There are many levels on which
the Lord brings judgment, like what's described in this chapter.
You might wonder and ask, what's the occasion of this? What nation
is this? We've seen so many nations have
woe declared upon them in the book of Isaiah. Many times it's
pronounced upon individual cities and nations. And then in due
time it was brought upon them, as God prophesied. But this is a picture of God's
judgment on so many different levels. If you think about judgment
and why it comes and who brings it and why, and the result of
it. God brings judgment also upon
individual sinners. God raised up Pharaoh and said,
I've raised you up that I might show my mighty power in you.
One man. God showed in Pharaoh's case
who's God and who's not God. King Nebuchadnezzar is another
example of God singling out an individual and bringing down
great judgment upon them. But in these two individuals
we also see that destruction doesn't always mean wrath. Sometimes it means mercy. God Turn Nebuchadnezzar's world
upside down and that was the language of our text. God's going
to turn the earth upside down. You know that was, the Lord Jesus
was described that way in his teachings, in his disciples as
they preached the gospel. Somebody said they've turned
the world upside down. That's God. Only God can do that. He made the world and he can
turn it over when he's ready. And he does do that with his
word. But in Nebuchadnezzar's case, he destroyed Nebuchadnezzar's
world in order to save him. In this chapter, the whole earth
is included in the destruction described. No individual city
or nation is named. But is this speaking of the end
times? Some say this is the end times where the Lord Destroyed
the the world of Rome Rome had pretty much taken over the world
as it was known then and God brought that to an end and some
described this as the end times where God destroyed The world
of the Romans, you know or whatever I don't know how they come up
with stuff like that there there are indications in the scripture
that could lead you in that direction or is this the final judgment
of the world where all will stand before the great white throne
of God and an answer to the judge of all the earth, the Lord Jesus
Christ. It could be either or both, because
the same things are true now. It will ultimately be true when
this world is once and for all done away with. The same things
have always been true. God's judgment and wrath are
upon individuals, cities, nations, this whole world. Throughout
time it's been so, and he's revealed His judgment upon the world in
these various ways. But all of this describes spiritual
judgment. It's the spiritual condition
of this world and people that bring this judgment down. It's
not, as we've said before, and there's a great sense in which
God doesn't judge cities and nations, although it's expressed
that way in the scriptures. Cities aren't sinful. People
are sinful. Cities are just made up of people. But though this judgment here
is described in terms of physical things that happen, physical
suffering and destruction and temporal, tangible things being
overturned and done away with, but all of these different levels
on which this is true, shows how universally relevant and
timelessly applicable the basic principle truths taught here
are. Because this is true at any time. And these are the basic truths
taught here. God is holy. Why is there judgment? Why all this destruction? Do
you remember what the Lord Jesus Christ did? And this is taught all through
the Word, but this is an example, I think, that will And it might
be unexpected and it might be very helpful. Why judgment? Why destruction? Why is God going
to destroy the world? And why did he deal so harshly
with nations and individuals at different times? You remember
what the Lord Jesus Christ did when he walked into what passed
for the church in his day? He walked into the temple. And
he saw the same things that we see today. If you walked into what passes
for a church in this day, in this world, you'd see the same
things that he saw when he walked into the temple. He saw, what
did he see? He saw that it wasn't a place
of worship, it was a place of business. He saw that people weren't there
because they loved him, but because they loved money. They were worshiping money. And you remember what he said
sometime after that. He said to his disciples, you
can't worship God and money. And they were worshiping money.
The love of money is the root of all evil. And there it was
right there in what was called the house of God. And I want
us to turn over there because I think this will teach us something
about why God's wrath is upon this world, upon people, upon
nations, it always has been. And ultimately will result in
the destruction of this world as it stands. Matthew 21, verse
12, let's look at it. I believe when I looked at this
passage this week, the Lord showed me something he hadn't before.
Matthew 21, 12. And I know you recall what happened
here, but the lesson that I believe, one of the big main things I
want us to see tonight is in the context, the immediate context
of what you're probably thinking. You already know about this passage.
