40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 9:8-10:7 (Episode 453)

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

What has kindled the anger of God against His people? Why do we fight so hard against the accusations of the Law? And those God uses to judge His people will also be judged. 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: Pre-order: Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi  Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Take 20% Off Our Lenten Devotionals until March 5th: The Sinner/Saint Lenten Devotional Finding Christ in the Straw: A Forty-Day Devotion on the Epistle of James  More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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 that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. So many things for you to check out. I don't want to spend the whole podcast just listing the vast embarrassment of riches that are going on over at 1517. Go and find out for yourself. And, of course, when you discover all that, make sure you head over to the donate page.

It's up there in the right-hand corner. Click that link, and you can become a supporter of everything we're doing, including this podcast. If you like this podcast, if this has been beneficial to you and you would like to keep it going free of charge for everyone in the world, then you can be a supporter of it by going over there and doing that. And we thank you very much to those who have done that. Chad, we are in Isaiah chapter 9. We have gotten through the first seven verses. Man, it was a good one.

We got just bogged down in the best way last episode as we talked about some real hopeful promises. We got those good words from the Lord. I mean, talking about that a child's going to be born for us, that this child's going to be given for us, that the government's going to be on his shoulder. He's got these great names. There's all kinds of good stuff going on. of sounds like maybe we've turned a corner in isaiah and uh as you might have learned there's a lot of corners that get turned in isaiah uh over and over and over again and so

you it's uh or maybe it's more like a pendulum maybe it's just back and forth and back and forth and uh that's sort of what we're gonna have here because in the same chapter i mean you couldn't even get a whole chapter of just like all right this chapter is 100 good news and promise uh no we're gonna have to break this chapter into two halves uh some law and some gospel of course isaiah flipped it and said this chapter is going to be gospel and now let me tell you though uh i got some bad news as well yeah it might have been better if uh we just made chapter nine real short like seven verses and then chapter chapter 10 started at nine eight because we are definitely in a new section here i mean we've pointed this out before but don't don't kind of get the

impression that the prophetic books, any of them really, but certainly Isaiah is just kind of a string of a collection of his sermons you know, like chronologically set up, like okay this Sabbath he preached this, and this Sabbath he preached this, and so on and so forth

it's not that way at all, this is a highly structured book but the way it's often structured is by the use of doublets, so he'll say something here, and then later on he'll pick up that same theme and he'll say it again, but in a different sort of way And he'll certainly go back and forth between preaching judgment and then promise, or law and gospel.

So we've just had a full meal of gospel in those first seven verses. And now in verse 8, he's going to change plates, and we've got some law that we're going to need to consume here. So we're back talking about judgment, back talking in particular about the approach of the Assyrians that we heard a lot about back in chapter 7. where you have that whole scene where Ahaz is presented basically with a choice. You can either trust God, you can either be firm in faith or not firm at all. And as we know from history, from 1 and 2 Kings and elsewhere in the scriptures, Ahaz chose to lean on the Assyrians. He chose to go the Assyrian route instead of the Yahweh route.

So we're going to hear more about this in a poem that's really composed of four different stanzas. And the recurring theme of this is going to be voiced four different times in these words. For all this, his anger, talking about God's anger, for all this, his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still. That's going to be in 9.12, 9.17, 9.21, and then 10.4. So all those really, that four stanza poem really could have been a chapter in and of itself. But each of these are going to present basically different perspectives upon how God is going to bring down his rod of judgment upon his people, both north and south, because of their ongoing refusal to heed his word and thus their rebellion against him. If you hadn't gotten the picture yet, you're wondering, why is it that God is, while still making promises, he seems upset. He seems like that God has a beef with his people.

And if you are wondering, what is it? What is it exactly that is irritating him so? Isaiah is going to go ahead and tell you in this section where he's going to lay it out for you. real clear like you want to know why uh you know his anger is not turned away from you and his hand is still stretched out well let me exegete some history here if there's people out in the world chad doing things that they ought not do i know this is shocking for you to find out but there's people out there they're just not behaving the way that they should now i'm not extremely upset about this i don't know most of the people in the world and they don't know me and what

they're doing doesn't really have anything to do with me and it certainly isn't uh some kind of rebellion or betrayal of me but you have to this this is the way you have to understand what god is dealing with israel like in the old testament and stuff like this is very personal that now i I mean, all sin is sin against God, but that there is something different about his own people that he's done all these things for, that he has this relationship with. If the whole world of people that I don't know could be out there sinning against each other, and I can maybe not like it, but it doesn't have the same effect as if even if you did. You and I have fallen out because I have betrayed your trust and I've slandered you behind your back and I've done all these things.

