Greetings, welcome to another installment of Let Us Reason Together. Let Us Reason Together is an overview of the Book of Isaiah. The goal of this series is to help you be able to read the Book of Isaiah for yourself and understand it. And not only that, but then to reach into the other prophets of the Old Testament, hopefully sparking your interest in the prophets by encouraging you and helping you to understand what we're reading here in one of the largest books of the prophets, the book of Isaiah. Well, we'll be in Isaiah chapter 19 today, and most of the book is about God's indictments against Israel and Judah, specifically Judah being the southern kingdom of the divided kingdom of Israel. Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Isaiah ministered to the kings there, brought messages to the kings and the leaders in Jerusalem, and also appeared to have preached occasionally to the people in general in the city of Jerusalem. So what we saw in part one of Agents of Wrath, this is the second one that carries that title, in part one of Agents of Wrath, what we saw was that Syria was coming to judge Israel and Judah but in turn would also be judged by God and we pose the question is that fair if after all they were doing the will of God by coming and and disciplining his children, that is the nation of Israel, how then can he turn upon them and say now you're guilty of coming down here and doing such? Well it was very clear from Isaiah chapter 10 verse 7 that it was not in their heart to obey God, to be Part of his good process to help his people Israel, but no rather it was in their heart to conquer It was in their heart to destroy and so that's what God was judging them for and so this brought us to a very Important divine paradox that we see in the scriptures and it's first of all that God is absolutely sovereign in all affairs but also that every human being and indeed every nation is is ultimately accountable for his own actions and so this is a two very powerful very biblical truths and we call it a paradox because we know that they are both absolutely true And yet in our minds and with our limited abilities and our limited understanding of God, it's difficult for us to resolve these two. So we have to hold them up both as being true, knowing that the resolution is in God, that He understands these things and He's the one that really needs to understand these things. and we are but his children and we therefore must act as if he is absolutely in charge of everything, but at the same time we are responsible for our actions and even the nations that we live in are responsible for the actions they take as nations. And so these will be powerful and important truths for us to hold on to going forward. and they will lay the basis for what we understand here in Isaiah chapter 19. If you will, in Isaiah chapter 19, what we essentially have is a case study where we're going to zoom in on one particular nation and that is the nation of Egypt. And we're going to ask these particular questions. Does God judge all the nations in this way? And we're going to see an example of another nation and then we're going to see how the book of Isaiah and the Bible also generalize the principles that we're looking at. So let's get right to that scripture. Let's ask these questions. Does God judge all nations that way? What is the criteria for his judgment? And then, how then should we live as God's people dwelling in those nations of the earth? And so, look at this case study of Egypt and we will have a great opportunity to discuss all these truths. Okay, here's Isaiah chapter 19, an oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. And the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out. I will confound their counsel, and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers and the mediums and the necromancers. And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the lord of hosts. And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, and its canal will become foul, and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away and will be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament. All who cast a hook in the Nile and they will languish who spread nets on the water. The workers in combed flax will be in despair and the weavers of white cotton. Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed. And all who work for pay will be grieved. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, a son of ancient kings? Where, then, are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the Lord of Hosts has purposed against Egypt. The princes of Zion have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded. Those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger. The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do. Well I think that should cause us to want to start with a word of prayer. Father God we praise you this day and Lord we come to this text with many questions. We also come Lord with many presuppositions and it's those that we wish that you would guide us through and guide us past our own misconceptions and help us to earnestly find What it is that you have for us here help us to understand the text in the most helpful way To build your kingdom on earth. We thank you Lord. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen Well, there you have some very strong language that we saw there, ending with a bit of hopelessness for them, that there's nothing that they can do to avoid this, that Egypt indeed is going to receive judgment. And this is a not judgment, because it seems to be primarily from within, but it also includes elements of of famine, elements of the drying up of the Nile, which leads to all the famine and all the economic crisis and everything that they face. Because as you know, the primary resource of the nation of Egypt being in an arid place in the world is the Nile River. And if you look at the settling of civilization in Egypt throughout the centuries, you'll find they cluster right along the Nile River because that to them was a source of life. They worshipped the Nile River and elements of the Nile River for this reason, because literally their lives came from it. And the Lord was going to strike it. So very stern judgment, very disturbing judgment. Very harsh judgment that we see coming from the Lord against Egypt. And the reason this is very striking is because, well, this is another nation. This is a nation that God had already punished when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt. And it's some shocking things we'll see in the next part of it. We only read until verse 15. We've got 10 more verses to go. And we'll hit those in a minute. But what God is doing here in the book of Isaiah is he has made a circuit. He makes a circuit of all the nations around Israel and pronounces judgment on them. Assyria, Syria, Philistia, Egypt, Moab. He goes all around the nation of Israel. and pronounces judgment on these various nations. Now most of those nations received his wrath at the hand of Assyria. The rest all would receive more wrath later in the form of Babylon. But Egypt was a temptation to Judah, for Judah to trust, and this topic comes up several times in the book of Isaiah. Because of their threats being primarily from the north, Judah sometimes sought to have an alliance with Egypt in order to battle against these other threats from the north. And so this was a temptation to Judah. Now Judah wasn't supposed to form alliances like that with godless nations in order to defend against other godless nations. They were supposed to trust in the Lord and they were supposed to seek Him. If you remember at the conquest of the land the many miraculous battles under Joshua, and then you go through the book of Judges, and whenever Israel repented, he would send them a deliverer that would give them miraculous victories against their foes. So, this is the way it was supposed to work, and Egypt was this temptation to go outside of that program that God had established. So here, God pronounces judgment on Egypt as well. And indeed, he will strike all the other nations. In this book alone, and so the answer here to our first question, does God judge all the nations this way, is definitely yes. He judges all the nations in the way that he judges Assyria, in the way that he judges Egypt, and similarly to the way that he has judged Israel. Let's look at some examples here. We looked at Isaiah 19, but Isaiah also mentions these other nations. Look at this list, how extensive it is. Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Syria, its capital Damascus, Egypt, Kush, Babylon, Arabia, Kedar, Tyre, Sidon, and the whole earth. There's a couple times he states principles as involving the entire earth would be succumbing to the wrath of God at one point or another. We're going to see that even here in chapter 19. And so yes, God judges all the other nations. So the question is, what are some of the criteria for that? Well, I'll leave that up to you to find. Read the book of Isaiah. You're going to find some of the criteria. Mostly pride, arrogance, insolence, and boasting. They are judged for their idolatry. They are judged for overall rejecting the Davidic throne and for committing sins against the nation Israel, having injustice within their borders, having violence against their neighbors, their national neighbors. And so there's many criteria here for which they judge. And all the ones pointed there you can read through the book of Isaiah. So they have a number of things against them. How is it that God brings this judgment? Well, when you read through the book of Isaiah, you find that God seems to most often use other nations to judge nations. He also uses natural disasters, economic pressures, as we saw here in the case of Egypt, internal strife, or political problems, and a number of other means, such as famine and drought and things of that nature, that brings his wrath upon other nations. In the case of Egypt, we can break down this into two parts. What we read here in chapter 19, the first part, verses 1 through 15, would be striking. We see God here striking the nation of Egypt. Take a look at these verses here. Isaiah chapter 19, verse 1. their gods would fail. Here comes the Lord riding on a swift cloud. The Lord riding on cloud is a frequently used description of him and it is a description that's found in the description of other gods of the times. So this is the Holy Spirit inspiring the prophets of God to kind of poke a finger at these other gods and say no, no, no, the real cloud rider, that's the Lord Yahweh, the the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is the rider on the clouds. He's the one you should fear. And it says that the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence. Well, we know an idol is really not a thing. But nevertheless, the illustration is clear that their gods would utterly fail. They will inquire of them. They will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers and their mediums and their necromancers. And they will ultimately fail. its wealth of resources would fail. If there was anything, Egypt was a place of great resources. And even when the rest of the area would be having a drought, very often it would not affect Egypt because upstream of the Nile was a more wet place, rainforest and such, that would keep the Nile flowing. And even when there was somewhat of a drought in the low areas, they could count on the water of the Nile coming to them faithfully. This is what we saw if you think about the book of Genesis that drove Joseph's family to Egypt. And they were having a famine in their land, but Egypt had food. And God used Joseph actually to store up food prior to the famine coming. And this famine was presumably caused by drought. So its wealth of resources would fail. The waters of the sea will be dried up, the river will be dry and parched, and that is no small thing for the Nile River to run dry. That is a major thing. It's a very rare thing. And because of this, all these other symptoms are described here. Whenever you see the The Book of Isaiah formatted in this way with lots of indentation. This is poetry. This is Hebrew poetry. And it doesn't translate well into ours. They