Matthew 21, 12, and Jesus went into the temple of God and cast
out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the
tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold
doves. It says in another place he planted
a whip. Can you picture that? He planted
a whip and went through there and said this ends right now. Can you imagine that? Right now. He didn't talk to him and say,
you know, we need to straighten this up We're gonna have to talk
about it. No, this is right now. You're out of here The seats of them that sold us
verse 13 and he said unto them it is written My house shall
be called the house of prayer, but you Have made it a den of
thieves And here's what I want to see
after he drove out the evil pretenders. If you had asked them, what are
you doing here? You know what they'd say? We're
here to worship God. This is the temple of God. We're
worshiping God. But once he had drove them out,
look what happened. And the blind and the lame came
to him in the temple. And he healed them. And when the chief priests and
scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children
crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David,
they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what
these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea,
have ye never read? Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings thou hast perfected praise. Now our Lord cleaning house in
his church, and that's what he did. He cleaned house. It's a
picture. It's a macrocosm, if you will.
That was a single event where one man in one place at one point
in time did something extraordinary, something unexpected. If you'd have been thinking 10
minutes before that, what would Jesus do, you'd have missed it.
Because you wouldn't have had any idea what he was going to
do. They didn't know what he did after he did it. And they're
still asking what would he do. This is a picture of the judgment
described in our text in Isaiah 24. Do you realize what is happening
if God throws you out of his church? You're a goner. If God boots you out of the one
place of worship, the one place where God meets with sinners,
and it's not a building, you understand that, but this is
the temple. This is where the sacrifices were offered. This
is where atonement was made in days past. And this is where
God was worshiped and met with and communed with. This is where
sinners meet with God and don't go to hell for it. And God said, you're not welcome
here anymore. You talk about judgment now. This is the holy one. This is
the first thing we said now. Why? God's holy. That's why.
And this is the holy one of God seeing the wretched hive that
man had created and he wreaked havoc on it. He cleaned house
in the temple and he's going to clean house in this whole
earth one day. Until no lie enters into it anymore. That's what we read in the book
of Revelation. There's going to be no lie, nothing that defileth
is going to enter in anymore. All that's out. That ends when
he gets ready. And that great day. But I want
you to particularly notice what happened after he cleaned house.
Two things happened. In God's house, once every, all
of the defilement of man was cleaned out. Those who needed
Him. Those who needed Him. You think about this now. What's
happening here? What happens in this place? What happens in
God's church? Those who needed Him. Got what they came for. They got what they needed. They
needed Him. And He was there for them. And
did for them what they needed done. That's what this is. When all of our foolishness,
when all of our defilement, when all of our will worship, when
all of our flesh is done away with, that's what will happen
right here. Those who need him will be healed in the house of
God. And I want you to notice what
else happened. And you might almost miss it
because it's talking about how The religious Jews hated it.
And you might focus on that. When they heard the children
and just young children praising him. Why? For the wonderful things
that he did. It says they were displeased. They
were upset. They were infuriated by that. But what was happening? The simple,
innocent children were just praising the Lord because He was so wonderful that
they just couldn't help it. That's what's going to happen
here, too, now. We're going to have to become like them, like
little children. No ulterior motives. No coming
to church because of this, that, and the other. We just hear because
Christ is so wonderful that we just want to lend our voices
to the voices of those who are lifting up his name in praise
and adoration. Just there's an innocence about
that that only God can bring about. And he's going to have
to clean house first, right here, right there in your heart, right
here in this place. When he does, those two things
will happen right there. Do you need him? Whatever you
need, He's the answer. And we're going to see Him to
be so wonderful that we're just going to praise Him. We're going
to turn to a page and we're going to sing of His glory. We're going
to pray and we're going to thank Him for all of His mercies. We're
going to brag on him. We're going to look into the
word of God and see all the wonderful things that he is and does and
we're going to declare them. And together rejoice in him.
And by his grace, worship. People look at this passage and
they see the violence and the. And the Lord kind of shocking
what he did in it. Don't miss what happened after.
That's why he did what he did. Because his house is not that.
