Isaiah No.6 A magnificent prospect

The word of the Lord comes to us this morning through Isaiah and chapter 33, Isaiah chapter 33. Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed. Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed.

When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed. When you stop betraying, you will be betrayed. O Lord, be gracious to us.

We long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress. At the thunder of your voice, the peoples flee.

When you rise up, the nations scatter. Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts. Like a swarm of locusts, men pounce on it.

The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high. He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness. He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure. Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets. The envoys of peace weep bitterly.

The highways are deserted. No travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken.

Its witnesses are despised. No one is respected. The land mourns and wastes away.

Lebanon is ashamed and withers. Sharon is like the Arabah. And Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.

Now will I arise, says the Lord. Now will I be exalted. Now will I be lifted up.

You conceive chaff. You give birth to straw. Your breath is a fire that consumes you.

The peoples will be burned as if to lime. Like cut thorn bushes, they will be set ablaze. You who are far away, hear what I have done.

You who are near, acknowledge my power. The sinners in Zion are terrified. Trembling grips the godless.

Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning? He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil. This is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied and water will not fail him.

Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar. In your thoughts, you will ponder the former terror. Where is that chief officer? Where is the one who took the revenue? Where is the officer in charge of the towers? You will see those arrogant people no more, those people of an obscure speech with their strange incomprehensible tongue.

Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode, a tent that will not be moved. Its stakes will never be pulled up nor any of its ropes broken.

There, the Lord will be our mighty one. It will be like a place of broad rivers and streams. No galley with oars will ride them.

No mighty ship will sail them. For the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver.

The Lord is our king. It is he who will save us. Your rigging hangs loose.

The mast is not held secure. The sail is not spread. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided and even the lane will carry off plunder.

No one living in Zion will say, I am ill. And the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven. Praise the Lord.

I'd be glad if you'd have your Bible open to that place where we've just heard scripture so beautifully read. One of the benefits of going through the Bible systematically is that the Bible itself dictates its own syllabus, which is right. One of the challenges is that sometimes the passage that we have is so laced with good things and sometimes with a miscellany of good and interesting items that it's not always easy to box it in within the compass of one address.

And here, I confess right at the beginning, I'm floundering because this is a rich, royal chapter that could well deserve three or four studies on it and even then it would not have been exhausted. But will you have your Bibles open at Zion 33, Isaiah chapter 33, and I want to home in particularly on the 17th verse. You've got the NIV.

Will you read it out with me? Isaiah 33 verse 17. Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar. Samuel Rutherford was a great man.

He preached in Scotland and his ministry gave birth to that lovely old hymn that speaks about Emmanuel's land. And he thinks about the immediacy of going there because while preaching in his day, as in Iran today, was a very costly business. He was arrested, thrown into jail and summoned by the king where he was going to pay the penalty for being a nonconformist pastor.

But bodily sickness overtook him and it was impossible for him to obey the command of the king, the human king. He'd had a more important summons. And he thought about the passing through into heaven itself.

The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. I shall not gaze on glory, but on my king of grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand.

The lamb has all the glory in Emmanuel's land. There's an unblushing sentimentalism that goes like a river through the whole of the Old Testament and it's caught up by the New Testament writers too. It's the thought of one day being in the presence of God immediately there having passed from this life to the next.

The Old Testament writers say, I will be satisfied when I arise in your likeness. Do you remember the man at the beginning of time almost, Job, saying, although worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself and not through any intermediary.

Do you remember that great verse which should encourage every pensioner here? At eventide, it shall be light. The path of the just as a shining light which shines more and more until the perfect day. The Christian has a love relationship with his beloved Savior and wishes ultimately to stand before him.

It's the concept of the King, Savior, Messiah that is dominant throughout the whole of this great and glorious prophecy. You find the King referred to earlier on. You find the King on Calvary's hill referred to later in the 53rd and onwards chapter.

You hear about a virgin who will conceive and bear a son. And it has an immediate relevance, of course, because first of all, when you interpret these chapters, you have to ask the question, what was it saying to the first people who listened to Isaiah? But because Isaiah was inspired, his prophecy had not just an immediacy about the oracles, they also have an ultimacy. It's like taking a telescope.

I've used the illustration before. And you look at the telescope when it's compressed and you just see the immediate and then you extend the telescope. And that which is far off is brought near.

And this is, in one sense, the challenge and the puzzle and the magnetism of Isaiah. Sometimes the events are near and sometimes they're far off. And sometimes the near events have a much more wonderful fulfillment in the years, the centuries that are to come.

