thing that we want is our problem. The very thing
we trust is our problem. What does man trust in? His free
will. What's man's problem? His will. That's what they trusted in,
aren't they? Oh, it's bad, sin is bad, you know, we're all going
to hell, but we have a free will. We can still choose God. Is that
not what they trusted in? What's the one problem of man? man's will. We will not come
to Christ. We will not have it. Notice in verse 6 now, the
Jews brought gifts to Egypt, the burden of the beasts of the
south, they burdened down their camels and their mules with gifts
and they go into a place where there's the lions and the flying
serpents and they're going down there with riches upon the shoulders
of their mules and the treasures upon the bunches of their camels
to a people that's not gonna help them. All of their resources. In other words, all of their
trust. Where you put your resources, that's what you trust in. I'm
going to take everything I have and I'm going to give it to these
people because they'll help me. No, they won't. That's us trusting
in our will. We put in everything. You put
in all your trust in your own ability to decide, your own ability
to choose God, and you don't have that ability. It's not going
to help you. There's no helping man. The flesh
will not profit you anything, though you spend everything you
have to make it so. They're not going to profit you
anything. They thought that the Egyptians would help them fight
their enemies, but they're not going to get anything for their
money. This is a picture all through the scripture now. Wherefore
do you spend money for that which is not bread? Isaiah 55, 2. And your labor for that which
satisfyeth not. Hearken diligently unto me, God
said. And eat ye that which is good.
You spend everything you have so that you can satisfy your
need. But it's not bread, it won't
feed you. But if you listen to me, you'll eat that which is
good and your soul will delight itself in fatness. How am I going
to get that? Without price. Free. We spend, we use all of our resources
to obtain help for our problem, our need, but the answer, the
hope for us lies in realizing that we have no resources. And
by God's grace, we don't need any. Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, he
that hath spent all he had, and it's just worse. Come and buy
and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without pride. You not only can't buy God's
grace with money, but you've got to have no money. You think
about what he said here. He that hath no money. He didn't
say keep your money. You think about it now. He didn't
say keep your money. It's not that you can't obtain
it with money. You got to be bankrupt. You got to come before God knowing
that you have no money. And notice something in verses
7 and 15. This is so clear and so instructive. For the Egyptians shall help
in vain and to no purpose. Therefore have I cried concerning
this." What are you crying Isaiah? And he sees the tragedy of this.
You're spending everything you have and you're giving it to
somebody that can't help you. Stop that. You know what you
need to do Isaiah said? Just sit still. But we got things we got to do
something about. Quit doing what you're doing. Cease you from man. What your heart and your head
is telling you to do is false. Stop it. Be still. Look at verse
15. For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved. Come back. Don't go to Egypt.
Come back. Return and sit down and watch God save you. Isn't
that what he said at the Red Sea? Stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord. In quietness and in confidence,
shall be your strength, and you would not. I'm seeing how much
more we have tonight because I want to call your attention
very carefully to what I'm going to say in the next few minutes.
I know you're tired, I'm tired. May God give us grace to listen
carefully. Here's God's instruction. Stop.
Cease and desist. Sit down and shut up. Quit doing what your heart tells
you to do. Stop working. Rest. He that is entered into Christ's
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from
his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest. lest
any man shall fall after the same example of unbelief. Don't
make the mistake that everybody makes. And God says that, and what happens?
He says, you would not. You wouldn't hear me. You didn't
listen. Look at verses 12 and 14. God says, stop, and what do we
say? We've got to do something about
it. We've got to do something. We've got to do something to
be saved, don't you? Well, I know it's grace, but
you've got to at least come down to the front of the church. You've
got to do something to be baptized. God says stop. And you know what?
