Welcome. Welcome back, Cotter. Well, I feel welcome. I'm assuming operator error down here. There we go. Welcome to Fort Preston, Preston City Bible Church. It's a privilege for me to see all of you again. It's been Oh, way too long. And you might think that that was a snow day Sunday for me and then Thursday also. And that was like a break. But actually, there's never been a more stressful day off I've ever I've ever had. Very uncomfortable to have a Sunday that I'm not in the pulpit since I've been here for six months. But the Lord brought the snow. He also prepared a message. So I recorded it and it's available. Proverbs chapter four. It's entitled Sex for Christmas, so you'll be sure to want to listen to that. It's the father's admonitions to a son about adultery, about the adulterous and how to be a good husband, among other things. We're in Isaiah tonight, chapter 3. Isaiah chapter 3. and four, I'm sorry, two and three, Isaiah two and three. I have a couple of announcements before we get started tonight. This is my last engagement to teach you before we go, I go for Christmas and leaving tomorrow. And this will probably be one of the, well, this will be my last airplane flight for family reasons for a while, I think. being in a family way and so forth. So next year Christmas will probably be here unless we're having Christmas in the presence of the Lord. But we're not leaving the pulpit unoccupied. In fact, this church is a local church that fulfills the responsibilities of a local church. The church exists, by the way, did you know, to equip the saints, to equip believers to fulfill their purpose and function that God has for them in life. That's why we're here. And that's why we put such an emphasis on feeding the sheep. Feed my sheep, Jesus told Peter. That's what my job is, is the pastor. And like I said, there's nothing more stressful for a pastor than a Sunday where that doesn't happen. So this problem exists. The 23rd is a Sunday and I'm not here. So what to do? Well, Ryan Baker, believes he has the spiritual gift of pastor teacher or at least a communication gift. And the question of how a man knows he's a pastor is a difficult one for someone that wants to be a pastor. It's a difficult question to answer. And I believe, of course, I know from the Bible that it's a Holy Spirit thing. Spirit designates. But you know what? He does not tell you. when your head submerged under the bathtub that you're a pastor. It's not it doesn't happen that way. I believe that and this is coming from a pastor teacher that most of its desire. Most of the gift is and the designation of the gift are you recognizing it is the desire to be a pastor. And I know there's a great tradition that says, I didn't want to be, I had to be. But that still has to do with the desire that you finally came to. The other thing is capability. Can you actually do it? Well, it's interesting. You can never know if you can do it until you do it. And so. Ryan's been teaching the pre-adults, I like to think of them as adults, downstairs for a while now, and this is the next step. We have spent a great deal of time in the last several weeks preparing together for this. And it's been an incredible crash course for him in biblical exegesis and Greek exegesis. And so I am thrilled with what what's going to happen. And he's going to be doing a small block on Titus. It's Titus for Christmas, which is probably more reverent, more appropriate than what I was doing for Christmas, but what I was teaching for Christmas. So I encourage you as a local church, this is part of the process. If he is a pastor, and I believe he is, he is headed out to be a pastor somewhere eventually. Or here, who knows what God's going to do. He's going to be a pastor of a local church. It's our responsibility to do everything we can to support that as a local church. And I'm so thrilled to be in a position where I can say that. to a group of people who are, we're all moving in the same direction, okay? Because there's this other thing in the tradition that you can't do it unless you're designated the guy. Well, how do you ever get there unless you get the experience? So we're going to give Ryan the experience and we're going to grow because the Spirit is who teaches us. Speaking of the Holy Spirit, I hope you didn't take a break from your spiritual life just because we haven't had church in a few days. It wasn't a day off. I don't know if I've studied harder than I studied on Sunday. And so I want you to understand, if you haven't done the self-examination thing since the last time we visited, you're late. That's a problem. That's a problem because you have a moment-by-moment relationship with God. He's got a moment-by-moment call on your life. And so take this opportunity now. Let's take this opportunity together to examine ourselves and judge ourselves as We measure up to God's righteousness in our practice. You've been imputed with God's righteousness. That means reckoned to your account. God, if you're a believer, God has reckoned to you his righteousness. And when he looks at you, he sees that that's that's the garment you're wearing. But we still sin and we still fall short of his righteousness every day, all the time. And me saying that isn't an excuse. It isn't. Well, it's OK that that happens, but it does happen. It's actually horrible. It's a horrible thing that happens. But the great thing is that we can be in fellowship with God because of confession, because we go back to Him in confession. This has been part of the church ever since John said it in 1 John 1-9. It's been part of the church. Even in the silent period when nobody even read the Bible, we were still doing the confession