40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 4:5-5:30 (Episode 446)

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

God is in the business of recreation, but everything must be torn down first. The Lord sings a sad love song about His people. And the nations will be an instrument of judgment. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 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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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 This is a 1517 podcast, network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there.

And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing, all the articles, all the academies, all the events. Check it all out. There's so much. If you've never been over there and you just listened to this podcast, today's the day. I mean just type in 1517, 1517 into your search engine of choice. Click on there and just start looking around. and you're going to find days and days and weeks and months worth of content for you to consume. And while you're over there, you'll also see that little Donate button in the right-hand corner,

and you can click on that to support the work for all that stuff. And, of course, this podcast. It's only possible because people like you do that. So if you would like to support what we're doing, we would very much appreciate it. And if you do support it, then thank you very much. We are in Isaiah chapter 4. It's a short chapter. We didn't make it through.

It's a chapter of six verses And somehow we were only able to get through four of them So I guess if we were trying to make it sound better We got two-thirds of the way through this chapter So not too bad We ended with Isaiah saying that Hey, the day of the Lord is coming And it sounds nice, actually

A lot of times, Chad, you hear about the day of the Lord and it's all death and destruction, but he says that there's going to be actually some good things that happen on the day of the Lord, that there's going to be some people that are recorded for life. There you go. There's going to be a record for them that they're going to get life and that the Lord's going to wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion

and he's going to cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem and all that. And the Mount of Zion, you're going to have that cloud by day and smoke and shining flame fire by night. And there's going to be this big glory canopy is what we're getting into in verse 5. So that's sort of the context that he's talking about. And this is like typical of Isaiah where it's horrible and then you get like these little shots of like, oh, that sounds pretty – I don't sound that bad though. That sounds pretty good. how do i get in on that end yeah yeah yeah this is a these uh six verses five verses in uh in this chapter i mean it's a like this brilliant shining light and then you step into chapter five and the

door closes and you're in complete darkness again in fact all the chapter five is gonna be dark and then you get you gotta get ready for chapter six where you have this great you know call vision of christ who's enthroned within his temple and all the things that you see there so i mean we it's a topsy-turvy uh walk through isaiah up and down up and down he says hey here's what's coming and it's bad i mean it's all it's bad bad bad but uh here there's this thing and you're like oh thank god and he's like but not yet uh and then right back to yeah yeah it is back and forth man these last couple of verses five and six uh he is uh he is weaving together a whole bunch of stuff here i got we got marriage language you got exodus language you got zion language

isaiah is i mean i guess all the prophets do this but isaiah seems to be this this uh model of taking previous biblical stories and verses and metaphors and just weaving them together in this magnificent gospel tapestry. I mean, just for instance, so listen to this language. He begins with, then the Lord will create. All right. Well, that word in Hebrew is bara. It's the verb we find in Genesis 1.

God created the heavens and the earth. and it's one of these few verbs in the old testament where when you have that verb used the only one who ever uses it is god so there's a hebrew verb for forgive salak and god is the only subject of that so here we have this verb bara to create which automatically sends us back to genesis one all right so god's going to be some doing some creating here all right well where's you need to do this creating well then we shift to zion so you got all of the zion jerusalem temple stuff kind of in the background right and then you read a little bit further and you hear about this cloud by day and a shine shining of a flaming fire by by night well that takes you from genesis to

exodus with all of the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud that's guiding the israelites through through the wilderness and then you get to the end of that verse and it says all the glory over all the glory, there's going to be a, in Hebrew, a chuppah, a canopy. And this is the same word that, in fact, they still use this in Jewish wedding ceremonies, this canopy that's over the bride and groom. So you've got kind of this wedding imagery, which takes you to, of course, a lot of different places in the Old Testament, but I'm thinking like the Song of Songs in particular. And then you have language of a booth for shade. Well, that's a booth in Hebrew is a Sukkah, that's the noun behind the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, which remembers the time

that the Israelites were in the wilderness. So, I mean, all of this is woven into two verses. You've got creation, you've got exodus, you've got marriage themes, you've got tabernacles themes, and he compresses all of this together in just a couple of verses. And it's Isaiah's, and more expansively, the Old Testament's way of preaching the gospel. So to put it in New Testament language, we might say something like, so in the great and glorious day when God sends the Messiah, here's what he's going to do. There's going to be some new creation stuff that happens. And this new creation stuff is going to be connected with what happens in Jerusalem,

because there our Lord is going to be crucified and resurrected. And there's going to be a new exodus too, just like you had a cloud, pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. So there's going to be this new exodus where the Lord himself is present to guide us from the exile of sin and death and the devil into this place of freedom and life. And what's going to happen is there's going to be this wedding in which Christ makes his bride his own. It's going to be this canopy over the two of them as they celebrate these nuptials. And the result will be that the Lord himself will dwell among us. He's going to be our tabernacle.