We won't hear Him, but He's going to stop us anyway. Wherefore,
thus saith the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word,
and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon, therefore this
iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in
a high wall whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he
shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is
broken in pieces. He shall not spare, so that there
shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from
the heart, or to take water withal out of the pit. God's going to
lay you to wet, he's going to put you in the dust and make
it so he's going to break. When God breaks us, we see this,
there's not even a piece left big enough to gather a coal from
the fire with, to warm ourselves. There's not even a piece, and
you know what religion says? We just need to fan the spark
into a flame. What spark? There's not a piece
left. When God gets through with you,
there's not going to be a piece left big enough to even gather
a spark. There is no spark. If you say that, I just need
to fan the other spark that God has put down in there, the spark
inside me. You just need to fan it to a
flame. You've never been broken by God yet then. Because when
God breaks you, You ain't got a spark. And no way to get one. Nothing to gather it with. He
breaks you, you'll see that you have no spark. There's not even
a piece big enough to get a little drink of water in out of the
well. So how are you going to live without
water? You're not. You're going to die. And when
you die, when God breaks you, and when you see the gift of
God and who it is that says this to you. You will ask of him and he'll give you living water
when you can't even, when you don't have the resources, when
he breaks you to the point where you can't even get a sip of water
for yourself. When God brings you to that place,
then you'll see, you'll know the gift of God. You'll know
the gift. How do you get it? No money.
It's a gift. It's a gift or you're not going
to have it. You'll see the gift of God. That's what he said to
that woman at the well. If you knew the gift of God. What's the gift
of God? If you just knew who I am, you'd
ask me for what you must have and I'd give it to you. You see
that in this text? Trust in Egypt, going down to
Egypt, God's saying no, stop, be still, shut up, sit down.
No, we're going to Egypt. Bam! God's going to break you
in pieces. He's going to stop you. You're
going to be still. You're going to stop. You're
going to rest. You're going to quit. But not because of your
will, because of His will. And then, Christ will be your meat indeed
and your drink indeed. Then, once you are broken, then,
verse 15, look at verse 15, then, for thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved in
quietness. What are you doing resting? God's
done shattered you to pieces. There's nothing left for you
to do but rest. In quietness and in confidence
shall be your strength. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. And you will stop when God drops
the hammer on you. When you're nothing, when you
are nothing, when you have nothing, and when you can do nothing,
Christ will be all to you. Verse 15. Returning, rest, and
confidence. Think about this. Return where? Rest where? Confidence in who? Christ, Christ,
Christ. That's selfish. Returning to
Him, resting in Him, trusting in Him. And look at verse 18. We're coming
to verse 18, but look at verses 16 and 17 leading up to it. Listen
to this now. You said, no! We still now, we're kicking against
the goads. Here we are now, here we are.
Kicking against the goads. No, for we will flee upon horses. Now, first of all, we said God
breaks you. Once he does that, it's over.
That's something that he says is going to happen. That hasn't
happened yet. We're still saying no. We're
still saying no at this point. Verse 16, we will flee upon horses. We gotta do something about it.
We got problems, we got issues. We're gonna have to do something.
Therefore shall you flee, and we will ride upon the swift.
Therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. You say, boy, I'm
a pretty good fella, you know. I've done this and I've done
that. Your problems are faster than you are. You can't outrun them. One thousand shall flee at the
rebuke of one, at the rebuke of five shall you flee, till
you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as
an incense upon a hill. The commentator said that that's
a dead tree sitting on the top of a hill. You look across there
and you see like it's just a sign of devastation. of death, a symbol
of death. And therefore, will the Lord
wait. What do verses 16 and 17 say? Well, this is what we do. This
is what we do. We say no to God. And we go about
doing what we think is the way to escape our problems. We got
swift horses. We got this. We got this. Our
goods go that way, our bad at least. And verse 18 is what God does.
What are we doing? Anything and everything but what?
Waiting on God. We will not wait. What does God
say? Stop. Rest, wait on me, look to me,
and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth. We're
going to do anything and everything but that. We will not wait on
God. Isaiah 40 verse 31. They that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount
up with wings as eagles. They shall run and never get
tired and not be weary. and they shall
walk and not faint. You think about that. It says they that wait upon the
Lord are running. If you're just sitting there
waiting, how can you be running? If we run in this flesh, we're
going to lose. Our problems are faster than
we are. He said you can't outrun them, those that pursue you.
or swifter than you are, but if we just sit there, if Christ
is our strength, then not only are we running,
we're just sitting, we're just resting in Him, but we're running
and we don't ever get tired. We're mounting up with wings
as eagles, we fly all the way to God and never get tired. Because Christ is our strength.
