Isaiah chapter 28 this evening.
Let's read verses one through eight together and then pray
together. Boy, we're getting around maybe the halfway
mark of the book of Isaiah here. And I think I've told you it's
been a challenging study, but I pray a profitable one. Chapter
28, we'll look at the first part of it. Tonight, woe to the crown
of pride. Now, some of you have been listening
to me preach for over 10 years now. See if you can tell what
I'm going to say tonight. I'm just reading this. Woe to
the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty
is a fading flower. which are on the head of the
fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine. Behold, the
Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail
and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride,
the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet. And the
glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall
be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer,
which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in
his hand, he eateth it up. In that day shall the Lord of
hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty unto
the residue of his people. There they are, aren't they?
You know what we're going to say about that, don't you? The
residue. And for a spirit of judgment
to him that sitteth in judgment. Now what's God going to be to
his sheep? A crown of glory. A diadem of
beauty. And a spirit of judgment. He's
going to give them a spirit of discernment. Unto them that sit
in judgment. Let me tell you something. We
all sit in judgment, don't we? The picture here is those who
were in authority politically, maybe in the city. But we all
sit in judgment. And for strength, he's going
to be their strength, too. You see that? To them that turn
the battle to the gate. But they also have erred. You
see that now? They also have erred through
wine and through strong drink are out of the way. The priest
and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed
up of wine, they are out of the way. Through strong drink they
err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are
full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. No place clean. Let's pray to
our God tonight. Thank you, our gracious Lord
and our tender father. Thank you for bringing us here
tonight. May we never take for granted
the rest blessed privilege that it is and the blessing that it
is from you to be given a desire, a hunger for your word to actually
want to hear from God. What grace Thank you for this
family, Lord, as we've gathered here and enable us to worship.
Give us grace, take our minds off of vanity and foolish things
and. Set our hearts upon our Savior
tonight. I would not rejoice in him alone, exalting. Learn
of him. And rest in him in his precious
name. Now in this passage of Scripture,
sets before us a very familiar pattern. Familiar, I say, if
you've studied, as we have on Sunday nights, the book of Isaiah. You see the pattern here. The
Lord is displeased with the people. And he threatens their destruction.
The Lord is anger. And he gives the reasons for
it. In every case, he always does. He warns, he threatens,
He gives the reasons, and he also declares that there is a
remnant, a residue. There are some leftovers. In
one place called a remnant, here a residue. In another place,
the gleaning grapes. In other words, after the harvest
is already taken away, there's nothing left. Oh yeah, there's
still some grapes left to glean that everybody else forgot, except
God. a small group of exceptions that
God will save. We've seen this over and over
in this passage. Ephraim is the people that the
Lord is displeased with. Ephraim is the 10 tribes of Israel
that rebelled against God and split off from the other two
tribes, Judah and Benjamin. And these 10 tribes are represented
here by Ephraim. And they were drunken, proud
idolaters. The language there is clear on
that. And so, again, the same evil
is given as the reason why God's wrath is upon these people. Pride
and idolatry. Assyria is to be the means, it
doesn't say that in the text, but you know from context and
from known history that Assyria is to be the means of their destruction.
called in verse two, a mighty and strong one that the Lord
hath. It's interesting language, isn't
it? The Lord hath a mighty and strong one. They're a godless
nation, but they're in the hand of God nonetheless. He has them
and he'll use them. And the reason for God's judgment
upon these 10 tribes under the name of Ephraim, drunkenness
and pride. No doubt there was alcoholic
drunkenness involved here. I'm sure it was. They were known
to be given to that. But spiritual drunkenness was
their real problem. What's spiritual drunkenness?