It's not what we make it. What about here? What about here? Will he do that for us? Will
the blind in the lane be able to come here and find sight? and find strength again. In the gospel of our Savior,
in the worship of our God. And isn't this going to be the
end of all things? When God cleans house in this
world, what's going to happen? I'm going to really be able to
see then. I can see now And we're really going to have
what we need then, aren't we? Those that need Him. Face to
face then. And we're going to praise Him
like nobody has ever praised Him before. In that day. So those are always
the two results of when He comes in judgment. Judgment, yes, is
terrible. Judgment is frightening and fearful,
but it's necessary and good Because look at the result Sinners are
going to be saved in it If God's judgment hadn't fallen
upon his son, where would we be? Terrible yes, but wonderful Look at Revelation 22 verse 1 This is what it's going to be
like when God cleans house of this whole world. He's going
to throw out everybody. He's going to throw the money
changers out of this whole earth one of these days. Listen to
it. Revelation 22, 1, And he showed
me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of
the street of it, And on either side of the river was there the
tree of life, which bear twelve manner of fruits, and yielded
her fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were
for what? See this is when God has driven
out everything evil from his whole world. It's going to be
healing. Just like in the temple. Healing
for the healing of the nations. Everything. Healing what? Everything
that's wrong. Everything that needs to be fixed
is going to be fixed. And I don't have to tell you
that's not a tree growing out of the ground. That's Christ.
He's the tree of life. And there shall be no more curse. No more curse and no more result
of the curse. No one that has suffered the
curse, the effects of the curse. Because we're not going to. God's
people are not going to. But the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him,
and they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their
foreheads, and there shall be no night there, and they need
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth
them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. And what else
does the book of Revelation where John gets a glimpse now of an
earth that the money changers have been driven out of. What
else characterizes the book of Revelation? Everywhere you turn.
And they sang a new song. And you know what it was? Worthy
is the Lamb. There's his children praising
him for how wonderful he is. Now when you think about the
Lord driving the money changers out of the temple, don't forget
those two things. That's why he did it right there. And that's
why he's going to drive everything evil out of this world one day.
And while his judgment falls everywhere, it falls. It's for
good. It's for good. And we're going
to see that in our text. So you see, God is holy and he
will destroy, but the result is not bad. The result is good,
bad for some, but overall good. And even it being bad for some
will be seen to be good. It's right. It's necessary. Terrible,
but right and necessary. Even sinners, by God's grace,
see that sinners ought to be removed from God's world. In
Psalm 104, and I don't want to take a lot of time tonight, but
read Psalm 104, David describes how wonderful in this whole psalm
God's earth is, God's world. You know, even under the curse,
this world is a remarkable, beautiful and wonderful place even under
the curse and He talks about it your clothed Lord verse 1
with honor and majesty you cover yourself with light as a guard
you stretch out the heavens as a curtain You lay the beams of
your chambers in the waters and make it the clouds your chariot
You walk on the wings of the wind your angels or spirits your
ministers of flaming fire You laid the foundations of the earth
And it shall not be removed forever until he removes it. It's there. The door he opens, no man can
shut but him, nor vice versa. You cover it with the deep as
with a garment. The waters stood above the mountains.
At thy rebuke they fled. Verse nine, you set abound that
they may not pass over. You stand at the seashore. What
do you think about? Nature? Or is that the boundary of God
right there? You ever think about that at
the beach? God set a boundary right there. That ocean. It comes
up and goes back a little bit. It's coming exactly to the spot
where God allows it to. No further. You sendeth the springs into
the valleys, verse 10. They run among the hills and
give drink to every beast of the field. What a picture! The
little streams and rivers and brooks go all through the earth
in different places, hidden ones that you'll never see in your
lifetime. They're not there for you. They're
there for his little creatures to come and get him a drink of
water. And David marvels at all of this. You water the hills
from your chambers, verse 13. And wine that maketh glad the
heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread,
verse 15, which strengthens man's heart. And the trees of the Lord
are full of sap. The cedars of Lebanon, God planted
them. God planted them. Just like you
planted that bush in your backyard. God planted the cedars of Lebanon,
100 foot tall. The birds make their nests in
there. The stork has a house because
of God. The wild goats, the rocks for
the conies, for the little rabbits. And look, we won't look at all
of it, but you see how he's talking about the wonderful, oh Lord.
Verse 24, how manifold are thy works and wisdom thou hast made
them all. The earth is full of your riches. And then look what he does in
the last part of it. Verse 35, let the sinners be consumed out
of the earth. Now this is a sinner saying this. Even sinners can see that sinners
ought to be banished from God's earth. And they're going to be. And that would be you and me
if not for Christ. Let the sinner, your earth is
so beautiful and wonderful. Lord, just take everything that
defiles. You know what that is? You and me, sinners. And just
get them out of here. How wonderful it would be. The
only thing that mars, the beauty, is us. And let the wicked be no more.