weren't interested in end rhyme. They were interested in thought for thought. They were interested in the beauty of the illustration. Sometimes there's play on words. Sometimes there's a rhythm to it. But it's very difficult to translate that into English. But nevertheless, this is poetry and that's why it's so long and why it's so wordy to say what it's saying because it's saying it in a very illustrative, very vivid kind of way that he wants to show us what's going to come upon Israel using many different words to show us the woe of what's coming upon them. We also see that their wisdom is going to fail, their leadership is going to fail, and their wisdom would fail. You know, where are the wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the Lord of Hosts has purposed against Egypt. You know, their princes and their kings of their various little nations within Egypt are all just going to fail. And even all of its human abilities is going to fail. If we look at this, the wise men, of course, is going to fail. The necromancers and the mediums and their religious establishment, all these things are going to fail. Now, this is not a pretty picture, obviously, but I chose this passage because it's not just about the judgment that's coming upon Egypt. It's not just about the disaster that God is going to bring to them. It's so much more, and it's so full of hope. Let's go to verse 16, and let's continue reading to verse 25, and look what this says here. It says, in that day, the Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of Hosts shakes over them. The land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of Hosts has purposed against them. In that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of Hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction. in that day there will be an altar to the lord in the midst of the land of egypt and a pillar to the lord at its border it will be a sign and a witness to the lord of hosts in the land of egypt when they cry to the lord because of oppressors he will send them a savior and defender and deliver them. And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day, and worship with sacrifice and offering. And they will make vows to the Lord, and perform them. And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing. And they will return to the Lord, and He will listen to their pleas for mercy, and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of Hosts has blessed, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance. Well, I hope you could see that was a definite change in tone from the first 15 verses that the Lord comes, as it says, with striking and with healing. And that's a really amazing thing. And that's where the title of the sermon comes from, or the subtitle of the sermon comes from. is this striking and healing. While we looked at the striking, let's look at the healing. What is being mentioned here, if we take a look at a map, which let's go to our PowerPoint here, and you can see this map that I have on the right hand side of this. This map shows clearly the Assyrian Empire, and you can see that where Judah is, kind of to the lower left side, And all the way up to the north and all the way stretching to the east is the Assyrian Empire at the time that Isaiah was writing these things. And you can see it extends all the way down into Judah. And then you can see Egypt over there to the left, though part of its name is cut off. But the point is this, from the perspective of Israel, you're going to walk a really long time before you get to anything other than Assyria, one direction. And you're going to walk a really long time before you get to anything other than Egypt in the other direction. And, well, that big crescent-shaped area just to the right of Judah there, you don't walk through there. That's the Arabian Desert. And so what the point was, was, the point is, this is the world, this is the known world, where the Lord is saying, look, all the way from Assyria, all the way down into Egypt, they're going to know me. And there's going to be this great unification of the world, of Assyrian and Israel itself, that is Judah, and of Egypt. In this vision of them having a road back and forth, it doesn't need to be literal. The idea is, look at the illustration. When we're in the United States, occasionally we will have guests from other countries come and visit us. And they kind of marvel at the fact that we just drive state to state. And they say, well, can you just do that? Are they going to stop us at the border? Because they're used to Europe, where things aren't quite as open. Or they're used to Asia or something like that. But they come over here and they're like, you just you just drive and drive and drive. You never stop. You never show anybody your papers. You never. Yeah, it's because we're a united nation. And even though our states technically are sovereign, according to the Constitution, nevertheless, we have open borders because we're all part of the same nation, the nation of the United States. And the idea here is that there's going to be a unification of the various nations. There's going to be a knocking down of the border walls, so to speak. And this is going to happen, of course, it appears under the power of Judah. If we look back here, it talks about in verses 16 and 17, Judah, And this is very interesting, and this is where we need a little bit of background in order to interpret this properly. In that day, the Egyptians would be like women and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of Hosts shakes over them. Now, you don't need to be offended by that. It was primarily men who went out to battle in those days because men were physically superior to the women as far as going to hand-to-hand combat. That's obviously changed with technology, so it's not a slight against that. It's just a fact of how things were. And the land of Judah, this is what I want you to focus on, the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Now, this is really fascinating. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose the Lord of Hosts had purposed them. Well, you saw the map and you saw that on the map, you know, here's a little old Judah right here. And if I move the map over for you to see the rest of it, you would see Egypt's quite large. And Egypt was a world, a strong world force for a long time. But here's the important part. Never Had Judah conquered Egypt in this way? It simply never happened. And so the question then becomes, is this false? Did God fail to bring this about? Or what is this about? Well, some of you might know that Jesus is the descendant of King David, which is of the tribe of Judah. And Judah was one of the original 12 sons of Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. So he's one of the original 12 sons of Jacob. And when we go back to the book of Genesis, we find that even in the book of Genesis, even though he wasn't the eldest son, there we find in the prophecies at the end of the book of Genesis that Judah was going to be the ruler, that a scepter would rise from Judah. That means a ruling king would come from Judah and that is reinforced through the prophets until there is a king that comes to the throne, David. And David is given a special covenant by God in 2 Samuel chapter 7 and that indeed becomes one of the pivotal points of the Bible that this one king who's going to come from the line of David will be a king forever He will sit upon the throne forever. He will be the final king and he will not only rule over Judah, he will rule over indeed the world. That is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So when it says that the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians, what it means is that they will ultimately be conquered. by Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, that in fact there will be a time when he will be a terror to the world. We read about it in the book of Revelation. Jesus told us about it before he ascended to heaven. He said, I will come back, and when I do, I'm bringing recompense with me. That is, I will bring to people what they deserve, and that's either good or bad. And so Jesus made it very clear. He's coming back, and this will be an international thing. This will be a global event. They will see it as far as the east is from the west. They will see it. And so here we're speaking of a time, yet future, in which all things will be united. But is it entirely yet future from the day in which we stand? I want you to consider this because as the gospel goes out, going out from Judah, Going out from the founder, Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah, descendant of David, as this gospel goes out into the world, it is already conquering the nations. For every nation it comes to, some people believe, and those that believe are no longer citizens of the world, but citizens of heaven, and will one day be resurrected and return to rule the earth with Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's what the Bible says. And everything else God has ever done comes true. And so indeed, He is working toward that right now, and we see right now the conquering of the nations by means of the gospel, where people's primary allegiance then falls to God, and secondarily to their nation or to their community. So there will be a final judgment by the Lord Jesus Christ that he will bring. Their gods are going to fail, their resources are going to fail, their wisdom will fail, but ultimately Jesus Christ will bring this final judgment upon them. And then finally, the saving truth of the gospel will go into Egypt. Look at verses 18 through 22. They're going to speak the language of Canaan. in their region. Well, what happens when the gospel goes forth? When the gospel goes forth into the world, the language of Canaan goes with it. That is Hebrew. The Hebrew language goes with it. Why? Because we still use the original languages to study the scripture, and we have for 2,000 years. And we use the Greek for the New Testament. We use the Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament. And thus, it has spread through the world. Indeed, this language has happened. And they will be renaming cities because of it. And there'll be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt. Because remember, in the Old Testament, the Lord's people were the nation Israel. All the other nations had their own gods, and by and large, they were regional gods. Egypt had their gods down there, and if you wanted to go, you know, to a pilgrimage, you could, ah, let's go down to Egypt, see what their gods are like. Let's worship them a few days, and we'll come back to our land and worship our god, and then we'll go up there into Assyria, and we'll see what kind of gods they have. It was a regional thing, but this is like, no, now the gods are taking over. The god, the one who comes riding in the clouds, showing his superiority to all other things, higher than all other things. He's going to come and he's going to be conquering. He'll be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. He will send them a Savior and Defender. And this is such a profound thing to be saying about Egypt. He's not talking about Israel here. The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering. The number one benefit of being a believer in Jesus Christ is knowing the Lord. Knowing the Lord is our primary benefit. That is our greatest blessing, is to know him. And the saving truth of the gospel is what's being talked about here, that that will go forth into Egypt. And then, starting in verse 23, it reveals to us very clearly, it's going to go into the whole world. the entire world. And look at verse 23 here, a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and they're all going to worship together. And yet only uses the three as an example, but it clearly has in mind here much more. And there will be other visions that speak of this kind of a highway, and it will include other nations as well. So we know from the letting the Bible interpret the Bible, this imagery is used elsewhere to speak of the whole world coming under the rule of God. This is powerful and important stuff. And let's take a look at another verse in Isaiah that will help us. Look what the Lord says here. His breath is like an overflowing stream, speaking of the Lord, that reaches up to the deck to sift the nations with this sieve of destruction and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray. See, the Lord is about the business. Why is he doing all this judgment of the nations and everything else? He's sifting. He is sifting the world for those that will believe. He is shaking it up, so to speak, so that some will see and turn and be redeemed and be saved as they turn to God. I want to show you some good scriptures in the book of Romans here. Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 20. Much is made of these verses because it says something very profound about the world. It says in verse 19, what can be known about God is plain to them, that is to mankind, because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes. Namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since creation of the world. in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Yes, what this is plainly saying is that what can be known about God is woven into creation. In other words, we should be able to look around and see it all. We should be able to see all that he is talking about here. But here's the problem. We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Look at verse 18 now. And this is where he begins about this revelation of God. Paul is saying, yeah, God's revealed in everything that's been made. Not only the fact that he is, but even what he is like. Look what it says in verse 18. He starts with wrath. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Okay, if God's revealed in everything in the world, why don't I see it? Well, because mankind, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. See, when we're unbelievers, unbelief is not just a situation in which we're just ignorant. Unbelief is a situation in which we actually suppress the truth. The truth ought to be really plain to us. And let me give you an illustration of how plain it ought to be that there is a God. I could point out a building to you and I would say, was there a builder? And you would say, well, yes, no building ever comes to be without a builder. And I'd say, great. And I could hold up a book, and I could show a book to you. And I'd go, here's a book. How did this happen? And you'd say, well, there was a publisher and a writer, maybe even an illustrator. We look around at things, and we see very plainly. If I show you a painting, you'd know that there was a painter. If I show you a sculpture, you know that there was a sculptor. And yet then we look at a human being and go, oh, totally by accident and chance. You see, we suppress the truth in our unrighteousness. People don't believe in evolution because they're actually convinced of it. They believe in it because it's a hiding place for the unbelievers. It is a thing to accept and to believe because it says, oh, I don't have a divine creator. I don't have anyone that made me. I'm just an accident. And therefore, I'm not accountable to him. Well, this is exactly what Paul is saying, that all this stuff is readily seen in everything that's been made, and yet in our unrighteousness we suppress the truth. Now, why did I come here? I came here primarily because of the word wrath. In these last two sermons, I've used that word quite a bit. Wrath is the action that God takes in accord with his judgment. And so, this is the divine wrath of God in the world. And in our fallen state, Paul begins with this because we understand violence. We understand fear. We understand destruction and collapse and woe. In our fallen state, we understand those things. And our guilty consciences will bear us witness against our sin. He mentions that in the next chapter. And the present difficulties in this world are revealing the wrath of God. What do you mean the wrath of God is revealed in the world? Well, haven't you noticed? People are dying. The human race has a 100% death rate. That ought to tell us something is wrong. And indeed, if our eyes are open, it does tell us. God is wrathful. He told Adam in the garden, before he ate of the fruit, he said, don't eat of that fruit, because in the day you eat of it, your death will become an absolute certainty. And he ate. And here we are. Now, some will say, well, that's not fair. That's Adam's problem. That shouldn't be my problem. Well, we also ate the very first time we sinned, which was probably when we formed our first words, among which were, no. told mom and dad no when they told us no and so this reveals then the rebellion that's in each one of us this is the unrighteousness of men suppressing the truth in that same unrighteousness and the wrath of God we think of this as a negative thing but it is a kindness It is a kindness because it's exactly under wrath that people begin to look for answers, that people begin to look for hope, that people begin to look for God, for someone above and beyond these circumstances that can make sense, that can accomplish what seems hopeless, that can defeat the enemy, that can be a savior to us. It's a kindness to bring wrath upon this world just like it's a kindness to have pain in the body that alerts us to a problem and allows us to treat that problem before it becomes fatal. He is pointing us to the problem in the sickness and in the death and in the warfare. All of these things being a very small foretaste of the persistent and eternal judgment of hell. There's a little taste of hell in the world to turn us to God in His kindness. And so that's something I'd like you to see from the scriptures here. Well, how can we be encouraged by this today? You say, well, that's a pretty heavy topic here today. Well, it is. This is life or death importance that we're talking about here. But this is important that the saving truth of the gospel will go into all the world. And so God has introduced into the world Jesus Christ, and salvation is available in him. More about that in a moment. What are some of our encouragements today in these basic things? First of all is this. We can rest assured that God is just. He knew what was