Well, listen to it. It's described in Revelation
17. There came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vows,
and talked with me, John said, saying unto me, Come hither,
and I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that
sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth hath
committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have
been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." There's
spiritual drunkenness. It's idolatry. It's to worship
false religion, to worship man. The number of the beast is The
number of a man 666 man, man, man. So we understand that spiritual
fornication, idolatry. And this is said of Ephraim in
Hosea 417, in case there's any doubt about that. It says in
Hosea 417, Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone, God
said. And that's talking about all
those 10 tribes there too. So it's plain that these same
two problems, as seen in all of the pronouncements of woe
upon all of the nations in the book of Isaiah, these are the
nature of man without the grace of God. Proud, haughty, rebellious,
and idolatrous. We reject God and worship ourselves
and we're proud to do it. Look at Romans chapter one again
and don't turn there, but look at it sometime again and you'll
see that these same two indictments are brought against us as a race
there too. In fact, I'm going to show you
a couple of passages from there. Listen to Romans 121. Listen
for these two things, pride and idolatry. Because that when they
knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. That's pretty clear. When you
know who God is, when God tells you, I'm God, I'm on the throne,
and you're not, what I say goes, and you refuse to glorify Him,
what's the problem? Pride. I'll do as I please. I'll determine
good and evil. I'll do what I want to do. Neither
were thankful, but became vain in their... You know why they
weren't thankful? That's pride again. Well, thankful for what? I'm
the one that worked for this. I've heard people say that. I
work hard for a living, I got this stuff. And refused to thank God for
it. But became vain in their imaginations and their foolish
heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image. There's number, there's the second
one. like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed
beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to
dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth
of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Idolatry. They
worship and serve themselves instead of God. So, idolatry
is essentially self-righteousness. Instead of worshipping man and
trusting, or worshipping God and trusting God, we worship
and trust ourselves. It's self-righteousness, self-sufficiency. Because it's man making his own
God. That's what idolatry is. He makes
his own God instead of acknowledging the God that made them. Man is
essentially his own God. And this is what Satan tempted
us with from the beginning. You shall be his gods. You will
determine good and evil for yourself. You won't have to be dictated
to. by the God of heaven anymore. And that sounded pretty good
to us. And then in this case, the few, the elect of God, are
called the residue as we saw in verse five. There's some left
over. So let's take these verses one
at a time, verses one through eight, and see these things more
particularly. Verse one, woe to the crown of pride, to the
drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower. which
are on the head of the fat valleys, rich, prosperous valleys of them
that are overcome with wine. That's the problem with prosperity,
isn't it? That's the problem. God gives
a little prosperity. People say, well, prosperity
just ruined them. No, it didn't. It just showed
how ruined they were. Authority corrupts. No, it don't.
It just shows how corrupt you already were. But it does do
that. And how tragic this is, because
they are beautiful. Ephraim is gloriously beautiful. God has blessed Ephraim abundantly,
made him rich. And we look at this world and
we see the tragedy of it, because this is a beautiful world, isn't
it? It's superficially beautiful. And I don't just mean creation
in nature, there's real depth of beauty in that. But people
do have a beauty about them. There is art, and there is music,
and there is dancing, and there is science. And it's remarkable
what man is able to accomplish with the wisdom that God gives
him. And it's a beautiful thing. What can be done? The luxuries
that we enjoy. The affluence, not everywhere,
but certainly in this country. But it is like the beauty of
a harlot. The scripture says it's it's
a. There is attraction, but but there but she's disgusting. And
this is an apt metaphor used in the word of God, because this
world has turned aside from God under idols, and that is. Spiritual
whoredom, though there is a glorious beauty There's corruption underneath
it. And you can see that in this
world. It's a beautiful world. It's a wonderful world. I like
that song. What a wonderful world. I agree. But it's also disgusting
and corrupt and vile and wretched at the same time. Does that make
any sense? How can it be both at the same
time? Well, it just is. It's beautiful. And we enjoy
as believers, we enjoy this world and the things that the Lord
has blessed us with in this world. I enjoy fine art, I enjoy wonderful
music, even what's called secular things. Ephraim was blessed of God, no
doubt, in many outward ways. But if even we who are corrupt
can look at this world that is gloriously beautiful in a sense,
and see the corruption underneath it. Think about what God sees.
God looked at Ephraim and he said his final word on it was,
nothing is clean. Nothing about it is clean. It's
stinky and disgusting. He uses the one word that is
hard for me to say, the V word. I hate that word, don't you?
I can't even hardly say that. But Ephraim was blessed. God
saw more than just the outward though. He looks on the inside.
He looks on the heart. And God knew something that they
didn't. That the kind of beauty that they did have is fading. That kind of beauty doesn't last.
It goes away. And it leaves despair and sorrow
and shame behind. The desperation of the lost who
will never be recovered. The shame of the guilty who have
no cloak for their sin. That's what's left when the beauty
of this world fades. And the sorrow of regret, the
terrible sadness of those who had every outward advantage,
those who knew better, those who had the God of all grace,
call unto them, come unto me. And let's reason together. Sayeth your God. And they thumbed
their noses at him and walked away. The son of God came, came
down to this sinful, wretched, sin-wrecked world to save sinners
and told the truth and they walked no more with him. That's sad. You talk about sad. Listen to
me now. You may have a beautiful life
and you may be a beautiful person. You may have everything going
for you in this life, but don't be deceived by that which is
a mirage. Understand what real beauty is
and don't be fooled. The fashion of this world passeth
away. Real beauty is described in Ezekiel
16, 9. Listen to this. You want to be
truly beautiful? You know what it means to really
be beautiful? It means to be beautiful to God. How in the
world am I? How is a maggot? How is God gonna
look at a maggot and say, oh, you're so beautiful? I'll read
it to you. Ezekiel 16, nine, the God who
came and found us in our corruption and said unto us, live. He said,
then when I gave you life, then I wash you with water. Yea, I
thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee
with oil, and I clothed thee also with broided work, and shod
thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and
I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments,
and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck,
and I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and
a beautiful crown upon thine head. And thus wast thou decked with
gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk and
broidered work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey, and all thou wast exceeding beautiful. God said, You're beautiful. And you did prosper into a kingdom,
and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty. For
it was perfect through my goodness. You were beautiful because you
had my beauty on you. You were beautiful because you
were clothed with the righteousness of my son and washed with his
precious blood. For it was perfect through my
comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. When God decks you out and all
of that is typical of Christ, our savior, the altogether lovely
one, then you're beautiful indeed. Don't be fooled by what this
world calls beauty. It is glorious in a way. But even that comes from the
Lord, doesn't it? Again, I'm talking about the wonderful things
that we do enjoy in this world. But this is the beauty of Christ.