We're going to walk in this world and never faint. Because it's
not the flesh that's doing it. And we're not walking after the
flesh. But after the Spirit. But here's the thing, we won't
wait on God. That's the last thing we'll ever do. We will
not wait on God. We run in the flesh. So what's
God going to do about it? He waits on us. Verse 18. He waits on us. He watches us
rebel. He watches us run until we're
exhausted. He watches us spend all that
we have and just get worse, get sicker and sicker. He watches
us kick against the goads. And he waits until the time of
love. And then, what does it say in
the text? And then he'll be gracious. Isn't that beautiful? Jacob wrestled with the Lord
Jesus Christ all night, and the Lord just waited. Just keep fighting,
Jacob. Keep wrestling. That's a pretty
good move, you know. No, it's not. You got nothing.
Keep wrestling. Keep fighting. Keep struggling.
And then, God touched him. And Jacob went down. He never
walked the same again. And his name is now Prince with
God. Jacob lost in the struggle and was the winner in every way
from there on, from that moment on. God just waited, just watched
him, just let him kick, let him fight. Notice the certainty in verse
15, the certainty. For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved. In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. Oh, but Chris,
at the end of the verse it says we would not. Oh, that ruins
everything. No it don't. God just waits. He just waits. We may wrestle
all night. Maybe just for a little while.
We may wrestle for years. But with a touch, God will bring
us down. He'll break us and cause us to look to Him for everything. We'll come to the end of ourselves. And we'll return to Him. We'll
rest in Him. And all of our confidence will
be in Him. At the end of verse 18, we do
wait for Him. Look at it. Verse 18. Therefore will the Lord wait.
If you're not going to wait, so God waits. That he may be
gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted. You're going
to honor him for it. That he may have mercy upon you,
for the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait
for him. Blessed are they that do what
we wouldn't do, what we said, no, we're not going to do. Can
you imagine that? Did you see that in verse 16?
God is telling us what our hope is. There's hope for a sinner.
And God tells us plainly what it is. And the good news is it
requires nothing from us. And you know what our answer
is? No. And God waits. And then, because He waits on
us and lets us Punch ourselves out, spend ourselves poor, run
ourselves dead, and then He gives us life. And then we wait on
Him. Blessed are they that wait on
Him, because He waited first. We wait for Him because He waited
for us. We love Him because He first
loved us. We come to Him because He first
came to us. We know Him because He first
knew us. Now look at verses 19 through
26 and see if this describes your life as a believer in Christ. It will be about through verse
19. Listen to this now. For the people shall dwell in
Zion at Jerusalem, thou shalt weep no more, No more trouble. Now you're rested. Now you have
confidence in the right one. There's no more fear. There's
no more confusion. No more shame. No more tears. You shall weep no more. He will
be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry. Once he
breaks you into pieces so small you can't warm yourself or get
a drink. You cry. He hears you. He'll
be very Gracious to you. And he'll answer you. And though
the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more,
but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. Who are your teachers? I think it's the adversity and
affliction mentioned in the very verse. Though the Lord send us,
all they'll do is just teach you. They're for your good. They'll teach you the same things
that God already taught you. They'll remind you that you're
nothing. Isn't that what affliction and adversity does? It reminds
you that you've got no money, no strength, that you can't do
anything. And so you look to Him again. You return again. You rest again. You're confident
again. You're forced to have no confidence
but Him. By these teachers. And thine
ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way. Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard that? Have
you ever just been determined, you may up your mind, I think
I know what to do here. And then the Lord said, No, this
is the way. This is the way. He's not going
to leave you to your own understanding. He's not going to leave you to
your own resources, to your own so-called wisdom. His voice will
always be there. Christ the Word speaks to our
hearts continually. Walk ye in it. Walk in my way.