in the heart of the Assyrians. He knows what's in the heart of every single human being, and he will act accordingly. He will bring judgment upon all those who have committed unrighteous acts, even if it's just committed in the heart. Jesus talked about this in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. But that's also encouraging because sometimes we try to do the right thing and we mess it up. Well, God actually gives credit for that. But God is just and he will take care of all of these things. And sometimes we feel like the evil commit evil and they get away with it. In God's accounting of things, no human being gets away with it. For in the last days, he will resurrect all the living and dead from all the ages. And he will do a final judgment, each person according to their own deeds. Well, that gets us in trouble if we realize that God is judging us according to our deeds. Each and every one of us, you and I, can look at our lives and we can see we're in great trouble. And while we may not be as bad as the next guy, that's a temptation is to compare ourselves to other people. when in fact the standard is God himself, in whom there is no lie. So if we've ever told a lie, we're on the wrong side of things. In whom is no theft, for by him all things exist. And so he is never a thief, and if we've ever taken anything, That wasn't ours for any reason. We are thieves. And we might be liars to cover it up. And then Jesus says to have looked in lust at another person in an inappropriate way is for us to have committed adultery, committed some kind of an act in our hearts. And that's enough to condemn us. But God is gracious and sends his saving gospel into all the world. Take a look at Ezekiel chapter 18 verses 19 and 20 here. He says, Why would not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father when the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to observe all my statutes? He shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. What that's telling us is that whoever our father was and what they did and the people that came before us is really irrelevant. It's about what we do. And you say, okay, well, it's too late for me because I've done bad things. I've done wicked things. I've done some of the things you mentioned before. It's too late for me. Yes, but in the gospel, the righteousness of God is made available. See what Jesus did on the cross is he paid the price for the sins of all who will believe in him. You will just trust in Jesus Christ to pay the price for your sins. He will take them upon himself and he will take all the wrath of God. upon himself on that cross and in exchange he will grant you his righteousness all the credit he gets from God for all the things he did right and he perfectly obeyed God beginning and end for all of eternity past and while he walked here on the earth and that righteousness will be granted to you and will be given to you as a free gift you but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ People have been saved from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language to which the gospel has gone. And people are still being saved day by day. God is adding to the number of the faithful. And you might say, well, I've heard churches are in decline. Yeah, churches are in decline. But what about the actual believers? How many people in the churches are really, really the real deal? Or was it just socially easy and acceptable to be in churches? Besides, that's really a misnomer. The church is growing, and it's growing by leaps and bounds in places very unlikely, in places where there's great difficulty, in places where there's great strife and persecution and things like that. From our Western world perspective, it seems to be declining. But we are people that, by and large, are very wealthy. And we see no need of the Gospel. That's why the Lord Jesus said it would be very difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven because they're somewhat satisfied in life. They look around. Things are basically comfortable. They've got it fairly easy. And they see no need for God to fix up their lives. But we all have a need for God because He is life. And the gospel can change a nation. The gospel has changed many nations in the past. And you can read the history of the church and you can find time to time, place to place when the gospel comes in, things in that place are forever changed because they begin to affect the nation. They begin to affect the laws of that nation and the way that nation does justice. And they begin to influence the culture to make it a just and righteous culture. Now, the other encouragement, another encouragement I have for you here, not just that God is gracious to bring the gospel, but then he makes his people part of the solution for this world, that we become salt and light to the nations. We are, according to the Bible, ambassadors for Christ, charged with bringing the gospel message that brings reunification between lost man and God. And we come into a nation as a higher authority than that nation, than any nation indeed, because we are sent by the living God as ambassadors to bring the world to Him. So we inform the nations regarding God and His righteous standards. and we can be great salt and light, and we come as prophets to the nations, that we have the word of God and we can come to nations proclaiming truth. You want to know some people complain that the church is involved too much in the pro-life movement, that they're involved too much in politics. Look, a political issue is a moral issue and God has a very defined, clearly defined opinion about life in the womb. And so it is up to us to inform the world what God says. The pro-life movement has been ignoring this part of the aspect, much of the pro-life movement. The pro-life movement should first be saying, it's wrong because God says. That's our job and our role with the nation. We should be helping to stamp out injustice in this world. We should be helping to see it that that the poor and the needy are helped and not overlooked in things, that they are helped in the most genuinely helpful