Well, this is going to hurt in a different way. This is a personal hurt. And I think that sometimes that aspect is lost when you're just like, is it just sin? Yes, it's sin, but it is betrayal and rebellion. And God is a person. I'm not going to say he's not a man the way we are. But he is a person, which means that he does experience things like anger. And that anger is typically brought about by the feelings of betrayal.

I mean, he's the one that says he's a jealous God. feeling that he feels uh that you've turned his back you know people his people have turned their back on him all that kind of stuff i don't know that's helpful it's always helpful to me to like to remember how personal this is for god yeah i think it's pretty easy for us to kind of reduce this down to moral categories god is just mad because people are doing bad things no it's it's it's different than that i mean to to build on what you have said it's kind of like you know if if you know uh women out there in the world who are doing you know maybe they're being unfaithful their husbands are doing other kind of stuff, okay, well, you might not like that, but you're

not going to stay up at night worrying about it. But if your own wife is, well, yeah, that's very different, right? Your anger is going to burn a little differently from unknown woman being unfaithful to their husband versus your wife doing it. Sure, sure. So that's God. I mean, this is his spouse. This is the one he's betrothed to himself. And so her spiritual infidelity, ingratitude, rebellion, basically treating God as if he hasn't done all these wonderful, loving, merciful things toward her is going to, God's going to respond to that, of course, differently than he does to all of the other peoples that Isaiah will also address. But God is, because of his unique relationship with his own people, of course, he's going

to respond differently. So let's take these first, oh, three verses or so, four verses, 8 through 12. The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel. And all the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say, in pride and in arrogance of heart, an important phrase there. Here's what they say. The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones. The sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place, end quote.

But the Lord raises up the adversaries of Razin against him and stirs up his enemies. The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. So I think you've got a couple things going on here. Number one, you have these adversaries and these enemies, which are mentioned again. we've heard about Rezin, he's the king of Syria or the king of the Arameans, we heard about him back in chapter

7, you've got this is either the adversaries from Rezin or the adversaries of Rezin so Rezin or the Arameans could be actually the enemies or they could be the enemies of Syria, either one of those translations are possible but either way what's happening is

the enemies of Israel are eating them up, right, they're devouring Israel with open the mouth uh open their mouth as wide as possible they're eating up israel and here's israel and back up a little bit and and these are being used by god for divine chastisement against his people so you got that going on but what's israel's response well here's what they say they say in their pride in their arrogance of heart well you know we've we've experienced some setbacks the bricks have fallen but we got these dress stones we're going to make it even better and

And the Sycamore trees, well, they've been cut down, but we're going to put even better trees, cedars, in their place. One commentator I checked out thought there's maybe an echo here of the Tower of Babel, which is certainly possible. Because this word for bricks is actually, I think it only occurs about 12 times in the Old Testament. And the first of these occurrences is back in Genesis with the whole Tower of Babel story. So maybe these folks are like, yeah, our tower fell down, but we're not done. We're going to rebuild it with even better things. So there's this pride and arrogance of heart in this section seems to be indicative of the fact that, you know, they're just, they're not picking up on the fact that the reason they're suffering is because of their rebellion against God.

And their arrogance and their pride, they're refusing to see their own sin. And when they do that, they also refuse to see how divine chastisement or divine discipline is hitting them. And so they're kind of blind in both ways. They don't see their own sin, nor do they see the discipline that's being used against them. Yeah, I think we've established, and if you're waiting for more evidence of this, here you go, that God has a real problem. We know he has a real problem with idolatry, and that, of course, is present here. But, man, he really isn't fond of pride and arrogance.

I mean, if you want to do something that is off-putting to God, just go around being prideful and haughty and arrogant. This kind of stuff comes up so often, man, like where you'll have a thing that somebody's doing, an action or a word that they're speaking, and God will get underneath it and say, it is with arrogance and pride that you did this thing, that you lifted your hand, that you said these words, you opened your mouth and this kind of stuff. And it tells you that, like, it's not just the thing you did or the thing you said. It's the underlying condition that you did it with, right? Which is that you did this thing, and you didn't just do it. You did it in pride and in arrogance, a high-handed sort of way. And that's a good way to have God's anger not turned away, it seems. Yeah.

