As Andy said, we'll be in Chapter 44, we're going to step back and look at the end of 43. For a while, we'll be with Isaiah, we'll be addressing, he'll be addressing the Holy One of Israel versus their idolatry. And as you see on the front of your bulletin, I have a carpenter crafting something out of a piece of wood, you may have a hard time identifying the idolatry of Israel and then making application for yourself as to whether or not you are idolatrous. And so, I would just have you think a bit about the idols of our society, our that can draw us in, suck us in. Of course, idolatry is nothing more than placing anything above Christ. So, idolatry can be people. Idolatry can be our families. Idolatry can come as we seek the material things, whether it be cars or houses or whatever it is that we put precedence upon. and many other things. So, as we think about idolatry and we even talk today about chopping down a piece of wood, move a little bit, you know, move thousands of years ahead into our day and take the things of this world that we live in, our iPads, our iPhones, our whatever it is that technology has brought to us that makes the application for us. I think I have a quote somewhere in my message. It's John Wesley. Wesley said, I probably cannot find it here. Wesley said, essentially, we come out of the womb idolatrous. So, watch out. that your worship doesn't engage God. You can come here week after week and never connect, never have that relational worship with God. that you were created for. We can worship and not engage God. We do it all the time. So, with the spirit of the age in which we live, that just doesn't compute. I have three foundational principles of the spirit of the age, the world in which we live. One, all religions will lead us to God. Of course, we're all going in the same way. We're just taking different paths. You know, the world would tell us the principle is that all religions are fundamentally the same. They're just the peripheral, the outside of them are different. We meet in churches, other groups meet in mosques, other groups meet on top of mountains, other groups do this, other groups do that on the outside but we're all essentially doing the same thing. That would be the spirit of the age. I would say just the opposite. They may be peripherally the same looking to quote unquote God but fundamentally Christianity is unique. Second principle of the age that which we live is sincerity is the key to truth. You know, as long as you're sincere, you're in good shape. Trouble is, you can be sincerely wrong. But in the spirit of the age, no one is wrong because what's wrong for you may not be wrong for me. And then third, that relativism, you can't be wrong. So whatever you do is right as long as it helps you, as long as it makes you happy, as long as it fulfills you, as long as it gives you satisfaction. So I say, watch out, guard your worship because we all worship. We're born worshipers. We bow to something, someone. Watch out that your worship does not engage God. That's what Isaiah unfolds in some of these chapters as we're coming to. He's going to bring us face to face with the fallacies of these idolaters and why they are deluded people. It's going to expose the tragedy. Chapter 43 verse 22. You did not call upon me. Oh Judah. But you have been weary of me. Oh Israel. Yet you have you have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings honored me with your sacrifices. I have not. I have not burdened you with offerings or worried you with frankincense. You have not brought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins. You have worried me with your iniquities. What Isaiah is doing here is exposing the tragedy of knowing about God and not knowing God. Knowing the true God but yet worshiping falsely. contrary to how God has demanded that we worship him. And then as we get into 44, he'll show the absurdity of these man-made idols, of these materialistic idols, of the things of the world that we bring in and put in priority over this God who has created us to worship him and him alone. And so what Isaiah is going to do and what hopefully we'll try to come to as we walk through chapter 44. Just a couple of questions I have for us to think about. Are you truly devoted to the God that you know and assemble, study, pray, to worship? Are you truly devoted to him over all things? Do you come to church on Sunday morning in order to know him more deeply? Or 22. You didn't call on me, O Jacob, but you have been weary of me. Is this a burden? Is this just something that God says we have to do? Or are you devoted to him and lovingly come for his sake and for your sake? Second, I have. Are you truly devoted? First, is your commitment to your Christian disciplines, not only church attendance, but your fellowship, your devotions, your Bible study, your prayer time. Is it a commitment to the Lord to do these things? Or is it something, a bondage in which you have enslaved yourself to? Because God demands it and you want to stay on God's side? Or does it bring refreshment? Are you uplifted? Is your inner life, is your soul raised up as you come and gather with God's people and you sing about grace unmeasured, full and free? And is your devotion to Christ a proven means of spiritual growth? As you do these things, do you sense a deeper understanding