thing because we kind of know we have to do that. Now, we as believer priests know we don't have to go to an intermediary to pray for us. We have Jesus Christ making intercession for us at the right hand of the Father. But we as priests, because of that intercession, can go ourselves to God the Father, who is the member of the Trinity we pray to. Did you know that the privilege of the believer is to pray to the Father? To pray to the Son, you're praying to the mediator who has made the path for you to the Father. So don't forget your privilege. I don't want to discourage you that if you have this great habit of praying to Jesus that somehow your prayer life is broken, but I do want you to see that you're missing out on the privilege that the Father has established for you of direct communication with the planter. And that's what prayer is. When Jesus taught us to pray, He prayed to the Father. And all those who go to the father go to the father in the son's name. That's the basis on which we're making our prayer. So it's good to keep those things in mind. So why don't we have some silent prayer believer priest before the father and do that self-examination. It takes just enough humility to say, yep, I'm so maladjusted to reality that I am totally arrogant. And that's probably a good thing to pray. Just set your watch on a beeper every hour. Just knock that one out. Chances are then you'll think, how am I? Oh, yeah, that one didn't see that one coming. And then maybe maybe the scales will fall off our eyes. So let's let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that we know you. We know you because you've made us. You've made us capable of knowing you. You've given us brains. You've given us the bodies that are capable of housing our souls so that we can know who you are. And you've invented language. You've communicated yourself to us in language. You've been called your son, the ultimate representation of you on earth in history. You called him the word. We thank you that we know you. We thank you that tonight we've come together. We have submitted ourselves to what the spirit wants to do with us through the word that he inspired as he teaches that word to us. We recognize that we are incapable. Your grace and our depravity, our fallenness means that we have no We have no dog in this hunt. There's nothing we bring except volition. The Holy Spirit brings the enablement and it is to him we submit. It is to him that we look now for understanding as we deal, as we understand, as we read through Isaiah. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. As Isaiah chapter two, verse 12. Isaiah 2.12, for the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning, the Lord of the armies. You don't want to be on the wrong side of God's army. When he calls himself the God of the army, that's something to pause about. Usually when he talks about being the Lord of the army, he's either delivering someone from something or he's destroying something, and a lot of times he will destroy. in order to deliver. In fact, I'd argue anytime he's bringing the destruction, he's doing it in order to deliver. Maybe one day he will deliver us from this bane of my existence called Microsoft Vista. Oh, oh, how I hate it. Really? Just one second. You guys didn't have any plans tonight, did you? Yeah, we're here at church. Yeah, yeah, thanks. That has been adjusted. RGB. Yeah, turn it off. It's like when you turn your lamp off to turn your fan on. I told Ryan we have one of the most patient congregations in the world. And so I encourage you not to bring any frozen fruit or vegetables. Notice I said frozen or rotten eggs. The Day of the Lord and the Army's pride of position, I called this. And you can see that good. And we're going to we blew through this last time really quickly. We're going to go through quickly again. And actually, we're going to read all the way through Isaiah chapter three today, tonight. For the day of the Lord. OK, look, we got a key here. There's a there's there's there's several themes. There's the entity, which I'm just describing as what is described as high or low. The thing God is an entity. I'm not saying he's impersonal. I'm saying this person. God is is an entity. Pride of man, man. There are entities in here. They're going to be colored red. Something being brought low. That's in blue. Something you brought high. That's an orange for your yellow, golden rod, whatever that thing on the low side is, or high side, I'm sorry. And that's the way I've color coded this discussion, the pride of position. I want you to track through here. I call it pride of position because that's really the theme being developed through this whole passage. He says, the day of the Lord of hosts will be against every arrogant and raised up. Arrogant and raised up are thoughts that are Elevation. This is elevation. This is the razor, the scythe coming down from heaven and cutting off everything it sees because everything it sees is raised up against God, who is the only one who gets to be raised up. That's the theme through this passage. Every arrogant and raised up and against every lifted up and he, the thing lifted up will fall. So now we're going from high down to low. He will fall. So we've established the problem here and the solution. The problem is arrogance. The solution is destruction. And that's the the pattern in the Bible. Be arrogant against the authorities God has established over you, and you're in for some destruction, for some falling, for some pain. This is a summary statement, and now we're going to get into all the ways that God's going to do this. Now, we talked about how this is the zoom in and zoom out through Isaiah. This