You know what? That's going to come true. And
again, that would be you and me. But we're His holy ones in Christ.
And so when He does throw out all the money changers out of
this world, this world is His temple. We're going to still be here
with our Lord to enjoy His presence face to face with no defilement,
no sin. Nothing's going to enter in that
defile. That's necessary, isn't it? Lord,
just do away with everything, everyone evil. And the reason
is the second thing. God is holy. Number two, man
is sinful. We ought to be done away with.
And in a way, it does include us, doesn't it? Because our sinful
flesh, our sinful man, the old man, is going to be done away
with. And we're gonna shout hallelujah when he is. Man is sinful, all
of them. Did you notice verse two? The
people and the priest, the buyer and the seller. There's no different.
The high and the low, the mighty and the poor, and the weak, the
poor and the rich. It doesn't matter who. Sin is
the great equalizer. The gospel that reveals sin is
the great equalizer. There is no difference, our Lord
said. There is no difference. There
are no big shots. The giraffe and the mouse have
to come through the same door of the ark or both will perish.
And the giraffe may have to stoop down to get in there. And we ruin
everything. Look at verse 5 of our text.
Let me get back to Isaiah 24 here. Verse 5, the earth also is defiled
Why, under the inhabitants thereof, it's you and I that ruin everything. God's church is a wonderful and
precious thing. God said he loved the church
and gave himself for it. And you know what we do? We turn
it into a den of thieves. Every one of us would, if not
for his grace. If he leaves us to ourselves,
we'll be a den of thieves and be calling ourselves a church.
So many are doing just that tonight. God's world is a paradise. And
we turn it into a place of thorns and death. Where dog eats dog. And there's
no peace. We defile it in every way. We're
selfish and ungodly and proud and defiled in every way. We're
self-destructive because everything Antichrist tended toward destruction. Christ is life and joy and peace
and good and so every Antichrist way, though it seem right unto
a man, has one end. Destruction. And we're in that
way by nature. Death in every sense of the word.
We're all by nature anti-Christ. We hated him in the garden. We
hated him in the law, when he gave his law. Moses said, the
people hate me, Lord. And Christ said, no, they don't.
They hate me. They're just taking it out on you. We hated him in
the manger. Had no room for him. This world
had no room for him. It still doesn't. We hated him
and stoned him for all of his good works. He said, I've done
many good works among you. For which one of those are you
stoning me? We hated him at Calvary. We hate
him on the throne. When he talked about him ascending
to the right hand of his father, they spit in his face. We hate him in his gospel. The only thing that people hate
worse than the law is the gospel. We are anti-Christ. We hate him. As a people, as a race, we despise
Him. And as individuals, apart from
His grace. And we hate Him without a cause.
And so God destroys. God is holy and man is wretched.
But God is also merciful. There's no God beside Him, a
just God and a Savior. God said in verse one. He says
that he'll turn the earth upside down That doesn't have to be
a bad thing God turned my world upside down
and it quite literally is the best thing that ever happened
to me In verse 8 my mirth and my joy
ceased I But that's okay, you see, because
I was rejoicing in the flesh. I was rejoicing in the wrong
thing. It needed to cease. He said in the text there where
we read that the wine didn't have any taste anymore. There
was no joy and no mirth. Party's over. That doesn't have
to be a bad thing. Because it was a party of the
flesh and that which pleases the flesh and the will of man.
The depraved will of man. That needed to end. That party
needed to be over. In verse 12, God broke down the
gate. Has he done that for you? That's not a bad thing. I had shut my gate to all that's
good and all that's right. And God broke it down. I had
forsaken my own mercy. I never would have opened the
gate to him. But he didn't wait for me to open it to him. I had
shut it fast against him. And he had to break it down.
And praise his name forever, he busted it down. You see that
in the text? He broke your gate down, didn't
he? Talk about mercy now. Sometimes
God destroys in order to have mercy. Look at verse 13. When thus it shall be in the
midst of the land among the people there shall be as the shaking
of an olive tree and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.