And Isaiah promises you and me, in the name of God, the day will come when we will see the king. Not the earthly king, Hezekiah, to whom direct reference is made, a more marvelous king than that. The identity that Isaiah has in mind has to go beyond the mere human or else the 22nd verse describing the king as Lord would really not logically fit into this chapter.

And so we talk about the king and we talk about Zion. Zion not just in terms, though this was its literal interpretation, not just in terms of that geographical city, that beautiful edifice built for the glory of God, Jerusalem, but Zion extended spiritually so that it encompasses the whole earth. For wherever the people of God is there, wherever the people of God are, there is Zion.

And you and I, if we have confessed Jesus Christ as Savior, we are of Zion's city. And this passage has great relevance to each one of us. So let's ask a couple of questions.

What did this text, this passage, this whole chapter mean to the Hebrews when first they heard it? And what does it say to us now? And our prayer, great God, is that this, your word, may speak to our hearts by way of application at this moment. Let me subdivide it into at least three sections, the chapter. First of all, it talks about the sad state, verses one to nine.

You could interpolate, you could put another couple of words in there, the sad though familiar state, verses one to nine, description of Jerusalem and Judah as it was then, and society as it is now. And then from verses 10 to 19, the divine decree, the divine but consistent decree. Now I will arise, says the Lord, now I will be exalted.

And then thirdly, the significance of Zion. We can incorporate another descriptive word, the significance well attested of Zion, verse 20 through to the end. A sad but familiar state.

Well, look at those opening verses, will you? Because here you discover three or four principles. Do you remember that old hymn, how helpless, how hopeless we sinners would be if he had never loved us and washed us from sin? Well, here is the Assyrian nation described in that first verse. And they become not just a literal power in terms of a political entity that is opposed to the Jews of Isaiah's day.

The nation stands for those who are enemies of God, those who live in a way that is directly in conflict to the ways of God. References made to those engaged in destruction who've never been destroyed, of traitors who have never been betrayed. Now there are three or four principles locked up in these verses, these opening nine verses, and the first one is this.

You find it expressed concisely in the New Testament. What you sow, you reap. What you sow, you reap.

When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed. When you stop betraying, you will be betrayed. Assyria falls victim to Babylon, a superior city and a superior force historically.

And those who war against God, ultimately they will fall to the superior power of God on this earth. You sow and then you reap. It's an inviolable law.

For every trickster, there is another trickster until eventually all treachery is dealt with. In our world, there's a lot of treachery, a lot of covenants that are broken, a lot of promises that are made not only by nations, but also by individuals. God says, be warned, what you sow, you reap.

Secondly, there is the principle of pleading and praying. Look at verses two through to four. You see, here are the people of God in the Old Testament, and Assyria is a gigantic force.

It's a force to be reckoned with. And the church of God historically in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and throughout church history has often known periods of great persecution. Witness what's happening in Saudi Arabia today, as well as Iran and Pakistan and also Algeria.

And so here is a picture of the church, if you like, existing at that time. What do they do? Well, they do exactly the same as the church will do in the New Testament in the Acts of the Apostles. They will pray the pleading and the praying.

Here's a sort of liturgical prayer with a priest perhaps saying, oh Lord, be gracious to us, we long for you. And then the people be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress. The antiphonal chant, the people in the temple engaging together in prayer, asking for the repulse of the Assyrians.

The people at Worthing Tabernacle gathering together in prayer, asking for greater freedoms in the Middle East, asking for an ability personally to triumph over the forces of evil. The pleading and the praying with a realization that when God rises up, then there is the resolution of problems. The nations scatter.

When I have a living relationship with God, then I can live a more healthful, consistent Christian life. The sowing and the reaping, the pleading and the praying, the recognition and the recovery. What do these Jews need to do when they are fearful of the invasions of Sennacherib and all his armies? They need to realize who God is.

God is still on the throne and he does remember his own. The state of our world, it's described in some degree in this 33rd chapter. There does seem to be anarchy.

There does seem to be the breaking of treaties and covenants and although perhaps sometimes the evidence seems to be to the contrary, the fact is the church believes that at the back of history is God working through his purposes. The recognition, the Lord is exalted for he dwells on high. He will be the sure foundation for your times.

Look how that corresponds to the time of distress in the second verse. Yes, a time of distress, but within the distress, God can make his presence felt and firm up your faith so that you realize the very conflictions through which you're passing are not outside the providence of God. He can grant a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge.

