40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 2:6-3:5 (Episode 444)
Episode Date: December 13, 2024Judgment 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
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Chad we are
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