of God and a higher plane of living? And third, first, Are you truly devoted to God? Is your commitment to the spiritual disciplines a commitment of joy and refreshment? Third, is there even an ever so slight sense that because you are so committed to God, He's committed dare say, obligated to bless you. Is there just that slightest sense that because you're so committed to Him, He needs to be committed to you that much? It's almost a sense we can get almost to a place to where we sense that We put pressure on him to produce for us. Or that we've earned his respect. There's a fine line there between devoted submission and service to Christ. And finding all we do becoming If you will, perfunctory, mechanical, dutiful, automatic. That's why John, 1 John, closes it. My children, keep yourselves from idols. The verse before that, he says this. We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true. In his Son, Jesus Christ, he is the true God in eternal life. So, Isaiah tells us about idolatry. He tells his people there about idolatry. And it comes and it applies into our lives to set our focus on God as our Savior. So before we walk through this, let's pray and ask the Lord to grant us mercy and his unmeasured grace. Lord, I pray that you would help us. Help us to understand you. Help us to know you. Help us, Father, by your grace and mercy. Help us, Lord, to Understand abundant living. To understand, Lord, this grace that is unmeasured and poured out through your Spirit into the lives of your people. Oh God, I pray. Teach us this morning that we might walk out of here with a lighter step and a joyful heart. Having our thirst quenched by Your Spirit. And that Spirit overflowing out of our lives into the lives of others. Help me, Lord. Help us all. And we have no right to expect You to respond to us. Except that we're trusting in Christ. Who died for us and made us. Your own. It's in his name we ask. Amen. So we must not let anything replace Displace the fact that God is worthy of our praise. That's what we tried to do with the songs. That's what we tried to do with that 1 Corinthians passage. Andy put a lot of pressure on me trying to help you understand how Isaiah 44 and 1 Corinthians 10 fit together. So you just listen and then you go home and you put them together. And then let me know how well they fit together. But the problem, beginning in verse 22 through 28, the end of 43, the problem here is our tiresome approach, our wearisome approach. God's not saying that they weren't going to church. God's not saying that they weren't bringing sacrifices to the temple. He's not saying that at all. He's not saying they weren't attending worship. He's just told them, and back up even further in verse 19, behold, I'm about to do a new thing. I think that's foreshadowing the new covenant. But he's telling them he is going to do a work above what they have ever experienced. In particular, what he's talking about in this series is he's going to bring them back from Babylon. It's going to be even a greater experience than the exodus out of Egypt. And then looking forward to that new covenant exodus, that will be the greatest of all the ultimate. Exodus, but he has told them he's going to do this new thing. They said, ho-hum. They've responded with just kind of a, OK, OK, why do we have to do this? You've burdened me, God says. You've wearied me with your sacrifices. You did not call upon me. Verse 22. We don't see this in our English as emphatic as Isaiah preaches it, as God says it. What he says is, on me you didn't call. The emphasis is upon him. You have come, you have come, and you have come. But it wasn't about me. On me you did not call, though you brought sacrifices. Though you were going through the motions, he says, I didn't, verse 23, I didn't burden, I didn't make you a slave. I didn't weary you with a bunch of rules and regulations that were meaningless. But you made me, you burdened me at the end of verse 24, you burdened me with your sins and you have wearied me with your iniquities. So far from removing their sin as they're coming to church and far from bringing them spiritual refreshment and bringing them to a new height in their relationship with God, their worship was actually sinful. Because God, through Jeremiah, says, I the Lord search the heart. Now test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. So God searches the heart and he searched their hearts and he sees that they're weary of him and his standards. You know, the sacrificial system, as we read through, you might read through Leviticus, and you might read through Numbers, and you might read through Moses reiterating it in Deuteronomy, or God establishing it in Exodus. And you might say, what a chore. What a task. It was meant, it had purpose to unburden the people. And they felt like they came to a place to where it was a terrible burden. God meant to unburden the worshipper, to relieve their guilt as they brought those sacrifices that didn't take away their sins, but covered their sins as they trusted in Him. But throughout our history, Israel worshipped to obligate God. And it became wearisome. John says it. 1 John 5, I already mentioned. At the beginning of 1 John chapter 5. This is the love of God. That you keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. What God commands of us