40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 2:6-3:5 (Episode 444)

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Judgment is coming and it will not be tempered. Moles will be handed idols and man will be reminded of what he is. And the young will be insolent. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Net...work 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education   What's New from 1517: Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Signup For Free Advent Church Resources for 2024 Clothed with Christ by Brian William Thomas   More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello listeners, this is Caleb Keith, director of the 1517 Podcast Network, with a special message for you. As the year comes to a close, we at the 1517 Podcast Network want to thank you for being a part of our mission to declare and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. For years, we've worked to share the life-changing message of the forgiveness of sins for you. through podcasts, articles, books, and events. But we can't do it without you. This year, we're aiming to raise $300,000 for our end-of-year campaign
Starting point is 00:00:40 to sustain our mission and continue creating content that proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. Your generosity directly supports everything we do, from producing podcasts like the one you're listening to right now or to reaching people at home through articles, videos, and even conferences who are in need of the hope and comfort found only in the gospel of Christ. Would you consider giving a gift today? Every donation, big or small, helps us share Christ's work.
Starting point is 00:01:11 And again, our end of year need is $300,000. Please visit 1517.org slash donate to make your year-end gift now. Thank you for partnering with us to keep this message alive and thriving for generations to come. God's peace be with you. Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts
Starting point is 00:01:57 that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. You know we're doing a lot of things. We've got all those podcasts, all those articles, academies. You've got to sign up for an academy
Starting point is 00:02:08 or two academies or three academies. Sign them up. They're free. How is it all free? Well, it's free because people support it. People like you coming in, chipping in, everyone doing a little bit,
Starting point is 00:02:20 some people doing a lot. you can be someone that does a little bit or a lot we'll have either and you can keep us going so just go over there to the 1517 website you can hit the donate link you can become a contributor thank you so much to those of you who already do that Chad we are
Starting point is 00:02:36 in Isaiah chapter 2 we got through the first five verses of Isaiah and you know the first chapter Isaiah comes out hot and heavy with the law and tells people hey I don't know if you've if you realize this or not but the lord is not pleased uh he is not pleased at all uh in fact uh he's not only not
Starting point is 00:02:56 pleased he's not neutral either uh he is displeased and he's uh he's had enough he doesn't he doesn't like what's going on and then we got this big shot of hope at the end of the last episode he's like don't worry like it's gonna sting a little bit like this band-aid coming off is gonna take a lot of skin with it but uh but it's all for your good and the lord's gonna fulfill his promises and it's going to be great and you kind of think man this could be a short book got the law got the gospel that's the end of the sermon right and uh turns out no we got a lot more sermon to go yeah and we're going to hear quite the sermon coming up beginning with chapter two verse six we're going to go back to the law we got we got the law gospel law punch going on going on here isaiah is like
Starting point is 00:03:44 this he's going to go back to the gospel i mean he just you know he's just going to go back and fourth uh this you're gonna get uh you're gonna get weary of me saying this probably but like this dude's doing law gospel law gospel law gospel law gospel law gospel like for you know all through 50 something chapters of this thing yeah you know it's one of the things that if people aren't you know if they're not as familiar with the prophets as they are with all the stuff we've covered before this it might it's a little jarring because you know you're going along and menu thing this is some sweet stuff and then you turn a corner the prophet punches you in the face it's like whoa where'd that come from well if you don't have a law gospel hermeneutic if you don't
Starting point is 00:04:27 understand that god speaks two words and it's kind of mostly all he speaks you know it's like it's either it's one of these two things right uh you might read a book like isaiah and be like okay which is it man like are we about to get like wrecked and judged or are you about to deliver us and fulfill all your promises like what's what which is it yeah and there's not a lot of like nice easy segues between these two i mean it's yeah it's it's some pretty jarring transitions i mean sometimes there are transitions segues but a lot of times yeah you just go right from from 100 fiery stern law to 100 sweet gospel and it's not always easy to to tell when one is going to start and one when one is going to end and keep in mind too that so it's not like when you're when
Starting point is 00:05:19 you're reading through isaiah we'll just take isaiah for instance it's not as if you're reading something where you kind of have a list of his sermons collected chronologically it's not set up that way at all what you have here is is more of a kind of a thematic ordering so you're going to start out i think i mentioned this in our first episode on isaiah but i'll say it again here you start out with these five chapters which are a collection of his sermons or oracles or whatever you want to call them they're going to highlight various themes we're going to go law gospel law gospel it's kind of a digest of the whole rest of the book then you have his call in chapter six and then you're going to go from there to all different kinds of sections you got oracles