way, not to enslave them according to some government program or anything else like that, but rather to lift them up and to help them and to give them the healing gospel of the Lord that will help them to overcome and be victorious even now in this life. We bring this great peace to the nations and the best news of all is the simple fact that we cannot fail. We cannot fail. Look what Isaiah says about the word of God in Isaiah 55 11 here. The Lord says this about his word. because he's been saying all these things in the book of Isaiah, all this stuff he's going to do, both in the present in Isaiah's time, but also way ahead into the future, about this uniting of all the nations, about this bringing of a savior and a deliverer, this divine and righteous king who's going to come and give himself for sin. All that's predicted in the book of Isaiah, and it's all according to the word of God. Look what he says here about his word. He says, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. God makes it clear. What He has said, He will do. And He has proven Himself right over and over and over again. And this is where we as believers meet the world, right here, bringing the Word of God, the Word of God that cannot fail. There are examples of this in the Bible. There's Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh, where we talked about Assyria last time, and he was sent there to preach to them repentance. Well, he didn't want to go because they were the enemy. They were the bad guys. But he was sent there and he walked through with a very simple message, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed. And the king and the people of the city of Nineveh said, well, what do we have to lose? Let's repent of our sins. And according to what the prophet said, and maybe God will relent. Well, guess what? They did and God did. God relented of the disaster he predicted for them and it did not come upon them. How about Lot? When Lot was in his situation in Genesis 18 and 19, he was in the city of Sodom. And Sodom and Gomorrah were committing some really wicked things against the Lord. And the Lord sent two angels down there to get Lot and his family out. Well, even while he was still in the city, he was encouraging the people of the city not to do what they were going to do. Don't mistreat these people, these visitors that came in, these two angels that came in. Don't do these things. He even offered up his daughters. Hey, why don't you take this route? This is what God has designed. This is what you ought to do. And he tried to steer them in another direction. But only Lot and his family were saved. Not even his wife was saved, for she looked back at the city because that's where she yearned to be. And the question with those examples is, will you be Jonah? Minus the attitude, just go the first time God asks you to the city and proclaim the truth to it. See, we're on a plane that's crashing, and we're the only ones handing out parachutes. That was Jonah to the people of Nineveh. Will you be Lot to the people of Sodom, where instead of engaging in whatever it is they were doing there, he was not, and he was encouraging them not to do it. He was encouraging them the righteous way. Or will you be like Lot's wife, who loves the world and your present life more than you love God? So you look back for one more look at it. and you lose your chance forever. These are serious things to consider. But what God has laid before us here in the Prophets is very clear. God has laid before us the fact that our situation, though it is terrible, though it is difficult, it is yet temporary. And there will come a time when there will be righteousness upon the whole face of the earth. And the question is, where will you get yours? Will you get your righteousness from your own good deeds? Are you hoping that your good deeds outweigh your bad and God, you know, will see that and will let you into his kingdom? Well, unfortunately, that's not how it works. For just only one sin, the whole kingdom is forfeited. But the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is available to you if you will but believe, trust in Him for your salvation, repent of your sins, and go all in with Jesus. And He will make you new, and He will change you from the inside out. Well, let's close with a word of prayer. Father God, it's our sincere prayer that you will change lives and hearts by what we examine in the prophets. That you will help us, Lord, to see the seriousness of our rebellion against you. And help us to know and understand that this time of this rebellion is temporary. that you're bringing it to a close, that there will be a time in which you will confront all sin whatsoever has been committed by examining even the very hearts of each one of us. I pray, Lord, that all who hear this today will be among those who have trusted in Jesus Christ and have your righteousness, your very own righteousness upon themselves to make them fit for the kingdom. Lord, I pray that you'll make yourself known by this message. I pray that you will encourage us with the strength that you give to your people through the knowledge of you and the knowledge of your word. Help us to be mindful of a word that is always accomplished and a word that goes forth and a word that we ourselves have been given to take to the world. It will succeed for what you sent it. Increase now our faith to carry it forth. and bring it to many more. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I hope that's been helpful to you. I hope it will help you to understand the book of Isaiah. I want to remind you that you can contact us at whitesrun.org. You can see a little more about us on our website and you can also email us at whitesrunbaptist at gmail.com. I will see those emails myself and respond. For now, I hope to see you through more of these messages. There's probably going to be 20 or so from this series. And we're going to start getting into this coming servant of the Lord that we know is Jesus Christ. And there's going to be tremendous encouragement ahead for every one of us. So God bless you and enjoy your study of Isaiah.