And in this case, when you think about the history of Ephraim, so all the way back to Genesis, Ephraim and Manasseh were the two sons of Joseph, right? But who was the firstborn of these? Well, it wasn't Ephraim, it was Manasseh. So Manasseh was the firstborn. And then you have Jacob doing the whole crossing of his arms, and he ends up elevating the secondborn over the firstborn. So Ephraim's place in history as the dominant northern tribe, they are dominant because of grace. God chose them. God actually placed them as the head over their brother. And so you have this tribe that was basically gifted by grace, now acting out of pride. So even their very history

is a reminder to them that they're proceeding in a way that's contrary to the way that God has gifted them. But anyway, that's the first of these four different stanzas. Kind of gives you a taste for what is to come i think too i think the way this works uh there's a there's like this distinction between sort of you know being a sinner like you're gonna sin like you're gonna you're gonna fall into sin all the time uh and like there's a difference between that and like sort of like pride and arrogance uh maybe like a very like simple uh illustration is so i have a two-year-old and uh you know she likes to get up on like the the hearth by the fireplace which is brick which i don't want her on because if you know she's two and she falls down and that's not

gonna be good just smack her head on the brick so all the time i tell her no no you can't you can't play over there you can play all in this whole living room it's just like your space but like you can't go play on the bricks you can't do that that's her favorite place to be probably oh yeah of course because she's a little sinner now uh now she's been told this many times now initially she just kind of wanted to go over there and i and then i had to tell her no don't go over there well she's got to the point now where i'll be you know sitting on the couch and i'll see her and she'll walk over to the bricks and then look over at me right just stare at me right in the windows of my soul and set her foot on those bricks as she as she as she proceeds to stand

atop them now that is different like what what that is is let me be telling me what to do old man all right like this is a this is high-handed sin the and she what is that that's the arrogance chad the the sheer arrogance of this two-year-old to just defy me willfully uh looking at me while she does it and that's that's what israel does a lot of that yeah yeah i think probably children from the age of two to four are probably some of the best examples of this human rebellion that we that we have they're still cute but uh they're exemplifying exactly what grows into full flower in adulthood yeah you can't you can't claim that you don't know you wouldn't be looking at me the way you're looking at me as you do that if you didn't know yeah absolutely all right so uh let's

first answer let's do 16 through i mean 13 through 17 next one the people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the Lord of hosts. So the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day. The elder and honored man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail. For those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up. Therefore, the Lord does not rejoice over their young men and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows for everyone is godless and an evildoer and every mouth speaks folly and then we have our uh uh repeat verse again for all this his anger has not turned away and his hand is stretched out still so we have a little

bit different focus here in each of these stanzas we'll have a little bit different focus as to what's going on theologically what's going on morally with regard to his people and here you have a description of different folks, different leadership, right? You have elders, you have honored men, you have the prophets, those who are guiding, leading, teaching the people. And what are they doing? Well, they're leading them astray, right? This reminds me of the blind is leading the blind. Here, they're leading them away from the Lord, and they're leading them, of course, toward destruction. Now, that opening line, the people did not turn to him who who struck him that's some powerful stuff because this is picked up a lot by the prophets i was

looking at a similar section in amos chapter 4 6 through 11 and five times in this section amos or god through amos basically says i did this yet you did not return to me i did that yet you did not return to me he goes on describing basically the various ways in which afflictions, punishments, plagues, discipline, chastisement, call it what you want, have fallen upon the people of Israel, and every single time