Starting point is 00:06:01 against the nations you have the book of emmanuel you've got uh what's sometimes called the little apocalypse and then you get the book of comfort so there's different groupings but it's not as if it's ordered chronologically or you know first half's law second half is is gospel and most of the prophetic books are like that where they're structured not in a way that we are just immediately familiar with you kind of have to live in those books for a while before you get a feel for the way that they're they're set up but anyway all i'd say he's about to jump right back into some some strong law and this is the kind of law where you uh one of the things we're going to hear in this section is this constant drumbeat of god uh lowering those who have exalted themselves
Starting point is 00:06:49 so we've seen this plenty of other places we've certainly seen it happen in narratives the wild scriptures but we saw this for instance in uh hannah's song in first samuel beginning of first samuel where she talks about god putting down the high and then lifting the low here the main emphasis is going to be upon god putting down those who have exalted themselves so we're going to see many references to the lord bringing people low and humbling people and bring them all the way down to where they're like hiding out in caves and holes in the ground. So the main theme, I would say, of the section we're just about to come to is that because the Israelites have forsaken the Lord
Starting point is 00:07:33 and embraced idolatry from the east and from the west, therefore God is going to bring them down from this lofty, prideful, arrogant position in which they've placed themselves. I mean, there's few things as pervasive throughout Scripture in its totality as the idea that, you know, God is going to bring low the exalted and exalt the lowly. I mean, this goes straight through the ministry of Jesus, right? This is the kind of stuff that Jesus talks about and does.
Starting point is 00:08:07 Yeah. Yeah, you could probably make a pretty good argument that that's probably one of the top main three themes of the Scriptures of God, you know, uh debasing the arrogant the haughty the proud and then raising up those who are brought low i mean it's basically the it's the the theme of him uh crucifying our flesh and then raising us into the image of christ if you want to put it in explicitly christian terms but we see it expressed in the psalms we see it in the life of david we see it here in in isaiah as well so let's get uh get rolling here with the uh i'm going to read the first first three of these verses six through
Starting point is 00:08:51 eight isaiah 2 6 through 8 he says for you have rejected your people the house of jacob we might ask why because they are full of things from the east and a fortune tellers like the philistines And they strike hands with the children of foreigners Their land Now listen to this kind of repetition coming up Their land is filled with silver and gold And there is no end to their treasures Their land is filled with horses
Starting point is 00:09:21 And there is no end to their chariots Their land is filled with idols They bow down to the work of their hands To what their own fingers have made So right away we hear what the problem is you've got influences so we start out with god rejecting his people well why is that well because they basically rejected him however they rejected him we have the list of examples here they're full of things from uh from the east uh which is you know got a lot of things to the east of israel
Starting point is 00:09:52 you've got uh in isaiah's day you got the babylonians you got the assyrians you've got or in his day the assyrians you'll have the babylonians later you have the persians still later so everything around the tigris and euphrates that you know that that birthplace and and graveyard of empires that's all to the east of east of israel so they're full of things from the east these eastern influences and then also he mentions that from the west the philistines because they're of course along the coast of the mediterranean so you got fortune tellers you got diviners like the philistines so kind of coming the influences are coming from both both directions east and west and then to finish off this triad he says that they well esv has strike hands uh
Starting point is 00:10:38 debated if you if you look in the scholarship debated as to exactly what this means so striking hands is certainly one way to to translate this uh another is that it can mean like uh full of or sufficient or that which suffices uh with the children of foreigners so the idea it's basically the same foreigners are influencing them whether they're shaking hands with them in the sense of agreeing with them or whether they're taking in and being suffused with ideas from foreigners however you want to take this uh the impact is still the same israel as we saw when we were reading through uh especially first and second kings when israel was canonized becoming more and more like the the peoples who were cast out before them so now israel continues
Starting point is 00:11:30 to be influenced by foreigners except in this case rather than the canaanites it's the philistines and then the people from the east which are influencing them and the influence as it's described here is uh well there's three different things that are they're focused upon so we got land that's full of silver and gold so there you have wealth right there's no end of their treasuries and then horses are mentioned the land's filled with horses and this isn't just you know people who are equine lovers this this is not about people just love to have horses around for riding a lot of ranchers yeah there's so many ranchers in israel no of course horses horses basically would be the uh equivalent of security you use horses because i mean they're used for
Starting point is 00:12:13 for warfare horses and chariots it's like saying and the land was filled with like you know tanks and artillery yeah it's uh it's a whole different thing you don't want to mess with a country with lots of horses what's weird about this too what is informative about this is at first you might hey man if you get the wrong theology going on maybe like wait what's the land like well i mean i'll tell you what it's i mean it's filled with silver and gold and there's no end of their treasure and the land is filled with horses there's no end of their chariots you're like man god must really be blessing them and let me tell you how rich they are and powerful Yeah. One of these things does not mean the other. This is not how this works.