He's going to be our temple, our refuge, our shelter from every storm in life. That's basically taking what he puts into just two succinct verses and then expanding it out with New Testament language. But it's a—and it's a beautiful section just packed with gospel. Yeah, it's hard to add anything to that, Chad. I mean, that's sort of all the stuff, right? You have this shot of promise that I'm going to – and this is what it is, is that it's – look, judgment is coming and it's going to be like a pretty bad judgment. In fact, so bad that I'm going to have to recreate everything. But I'm not creating all new stuff, but I am making all things new, right?

And so it's not completely divorced from what I have made and instituted and said was good. It's the same kind of stuff, just without all the sin and the decay and all of that. And so that's what you have here is this promise that I'm going to redo all this stuff. But it's not altogether different than what I've done before. It's just I'm going to deal with this sin thing. yeah yeah he's taking he's taking what exists and he's he's cleansing it he's redeeming it he's restoring it we might say and making it better than it than it ever was before i mean just to use an analogy from his own life so when christ came as the last adam to redeem all things

he didn't like create some sort of new superhuman nature to assume yeah he didn't come down like some i don't know some alien now he come down as a as a flesh and blood human being in his incarnation so he's assuming what already is in order to redeem it to to glorify it and to make it a new creation and that's kind of what he does with everything uh he makes a new and better exodus a new and better creation a new and better tabernacle a new and better zion uh he builds on What is already there? And in the end, he makes it even better than it was before. Yeah, you definitely see that in the resurrection.

It's not as though Christ was resurrected and all of a sudden he's disembodied or something like that. It's not how it works at all. He's raised again. He's got scars and he eats breakfast and all this stuff because what he has said is good is in fact good. It wasn't that he said it was good and it wasn't. It is good, and the earth and all its creation is good. Sin is the issue. It has nothing to do with the quality of what he initially made.

Yeah. The resurrection is going to be awesome. I mean, you can eat food and you can walk through doors. Yeah. You've got all the benefits. You can enjoy life in a created body at the same time. You can do things that we can't do now. Yeah.

Whatever that might be, but certainly Jesus can walk through doors if he needs to. Whatever sin has limited is what you get to do, whatever. And I don't know that we know exactly what sin has limited, but I think it's a lot. Yeah, yeah. I have not seen nor ear heard what the Lord has in store for us, for sure. All right, so, man, I really hate to leave Chapter 4 because I know it's coming. But sometimes you've got to leave the light to walk in the darkness. Well, you're not going to get that new creation unless you get that vineyard destroyed.

All right. Well, let's hear about this love song, right? I'm going to read. I'll read down to verse 7 because that really takes in this whole section about the vineyard. There's a lot of beautiful stuff. A lot of beautiful and ugly stuff here, but a lot of ugly stuff for sure. So it's bad stuff written in the best way? That's it, yeah.

This is like some ugly stuff written in some beautiful language. That's the best way to put it. Okay, so let me sing from My Beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard. That's the way he starts out. So it makes you think, oh, this is going to be awesome. It's a love song. Everybody knows love songs are beautiful, right?

It's just kind of teasing us, I think, the way he starts out. my beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it, cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it and he hewed out a wine vat in it. So man, he went to, he went to town on this. He did everything. And then what happened? He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded. Now I'm going to alter the ESV here. Stink fruit. That's I think I love that translation. Wild grapes is what ESV has. Yielded stink fruit or wild grapes.

A trash crop, we might say. And he goes on. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes, stink fruit? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste, it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briars and thorns shall grow up. I will also command the clouds, that they rain, no rain upon it. And then we get in verse 7 to the, if you haven't really caught on with the interpretation, well here you go. He's going to make it explicit. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting. And I almost have to read this in Hebrew. So I'll just read it in Hebrew. I'll read it in English and Hebrew.