Now, this is real beauty, and this beauty doesn't fade. He
still has to do with his youth. And he's the ancient, the ancient of days, the beauty
of Christ, the altogether lovely son of God, which God puts on
us when he gives us life in him.
That's the only beauty that lasts. It's the only true beauty that's
real. We wear a crown by nature. Verse one of our text, it's a
crown of pride. You see that crown of pride? And God resisted the proud. But
in that text we just read in Ezekiel, God said, I'm going
to put a different crown on your head. A crown upon your head. And he
says in our text that he is our crown of glory. We'll see that
in a little bit. So he takes off that crown of
pride. Doesn't he do that? He knows how to do that, doesn't
he? He knows how to take that crown
away. We're proud in our religious self-righteousness. We're proud
in our refusal to give God glory by nature. We're proud in our
rebellion against God. But look at our text, verse 2,
chapter 28, verse 2. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty
and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm,
as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth
with the hand. They're going to do it with their
hands, with their sword, but it's going to be like a, like
a tsunami. God knows how to wipe things
clean, doesn't he? Look at verse three, the crown
of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet,
and the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley
shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before summer,
which when he that looketh upon it seeth while it is yet in his
hand, he eateth it up." As soon as it flourishes, it's gone.
The Lord hath. That's pretty key right here.
The Lord hath. Even the wicked are gods. They
belong to Him. Not submissively, not in salvation,
but in spite of themselves. In God's sovereign providence
and under His sovereign authority, God has you whether you like
it or not. Whether you hate Him, whether you serve Him, whether
you acknowledge Him, He has you in His hand. And He'll use you
as it pleases Him. He'll get glory out of you one
way or the other. That's what he did here with the Assyrians.
He lowered half a strong one. He's the one that made them strong.
They weren't strong with true strength, but in the strength
of the flesh. And he made them that way to
serve a purpose. It's all about the residue. God is going to use Assyria to
destroy Ephraim. And as we saw in a previous chapter
in Isaiah, God uses the reprobate to afflict his people. And then
he punishes the reprobate for hurting his people. And here's the lesson. It's not
complicated. God does what he pleases, when
he pleases, with whom he pleases. That's me, that's you, that's
everybody. The proudest rebel, and all of
them put together, can't faze him, can't thwart his purpose,
can't resist him, can't stop him, can't even question him. He does all of it in order to
save his remnant, his residue, his gleaning grapes, his elect. And remember when
I say his people, he does it to save his people. I'm not talking
about the earthly nation of Israel. Neither Ephraim nor Judah, they
pictured. But not the earthly nation of
Israel. Look at verses five and six. In that day shall the Lord of
hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto
the residue of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to him
that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn
the battle to the gate. The residue, again, this is a
familiar pattern, isn't it? The residue is God's elect. There's
still a remnant according to the election of his grace. Paul
said thousands of years later, Even today, there's still a residue. And even tonight, as you sit
right where you're sitting, there's still a remnant. According to
the election of God's grace, the residue is God's elect. There's God's elect right there,
not the earthly nation of Israel. There's his people, the residue.
You remember Paul said in Romans nine, six, they are not all Israel,
which are of Israel. They are not all spiritual Israel,
which are of earthly Israel. The residue is both. Here, they're earthly Israel and spiritual
Israel. But some are Israel, which are
not of Israel. They are not all Israel, which
are of Israel. But some are Israel, which are
not of Israel. And this is them at that time.
In every age, There are some Israel which are not of Israel,
as Paul also said. That if you are Christ's, it
doesn't matter where you came from. If you are Christ's, then
you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Doesn't
matter what nation you're from. Doesn't matter what your earthly
heritage is. You're Israel, though you're
not of Israel. And to these, to these ones,
this is God's elect, this is God's sheep. To these, what's
the difference? What difference does it make?
Well, we see later that they're just as evil as the rest. You
see that? In verse 7, they also have erred. They're not better. They didn't
distinguish themselves. But you know what the difference is?