Starting point is 00:12:54 So, and that's why, like, the thing about idolatry, because that's what he's getting into, is like, hey, it's full of idols. This is what it's full of as well. Doesn't always result in this sort of obvious decline of life in the sense that you might look around and be a rank idolater. and if you worship money, you might get a lot of it. And if you worship power, you might get a lot of it. And so it doesn't automatically mean that all these bad things sort of horizontally are going on. But what it does mean is that God is feeling abandoned and he is displeased with it.
Starting point is 00:13:39 I was reading Jeremiah recently. toward the end when the people basically uh forced jeremiah to go with him into exile into egypt and the people start when they get down there the israelites start worshiping the queen of heaven and jeremiah's you know tell them hey what the heck are you doing and like well things were a lot better for us when we worship the queen of heaven you know so it's this idea yeah does idolatry pay off well in the short term yeah a lot of times it does you know you get a lot of the stuff that you want from these idols. And that's, yeah, that's how this triad finishes off. So the land's full of silver and gold, it's full of horses, and it's filled with idols. They bow
Starting point is 00:14:24 down to the work of their hands, what their own fingers have made. Now there's a, this is kind of a cool Hebrew word here, the one that translated idols. So there's a lot of different Hebrew words for false gods. And you probably heard us talk before about some of these are pretty funny, like ezekiel who's a who's a prophetic potty mouth uh his his favorite word for idols is gilalim which means basically turd gods or crap gods probably something a little bit more uh stronger language than that uh which i'm sure you can figure out but uh so here's here the word for idols is Elohim. Now, most people know that Elohim is a word for God. So there's a wordplay. So these are not Elohim. These are Elohim. And it's kind of the idea, I was trying to think of
Starting point is 00:15:19 something that we could say in English that would kind of capture this. This is far from perfect, But it would be like, your gods are frauds. You know, you've got this same kind of rhyme going on. But the fraud part is pointing to the fact that, well, they're just, you know, they're nothing, more or less. But you can't communicate that in English. So, actually, Psalm 96.5 has this perfectly. It says, the gods of the people are nothing. But in Hebrew, it is, the Elohim of the peoples are Elalim.
Starting point is 00:15:54 So, they're gods or frauds. That's the idea. So the Israelites, well, the good Israelites, the ones who actually believed in worship Yahweh, they loved to poke fun at false gods. And they come up with these creative pejorative names for them. So here they're the Elalim, the nothing gods, we might call them. So that's what's going on in Israel. Things are not got all kinds of foreign influence, theological influence. You got people worshiping idols and folks are getting rich off of this, powerful off of this.
Starting point is 00:16:26 So, you know, what happens when people get rich and powerful? Usually, you get a big head, right? You get haughty, you get arrogant, you get prideful because of what you think you've done or whatever it might be. So, that's when we're going to transition to what God is going to do here in verse 9. So, man is humbled and each one is brought low. Do not forgive them. enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the lord and from the splendor of his majesty the haughty looks of man shall be brought low and the lofty pride of men
Starting point is 00:17:07 shall be humbled and the lord alone will be exalted in that day do you believe that this that this line here do not forgive them is so this is sort of god speaking to isaiah through isaiah right uh so he's telling isaiah this that like so man is humbled and each one is brought low now isaiah is the is you know is the the capital p prophet of this time like he this is the guy this is the the mouthpiece of god this is the guy who speaks the word of the lord and uh so if you know if anything about like sort of uh a doctrine of the keys or uh this idea of absolution uh is that like that a part that god could forgive you through the mouth of a person right so that you would forgive one another and and that there's some people that have been charged
Starting point is 00:18:01 to do this sort of publicly and this would be pastors and they're charged to tell you that your sins are forgiven but there's a reverse side of that too you could withhold forgiveness as well to the unrepentant, right? Does this seem like here is God saying, okay, so this is what's going on, and for this reason, they're going to be humbled and they're going to be brought low.