God says, basically, you didn't learn your lesson. You didn't return to me. So, in this case, Isaiah says the people did not turn to him who struck them. The idea is when you experience some sort of divine discipline or chastisement,

you don't run the other direction. you run toward God not away from him and when you run toward him the great unexpected irony is he doesn't strike you more he welcomes you with mercy and grace and forgiveness

that's the whole point bringing these people to repentance bringing them to a place where he's going to be mercifully forgiving them but in this case of course that didn't happen and so God is going to cut off what is described here

is head and tail or palm branch and reed basically just totality is is what all of this is implying and and isaiah spells out for us who's the head well the honored the elder and the honored man well that's the head they're going to be cut off and then i think somewhat humorously he defines the tail as the prophet who teaches lies you kind of picture him he's a he's wagging his tail in whatever direction he thinks is going to get him you know the most uh prophet or amens or approval of the people so he's teaching lies because that's what makes people happy and he's just wagging his basically he's a lying prophet who's wagging his tail but i mean the the sad part of this is they're leading the people astray and so everyone suffers the young men the fatherless

the widow all the people suffer because from the top down you have the people led astray into even greater rebellion yeah the thing about uh you know chastisement or and you can even you can even just say the law uh when when god comes in with the law uh if you fight it uh if you decide if you decide that you are not going to uh receive receive the death that it is uh going to bring about and you never you never get to the you never get to the gospel you never you never get to like the mercy and forgiveness you just sit there and fight with the law and uh the thing that's and you and you see this a lot like in the history of israel but you see a lot in the lives of people and probably in your own life too and the thing that is uh so unfortunate about that

is that what the law won't do of course is actually change you it won't actually change your heart. It's meant to drive you into Christ, right? It's supposed to drive you into the promises of God. But if you refuse to let that happen, you'll just spend all your time contending with the law. And I feel like you see that a ton in this, where if you would just let the law crush you and uh and and reduce you then this could be over you could get you could get to the gospel that you could run you could flee to god uh which is what he wants you to do is the whole point of of his of his judgment of his chastisement but people don't want to do this they want to they want to go they want to get in the courtroom and instead of instead of pleading

guilty they want to plead not guilty and they want to go through the whole process and they want to drag this thing on forever and ever and ever and try to win the argument uh which is a long painful experience yeah the crusade of self-justification right yeah it's just yeah while they were extenuating circumstances you know well somebody else was to blame well you know when you look at it from this perspective it wasn't exactly wrong you know we yeah we uh we are lawyers in the courtroom of our own soul and we'll argue our case until our our dying day unless the law really does its work yeah and the and the beautiful thing is like in this courtroom that we're picturing here if you simply say guilty as charged god's verdict is

going to be you're forgiven yeah yeah but rather than rather than saying that we'll say well yeah we will uh defend ourselves uh uh up and down and back and forth yeah that if when you when you get in the courtroom with the law of god just man just just plead guilty like it's the just just do it quick that's this yeah that is the best way that is the uh by far the best way all right so we we hit two of these uh we got we got a couple more so we're gonna switch now to 18 to 21 this is going to wrap up chapter 9 it doesn't wrap up this four stanza poem and this is only a third stanza but we're halfway there so 18 through 21 for wickedness burns like a fire it consumes briars and thorns it kindles the thickets of the forest and they roll upward in a column of smoke

through the wrath of the lord of hosts the land is scorched and the people are like fuel for the fire no one spares another they slice meat on the right but they're still hungry they devour on the left but they're not satisfied. Each devours the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh, and together they are against Judah. For all this, his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. So we got a couple of dominant images that are going on here. I mean, it starts out with all the fire stuff, right? I mean, everything has gone up in smoke. You've got God's wrath, and God's wrath is typically depicted as something which is hot.

You know, it's like either his nose is hot or he's hot, whatever it is. So it fits with all the image here of fire and something being kindled and columns of smoke. So we start out here with all of these images of fire. and the people are fuel for the fire but then halfway through it switches to the idea of this gross image of basically you're eating each other up right you're devouring each other and uh who's devouring who well manasseh is devouring ephraim so you have tribe against tribe ephraim manasseh and together there against judas you got north against south you got all kinds of fragmentation basically of the nation but not just fragmentation of the nation but they're actually turning against

each other and you i mean we see this historically happening because during when king ahaz was was reigning you had the north teaming up with the syrians trying to force the south to do their bidding to join the menace alliance against the syria so you've got fragmentation among the population, and then at the same time you have this happening, you have all of the destruction that is coming upon the nation, which is pictured here in terms of fire.