seems to you to be a burden, a task, a chore. And you wonder, why all this stuff? John says, it's because you don't love God. This is the love of God, that you keep His commandments, and they're not burdensome. They are for our good. And he's given us the ability, the power to obey them. And it became wearisome to them. They're lugging their sacrifices over and over, over in chapter 46, the first couple of verses. Bell bows down. Knee bows to. These are the idols of the pagan nations. Their idols are on beasts and livestock. These things you carry, they're born as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop and bow down together. They cannot save the burden but themselves they go into captivity." Of course it became burdensome to them. The very worship they thought that removed, that made them above reproach, that made them right with God was a reproach in God's side because it was a weariness, it was a burden to them. There was no love for God. So, when we turn God's means of grace, the way that he has designed for us to grow, when we turn his means of grace into drudgery, it becomes empty, it becomes useless, it becomes nothing but vanity, chasing after the wind as Solomon says. And so, in true worship, our hearts are revived. They revive through the finished work of Christ. And that's the worship that pleases God and he bears our sins away. In joyful gratitude, we counted a privilege to give our lives to him. Verse 25, I am he. Here's his nature. I am he. Having said you haven't. I haven't done this to you. I have not burdened you. I have not worried you. You have burdened me and you have worried me time and time again as you are refusing to bow to me. You're bowing to the idols of the world. Then he says I am. I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sins. Put me in remembrance. Let us argue together. Set forth your case that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore, I will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling. God's nature is to be forgiving even of his sinful people. He says, I blot out your transgressions. Picture of what we call expiation. It's the sins are listed on the chalkboard and the eraser comes and wipes them out. I blot out your transgressions. He doesn't say here how. We take the rest of Scripture and we know that only comes through the blood of Christ. But for his own sake, he looks at Christ's record. He looks on Him and pardons me. That's grace. That's the grace of God. It's His nature to be forgiving for all who come to His Son. And so in joyful gratitude, we look to Him with thanksgiving. We tend to want to justify ourselves just a little bit. Don't we? I mean, don't you? You know, God says these bad things about us. Wait a minute. You know, what about this? And what about that? And we tend to get very defensive. And we and so verse 26 comes and I'll say and God says, OK, let's talk. Help me remember. Give me a good reason. That you deserve my blessing. And that would put me in remembrance, let's argue together, set forth your case that you may be proven right. Remind me now, how is it or why is it I should love you? Where does the feeling we get sometimes that God's not being fair with us, that he's not doing right with us or by us, where does that come from? I guess it could come from a handful of things, but basically it's self-righteousness. I don't deserve this. And I guess God could answer us truthfully and say, no, you don't deserve that. You deserve way worse than that. He's a gracious God. God says, okay, make your case. In verse 28, verse 27, we are sinful to the core. Your first father sinned, pointing to Adam. And your mediators transgressed against me, the priests and those who came before God on behalf of the people. Therefore, I will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling." We have nothing to say when God says, OK, make your case. Prove yourselves worthy of my love. And we just, you know, we have to We have to put our hand over our mouths. We have nothing to say. And God reminds us of our true condition. Ever since Adam, we've been born sinners. So we deserve destruction, reviling. He says, I will profane you. So the question, do you want justice? Do you want what's fair? Of course you don't. Wouldn't you rather have grace? Yes. I'll answer for you. This word destruction here, it's the picture as they come across the Jordan River. Having wandered through the wilderness for 40 years. God gives them instructions. to enter the promised land and how to take care of the promised land and how to secure the promised land. And they come to Jericho and God says, Jericho is under a ban. Do not take anything from Jericho. You go lay the city waste. Well, when he says it's under a ban, it's the same word here as destruction. It's God's total judgment, nothing to be taken. The city's under a ban. They failed to comply. And so destruction came to at least Achan and his family and a number of the Israelite soldiers. Turning the worship, the grace of worship through obedience, the grace of worship through obedience, turning it into drudgery, Achan, typified, became an example, a type of the life of Israel throughout her whole history. And Achan was destroyed. Judah is about to be destroyed by Babylon. So chapter 43 ends with this rebuke, this heaviness that Jacob is about to be given