You ready? You've got to hear this. This is, I think, the best Hebrew wordplay in the entire Old Testament right here. So he looked for mishpat, and behold, mishpak. He looked for t'sadakah, and behold, t'saakah. So he looked for justice, mishpat, and behold, bloodshed, mishpak. He looked for righteousness, t'sadakah, and behold, an outcry, t'saakah. So Isaiah is going all out here to bring home in this kind of crescendo at the end

exactly the reverse fruit of what God expected to receive from his vineyard. Yeah, this love song a little bit different than the love song we just got done going through. It starts similar. You have some beloved language, and, you know, vineyards and all that kind of stuff is not foreign to the Song of Solomon, but it is interesting how you do have the Song of Solomon, and then you're just five chapters into the next book, and you have, like, whoa, I think this relationship went south. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

In fact, when you think the way the biblical books are structured canonically, that actually works really well to go from the Song of Songs to this. Because, yeah, I mean, not only the vineyard, if you remember the bride in the Song of Songs uses vineyard as a metaphor for her own body. So you not only have that language, but you also have this language of dode, which is translated as lover or beloved. So both of those terms are deeply rooted in the Song of Songs. And again, it's called a love song, which kind of leads you to believe this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful song. It kind of creates this atmosphere of divine romance with Israel.

at the same time though it's uh he's kind of teasing us because it by calling it a love song and heightening our expectations of what it's going to be then he conceals the coming disasters you can kind of see his hearers listening they're like oh yeah great isaiah is going to sing us this this love song we're going to hear all about you know god and us in the vineyard and then it comes crashing down halfway halfway through this of course is uh uh the the source from which jesus uh draws his images of the vineyard you've got uh let's see get the parable of the the wicked tenants you got you got that of course the tenants are in in the vineyard you've got the uh the parable of the uh like the two sons the older and the the other the two sons were both told to go

and work in the vineyard one says yes and doesn't do it one says no but later goes and does it and you got the it's not really a vineyard parable but in uh in luke you have the parable of the uh the fig tree that's planted in the vineyard and of course looks for three years for fruit and doesn't doesn't bear any and i guess you could throw in the parable like the the vine and the branches that jesus uses in john chapter 15 but all of that vineyard language is is rooted in in uh chapters like isaiah 5 and i believe it's psalm 80 uses that same language of israel as a as a vineyard but it's all it's all rooted back here in in the old testament yeah and what you have here is this um the in poetic language i mean god is saying i did all this stuff right so

what is that stuff i mean well i mean he delivered you from egypt he defeated all kinds of enemies for you gave you a land protected you all this stuff did all these things they instituted a bunch of stuff for you and uh this is him sort of tending to the vineyard this is him getting it already and then he goes and what's he looking for he's looking for justice and righteousness and he finds bloodshed and unrighteousness right this is the wild grapes that is yield. So he does all this work, and all he's looking for is justice and righteousness.

That's the harvest he is hoping to gather, and he can't find any of that anywhere in this vineyard. Yeah, and what he expects is the natural outcome of the plants that he's planted. For instance, he doesn't plant

grapevines and expect them to yield apples. You know, he doesn't plant a cherry tree and expect it to yield bananas or something. He's expecting the fruit that comes from the plants which he planted. I mean, this is naturally what would happen, right? You plant a good tree, you expect good fruit. You don't expect bad fruit.

And yet what happens is the exact obverse of that. So instead of getting the fruit of righteousness, you get the fruit of an outcry. Instead of getting the fruit of justice, you get the fruit of bloodshed. So everything that God has done for Israel, and there's nothing that he hasn't done for Israel, he makes that clear. He says, you know, what judge between me and my vineyard, what more could I do? I mean, did I forget something?

Did I leave something out? Is there something I didn't do for you? I mean, I redeemed you. I led you. I gifted you. I gave you all these things. Was there something missing? And, of course, the answer is no.

So then why, when I look for this kind of fruit, do I see the exact opposite? And then that, I mean, that leaves us basically with him saying, well, what choice do I have then? I mean, if this vineyard has been doing this, then I really don't have any other option to deal with a vineyard that produces this kind of rotten fruit, other than to kind of do what we were talking about earlier, to start over. to do some recreation. But the only way you're going to get to the recreation is by, to use the language of the parable, by removing its hedge so it's devoured and breaking down its wall so it's trampled down and making it a waste, no pruning, no hoeing, so that briars and thorns grow up. And on top of all that, I'm going to make sure that no rain falls on it so that it