Starting point is 00:18:23 And I'm telling you right now, do not speak a word of absolution to them. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think that's what's going on here. What you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
Starting point is 00:18:36 So it's this idea. You see it expressed in different places. i can't remember if this is ezekiel or if it's jeremiah where god tells him i think it's jeremiah don't pray for this people you know which is kind of a strikes you at first it's kind of strange well i mean really you shouldn't even pray for him and god's like nope i don't i don't i'm not going to hear your prayer so don't don't pray for them uh don't forgive them and keep in mind that this the the goal of this it's not as if god wants these people to go to hell that's something or doesn't want them to be forgiven but the goal is to bring them to the point of being humbled
Starting point is 00:19:15 and brought low and the lord alone being exalted in order that they might be brought finally to repentance and confession and therefore be be ready for forgiveness so yeah there's a almost like it's going to get bad and you're going to feel a little bit bad because it's always bad but the time has not yet come for you to speak this word of forgiveness. You might want to. You might be like, oh, man, this is rough to watch, but you're going to have to keep watching. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:51 Maybe something like that was going on. If we want to go way back to Genesis, you think about how Joseph treated his brothers. at least uh one explanation of that is the reason he kind of toyed with them at least that's how it kind of comes across is he was finally going to he wanted to bring them to the point of of repentance confession so that's at least you know whether that's actually what's going on or not that's a narrative that's often used for that and when they were finally ready then uh he revealed himself to them so maybe something like that's going on going on here a fun thing in the
Starting point is 00:20:26 hebrew so the word here translated as forgive is nasa which means to uh lift up the sense of like you're removing something taking it away and uh so it's it's kind of a it's a nice word play here because man is humbled and brought low and isaiah is saying don't lift him up don't don't forgive him so it's kind of a double entendre there and then we have we have these we have a couple lines 10 and 11 are going to be repeated except they're reversed in a little bit a little bit later down in verses 17 and uh and 19 this whole section fits together so kind of keep listening to this language because you're going to hear it again in in just a minute but he's saying uh you know go to the rock hide the dust because god's going to show up and it's going to be terrible it's
Starting point is 00:21:24 going to be the splendor of his majesty and his purpose is to bring down the the haughty and the lofty pride in order that god alone is going to be exalted in in that day it reminds me of a one of my favorite quotes from luther i just came across it this morning in his isaiah commentary But I'm familiar with it from his work on the Magnificat, where he basically says, since the Lord is most high, he can only look down. And the farther we are beneath him, the better he sees us. I always love that because it's not what you'd expect. Of course, the closer someone is, the better we can see them. But it's not the way it works with God.
Starting point is 00:22:09 So the farther we are beneath him. And the idea, of course, is that he has brought us low. He's humbled us. So the farther we are beneath him, the better he sees us. Hey, I know something about this. After I hit 40, I've got to do a little bit of like, it's a little too close for me to see it. Maybe that's how God is with us sinners. He's like, oh, you're a little too close to my face right there.
Starting point is 00:22:32 Let me back you up a little bit. I see you better. Right. Yeah. I think a lot of folks in their 40s can appreciate that analogy. I, on the other hand, have been dealing with that since I was about 20 years old. That's a new thing for me. Okay, so he struck the main theme, of course, already, but he's not done yet.