over to destruction. Yes, it's going to be a hundred plus years down the road, but that is about to happen. But God doesn't leave them there because the sermon continues. The poem, however it is, if you have the ESV, you see how it's written out almost in verse form. So the song continues, he's He's just promised forgiveness in twenty five. I am he who blots out your transgression pronounces judgment upon them. Verse one. But now here a chapter forty four. But now here oh Jacob my servant Israel whom I have chosen. Thus says the Lord who made you who formed you from the womb and will help you. Fear not oh Jacob my servant Jeshurun whom I have chosen for I will pour water on the thirsty land. and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob. Another will write on his hand the Lord's and name himself by the name of Israel. There's the remedy. You deserve destruction. But in my nature as a forgiving God, I have a remedy for you, a revival, a way of revival as a promise of revival and a refreshment will come from the Holy Spirit of God, who he will pour out. On his people, it's all of grace. We think maybe have that sense, that twinge of obligating God to bless us because we're such good Christians. In truth, our sins free him from any obligation to us. We can demand nothing, but that doesn't stop him from saving his people, from pouring out unmeasured grace. We're his servants, he says. He's chosen us, his people. He's formed us. He has done it. And he will help us. And his remedy is grace unmeasured, super abounding grace. We're sin abound. Grace abounds much more. It's super abounds. And that's his solution. That's his remedy. In verse 28, I will profane the princes. I will deliver Jacob. He turns that around into verse three. I will pour out my spirit. He turns deserved destruction. Into revitalizing Refreshment. Because, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. He'll saturate his people, he says, with himself through this means of the spirits, how we experience his presence. He wants us to know his presence, to enjoy his presence, to live in the fullness of his presence. So he sends his spirit who assures us that we belong to him and then empowers us and guides us to live for him. So the question comes, are you dry and thirsty? Are you walking in the wilderness of life? God especially desires to quench the thirst of his people. And that's how the scripture describes blessing so often. We get to Isaiah 55. Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy. Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Come all you who are thirsty. In John chapter 7, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Through Scripture, front to back, Just a picture of the blessing of God that he quenches the thirst of his people. Revelation 7, the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Here in the first five verses, the blessing that Isaiah is speaking about is full satisfaction. full satisfaction, contentment that comes only from God, only through Christ, and only by the Spirit who indwells us. It's a revival of God's people right here. Church history, whether it be biblical history or whether it be church history since, reveals to us that these outpouring of the spirit really kind of comes in intermittent times. You know, it's it's we've talked already as the Jews were looking for their Messiah to come. They didn't have the perspective to see two comings of Christ. And so they're looking for the Christ to come and in their minds, when Christ came, that would end That would end God's real dealing with men and that would be the end of time as they knew it. They would become God would the Messiah would become their king and that was the way it would be. We. Now live between those two comings and we can see this door this window of opportunity by which Christ comes to die as a suffering servant. And now we're in this period of grace where God is calling all men to repent an era of God's grace and mercy. In these last 2,000 years, he's been pouring his grace out. He's been calling people to himself. His spirit has been entering the lives of people guilty in this world. And he continues to do so today. And sometimes among a people, the tide ebbs and then it flows. And then it ebbs. And then it flows. And revival goes. And revival comes. After it ebbs, he visits the people again. And many come alive in Christ. The Great Awakening. The First Great Awakening. The Jesus Movement. Movements in our nation. I just read a review of a book about the Jesus move from the mid-60s to late 70s. A lot of people were saved, but there were ill effects. There were some deficiencies. And so revival came, in a sense, and many people were saved then. And then it ebbed. The Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield preaching in the north and east in the colonies in the 1700s, many converted. Some would say as many as 300,000 people converted. But as Edwards looked back as it begins to ebb, he evaluates. And he said, there's some things went on that we should not have let go on. Things much like some of the wildest of the charismatic things we've seen in our day. Going on this is seventeen hundreds. So I think we can think about as we think about revival where God sends a special outpouring. Just a couple of things to think about revival usually it follows a period of spiritual barrenness. Back in chapter 41, when the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue is parched with thirst, I, the Lord, will answer. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open the rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. Year 1721, the great awakening happened about 1736, began then, lasted a handful of years. In the 1660s, when Dr. Increase Mather, I don't know who would name their son Increase but that was his first name, his brother's name was Cotton. I don't know what his parents were thinking. But he's 21, 22-year-old man, young man and many are saved. There's a sense of a revival where he is. And then as he's an 80-year-old man, he writes in his journal, conversions are rare in these days. Well, he's comparing that to when he was a young man. I kind of do that myself, it seems like. I don't know what that says about us, but he dies two years later, but then less than 15 years from then, the Spirit is poured out upon the nation in the Great Awakening. So usually revivals follow these spiritual barrenness But revival are also is also a work of God. I will verse 3 of chapter 44 I will pour out my poor water on the thirsty and I will pour out my spirit Just as God every day converts individual people when revival comes It's what he's doing ordinarily day by day but on this greater scale. But it's also God's work. Verse 5 sort of a picture of revival. One will say I'm the Lord's another will call on the name of Jacob another will write on his hand the Lord's and name himself by the name of Israel. This is God's work also. Revival is the sovereign work of God. When Jonathan Edwards preached his famous, it wasn't his best sermon at all, but when he preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, his congregation heard it first. And they all lined up at the door, you know, like the pastors and preachers used to. You know, they didn't have a great fellowship time like we did. They just kind of went home. Nice sermon, pastor. You know, everybody just kind of said, thank you, pastor, you know. Well, he's invited to go to a little town down by the way, Enfield. He preaches the very same sermon. Jonathan Edwards read his sermons. He read them with almost no inflection, so he did not influence the emotions of the people. He didn't get to the end of the sermon before people are screaming out, save me, God, save me, Lord Jesus. And the revival in that church in Enfield with the very same words he'd read in his congregation, the sovereign work of God. God saves him, he will. When he will. Is it preparation? I don't know. But he does seem to work in barren times as people turn to him and pray and ask him to come. But it is a sovereign work of God. There's a mystery in the blessing of God. We can't schedule it. We can't plan it. We can't produce it. We just have to be ready. and plead for it, and the Lord will send it in His time. It's also, church history tells us, it's accompanied with a deep conviction of sin. Verse 24. Here's the problem. Chapter 43, verse 24. You have not bought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. You burden me with your sins. You've worried me with your iniquities. There was no conviction of sin. In Israel. Their offenses will be elaborated as we get down into chapter 44. In fact, look how if you have an ESV or probably even a New American, you see how it's all laid out, the first eight verses of chapter 44. Does your Bible, does the writing then look different from 9 to 20? no longer poetry. It's no longer encouraging exaltation of the past. It's just a prose. It's description. He changes his tone and he changes his tune completely as he speaks of the folly of their idolatry and the purpose of this long passage on the folly of their idolatry is to point out their sinfulness. What it is that is bringing about God's judgment upon them as a people. Verse 22, as he comes out of that and continues in his poetry, verse 22, I've blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sons like mist return to me for I have redeemed you. I've redeemed you. God's bringing into focus their sin. And he's saying that sin was like a dark cloud that was blotting out the light, the sun. And I have removed the cloud. And now I'm going to pour my spirit out upon you. But their sinfulness, their bad habits, their worldliness, their compromised lifestyle due to had to recognize and remove it from their presence. So the Spirit's going to come, he says. Revival's the work of the Holy Spirit. I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring. It's a glimpse of the new covenant, a glimpse of the Spirit's ministry to God's people where people begin to say, we belong to the Lord. We're converted. They come to Christ by faith. It's a picture or a looking ahead of Pentecost where thousands are saved on one day as Peter preached in the spirit of God falls and so one of the effects of the Holy Spirit is to mediate to bring us bring the presence of God into our lives. And all of these promises we've been noticing from chapter 40 where God says, I will be with you, I will be with you, I will be with you, I will not forsake you. Those promises are fulfilled in the indwelling spirit now as we live our lives on this side of the cross, the same spirit who filled Christ. Back in Isaiah 