doesn't receive any moisture. This is poetic language to describe what God does over and over in the history of Israel. I mean, he still continues to work in our lives today. He engages in the work of destruction precisely to bring forth that which he can make into something which is new. He brings us down to death in order to raise us to life. He brings us to some sort of loss in order to bring us to the point of being found again in him it's i mean it's the parable of the the prodigal son over and over reacted in our in our lives in major and in minor ways that's what's happening in israel it's what's happening in isaiah's day it's certainly what's going to happen in jeremiah's day when you had the babylonian exile and it's what happened

all the way down to uh really the destruction of the temple in 70 a.d when the romans once more destroyed that that temple and all of these were god's way of saying hey i'm breaking down my vineyard so that we can we can get to the point to where it's kind of like come let us reason together as in chapter one your sins are like are like crimson are like scarlet so repent and let me make them white as snow uh because i have i'm standing here basically with my arms open wide beckoning you to come to me so that you can receive this new creation yeah let me tell you a let me give you a bad analogy here uh we'll see if we'll see if it works uh so we had in the spring we had uh some tornadoes here and uh at the house there was all these there's these

two massive trees that were uprooted and like literally the roots got torn out of the ground so it wasn't just that the trees got snapped off the whole root system comes out and i don't know know about root systems on very large trees but uh it created a huge mess and like there is the fence is like smashed down in certain places the whole the whole backyard is a disaster and so you call in the the people that know what to do about this and the first thing they said was like well to fix all this we got to tear the rest of this fence down because we got this like this fence has got to come down because we got to get the equipment back there to chop all this stuff up and the stump grinders and do these backhoes to dig up the rest of these root balls all this

stuff and as this process goes on uh this yard starts looking worse that like i mean you thought the tornado was bad uh you know a day into this process you're like guys this is you've made this worse i mean the fence is down now there's just stuff everywhere and like and this is how it goes with most things when you decide to like make something new you had to rip it all apart and uh and it looks much it gets worse before it gets better there was no way for them to walk back there and it immediately start getting better it must get worse first yeah i'm sure people who flip houses discover this all the time right yeah going to a house yeah i mean yeah it needs it needs some work and then you go back in a couple weeks later you're like man what happened this place is like

torn apart right yeah yeah you gotta strip it down to the bone sometimes if you're gonna actually be able to engage in the work of recreation that's that's required yeah and this is this is the way it is with god i mean he it is he lays it to waste first uh before he rebuilds man i wish it were otherwise but i also know for personal experience but i also know this is yeah i mean this is this is the best way uh this is the only way that any true and lasting work of recreation is going to happen is when god moves in with a hammer and a saw and a sledgehammer gets to work and is able to tear down or he might build build back up all right so uh well that's uh that's the parable of the of the vineyard one of the few parables we have in the old testament

And now, to cheer everybody up, I know you're kind of feeling down. So to cheer you up, we have a series of six woes, just to really put a smile on your face. We got woe to those. Woes are always a real mood lifter. Add a little bit of joy to this party. So yeah, we got six woes coming up, and we got four therefores coming up. So, you know, woe to those, woe to those, and as a result of what these people who receive the woe are doing, there's going to be some therefore that God is going to do in reaction to this. So I'm going to do the, I'll do the first couple of woes, and then we'll do the therefores after that.

So this is verse 8 through 12. Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing, Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitants. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah. woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them they have lyre and harp tambourine and flute and wine at their feast but they do not regard the deeds of the lord or see the works of his hands so that's

quite a start uh to uh to our six woes if we got to get the two of them starting out so if we were to broadly characterize the the message of the first two woes well the first one is what are those who basically are driving out the poor they're gobbling up ancestral land in order to make it their make it their own they're adding field to field house to house and they're so basically taking over the area that they're squeezing everybody out so this is the haves the powerful who are depriving everyone around them of that which is theirs not only by tradition by ancestor right but also by biblical mandate because of course in the bible your land is going to be your son's land and your grandsons and your great-grandsons and you know this goes goes all the

way down this, you know, you hear story after story about this in the scriptures. So that is being, uh, undermined by what, what happens here. That's the first one. And the second woe is more directed toward kind of a, um, a moral depravity, which is in this case, illustrated by over consumption of alcohol. This it's, it's almost, it wasn't such a sad woe. Then it'd be almost funny like we'll look to those who rise early in the morning why so that they can run after strong drink yeah set my alarm i set my alarm so i could run to the liquor store but it's it's kind of a it's a it's a crazy it's dark humor but it's kind of a crazy image man i can't wait to get up in the morning so i can go for a run to the liquor store that's kind of the