is the long the long look at the and when all the arrogance in the world is removed and and and one military campaign one effort by god to remove arrogance by jesus christ himself to remove arrogance all those who uh... against him and this is an international judgment against all the cedars of lebanon that's an entity cedars of lebanon but the way we're gonna strive is that that are raised up and lifted up raise and lifted up uh... Raised is room, and we've had it already before here. Raised up, room, is the word in Hebrew, R-U-M, long on the U there, not Ram, room. And lifted up, Nasa, like NASA, Nasa, lifted up. And against all the oaks of Bashan, again, these are places that aren't part of the land. They're outside. Syria, or Aram, owns Lebanon in this time, and these are These are exports of Lebanon, part of Syria. The Oaks of Bashan. Notice the cedars and the oaks are parallel because they're trees. These are exports. It has to do with a national economy. I'm going to take my economics, my economic capability, and use it as a way to be independent from God. And that is a sure way to be miserable and to totally lose out on everything God has for you in life. Independence from God. Independence from God is satanic and it is the wrong party in a two party system. There is no middle ground. There is no me and then my neutral position and then God's position and Satan's position. There is either satanic or what God desires. Well, this is one aspect national economy. Are the Sears Lebanon evil? No. Using them as a way to become independent from God is evil. Using them as a way to make myself great without recognizing that God is the only person, the only being, the tripersonal being who is great. National economy. Against all the mountains raised and all the hills lifted up, we have entities, mountains and hills, those are governments, and raised and lifted up, again, the same words, room and Nassau. Again, room and Nassau. He keeps repeating himself. Why? Because it's position. Who gets the height? Who gets to be high and who has to be low? It's really just very simple. The creature-creator distinction. Remember, have you ever heard that saying before? The difference between God and everything else. There's God, who gets to be exalted, and everything else which gets to worship Him. And if you're not in that phase of life where you are submitting to God, and I mean submitting your life to God, then this message is for you. Like any moment in your day when you're, you know, here's your illustration. Get your mirror and you look in the mirror and you say, look at that mirror. And God says, wait, wait, no, look up here. And you say, oh, there you are. No, look back up here. No, no, come back. And if that's your life, you're going to eventually realize it's a little bit softer on the hair follicles if you just keep your eyes focused on the Lord instead of Him having to constantly drag you back, your attention back. Now, if you haven't recognized that that's what that pain is, that's what it is. That's the Lord calling you back and He's provided pastors and teachers to communicate that. if you haven't read it in the text already. Against everything raised up, all the mountains and hills. In this context we've already had mountains and hills as governments. So that's not a surprise that he's going to use the same imagery. National government. National economy and national government are not bad. Anything that God's given or delegated becomes evil when we use it against him as a way for me to be independent. Against every tower that's high and every city wall that is unassailable. So we've got lift raise and lift it up now have high and now we have a description unassailable that's why you want your tower high so inviting climate tower and city wall are entities they can be used for good or evil they can be used as a way to submit ourselves to the Lord or a way to try to be independent and arrogant and this is national defense through this passage national defense against all the ships of Tarshish against all the ships that are precious ships of Tarshish Ships I said ships are entities, but their descriptions make them Of great height and value Tarsus ships. That's the desirable ship. That's the one you want to have It'll go all the way across the Mediterranean even to Spain perhaps where Tarsus is I take it that this is a kind of ship We're not really sure what a ship of Tarsus is but I take it that it's a model it's a particular type of ship that's capable of carrying lots of cargo for my national trade, my international trade, import and export against all the ships of Tarshish. Why does the Lord want to go? He's big. He's really big. Why does he want to go down and break all these little ships? Because man is small and he sees the big ship and says, look what I'm capable of. And God says, this is again a way you are trying to be independent of me. You're going to submit. Is economy evil? Is the dollar evil? No. The dollar is Something is an entity God has actually in history, in orchestrating history, has set up. Believe it or not, Jesus Christ does control history. The dollar isn't evil. Man is evil and what man does with the dollar becomes evil. Is capitalism evil? Absolutely not. Capitalism is a system of economy based on my ability and your ability to have private property. You know, like in the Ten Commandments, don't steal. Like when God gave man dominion over the earth, the first land grant property, you fix it, you own it. God ultimately owns all the property, but he gives man dominion. So is capitalism evil? No, God made it. But when the ults of nature gets involved, we get greed. So, well, since there's greed associated