Starting point is 00:22:56 Like any good preacher, he's going to elaborate on this. And he's going to do this by repeating this phrase over and over, against all, against all, against all. In fact, in the next one, two, three, four, about five verses, you're going to hear it eight times. So I'll just read, I'm going to read 13 through 19. For the Lord of hosts has a day against all, here's the first of them, against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and it shall be brought low, against all
Starting point is 00:23:32 the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains and against all the uplifted hills against every high tower and against every fortified wall against all the ships of tarshish against all the beautiful craft and the haughtiness of man shall be humbled and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low and the lord alone will be exalted in that day and the idols shall surely shall utterly pass away and people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. So you heard those same kind of lines that we saw earlier in the same section. So Isaiah, I mean, this eightfold
Starting point is 00:24:20 against all that he has here, he just basically hammering home the fact that everything you can think of that either is proud or lofty or that represents that which is proud and haughty and lofty is going to be it's going to be brought low so he starts out by making it explicit right against all that's proud and lofty against all that's lifted up and then he begins to use various images that are associated with that which is high or mighty or powerful he mentions our uh here's our cedars of lebanon dan we heard a lot about those in song of songs they're way too proud yeah i'm gonna give you people way too proud of them one of these days i'm gonna bring home a cedar from lebanon and plant at my backyard just so i can they're all over the bible right
Starting point is 00:25:04 gotta gotta have one of these now what might not be as familiar to us is against all the the oaks of bashan so sean's not as as pervasive an image in lebanon as lebanon is but we do see quite a few places. We first meet, maybe not the first time, but the most familiar first meeting is Og of Bashan, who's one of the powerful leaders that's conquered by Moses and the Israelites before they entered into the promised land. So Bashan is, if you kind of picture a map of Israel and you can picture the Sea of Galilee, so to the east of the Sea of Galilee and a little ways north, that's the area of Bashan, so modern-day Syria. It's associated in the Bible with just like abundant fertility. It's like, I don't even, I was trying to think of a modern-day analogy. I don't know
Starting point is 00:26:00 what it would be, but you know, whatever place you associate with being like, you know, rich in grass and all the cattle are fat and happy, that's Bashan. In other parts of the Bible, you'll hear about the the rams of Bashan the bulls of Bashan the fat beast of Bashan the cows of Bashan and then of course the the oaks of Bashan here so it's the idea you know this place is is rich and fertile and so it becomes also kind of a symbol of that which is proud that which is arrogant and then he goes on from the the the tree images tree metaphors to mountains and hills and towers and walls we have mentioned of the the ships of tarshish tarshish is either a place it's like a coastal town in the mediterranean which they don't know for sure which one it is
Starting point is 00:26:52 or it could be a kind of ship because it's always associated with with uh maritime endeavors so either way uh the the metaphor here is that which is powerful that which is rich again emblematic of haughtiness so all of that is going to be brought low and the lord alone is going to be exalted and the result will be that uh people go into caves and holes in the ground because it's like they're they're so frightened because of their their sin that it drives them downward all the way into caves and holes in the ground yeah this is uh how the bible always speaks about the judgment of god like it's it's so thorough um like he doesn't god doesn't uh sort of dish out some partial judgment you know gives you a little bit of like a halfway discipline or
Starting point is 00:27:46 something like that that's why you got to be very careful about uh asking for the lord to you know judge this thing or that thing because when when god decides decides to judge he just judges it all uh yeah you're probably part of that and and you have this this this sort of is like all-encompassing language, right? It's not against most or a good portion of or the worst of. It's just against all of these things. And you're like, hey, man, what did the cedars of Lebanon do? What's so bad about them?
Starting point is 00:28:20 The idea here is just like whatever it is that you think is great is all going to be, all of it, when the judgment comes, that day of the Lord, it's all going to be reduced to nothing, right? So imagine, of course, you think yourself are great, but also imagine whatever else you think is great. What are the great things around you? What is the thing that you most esteem? It's nothing compared to God on that day.
Starting point is 00:28:49 And, of course, this is what is going to happen. I mean, the earth does have to be recreated. Unfortunately for the cedars of Lebanon, they've got to go. because this all has to be recreated. Yeah. Yep. Seeders of Lebanon, Oaks of Bashan, they've all got to go
Starting point is 00:29:07 because, of course, something better is on the way. But it's all got to be brought low in order that it might be recreated. So that sounds like it might be the end. Actually, it's not. We've got a little bit farther to go. We've got three more verses to kind of wrap up this sermon. so 20 21 and 22 he goes on to complete the sermon by saying in that day mankind will cast away their
Starting point is 00:29:34 idols of silver and their idols of gold which they made for themselves to worship or where are they going to cast them i love this line to the moles and to the bats it's like here it's just it always took me such a comical image like here mole take my god here go here mole hold this hold this golden idol for me. Bat, will you carry off this silver idol for me? He's going to throw him to the moles and to the bats to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the hills. And why are they doing this? Well, here's the lines we've heard more than once from before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. And then having said all that, he's got this great line at the end. Stop regarding man and whose nostrils is breath.