and then i'm going to stay up way late and i get out all my instruments you're gonna have a band with lyres and harps and tambourines and flutes and we have a feast and we're going to get drunk we're going to get up early to get drunk and then we're going to stay up late to get drunk and all the time we're engaged in this we're not going to pay any attention whatsoever to the deeds of the lord or to the works of his hands so uh i did kind of have to laugh when i was looking at this this morning talk about a verse that makes no sense to us in translation verse 10 for 10 acres a vineyard shall yield but one bath we're all like okay is that good or is that bad i'm assuming it i'm assuming it's bad but i i don't know uh and then this one is even better and a homer of seed shall

yield but an effa so let me put this in uh some uh some language we can we can understand so 10 acres and even the the literal translation is kind of funny it's like uh it's basically like 10 10 yoke of oxen and that means like the amount of land that these oxen can plow so you got you get 10 acres 10 acres is going to yield six gallons that's it you got 10 acres of vineyard you're going to get six gallons is it and then the homer of seed well that'd be like uh homer seed yielding an effort that'd be like you plant a hundred pounds of seed and when you do the harvest you get 10 pounds at the harvest i mean it's supposed to be the op the opposite right You plant a little bit of seed, you get a whole lot of crop, and here you're getting a crop that yields one-tenth of what you planted.

So this is basically God saying, you who have devoured the land, have driven out the have-nots, and used your might and your muscle and your wealth and your influence, whatever else, to take over this property. well i'm gonna i'm gonna make this property basically worthless so that if you have 10 acres of vineyard you're just gonna few few gallons of wine from that and your crops are not going to yield but 10 of what you what you planted so that's that's the first two woes anything else you want to add to those no i i think i think i get it enough get it sounds bad it is bad so we got the two woes and now we got two therefores therefore on the basis of what he has condemned he says therefore my people will go into exile for lack of knowledge their honored men go hungry and their multitudes is parched with thirst got a nice contrast there with you know

you have all these houses but you're going to go into exile you have all this you know getting up early and staying up late to pursue drink but you're going to be parched you're going to be thirsty that's the first therefore the second therefore is this therefore sheol has enlarged its appetite and open its mouth beyond measure. And the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exalts in her. Man is humbled and each one is brought low and the eyes of the haughty, literally the high, the eyes of the high or the haughty are brought low. But the Lord of hosts is lifted up. He's exalted in justice and the Holy God shows himself in righteousness then shall the lambs graze as in their pasture and the nomads shall eat among the

ruins of the well the rich is what the ESV has here I love the literal translation here it's a I don't even know how you'd put it like the fatted because this word is is the word that's used for like a fat sheep but here it's applied metaphorically to to the rich the fat ones the rich the rich folks so we began the second therefore with uh sheol or the grave death itself is depicted depicted as kind of this monster with this massive mouth and uh even bigger appetite so it's gobbling up it's enlarging its appetite opening its mouth and it's gobbling down the nobility of jerusalem the multitudes the revelers and the ones who exult in her it's of course it's This is not only literarily, but theologically, the picture of people being brought low.

Yeah. So you're strutting about your pride, your haughtiness, your arrogance. And so you've lifted yourself up. And so God is going to do what? What God always does. He's going to push you down low to humble you. I think we talked about this either last episode or the episode before that, where it's much better to be humbled than to be humbled. In this case, they're going to be humbled.

This is a pretty vivid picture. We should probably bring this one back, where the idea here is that as unrighteousness and injustice increase, death's appetite increases. It's like almost as though death sees – the grave witnesses injustice and unrighteousness going on, and it gets hungry. stirs up his appetite yeah which is uh you know pretty freaky uh where you take it you take a look around and you say man i think the i think the grave is getting hungry yeah you ever like like walk into a store or or your your house you know your wife's cooking and the smell hits you instantly your stomach starts growling yeah yeah that's kind of the image here you know shoals walking around not really thinking about eating and then it starts smelling injustice

and wickedness and the it says time to eat time to eat yeah so uh yeah it's a it's an unforgettable image so that's uh that's the first part that's the the two woes and the two therefores so we got some more woes coming up let me read the the next four woe to those who draw a nicotine iniquity with cords of falsehood who draw sin as with cart ropes who say let him be quick let him speed his work that we may see it. Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and let it come that we may know it. In other words, if God's going to be doing all this, yeah, well, let's see it. I'm not going to believe it till I see it. That's the first woe. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter. Next woe. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight and then we finish off our woes with something that echoes one of the uh the opening woes what are those and i always thought this is so prophetically sarcastic woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and valiant men and mixing strong drink what are those you know heroic bartenders it's kind of and heroic wine drinkers oh you guys are true heroes and then uh he finishes up by saying who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of his of his right i mean you're talking about bringing the image back i love this opening image what are those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood and draw sin is with with cart ropes it's the idea like you have