11, the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord will rest upon Jesus. And that same spirit will fill us, given to every believer. So here, what God is doing, He's not saying I'm going to make your Christian life. I'm not going to make church more fun. That's not the point. It ought to be fun. It ought to be enjoyable. There's great joy when the Holy Spirit falls, fills and saves a person and saved people get together. But God says he's going to renew all things, he's going to give new life. He's going to give new growth. He's building his church on the way to his proposed goal of making a people for himself to the praise of the glory of his grace and for their good. And the remedy to our wayward sinfulness is this outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God. And we who know Christ, those of us who walk in him have tasted the powers of the ages to come, of the age to come is what the writer of Hebrews says. So when God breaks in on a life, his powerful grace moves men, he gets them off the fence, lines them up to identify with the Lord. Known sinners become notorious for their faith in God and their holy lives and lukewarm putrid, professing believers are brought to a boil, if you will, in that sense. So God says, there's a future, a world of new life is created by my grace. Our part is to come to Him for the filling, for the longing of your soul. He says, I can quench your thirst and I'll bring you satisfaction. And why? Verse 8. Over six through eight. Thus says the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I'm the first. I'm the last. Besides me, there is no God. Who is like me, let him proclaim it, let him declare and said it before me since I appointed an ancient people, let them declare what is to come and what will happen. Fear not nor be afraid. Have I not told you from old from of old and declared it and you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? There is no rock. First Corinthians 10, that rock is Christ. There is no rock. I know not any. So here's the holy one of Israel against the dumb idols in the next passage, the Lord and his people, the exclusiveness of God. Why is it that God is going to bring revival to prove that he himself is the one and only God? He's just the true God. He denies all other gods. And so he issues a challenge there in verse seven again as he did with us. He's who's like me. OK let's line up your gods and let's have one of them tell beforehand what's going to happen. But he saves us he pours out revival that we might be joyful in our Redeemer the Holy One. of Israel. He might cause us to yield ourselves and submit to Him as our all-sufficient provider. He gets the glory. We experience joy. What does Jesus say? Enter into the joy. Yeah, that'll be full joy one day. But in the meantime, we experience joy day by day as a taste of glory divine. When he says, I am the first and the last. Besides me, there is no God. Of course, again, in our society, many are offended at you as a Christian, at your arrogance and that you think there's only one way. It's always been a stumbling block. It's not just in our culture. It always has been the claim to exclusive worship. It's an affront to open minded fallen people. It just doesn't go well. They think all roads, again, lead to the same God. Why not become a Hindu? They got 330 million, supposedly. I don't know how you count them. But you just kind of take your pick. Go to Athens. We got these gods and goddesses all over. How about this unknown God here? Just take your pick. We're all going to go to the same place anyway. Just pick your gods. Pick your way to heaven. But those who discover themselves to be lost sinners, as God has described us, they're thrilled not that there's only one way but that there is a way. There is a way to this holy God. So he, Isaiah leaves no room for any other savior. And we're called to be his witnesses. Remember, Israel, he says, you are my witnesses, but you're deaf and dumb. There's no one to speak in the courtroom. God is on trial. And here's the defense witnesses and they're dumb and they're deaf. And he says, but you're my witnesses. Our role is to be fearless and vocal witnesses, not become what Judah had become. It gives meaning to our lives. It gives meaning to the mission of our church to be witnesses. I read a quote about Nietzsche. I don't know if you know who Nietzsche is. He died, when did he die? 1900, I think, coming into the 20th century. Famous German atheist. He grew up in a home where his dad was a Lutheran pastor. And excuses, yes. But here's what he said, I never saw the members of my father's church enjoying themselves. That's why I rejected Christianity. Christianity is not necessarily fun, but it is joyful. Joy is a characteristic of Christianity. We're called to be joyful. God's people are seen rejoicing. There's nothing inherently spiritual with somber severity. You know, the monks found that out. Martin Luther found that out. There's nothing spiritual in being sad necessarily. It might be a time of spiritual growth. But on the other side of that, there can be a trivializing, a shallow trivializing of Christianity where, you know, it's fun and games and what we, you know, the trite saying, punching cookies. But I would say shame on no fun Christians. I mean, we ought to be the most joyous, happy. We're more than conquerors in Christ. What do you do? How you doing? Oh, I'm doing okay under the circumstances. Well, get above your circumstances. What are you doing under the circumstances? Christ has made us victorious. What a misrepresentation of the power of the cross when we're defeated by what happens in the world. We lost sense of our hope. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise." And the flip side is the absurdity here of these idols. Boy, you all just are not listening fast enough. Verse 9, look at verse 9. I'm going to read this. All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither seen or know that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or cast an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble. Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified. They shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also, he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. The other half he eats meat. He roasts it and is satisfied. Over the half he eats meat. He roasts it and is satisfied. Also, he warms himself. And says, aha, I am warm, I've seen the fire. And the rest of it he makes into a God, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. They know not, nor do they discern, for he's shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, Half of it I burned in the fire. I also baked bread on the coals. I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood? He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart has led him astray. And he cannot deliver himself or say, is there not a lie in my right hand? That's the flip side. of the Lord and his people in verses 6, 7 and 8. It's the idols and their abomination and those idolaters who are participating in abominations. It's idolatry, not God, that makes life wearisome. Isaiah keeps coming back to idolatry because people Keep being idolaters. Everyone worships from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible rejects idolatry. And if you're not experiencing the fullness of the blessing of the one true God, idols are your problem, preventing the flow of the refreshing grace of God into your life. God demands exclusivity. He is the only God and that forces the issue of idolatry. And it's so important because the world is crowded with idols. The foolishness, idolatry goes wrong in how the idols are made, how it is that you create your idols. Verses 14 through 17, sort of the end of the process. There's nothing wrong with cutting down a tree, right? God gave us trees to enjoy for all kinds of things. He warms himself with a fire. He takes this log, cuts it in half, puts half of it on the fire. He warms himself. Creature comforts. God doesn't mind. He enjoys to give us his creature comforts, his creature's comfort. and supply our necessities, our needs. He cooks His meal. He bakes bread. And then with the other half, He stands it up, bows down to it and says, Deliver me. Save me. That's absurd. It's man. It's us. looking to things other than God. It's instead of sinners in the hands of an angry God, we need to preach the sermon, God in the hands of angry sinners who do not want to submit to God. And so they fashion God in their own image, a God whom they're able to please. And it's an abomination and absurd. How can anything that we with our hands make, help us. That's Isaiah's point. I'm going to close. We have to close here. That's false worship. I pastor. I pastor the best church I know of. And I don't say that just because you'll be nice to me. I don't say that at all. But if I rely on my role here, if you, when you go to work tomorrow if you're a worker, if you're a stay-at-home mom, if you're in school getting ready to go, if you look to those things, to give you significance, if you identify yourself by those things, you're an idolater. I've seen some good men. lose their job and never, ever be the same again. Because their significance came. Who they were was a worker at this place. We can do that with our families. We can do that with friends. It's so easy to gain our significance from things other than God, and every one of them are shifting sand. They can be pulled right out from under you, and you've lost now who you are. You may get mad at me and fire me next week, but who I am is in Christ, and that can never be taken away from me. I pray you don't. Get your significance, not from the passing things of the world, whatever they are, and bow to Christ, the living God. And you'll be satisfied, secure, and rejoicing all the way into eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ is your only hope. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We do say thank you that there is a way. Forgive us when we, your people, complain that the way seems to be hard. Remind us that we do live in a fallen world and hard times come. but that our Savior sympathizes with us, because we have not experienced the full suffering that He's experienced. Help us to look to You for comfort, for security. And we thank You for Your unmeasured, superabounding grace that you pour your spirit out upon undeserving sinners. And Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. And you are a heavenly Father who promises never to abandon us or forsake us. Your name be glorified and honored among your people. We praise you, Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Amen.