with capitalism, what we need to do is take away everybody's money and pass it out equally. No, because you still got the same problem that corrupts capitalism. It's called the old sin nature. Only now, just a few get to run the masses and millions die. And it will bow down Shechak, the pride of the common man. See, we haven't had a low yet. We've had a bunch of highs. Because he will fall describes what's going to happen to all these things, because the day of the Lord is against. See that? Against all these things. Not because, again, they're evil of themselves, but because They're man's shield against God. It's like you're in a sword fight. I like this illustration. You're in a sword fight with the Lord. As ridiculous as that sounds. And you stick your sword up and I'm going to defend. And he's going to take his God sword and slash a quarter of your sword off. And just knocks a quarter of it off. And then you've got three quarters of your sword left. And he knocked off your national economy. Okay, well, I'm still in it and he's knocks off another one. It's your government your government does he just keeps whittling down till you just got to realize it's between me and you Lord and your God and I'm not and that's what he's doing here. He's going to do that for all the human race and we're going to see in proper or I'm sorry, Isaiah 3 that when at the end of this process everyone in Jerusalem is righteous and everyone in the world by the way is going to be righteous because everyone that's not righteous is no longer here. And it will fall, Shaphael, the raised position of the aristocrat. The parallelism is between the adam, the common man, and the ish, the man in authority. So Shakak and Shaphael, and he will be exalted and accessible to the Lord alone in that day. This is the amazing thing and all this is that the parallelism, the contrast between all these things man uses that are just ways that we can submit ourselves to him, economy, government, trade, and now. Those are all removed and God alone is exalted. And you see, if we as human beings would submit those areas of our life that he's given us, like all of our lives to him, our personal economy, our personal trade, our personal government, self-governance, then this would never happen. God would be able to use those institutions and structures to glorify himself. That's the pattern. But the idols will pass away entirely, he says. Verse 18, the idols entirely will pass away as a kind of an afterthought to this passage, to all this thought. It's this idea that God is able to destroy all these things man uses as a barrier to him. Think about the Tower of Babel, the first big tower, unassailable tower that was even waterproof after the flood. that God destroyed he didn't even, he didn't raise, he didn't do anything to the structure, he just took the people in it and they couldn't get along anymore, they couldn't communicate anymore. The idols entirely will pass away. Summarizing this, point one, not only will Jerusalem and Judah be humbled in the day of the Lord, verses 6 through 11, but all humanities in verses 12 through 18. Notice I'm making that distinction. In Isaiah chapter 2, we have the near term, the destruction of Judah, and the far, the distant term, the destruction of all humanity that is in opposition to God. And that is a judgment that delivers, that delivers the remnant who are, in that day, are going to be people in Israel. All human entities, verses 12 through 18. Point 2, the prophecy of verses 12 through 18 is a far look, thousands of years away from Isaiah's position, contrasted with a near look of verses 6 through 11, hundreds of years away. Therefore, point 3, the day of the Lord in verse 12 refers to the time when God will visit judgment upon all arrogant human exaltation. Verse 12 starts this, he picks up his telescope again and after putting down his binoculars, he's looking long term. The Day of the Lord, by the way, is not one day. I mean, there is an ultimate Day of the Lord described in Revelation 19. But every time God brings military judgment on a people, it is the Day of the Lord for those people. The Day of the Lord was experienced by Jerusalem three times, by Judah, the southern kingdom, three times in history so far. 701, 586 and 70 ad all three times were the day of the Lord because it's God bringing judgment. That's what the day the Lord means Point for this judgment occurred against Judah in several cycles beginning with 701 the Assyrians and then 605 to 586 and then in 70 ad Point five wins verse 12 through 18 occurs, and I just said that one twice. We're moving ahead and When verses 12 through 18 occurs, the destruction will be of Israel's enemies surrounding her, and then all humanity in rebellion against God. And you have some passages there that explain how the judgment is actually deliverance. It's the judgment of Israel's enemies, who are God's enemies. Because there's only two fighters in this fight. There's God and everything else. If you're in his corner, you're good to go. And if you're not, you're going to be part of this thing that gets destroyed. Zephaniah 315, Revelation 16, 13-16, and Revelation 19, 11-19. So verses 6-11, which we didn't talk about tonight, but verses 6-11 in the context is where God is destroying Judah, the southern kingdom, his people. It's ironic because Judah and Jerusalem receive the Day of the Lord like the whole world will in 2nd Advent. Why is that ironic? Because the Day of the Lord is actually God's protection of those people, the Jews in Jerusalem. That which, point seven, that which is designed by God to protect and preserve Israel in the second advent was used against Israel before the first