This is the way. I am the way. I am the way. When you turn to the right hand
and when you turn to the left, God will be guiding you every
step, every step, every step. Is this your life? You shall
defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver and the
ornament of thy molten images of gold. I shall cast them away
as a minstrel's cloth. I shall say unto it, get thee
hence. Everything and everybody you
ever trusted in before will be repulsive to you once you rest
in him. Once you see him, once you trust
him, all your idols will make you sick. 23 Then shall he give the rain of
thy seed. 24 Thou shalt sow the ground
withal, the bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be
fat and plenteous. 25 In that day shall thy cattle
feed in large pastures. 26 The oxen likewise, and the
young asses that ear the ground, shall eat clean provender, which
hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall
be upon every high mountain and upon every high hill rivers and
streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when
the towers fall. Every mountain and every hill you find yourself
on, there's a river, there's a stream. When you have Him,
you have Him. No matter where you are, no matter
what you've done, no matter what situation. David said, if I make
my bed in hell, There's the river of God right there, flowing at
my feet. You can't get away. This is what
David said when he said, surely his goodness and his mercy shall
pursue me, shall run me down all the days of my life. Even when I'm in a place I ought
not to be in, even there his light shall shine upon me. Moreover, the light of the moon
shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun
shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days, and the day that
the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people and healeth the
stroke of their wound." He's the one that breached his people.
We read about that. He's the one that shattered us
in pieces so small we didn't have anything we could do. And then he binds us up together.
Puts us back together. Heals us. What a beautiful picture. It starts out with Mt. Zion there,
doesn't it? Mt. Zion. Beautiful for situation. Beautiful for situation is Mt. Zion. Thou shalt dwell in Zion. We started out in verse 19. Thou
shalt dwell in Zion. Beautiful for situation is Mt.
Zion. on the sides of the north, the
city of the great king. We live in a beautiful city. All spiritual blessings are ours
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Verses 27 through 33 now
is a description of God's destruction of their enemies, the Assyrians,
in this case, And you can read that later.
I won't read that to you now. I want to close with just a thought
or two. This is a picture of God's spiritual
judgment upon all of our enemies. And here's the thing. Here's
what's beautiful in the context of this. When we quit fighting
our enemies, when we keep running from our enemies, God defeats
them for us. You can't beat him anyway. You
might as well rest. You might as well sit down. There's
nothing you can do about your sins. You're no match for Satan. You can't answer God's law. But God overcomes every problem
we have for us. Wins the victory for us. This
is 1 Corinthians 15, verse 54. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in Notice the word victory several
times in this text. Death is swallowed up in victory.
That's what these verses, 27 through 33, talk about God winning
the victory over our enemies, the Assyrians. Death is swallowed
up in victory. O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory. We didn't
do anything. We're fighting in the battle.
But he gives us the victory. Now we're fighting. We didn't
even fight in it before he gave us life. But now we're fighting,
but he wins. He wins it. David had to strap his sword
on, but God said, I've already delivered him into your hand
before he ever went up. Thanks be unto God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ won the
victory and gave it to me. And notice that it's by the voice
of the Lord in verse 30, just a few quick thoughts. Verse 30,
it's the voice of the Lord by which he brings judgment. The
same gospel that's the power of God and the salvation is the
saver of death unto death unto son. It's the voice of the Lord
that makes the difference. And in the midst of all of the
wrath and destruction described in these last seven verses, we
are seen in verse 29, what are we doing? Singing and worshiping
God. We're sitting on the banks of
the Red Sea, having just seen, having just watched God destroy
every problem we have. And we open our mouth and we
sing unto Him a song. of salvation and glory and honor
unto Christ. That's us. We worship and sing
of Christ as we see the wrath of God fall because, and here's
the thing now, when we see God's wrath upon our enemies, you know
what we're really seeing? The only place that we ever really
see God's full wrath fall is on his son, his only begotten
well-beloved son, our substitute and savior. And this is what's
pictured here. When we see these pictures of
his wrath falling on his enemies, we say the only difference between
them and us is Christ. The difference is this. His wrath,
instead of falling on me like I richly deserved, his wrath
was poured out upon his precious darling son. I deserve God's wrath just like
them. But God put me in the ark. The Lord Jesus Christ has shut
the door. And his judgment fell upon that
ark and never touches me. What am I doing? Resting, trusting him, singing his praises,
worshiping him by his grace.