Yeah, you get this picture of wickedness, this plague that just spreads and turns everybody into cannibals. They all start eating each other, and this picture

almost is like when you when you read this description uh it's almost as if god is is saying this wickedness is just everywhere and uh i'm about to put you all out of your misery yeah yeah and this is so true to human nature too so the people are obviously not right with god i mean that's the whole point of this right they're not right with god so what what happens when there's a fragmentation between people's connection to god vertically is this then leads to a fragmentation horizontally and you have every everyone turning against every everyone else so the better our vertical connection to god in christ then the better our horizontal connection

to each other of course it's just this doesn't make sense i mean what happens when we are connected to god through christ well the love of the father through the power of the spirit enters into us and then it flows out from us into other people but you cut off that connection of the divine love to us or we cut off that connection of course that's going to affect our relationship with each other

so if there's no peace vertically there's no peace horizontally either and man Israel exemplified this over and over in their history yeah and at some point God just gets he is long and knows of course

we've established many times but there is a point where he's just like I'm going to the flood is the greatest example of this where it's like there's so much that I'm just going to make it all stop yeah

I think too when Jesus is getting close to Jerusalem and you hear him say oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how many times have I wanted to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks

you know there's just like this real divine pathos that's there just like this exasperation that's prompted by love but at the same time it's like i just what am i going to do you know it's like a parent i've tried everything you know i've tried love i've tried discipline i've tried this i've tried that and you just nothing seemed to get it through your thick skull uh it doesn't mean that love disappears it just means like okay well i guess we're gonna have to do something kind of drastic here to finally to finally get through okay so uh we're transitioning to chapter 10 now and this is going to be the fourth and the final stanza in this poem woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from

justice to rob the poor my people of their right that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey what will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar to whom will you flee for help and where will you leave your wealth nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain for all this his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still this seems to be a good follow-up to uh what we just heard we heard about the fragmentation of the nation where you have you know people against people this tribe against that tribe north against south and this is working its way down now to where you have basically israel if they if they abandon the word of the lord they're going to turn to

their own twisted words which is the way this starts out iniquitous decrees and writing oppression so if you don't want to follow the the just and the righteous and the true words of god and instead you follow your unjust and unrighteous and twisted decrees and oppression all this is going to result in is further harm to to society and that's where you have the needy turned aside from justice and the poor robbed of their right and widows taken advantage of and the fatherless becomes prey for for predators and the end result of this of course is what we see toward the end where are you going to go if if you've turned away from god if you've turned away in love from those who need your love then where are you going to flee for help what are you going to do well in the end god says you're

do nothing but crouch among the prisoners and fall among the slain. And so we finally get kind of to the end of the poem. And when we do, we're still not to the point of hope yet, because we still hear, for all this, his anger is not turned away, and his wrath and his hand is stretched out still. We'll get to that point of hope, but not at this point in the poem yet. We're going to switch to a focus on Assyria next. I know I need to start using the word iniquitous more.

I mean, iniquity is a—I use that one, you know, semi-regularly, but iniquitous. I mean, now we're— Iniquitous. Yeah, that's— I'm weaving that into your day-to-day speech. Yeah, I need to expand the vocabulary to figure out—I just need to call something, well, that was iniquitous. I think that would be good. But speaking of iniquitous, one thing that is very prevalent through a lot of the prophets and just as God makes sort of accusations against nations is that this sort of iniquitous decrees.

So this would be unjust laws and this sort of thing that are happening. The people that always suffer are like the poor and the powerless. And this is something that God always has a problem with, that people, sinful men, get in positions to do things that they ought not do, but they cannot help but do them. And the people who pay for these things are always the poor and the powerless. This is sort of the same case with war and that sort of thing. I'm not saying that there's never been a just war or anything like that. But one of the reasons that you should be very hesitant and not go into war unless it is absolutely necessary is who pays for it, the poor, the powerless. That's who pays.

So who's always paid for it? And that is true of all sort of unjust things. Not that you couldn't be, you know, sinned against if you weren't poor and powerless. But when you have unjust or iniquitous laws or decrees in place, the people that bear the brunt of that. And this is something that's very evident in the ministry of Jesus, that he does have a heart for those who have no power. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you even have, yeah. In other parts of the New Testament, you talk, you hear about, you know, widows being treated unfairly. I mean, this is, this is the history of humanity. You know, who, who suffers when the powerful flex their muscles against others who are powerful? It's always going to be the powerless. yes right and uh yeah the history of history of wars man the more that you study those throughout history yeah you talk about the people who suffered what was the women who end up being

raped or taken as slaves by the conquerors or it's the kids who end up being sold into slavery as a result of being conquered by another nation i mean this is just that's the history of warfare It's generations of young men who are conscripted to fight that have no way of getting out of it, whether you believe in the cause or not. You become fodder for the ambitions of those who have the power. Yeah, that's the way it is time and time again. Now, we have a rather abrupt shift here. We've been hearing, well, through four different senses about what God has to say to his own people. And in verse 5 of chapter 10, he's going to change his audience.