sinners walking around who are so attached to their sinful ways they like are dragging it behind them yeah yeah even even this is uh this is like the insanity of sin and if you're a sinner which you are you should uh maybe be able to relate to this where uh your sin although it be a burden you're like oh i'm bringing it with me yeah like it's not convenient it's a lot of work uh but ah man i love it and so uh like this particular yes this iniquity i will i will cart it around like it's like it's a necessity yeah yeah it's a yeah that's that's one of those uh things that you can see in your mind uh as it's as it's happening all right uh let me keep going here we got a couple therefores coming up therefore as the tongue of fire devours the

stubble and as dry grass sinks down in the flame so their root will be as rottenness and their blossoms go up like dust we have one of these clenching statements here why is all this happening because they have rejected the torah of the lord of hosts so they've turned away from his word and they've despised the word of the holy one of israel all goes always goes back to that doesn't It always goes back to not hearing the word of God and keeping it. That's what's happening in Israel. That's first, therefore. Well, and two, this isn't simply—look at the two words that it uses here.

It's rejected and despised, right? It's not that you heard it, but you didn't exactly apply it correctly, or, you know, you didn't take it and follow through on it perfectly. It's not that you missed it, it wasn't that. It's that you heard it, then you said no, so you rejected that. And not only that, maybe someone came along again and said, and then you said, I actually hate that thing. Yeah, these aren't sins of ignorance.

Oh, I had no idea that this was displeasing to God. No, it's like, oh, that's displeasing to God? That's exactly what I'm going to do. Yeah, just despising of the Word of God. I saw this interesting thing where this guy asked, this is a young guy that he asked this to, too, and he asked, it was like, I don't know where it was, I don't know if it was on a college campus or what,

but this guy asked him, he's like, of all the thousands of gods, Like, how would I know which the true God is? And his answer was so quick. He said, it's the one you hate. That's good. That's perfect. And he knew immediately, like, when I say it's the one you hate, what's the one that comes to mind? That's the one.

Because you don't hate Zeus or Thor or whatever the heck it is that you're trying to say. It's the one that you are outright rejecting right now with this question. You know which one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. People like to play around like they don't really know. Oh, you know. Yeah.

You definitely know which one you're rejecting. Which one are you most angry at? Which one does it bother you that other people believe in? That's the one. That's the one. That's it. So here's the second therefore. Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against him and struck them, and the mountains quaked, and their corpses were as a refuge in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. We're going to hear that particular language in chapter 9 over and over, about his anger has not turned away, and his hand is still stretched out. And he goes on to, in these last about five verses, basically to talk about God calling a foreign nation to come and to wreak this kind of destruction upon Israel

in order that God might start anew with Israel. So here's how that goes. He will raise a signal for nations far away and whistle for them from the end of the earth. And behold, quickly, speedily they come. None is weary, none stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps, not a waistband is loose and not a sandal strap broken. their arrows are sharp all their bows bent the horse's hooves seem like flint and their wheels

like the whirlwind the roaring is like a lion like young lions they roar they growl and seize their prey they carry it off and none can rescue they growl over it by growl over it on that day like the growling of the sea and if one looks to the land behold darkness and distress and the Light is darkened by its clouds. That's a wild image, man, of God. This impression of God putting his fingers in his mouth and whistling. Just notifying the nations that you are now allowed to do what it is that you want to do. Yeah, calling them.

I can still hear my dad whistling. I can hear him from a long distance. You know it's time to come. Well, this is God whistling. Yeah, saying, hey, that hedge, it's down. Mm-hmm. Whistle for the Assyrians and whistling for the Babylonians. They hear, and here they come. And just read through those verses, and you know their coming is not good news for the inhabitants of Israel and Jerusalem. Yeah, and of course, I mean, more than an implication is that God is going to do nothing to stop this. I mean, this is the whole fence being broken down and then whistling for the nation saying,

hey, the wall's down, and I'm not going to do anything to stop what it is in your heart to already do. Yeah, yeah, the vineyard is open for destruction. And that's where we're going to have to end for today, but don't go away. I mean, we got Isaiah 6, which is just a fantastic chapter. Fabulous call vision coming up next episode. So we will get there next time. All right. We'll see you then, Chad.

See you then.