We've seen language like this before in Isaiah 17. I'll refresh
your memory. What God is doing when he shakes
this earth, it's not just for destruction. See, this is God's
earth. God doesn't build things just
to destroy them. God is shaking the earth with
a purpose. It's a terrible shaking. But what happens to the tree
is just incidental. The real purpose of the shaking
is to gather the olives. That's what the Lord's doing.
And the grapes. Remember we talked about how
the Lord uses that metaphor of a farm and a state, a landed
estate. Why does God have a farm? Because
he's going to get some olives and some grapes. That's why. In the gleaning of grapes, you'll
remember we saw this picture, as I said before, in Isaiah 17,
and this is the reaping of a harvest. But it's the grapes that are
left over after the vintage is already complete. You see, we
planted grapes to make wine, and we've already gathered all
the grapes in, and we've already processed them, crushed them,
and gotten the blood out of them, and the juice out of them, and
filtered them, and done the whole process, and bottled it up, and
it's out on the market. The vintage is over, but there's
still some grapes out there. There's the leftovers, the exceptions,
God's remnant. According to the election of
grace, the world has already produced its vintage. And the
gleaning grapes are even taken into account by this world. But
this is why God has a world for his gleaning grapes. Verses 14 through 16, and just
a final thought or two, and then we'll come to the table, Lord
willing. Verses 14 through 16. They shall lift up their voice.
They shall sing for the majesty of the Lord. They shall cry aloud from the
sea. Who? These leftovers. This remnant. These olives. These grapes. That
the world didn't even take account of. But God, the whole reason
he's shaking this earth and all, is to bring them down. To himself And they're gonna lift up their
they're gonna sing The shaking is terrible god turned your world
upside down. He busts your gate down and you're
gonna sing his praises when he's done You're gonna sing for the
majesty of the lord Verse 15 wherefore glorify ye
the lord where In the fires. In the fires. Yes, he destroyed
my world. And you know what? He's still
doing it. He's still tearing me up. How
about you? I still got a lot of, a lot of
stuffing in me. And so there's got to be fire.
There's still gonna be some fire in there. Glorify Him in the
fires. See affliction and tribulation
for what it is. It's the mercy of God. It's not
wrath. Not for His people. Our Lord
Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God in full against your sin,
all of your sin. And now His fires are fires of
mercy. They burn. But when He gets done, You'll
praise him. But here's this says even while
he's doing it, praise him, praise him in the fire, not after the
fire. First Peter one, three through
seven, that's your homework. I won't take the time, but praise
the Lord in the fires. You want to read something about
that, see what that looks like. First Peter one, three through
seven and Romans five, one through five. Glorify ye the Lord in
the fires may God give us grace to do that you talk about grace And may our continual song be
this look what he said Verse 16 from the uttermost part
of the earth have we heard songs even glory to the righteous Glory to the righteous one glory
to his name May all we do May we do it with a song in our hearts
of glory to the righteous one. Glory to the Lord our righteousness. And then look at what Isaiah
cries here. And remember this, we thank God
for his mercy, we're objects of his mercy and love and grace
and we're We're His, we're His elect, we're
holy and righteous and spotless in Christ. But you know what
that causes us to do? We're not running around going,
look how holy and spotless we are. You know what we're saying?
Oh, my leanness. My leanness. Can't come to the house of God
without saying it, can you? My leanness. Can you come to
the table? This beautiful, beautiful thing.
This beautiful privilege our Lord has given us. To show forth
his death till he comes. Can you come here without saying
and mourning in your heart, oh God, my leanness. My leanness. The treacherous, Sure enough,
it's done a number on me. How bad are you? What have your enemies taken
from you, including your own wretched, sinful, deceptive heart? Oh, my leanness. Woe unto me Right now as believers in this
world we do two things don't we we sing glory unto him And
we mourn our sin We mourn our own wretchedness
but one day in that great day I When God, sure enough, cleans
house once and for all, including the old me, my mourning will
be turned into joy. And then, I'm only going to be
doing one thing. Now, I'm singing glory to Him
and mourning my sin. Oh, wretched man that I am. But then, I'm just going to be
doing one thing, singing glory to Him. What a blessing it is to be among
the number who sing that song by His grace. Let's observe the
table this evening. I pray our Lord will grant that
we might remember Him tonight in worship unto Him.