Do you remember last Sunday, two Sunday evenings ago, how we read the testimony of the brother who was on trial for his life in Iran and I reminded you that this testimony had been so significant and so eloquent that they'd actually published it in the Times. Incidentally, the Assemblies of God pastor who was killed just shortly after that was killed because it was he who brought to the world attention the problem of this dear Christian pastor who looked as though he would be killed. As far as we know, he's still alive, but the man who brought it central stage, he was killed, possibly in some back alley in one of the cities of Iran.

But going back to his colleague's testimony, what did he have to say? Well, he talked about the rich store of salvation, the wisdom and the knowledge that he had of God even in that Muslim-dominated land of Iran. And here the prophet makes a comment about the fear of the Lord in the latter part of verse six and if you've got the same note as I've got in the NIV version of the Bible, down in the bottom left-hand corner is an optional translation. The fear of the Lord is a treasure from him.

What distinguishes people who live in this sad world from folks who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? And the answer, incredibly, is this. They recognize the fear of the Lord. If you are held in awe at the thought of God and a recognition that one day you will stand before God, he has granted to you one of the most precious gifts that there is.

And he alone has the key to the casket that contains those gifts. You see, our modern media has no fear of God, does it? I mean, I listened the other day until I wanted to throw a brick through the screen at the assistant editor of the Sun newspaper on television giving the nation a lecture in morality. It's almost like the devil in hell having a whip-round vote for the cause of righteousness.

There really is no concept of the fear of God in the media. The word Christ as a blasphemy is one of the most oft-used words on the BBC and ITV in their drama and in their films. And nobody, and neither am I suggesting it, would dare to use the word of Muhammad as a blasphemous term.

In this state, in this sad though familiar state, these things happen, the sowing that there will be a reaping, the pleading of the spiritual community and the praying that God will arise and a realization that God in his grace can grant recovery. But let's get the fourth principle, the disaster and the despair. We're back again with the idea of the Assyrians looking over Judah and causing absolute chaos.

Look, they're brave men. Cry aloud in the streets, the envoys of peace weep bitterly. The highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads.

What has happened? Well, you see, civilization has broken down in Judah. And the reason for that is the lack of spirituality on the part of the Jewish people. I wrote to a Jewish MP the other day who just sold her literary abilities for a massive pottage, 100,000 pounds, for a semi-pornographic novel.

And I reminded her that the race from which she came was never more strong economically than when it was strong spiritually. And that obtains today. That obtains today.

The weakness of Judah faced with the problems of the Assyrian armies was simply because morally and spiritually the Jews had been weakened. Treaties broken. No one respected.

Did you read through some of the chapters that Tim and I have not been privileged to preach on about God in His judgment sometimes giving Israel and Judah an immature leadership? Leaders like kids leading a nation. With the net result that there is no strength, there is no cohesion whatsoever. And sometimes, and I speak thoughtfully and tenderly because I do recognize amongst politicians there are those who do have the interest of the country at heart.

But sometimes I think that we're in exactly the same situation. We have got kids leading the country who don't realize that when they call back to basics, the basics are embedded in scripture. And to shift the basics as one MP was arguing for on television just the other day because some people are falling foul of the basics is like a pilot bringing in his aircraft and off course and so he dumps all his navigational equipment.

The disaster and the despair. When people choose to live by their own abilities, not only by their own abilities, the great issues of life become unmanageable as well as ordinary activities. Highways, travelers, roads.

There's great problems in terms of communication. The women are getting mugged on the streets. Not exactly an old fashioned message in this chapter, is it? The start of sinful people's corruption of God's fair earth was as small as the first weed in the Garden of Eden.

But look at verse nine. The extremes of the promised land. The land mourns and wastes away.

Lebanon is ashamed and withers. Sharon is like the Araba. The desert and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.

A sad but familiar state. Let's move on into the second part of this chapter. The divine but consistent decree.

What happens in the light of all this? Well, here you see a picture of God rising up and doing something about it. Now will I arise. Here is tautology, the repetition of words.

Now will I arise. Now will I be exalted. Now will I be lifted up.

It is time for God to act. This is what Isaiah pleaded. Do you ever plead that? Do you plead for revival? Ah, but when God acts, the consequences can be painful.

Because to be restored as citizens to Zion so that you can feel comfortable means that dealing with the problems that have caused your discomfiture. The problem of human pride and sinfulness. What happens when God stands up? Well, look at verse 11.

Human wisdom becomes laughable. Your ideas are like chaff. You give birth to straw.

Your sin, it's self-destructible. It's self-destructing. Your breath is a fire that consumes you.

When will we learn that you do not break God's law in the sense that God's law changes? God's law breaks you. Sin is self-destructive. Punishment is inevitable.