Starting point is 00:30:24 for what account is he what what a what a killer last line you know you you might expect it to say something like stop regarding you know vain idols uh who have noses but cannot smell and eyes but cannot see something like that but he doesn't he says stop regarding man and whose nostrils is breath for what account is he because i mean you think about it uh ultimately what are idols well of course are man-made right these are nothing more than man-made objects which have been uh esteemed to in some way capture or represent or be the container for deity so ultimately every idol is nothing more than the self-exaltation of the man who made it yeah well you know like when somebody thinks a lot of themselves and maybe they're acting in a way that is offensive
Starting point is 00:31:23 to you and you might say and you probably have said to somebody who do you think you are? Right? You might say that to somebody. Like, hey, who do you think you are? That's not what God does.
Starting point is 00:31:39 When God's dealing with us, he doesn't say who do you think you are. He says, what do you think you are? Right? Which is a different question. It is. It's not just what do you think you are, oh man you're someone that has breath in their nostrils that's what that's what you are like
Starting point is 00:31:57 don't forget what you are uh and that is a terrifying thing when like uh and this is it he has risen to terrify the earth which is not a way that like it's really great to think about god you don't like that very much uh when he when he rises to do that what is terrifying about that though is that he does do that and reminds you exactly what you are a creature yeah yeah yeah I mean, it's humbling. It's, it's frightening. It's a reminder of our, you know, of our mortality, everything that we are in ourselves. I'm, I'm, I'm glad that's not the, that's the end of this chapter.
Starting point is 00:32:34 I'm glad it's not the end of the story though. I mean, talk about despair. Yeah. You're just like, well, on the last day, God's going to show up and he's going to say, I don't know what you guys think you are, but, uh, that's going to be the end. Yeah. Grab your, uh, idol and throw it to the, throw it to the mole because it's over for you. I mean, the whole point of this chapter, of course, is to—or this sermon, anyway—is to drive home the fact that when you go the way of idolatry and you become puffed up and so proud of yourself, well, just wait, because the day is coming.
Starting point is 00:33:10 God will not stomach that kind of behavior, and so he's going to come to judge and to destroy. But, of course, the goal is always, when he does that, to bring you to the point of confession. I mean, to make you into the prodigal son who is so hungry that he wants to eat the pig food and then finally comes to his senses and goes home, right? That's always the goal, to bring us back to himself. And that's what he was doing with Israel. That's what he continues to do in our lives as well. Man, yeah, he's done it in my life for sure.
Starting point is 00:33:44 Oh, yeah. Over and over. This is part of the insanity of, like, idolatry is if you're in right worship, you recognize that what you are is a creature created by God, right? This is what you are. So, like, I was created by God. So, like, I obviously am inferior to him. when you become an idolater what you do is you think that you are the sort of creature that could create god it's it's such a it's such a monumental leap uh from being one who was created
Starting point is 00:34:23 by god to someone who could create god and this is the great offense right where god's like you can't you can't like who are you what do you do do you know what you are you can't create god you can throw these gods to moles and bats you have no power to create a god yeah that's the great upside down insanity of idolatry God makes man
Starting point is 00:34:49 the man turns around and says oh I'm going to make me some gods you don't possess this ability yeah that is not in your wheelhouse God making is not one of the powers that was given to us
Starting point is 00:35:05 okay so uh well we got we got a few minutes left we can jump into uh chapter three here i wish i could tell you that having ended chapter two with a strong statement of law he's going to give us more gospel but he doesn't he's not ready for that yet so we gotta wait for chapter four to get there so he's uh he's going to go on another law preaching uh campaign here let me read the first five verses of this for behold the lord god of hosts is taking away from jerusalem and from judah support and supply all support of bread and all support of water the mighty man and the soldier the judge and the prophet the diviner and the elder the captain of 50 and the man of rank the counselor and the skillful magician and the expert in charms so he's going to take all those
Starting point is 00:35:57 away and what's he going to do verse four goes on and i will make boys their princes and infants shall rule over them there's some dispute as to what that that word means could be infants could be something like uh caprice but either way uh somebody or something that shouldn't be ruling is ruling and the people will oppress one another everyone his fellow and everyone his neighbor the youth will be insolent to the elder and the despised to the the honorable so uh yeah i mean whether this is a a completely new oracle or a continuation of what he talked about before it certainly perpetuates the same theme that because jerusalem and judah have abandoned the lord and have gone the way of idolatry god is going to start taking things away from them he's going to