advent. You know, we wouldn't be in the same cycle that Israel was in as a nation. We wouldn't be doing this too. We are, but we wouldn't be if we had the Lord come and talk to us as a country. If Jesus came to us today, We wouldn't doubt. We would listen because the king would be there and it would be very clear we could see him. But you know what? It's not true. Because the king came to these people and they were destroyed in 70 AD, a generation after he came. And they, after they killed him. Point eight, this judgment in the day of the Lord is a preservative measure in every case. And the beginning of this idea of God judging the whole world is Noah, is the Noahic flood. That is preservative. He killed the whole world to preserve humanity. Isn't that, that just doesn't seem how, if I were in charge, I wouldn't have done it that way. You know, I wouldn't have thought to kill everybody to save the human race. Right. And if I was in charge, I probably wouldn't think I'm going to go down there and die in their place either. See, that's the difference between God and man is God's God. And you're not, and I'm not, and we wouldn't have thought of it. Isn't that great? That's why we're worshiping him and not ourselves, if we're rightly adjusted to him. So point nine, the principle from Noah to Isaiah, the remnant is preserved by the day of the Lord. Isaiah actually points this out specifically in Isaiah 28 verses one through five. The principle from Noah to Isaiah and through the whole Bible, the remnant is preserved by the day of the Lord. What's horrible and a nightmare and a time to go hide in a cave for some, for the world, is actually good news for us. Now, does that pattern work at the cross where judgment is actually preservative? Yeah, it's the same thing at the cross. Bad day for Jesus Christ, great day for the world. It's actually the polar opposite. Horrible time for a few, for one, wonderful news for the gospel, the good news for everyone else. The point 10 in verses 12 through 18, there are 12 instances of exaltation apart from God and four summary statements of humbling through God's destruction. Were you counting? That was the orange and blue, the exaltation versus humbling. There were 12 instances of exaltation and actually I should say 11 instances of exaltation apart from God and four summary statements of humbling through God's destruction. In point 11, the contrast is very clear between what is raised or exalted and what will fall. See, that's the point is the contrast. Because we're dumb. We're going to forget. You, I promise, are as intelligent as you are. And this is a very mature and intelligent congregation. We're here on a Tuesday night in the Arctic. But you're going to forget this. And we've had it 12 times. We've had it 12 times. Do not exalt yourself. It's going to get destroyed. What you try to put up before the Lord is going to get removed. So do yourself a favor and let's have a non-violent coup. Let's do it without any bloodshed, without any pain, without any jerking your head back up to look at Him. Let's just submit to what He has for us, because that's the blessing. He really is just trying to bless you. That's the other side of this, too. Point 12, the pattern established in creation and fulfilled perfectly by Jesus Christ is that man will be exalted. Man will be exalted by submitting to the authority of God. You want theology? Here's your theology. Here's your systematic theology. This is the pattern for the whole Bible. Man will be exalted, but only if he submits. Man will be made great. He will be raised up high. He will be made like he wants to be. He will be blessed and treated like he really wants to be treated, with significance, with purpose, with some sort of meaning in his eternal life, but only in submission to God. 13, this exaltation of man is the corollary to Isaiah's message. And it's corollary because Isaiah's message is everything that exalts itself against God is going to be destroyed. The corollary is everything that submits itself to God will be exalted. Again, it's not what you and I would think. We in our flesh do not come to the table and say, I'm going to become promoted by taking the form of a janitor. I'm going to become the CEO of the company by sweeping the floor. None of us would approach it that way. No, we would put on our best suit, have our briefcase, whether there's stuff in it or not, just so we look like we're appropriately suited to the task. And we would claw and fight and smile and stab people in the back and fight our way to the top and only realize that, no, actually, the janitor is the CEO. It's the guy down in the basement sweeping the floor as unto the Lord. Point fourteen, we in the church age, after the completion of the canon, we submit ourselves to God by submitting ourselves to his word. And this is your plenary definition for worship, submitting yourself, your whole life, to God and to his word. That's what we do in this church. And they will enter into the caves of the rock and into the holes of the dust from before the terror of the Lord. We've heard this before. I know you've all been reading Isaiah 2 over and over and over again to refresh it in your thinking. I know I have. And this was already said to Judah, enter into the caves of the rock and into the holes of dust before the terror of the Lord from the splendor of his height, of his eminence, in the time when he arises in order to terrify the earth. In that day he will throw Who will throw? The common man. Verb, subject, object. He will throw his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which he made for himself, and he throws them for a purpose. Lamed plus the infinitive. He throws