Metaphorical, doubtless the language may be, though literal in terms of the warfare, the peoples will be burned as if to lime. Like cut thorn bushes, they will be set ablaze. And when God brings forth His judgment, then what He does will be heard worldwide.

God's activity is memorable. Those who are far away, verse 13. Those who are near, I acknowledge my power.

But I tried to tell you that the initial reaction some weeks ago of God to sin is not only judgment, it is also grace. God sends Noah to preach for years before the flood. God sends Lot, even though he blew it, as a representative of his in Sodom and Gomorrah.

God sends the Lord Jesus into this world because His immediate response to our sinfulness is grace. So verse 13, you who are near, you who are far away, hear what I have done. Isn't this some sort of indication that the rest of the world, not just the Jewish community, has a right to hear of the heart of God and what God is prepared to do, not only in terms of judgment, but also in terms of grace.

Look at 35, chapter 35 and verse eight. A highway will be there. It will be called the way of holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it. It will be those who walk in that way. To where is the highway going? Well, it is going to Zion.

It is going, if you like, to the New Jerusalem. It is going to that place where people will gather who have known what it is for their sins to be forgiven. Therefore, those who are far away should hear this, as well as those who are nigh.

Now, before people can feel comfortable in the presence of God in Zion, something has to be dealt with, not so. So here you've got the same sort of discomfiture in the 14th verse as you find in Peter when he's accosted by Jesus on the seashore of Galilee. You see, when you realize how wretched you are, Zion, spiritually understood, is not the most attractive place.

Who can abide in the tabernacle of the Lord? Who can climb His most holy hill? Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 contain words which are almost the same as this little liturgical passage from the 14th verse and onwards down to the 16th. Here are those in Zion, potentially the people of God, and they highlight a problem. Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning? Have you been puzzled because in the earlier part of Isaiah in the 29th chapter, you get reference to something that looks as though it's a TV contraption to pull in the Tel Aviv signal.

29 verse one, woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled. Well, Ariel is synonymous for Jerusalem. It's another word which actually means Jerusalem, and it's a combination of two Hebrew words, distress and favor, holy wrath and persevering mercy.

Now you see, God, when He reveals Himself to us, always reveals these two sides of His character. There's wrath, there is mercy, there's grace, there is judgment, and to be in Zion, to be in the presence of the King of kings is a grossly uncomfortable experience unless, unless what? Unless a gospel note has been sounded. Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning? Who of us can stay in Ariel in Jerusalem in Zion? He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, and there the word, the Hebrew word keep, it means trembling, the man who, if he is going to be paid a sum of money for doing what is deceitful, he is so psychologically worried that he trembles, he can't even hold the money.

You see, this is the concern that people must have for righteousness if they are going to abide in Zion with comfort. The man who stops his ears against plots of murder, the man who shuts his eyes against compromising situations. You see how New Testament the Old Testament is.

You see how discovered within these underground tunnels of revelation in the Old Testament, there is much to be quarried which will help you to understand the New Testament. What is the sort of man that God honors? A man who knows the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit. What sort of man is he? He's a man who consistently makes righteousness his pathway.

He speaks what is right. He rejects gain from extortion and so on and so forth. You see my point? It was quite right that I wrote to this MP and reminded of her own heritage.

These are the people who are blessed. You should tremble when people cross your palm with money that you know is polluted money that has been earned as a result of causing other people to stumble. This is the man who will dwell on the heights who can comfortably be saved.

He who has caused in his heart as he cooperates with the gospel a ready response to the Jew of the Spirit of God so that something of the characteristics of the Lord Jesus blossom from his heart, her heart. That man will be as impregnable as if he were a refuge in the mountain fortress. That man will have the staff of life and the water of life.

That man will know the faithfulness and the consistency of God towards him in terms of his providence and his kindly acts. That man will see the King in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar, not some sort of improved Hezekiah. No mortal man can bear this description and what follows.

Isaiah is way into the distance. He's got the telescope to his eyes and he sees a man. And in the Hebrew, it's an exclamation.

He doesn't say the King, he says who you know. As though the concept of the anointed Messiah which is causing the blood of Isaiah to go more quickly around his body is recognized immediately by the people, the one who you know. Oh, he'll come and you'll see him in all his beauty.

The most remarkable experience that will ever be yours is waking in the presence of God. And that comes immediately at the point of your soul being taken from this world. Or when our Lord returns or sometimes uncommonly but occasionally as a result of God manifesting himself in remarkable theophanies, the people who he counts special.

The divine decree, God will arise. Finally, thirdly, the significance of Zion. The significance of Zion attested.