The Lord, to them, is a crown. All of us are wearing a crown
tonight. Everybody here has a crown on.
The crown of pride that we saw in verse one, maybe that's what
crown you're wearing tonight. Or the crown of glory in verse
five. Which, if you'll notice the language,
very simply, is Christ himself. It doesn't say he gives you a
crown. He is to you a crown. It's a big difference. It's not
a trinket. It's not a reward for something
you did. That's not what heaven is. Christ is our exceeding great
reward. He is our crown of glory. Notice in verses five and six
those four things that we saw a while ago. He is our glory. He is our beauty. He is our discernment,
our judgment, And he is our strength. Number one, he's our glory. A
crown of glory. Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory. What is your boasting? That's
what glory you're boasting. You're proud. But you're proud
of Christ. God forbid that I should glory
save. In the cross of my Lord Jesus
Christ. By whom this world is crucified
under me and I under this world God forbid that I boast, that
I rejoice in, that I take pride in anything except Christ and
what He did. What He did for sinners in His
redemptive glory. He is my beauty. He's my crown
of beauty, too. You see that? You know what that
is? That's my righteousness before
God. That's what we just read about in Ezekiel. God looks at
me and says, oh, how beautiful. How beautiful. I know that's
hard to imagine, but we read it, didn't we? And you know what
God said about that? It's my beauty which I put on
you. What's that? That's Christ. He is to us a crown of beauty. He's my discernment. What are you doing talking at
all, Chris? You don't know anything. Well,
by God's grace I do. You know how? Christ. Paul said
we have the mind of Christ. He's our judgment. We're able
to judge righteous judgment because He's our wisdom. And He's my strength. Isn't that
beautiful, those four things? I can do all things. I, who am
nothing, can do all things through Christ,
which strengtheneth me. And remember, Ephraim is said
to be beautiful now, but it's a superficial beauty that fades
away. But now here in verse five to
the residue, which by the way, we know what residue is. You
pour, you got water in a glass and you pour it out. Now the
glass is empty. except it's not. It's empty to
this world, but it's not empty to God when we're talking about
spiritual things. It's what's left when everything
else has been poured out. Christ himself is our beauty.
There was a beauty in a frame that was glorious to
them and to many. But that beauty fades away. It's
not real beauty anyway. But to us, to the residue, Christ
is our beauty. The one who is altogether lovely. He is all of our beauty. We don't
have any beauty of our own. He found us nasty and discarded,
unlovable, repulsive, corrupt, and said, And everything that's
beautiful about us, He put it on us. You saw that in Ezekiel
there. He put it on us and He is our
beauty. Here's what we look like in ourselves. Look at verse 7. But they also have erred through
wine. Well, you know, you got the drunkards
of Ephraim and then you've got God's residue. But wait a minute,
they're drunkards too. And through strong drink, they're
out of the way too. Even their priest and prophet,
even those who are looked up to for their righteousness, they
don't really have any in themselves. They're swallowed up of wine.
out of the way through strong drink. And again, that's idolatry
now. That's self-righteousness. They err in vision. They stumble
in judgment. You see these things? For all
the tables are full. Isn't that nasty? Filthiness. Not just those of
the heathen, the so-called heathen. Our tables are full, too, aren't
they? Full of corruption. So that there is no place clean. This is what Paul taught in the
book of Romans. There is no difference. There is no place clean. There
is none righteous, no, not one. But Christ is the difference.
What verses 7 and 8 there say, do not disannoy what was said
in verses 5 and 6. This is us in ourselves. We're
pictured as passed out drunk at the table and we're laying
in our own throw up and we stink and we're corrupt and we're stupid.
Anybody that would be in that condition is stupid. There just ain't any denying
it. And that's us spiritually. That's us in ourselves. We're
all the children of wrath by nature. But God is rich in mercy. That's
the difference. There is no other difference.
The difference is that God is rich in mercy. And by God's grace,
as Paul said, I obtained mercy. I obtained his mercy. Christ
is made unto us everything that we're not. Our glory, our beauty,
our discernment and our strength. You remember what Paul said that
Christ is made into us of God. Are you in Christ Jesus, which
is made into us four things, and you'll find that they correspond
perfectly with the four things in our text. Wisdom, our judgment,
righteousness, our beauty, sanctification and redemption. He's our glory,
our beauty, our discernment and our strength. our wisdom, our
righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. Christ is
all. Isn't that simple? And all through,
we see that same story, same gospel. God's angry with the
wicked. And he's gonna destroy them,
and here's why he's going to. And his people are just like
him! But he's not gonna destroy them, he's gonna have mercy on
them. Because Christ is their glory. Christ is their beauty. Christ is their wisdom. Christ
is their strength. That's my gospel. That's my savior. Even as others, but God, let's
pray.