them for a reason. Why does he throw them? Why does he throw his idols? Because he's trying to get in. He throws them to the moles and the bats, but he does so in order to go into the caves of the rock. You can't get in there. You can't get in the caves of the rock if you've got your hands full, because it's a little sliver of space and you've got to turn sideways and slip in there. And by the way, this is the same imagery, what you're supposed to do, With the Lord as the rock, you're supposed to take refuge. The Lord, our God, is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. This is God language, the rock, the sewer. But it isn't God here. We're hiding from God in the rock. We're doing what man always does. He hides. And in the crannies of the cliffs are the rock faces from before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of his height. Did you just hear that in verse 19? He just repeated himself. We're about to see how. When he arises in order to terrify the earth, when this happens. So the conclusion is stop caring about the man whose breath is in his nostrils, whose neshamah is in his nostrils. For what reason is he to be esteemed? Let's look at how this works poetically. They will enter the caves of the rock, I put it in green, and into the holes of the dust because that's one unit that's going to get set again. You're going to see green again, so we put it in colors. From before the terror of the Lord and from the splinter of Zedemetzer height and the time he arises in order to terrify the earth. This is the this is the green, red, blue. Where they go. What's sending them there, the fear of God, not the fear of the Lord, you and I have is submitting to him, recognizing he's our creator, but since he showed up, I mean, that's what the agnostics want, right? The agnostics, you know, those people that claim they don't know which you and I both know that they do know. They suppress that knowledge and unbelief, but they know they just reject it. the agnostic who's waiting to be shown. This is his verse. When you get to see the splendor of the Lord, when he actually shows up, you're going to be running. You don't want to see it. You want to hide. And we, today, we're already there. We're hiding in the rock. We're there. We're hiding, just not from him. We're hiding in him. And the time he arises to terrify the earth is what the Lord does. Now look at what is different. In that day, he will throw the common man, his idols, which he made for himself to bow down to the moles and to the bats in order to go into the caverns of the rock. There we start the cycle again. Caverns of rock, caves of rock. Is that as bad for you as it is for me down here? Wow. I'm going to stick with gray with a little white stripe in the middle and black or white and don't clap. I know you appreciate it. In the crannies of the cliffs are rock faces from before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of Xemnas are height and the time he rises terrified the earth. He just repeated himself. You know, that was probably a copyist error. You know, they probably just copied. No, he did. You're good. Good point. They were just he said it in a sandwich to show you what's being paralleled. The idolatry in this one is paralleled to caring about man whose breath is in his nostrils. Why is it idolatry and and man? Because there is nothing in the stick. It's a man worshipping himself. And this is what you do today. You are not bowing down to a stick. You are submitting yourself, your time, your substance, to your own need for entertainment, diversion, whatever thing, Chafer called it anesthetic. Something to tell me that I, to take me away from the pain of the fact that I am dying a little bit every day. There is no real anesthetic. It's just a temporary break. I'm not saying don't go to movies. Actually, I'm saying you probably should rent movies. It's so expensive to go to movies now. I'm saying that when you forget that you have a minute-by-minute relationship, moment-by-moment, second-by-second relationship with God, and take little breaks, that's what you're doing. You are submitting to your hedonistic fleshly desire, and that is idolatry. Stop caring about these men. Now, in this, We also have to be contextually grounded. This is those people in the world who are saying, you don't have to believe in God. Yahweh, Sabbath, Oath. No, no, no. That's the Jerusalem God. You ought to check out Molech. We've got some wild Molech parties up there in Aram. And we won some wars because Molech fights good for us. So you should give him a shot too. You just got to give up some of your kids. to the whole bull with the flame thing. And Baal, Baal brings the rain. Baal just means husband. You guys call your god Adonai, that means husband too. We got the same kind of idea going on. It's just my god's from my town, your god's from your town. Don't care about them, he says, Isaiah says. Don't listen to these people. They are breathing God's air who created you, who created them. It's His air. And they're breathing their breath in their nostrils. Why would you esteem a man who is completely, for every moment and second of his life, is dependent on the Creator? Rather esteem the Creator who we all know is God not the stick. There's no there's no ball. There's a picture You even carved him out and everyone carved the same picture It's this guy in a chariot with his hand and he's got two thunderbolts in his hand. He's got the silly-looking With Fez hat, you know like the Shriners little guys with the with the go-karts and little ball with a Shriner's thing and he's got a donkey pulling a chariot and that thing goes around the clouds and I'm not going to tell you