I mean, he's still, of course, talking to Israel, but his audience now is Assyria. So he's got plenty to say to his own people, and now he's going to begin with a woe, woe to Assyria. And what we're going to hear in this next section, which is going to take us 10, 5, all the way really through to the end of, yeah, through the end of the chapter, is basically it's the idea that, yes, God is using Assyria, at least during this historical period, he's using Assyria as the, what's called here, as the rod of his anger and the staff of his fury. So we see this throughout Israel's history, where one of the ways that God will discipline his people is by using foreign powers. That's the history of the book of Judges, right? The people rebel, so what does God do? He sells them into the hand of the adversary.

And the adversary will rule over them for a while, abuse them, do all this kind of stuff, and then they'll repent, God will send to deliver. So God has had a lot of foreign powers who are the rod of his anger, by which he disciplines his people, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, so on and so forth. However, at the same time, there is always this idea that the very people that God is using

in order to accomplish this are still responsible for their own iniquitous, I wanted to use that word, for their own iniquitous actions. And what they'll do is, they don't see themselves as God's instrument of discipline. They're acting out of their own rapacious character, their own arrogance, their own pride, their own ambition for evil. So God will, at the same time, then punish them after he's used them as the rod of his anger. so this i mean this is a this section here if you want like a good biblical summary of

the way the scriptures talk about god's guidance providential guidance of history then isaiah 10 5 through the end of the chapter is a good good illustration of that in this case it's going to be applied to assyria where he uses them and he also then holds them accountable because of their their own sin and their own arrogance. Yeah, this happens all the time. I think I've brought it up before, but it's one of my favorite prophet books is Habakkuk.

I like that one, so I'll have lots of things to say when we get to that one. But this happens there as well. It happens all the time where God will be like, alright, that's it. I'm sending in the Assyrians. I'm sending them in because I've had it, and I'm

sending them in, and you're like, oh man. And then once the Assyrians get there, God will also say to Habakkuk, the arrogance of these Assyrians to think that they could do this to my people. It happens all the time. It's awesome where God's like, I'm going to send them in and they're going to mess you guys up because you guys have been rebellious and disobedient and you won't listen to me. Well, when the Assyrians get there, you'll be wishing you had listened. And then God gets offended for his own people. And Mike just says, this aggression by the Assyrians will not stand. You're right.

I mean, there's hardly a prophetic book where you don't have at least that somewhat as part of the message. I mean, you're going to hear it with the Babylonians for sure, but here we're talking about the Assyrians. So we don't have a lot of time. I'll just at least get a couple of verses into this and we'll pick up where we leave off next time so just to kind of give you a flavor for what's coming

Woe to Assyria the rod of my anger and the staff in their hands is my fury against a godless nation I send him and against the people of my wrath I command him to take spoil and to seize plunder and to tread them down

like the mire of the streets but this is verse 7 but he does not so intend and his heart does not so think but it's in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations not a few so that's where you had this double thing going on god says all right assyria you're the rod of my anger you're the staff of my fury and i'm going to sin you against this godless nation he's talking about his own people and you're gonna you know take spoil and plunder you can do all that but then verse 7 gives the perspective of the assyrians that's not what they intend that's not what they're thinking what's in their heart oh i'm

just going to be out to destroy i'm going to cut off all these nations so what we'll hear is uh god coming back and saying well guess what you're the rod and you're the staff but i'm going to turn another rod and staff against you or to pick up another metaphor, God describes them as an axe. And then toward the end, God says, give me that axe. I'm going to chop you down now. So that's the picture

of history that Isaiah is about to give to us. Yeah, that's great. Alright, well we'll leave it there and jump back into it next episode to see how God explains what's going to happen. I'll see you then, Chad. See you then. We'll see you next time.