Starting point is 00:36:49 First of all, takeaway is translated here as support and supply. This is basically the same noun in Hebrew, but it's the masculine form and then the feminine form. And that's a Hebrew way of expressing basically completeness. So if we put it more prosaically, we would say he's going to take away all of your support. But support and supply, at least, is one way of expressing that. what kind of support and what kind of supply we bread and water more or less you know we think of bread and water as the berry essentials right yeah i'm just living here on bread and water god says well i'm even going to take that away you can take away your bread you can take away
Starting point is 00:37:30 your water uh not only that but all these people like your mighty men and your soldiers your judges and your prophets uh any list them list them all out there people who have positions of prominence positions of power uh positions of you know so kind of a social prestige uh all the way going down to like skillful magicians and experts and charms so we're dealing here not only just kind of with what we would consider to be legitimate offices but also illegitimate um callings or practices or whatever whatever you might call them all these things that would have been important for the israelites for good reasons or for bad reasons god's going to take them all away and in their place what are you going to have well you're going to have boys and babies more or less
Starting point is 00:38:18 if we take that hebrew word to mean that again boys and babies exalted to be princes and rulers and of course the idea here is everybody who is qualified for that position and should have that position is now gone and so you're like hey there's a five-year-old let's uh let's make him let's make him king hey look there's a there's a six-month-old infant what makes him ruler over us i mean it's it's a ludicrous idea of course but that's the point here there's all the people who should be ruling are gone and so we're just grabbing whoever and putting them in charge and when this is all going on you also have that oppression people oppressing one another everyone his neighbor everyone his his fellow youth are insolent to elder despised to the
Starting point is 00:39:06 honorable so it's the i mean it's it's kind of it's the topsy-turvy um social life economic life political life of of judah in jerusalem when god steps in to teach him a lesson more or less by messing everything up so that what is up is down and what is down is up yeah i do like that that he says that okay like i'm going to take all this stuff away i'm going to take everything away And, man, it's going to get bad. It's going to be real bad. You're going to have kings and princes that shouldn't have no business being in those spots. I mean, it's going to get so bad that young people aren't even going to respect their elders.
Starting point is 00:39:45 Man. That only happens in the worst of times, as we all know. It lets you know that God really doesn't like this. This is really like a bad sign. I don't know what that says for us today. but uh but it is weird that he ends with that one where he's just like oh yeah it's gonna be bad and let me tell you we got all these young people being insolent i don't know if we ever got over that one i don't think we ever did no we laugh about it just because yeah it's so like it's so
Starting point is 00:40:16 commonplace you don't even think about it well of course the youth are insolent right and god's like no you see that's how bad it's gonna be uh so you realize how bad bad that it is so i mean Yeah, we're kind of in the middle. We're at the stop because we're out of time. He's got more to say about choosing leaders who shouldn't be leaders and whatever else he's going to do to bring these people to their senses. I hate to end on the law, but that's kind of where Isaiah is going to end today. But be of good cheer.
Starting point is 00:40:49 Good news is coming. God is not only a God of the law, but also a good and gracious Father of mercy. we will we will get to that very soon hey i just know this this is a little sneak preview uh things are going to get bad they're going to get so bad that you might run up to some guy and be like you have a jacket you're in charge yeah it's a it's a great line i'd say it was an awesome preacher hey is that a jacket i see you might you're in charge now you're king now hey everyone this guy's got a jacket he's the king you get to rule over a heap the heap of ruins yeah that's pretty good good stuff all right man yeah we'll leave it there we'll pick up some of that i mean
Starting point is 00:41:30 that's a great tease you know you're getting more more really good stuff uh i mean bad news but said in the best of ways from isaiah uh coming up so don't don't miss that i'll see you later on chad all right see you then

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.