Look unto Zion, verse 20, the city of our festivals. Why can we look unto Zion with great peace? Well, you see verse 19, all our enemies and also verse 18, all those who caused us to quail and to be terrified, all sin has been dealt with. All opposition to the purposes of God.

Where is the chief officer? Where is the one who took the revenue? Verse 18, where's the one who terrified Israel? Where is the devil in all his powers? He has been felled by a superior power. And when I recognize that, I can take a look towards Zion and realize that I am there savior if of Zion. I by grace, a member am.

Then I can look upon Zion. My eyes can see Jerusalem. And I recognize two things about my future and indeed about my present for these are blessings into which you can enter now.

Zion is a safe stronghold founded by God in our security. A tent that will not be moved. Here there is sovereignty.

The Lord will be our mighty one. The Lord, verse 22, is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver.

The Lord is our King. He who will save us. In Zion there is sufficiency.

You don't even need to bring a galley ship, verse 21, laden with goods in order to improve the circumstances in Zion. Why? Because our Lord furnishes Zion. Our Lord grants his blessings out of his limitless provisions in heaven.

He makes them available to people like ourselves. Zion, its significance, it is a safe stronghold founded by God. Moreover, my dear friends, it is a safe stronghold blessed by grace.

Look at verse 23 and verse 24 because here you get another picture of the sort of people who stay in Zion, the citizens of Zion. Ah, you say, from what I've heard in terms of that liturgical passage, whoever can dwell with everlasting burning, he who walks righteously speaks what is right, rejects gain and so on and so forth. I mean, the members of Zion must have done a Christ course in a monastery or time at a convent, but no.

You see, the people who actually are in Zion as Isaiah describes them are totally inadequate people. At the human level, they have done what is wrong. They are so weak.

Verse 23, they're like ships with rigging that hands and a mast that's not secure and a sail that's not spread. And yet these people, they're not only in Zion, the largest of God, the provisions of God in Zion, they benefit from. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided and even the lame will carry off plunder.

What does it mean? Well, the words are passive. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided. What did our beloved Lord do on Calvary's cross? He spoiled principalities and powers.

He defied the evil one. He made it possible for the likes of you and me to feel comfortable in the presence of God because he has dealt with our sin. We are in Zion not because of what we have done, but because of the grace of God.

And that's always the message of the Old Testament as indeed the message of the New. Here in the Old Testament, if you can see him, there is the King in all his beauty and he's not primarily the judge. He's a gentle, gracious King who deals with Israelites who realize that politically and economically they are in a mess because of their disobedience and they come and with humility, they say, Lord, we're just like a ship that hasn't got its act together.

We acknowledge that it is in you that we hope, not in Egypt, not in Assyria, not in any man-made offers, only in you. Now, don't you see that that's New Testament? Let not conscience let you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.

This he gives you, this he gives you, tis the sinner's rising beam. You say, I couldn't live comfortably in the presence of God. Thank God you said that, my friend.

You see, you show me one thing, what? Well, you show me, he's opened the casket. He's giving you the fear, the fear of God. It's the fear of God that leads you to salvation.

It's the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom. No one living in Zion will say I am ill and the sins who dwell there will be forgiven. Here are the two extremities, if you like, spiritually and also physically.

Here in metaphorical, though I don't deny in certain aspects, in literal language, Isaiah is painting the picture of man in his frailness. But the frailty of man does not stop someone coming into Zion. The only thing that can stop you from being in Zion is your sin, and it's from your sin that the King has come to deliver you.

The sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven. The idea is they have been lifted, and that's what Jesus has done. Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the King in all his beauty, has come into this world, this sad world, and made it possible for folk like ourselves who recognize our own moral, inconsistently, and spiritual need, he's made it possible for us to be realigned, brought into the fellowship of the redeemed, citizens of Zion, waiting to see the King in all his glory, in all his beauty.

Take this chapter, which I've hardly begun to unravel before you, read it, glory in it, and thank God for the King of the Old Testament, concealed in some of his dealings, the King in the New Testament, the same, revealed in all his magnificence, grace, and splendor. Soon and very soon, we're gonna see the King. Remind me of the number of that, please.

605, soon and very soon, we're gonna see the King. Let's sing it with meaning. It's a catchy tune, and it's a simple song, and I'm a little afraid of catchy tunes if something of the wonder of the words is lost by the movement of the song.

Sing it with your intellect. Sing it with your emotions. Sing it in grand anticipation, as we prepare to come around the table of the Lord, which indicates the way in which the King has lifted our sins and made it possible for you and me to be forgiven.

605, let's stand and sing it. ["Soon and Very Soon"] And I lift my chin to the sweet, sweet sound in your heart.