how he produces rain, but it has to do with a fertility cult. And there's a reason we sacrifice to him on the high place so he can see what's going on down there. That's what this whole phallic cult has always been about and it was very, very true with the Canaanites. So don't listen to these people. And that's what we need to hear today too. All the world is still doing the same human self-idolatry. We just put a different flavor on it. We just put a different spin on it. It's a different, what did I hear the other day? It's a new hula dance with a religious grass skirt. Let's get some points on this before we get into chapter 3. Man will recognize his folly of idolatry and self-worship. He will. And that should make us rejoice because we are adjusted to God's Justice, as we study, as we learn what he said here, we know he's in charge. We know we have a God. We are not him. We are totally submissive to him with all of our substance. This is this is what we've been called for. And don't hold back. Don't leave a little bit of reserve. That reserve is going to mold and be cancer. Give it all. Submit your whole life to the Lord, because then then you will not be an idolater to self-worship. But this is great comfort that we will recognize the folly of idolatry and self-worship. Point two, he will run, the man will run from the creator into the creation over which he was made to rule. Isn't that ironic? Man is running from, the same language of running to the Lord and hiding with him as the rock, as the refuge. They're going to run from him just like Adam in the garden when he shows up for judgment. And they're going to dive into the creation that man was designed to rule over. You know, it's the foxhole from Jesus mentality rather than I'm in a foxhole and I run to the Lord like you hear these foxhole conversions in World War One and World War Two. Now it's a foxhole running from the Lord. Point three, the worship of idols is to be equated with man's self-worship. And I got that from the way the poems were put together so that the idolatry became the discussion of why esteem man. That's the parallelism there that I think points to that structurally. Point four, partly this worship of idols and self-worship is because man believes he must see God to worship God. I mean, that's why we carve things. That's why we paint pictures. That's why, you know, I like to say the Renaissance guys, actually I stole this from someone, but the Renaissance guys always got their girlfriend and painted him, painted her and then put a beard and said, that's Jesus. You know, they got all these fairy looking Jesus's in the, in the Renaissance era, because we got to have something to look at. And it, and it can't be some gnarly looking Jew from, from the Middle East. Can't look, don't give me that carpenter look. I'm looking for the sweet white guy, white girl with a beard look, the bearded lady. bearded lady pictures of Jesus man's always thought we need to see him so we carve something we build something we can see him and then what I've actually done is I've said I have become the clearinghouse for truth my perception determines what is reality that is the fundamental flaw in the human being if I don't see it it's not true and that's that's satanic has God indeed said is the first thing out of Satan's mouth You can know all you need to know, just eat that fruit. Point five, man was designed to believe. He was designed to believe. In rebellion, he tries to believe in only what he can see. Do you see how that's not faith? There's no faith if you see it. Seeing is believing. That's the death knell for anybody's ability to understand what the Bible's about. If you have to see it to believe it. Man was designed to believe. In rebellion, he tries to believe in only what he can see. The point said, sadly, when man will see the coming of the Lord in glory, he will hide rather than see. Isn't that great? Isn't that neat how this works out? You have to see it. OK, you're going to carve a stick. And then when God actually shows up, well, I don't want to see that. I'm going to get in the I'm going to hide in the rock. It's amazing and I cannot talk about this hiding in the rock from God without thinking about Moses hiding from God's presence He says let me see you and God says okay You can see behind behind me as I walk you can see the back of me as I walk past you Hide in the rock the sewer and you can look at me and that's Moses Hiding so he can see these people are hiding so they won't have to see Just kill me don't let me see it just Point seven, for us, the challenge is to recognize the Shekinah that is always present in us, though we cannot see him. The presence of God in us, though you can't see it. This presence, point eight, should motivate us to keep seeking the things above in Colossians 3, 1 through 3. Keep seeking the things above. That is the conclusion, guess what, of Isaiah chapter 2. And now, on to Isaiah chapter 3. Merry Christmas to you. We're going to talk about both of these characters here in this passage. Yes, we have upgraded our standards in clip artery since the last couple of weeks, weekends. But notice that there is a man and a woman in this picture, and they are both being addressed in Isaiah chapter three, the summary of Isaiah chapter three. And remember this, we've been through this big outline. I haven't looked at it in a while. We'll look at it next time. But the big outline is we're in the arrogance phase. where we're between the Lord, the day of the Lord, where he comes as this to save in Isaiah two, two through five and later on in four, one through six. We're in the between where it's arrogance. Instead of God being exalted, it's man trying to exalt himself and therefore incurring judgment. So the summary for Judah, the Lord taketh away for behold. Now, we couldn't have gotten in a three without two because he starts with a key and the key pulls from before. Arrogance, all idolatry and arrogance gets destroyed. God gets exalted for behold. The Lord, that's Adonai, God. And this is an interesting construction that he does. Usually, the Lord is the word in English to translate this word, this name, I Am. Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which used to be called Jehovah when we didn't know how to read Nazaretic Hebrew. And now we recognize that there is no such person, never has been such a name as Jehovah. It's perhaps Yahweh, but we don't know. That's a conjecture based on vowel points. So, I usually say, the Lord for that, but this is you can't because the Lord is at an eye. That's what it means. And you have out an eye here. You have at an eye Yahweh or at an eye, the sacred Tetragrammaton of the army Saba oath, the Lord God of the armies. This is if there was ever a name for God's function for the Lord, Jesus Christ's function as the executor of God's plan. It's the Lord God of the armies. I deny Yahweh Saba oath. again, with respect that I'm not sure that that's the correct pronunciation for Yahweh. I'm only about, oh, 60% sure. And I never would be satisfied with a 60, would you? Is going to remove from Jerusalem and from Judah, supply and support, mashen, that's supply and support, mashenah, mashenah. This is a neat dualism there. the masculine of the word for support or supply logistics, and the feminine version of the word, like man and woman, ish and isha. That sets up this idea in Isaiah 3 that both genders are going to be addressed. We're going to have two big laundry lists in Isaiah 3. They're awesome. It's Santa's Christmas list for the ladies, and it's all the categories of the men. And guess what happens in this rebellious Judah, southern kingdom, guess what happens? It all gets destroyed, it all gets removed. The Christmas list gets taken out for the ladies, that's the wrong word. All the men are destroyed and all the ladies' Christmas presents get taken away. And I know that's not a very good Christmas message, but... The whole supply, he keeps using this word again, mashan, of bread, and the whole supply, mashan, of water. So the whole supply of bread, the whole supply of water is going to get removed. The main verb that's going to drive the next several verses is this word right here, remove. God is going to remove these things. And notice he brings out his military title, the Lord of the Armies, which isn't a mistake. He's going to do this through military conquest. Verse 2 and 3, all men are going to be taken away. The same verb, he will remove, the Lord taketh away, the gebor. I just gave you the English transliteration of the Hebrew word there, gebor, because we've had it in Ruth. Boaz is a mighty man of valor a good bore hi ill good bore means aristocrat or man of means and got hi ill means valorous or man of integrity or man of high quality the man of aristocratic background or means or Economic capability rich guy and the night the ish of war I translated the man of war as a knight because I like that because I happen to have been a Raised in a culture that is that understands what a knight is because it is anglo-saxon in its origin. Oh Say that shouldn't talk about a culture and origins we should we should just recognize that we're a salad bowl and the International Clearinghouse or latrine for the world and not try to be a cultural unity anymore the Gabor and the night will be removed and if hey if the if the guy with all the weapons and And all the capability of waging war is taken out. And the guy with all the money to support him, then it's pretty much over for all the other clowns. And that's why he starts with these guys. Then he says the judge and the prophet. You see, you don't have your protection for these guys anymore. They're going to get removed. The diviner and the elder. Two ways to look at diviner. Either it's a pagan diviner or somebody that is a prophet that the Lord has empowered to speak. All through the Old Testament, in the Prophets, in the Kings and Chronicles, in the history books, we have these guys that show up, you've never heard of them, they show up for a minute, Mishael, he talks for three verses, or a passage, and then he's gone. So it doesn't matter. Every category. The elder is the word zakain, we're going to see it again, it means old person. And that is a person of, in this culture, and it should be in all cultures, a person worthy of listening to and respect because they've seen it longer and they've done it longer and so you listen to them. This person who gets removed as well. The captain of 50 and the man of uplifted face. What did they say there for man of uplifted face in verse 3? They said, the counselor and the, no, no, I'm sorry, the honorable man. Well that's an idiom for an honorable man then, uplifted face. It's not an idiom because that's how they translate it. It happens to be an idiom for that. But notice, you wouldn't have the flavor of the Hebrew if we didn't do that. The man of uplifted face. Again, the captain of 50, I see, is parallel to the knight. The man of uplifted face is parallel to the rich guy up there in verse 2, in the first one. The counselor and the wise. Counselor means ruler who is wise to give counsel. You never have a ruler. who isn't given this honorific title of someone that's worthy of listening to their counsel. They give you advice, and if you're wise, you follow it. That's your counselor. And the wise craftsman. I translated wise because we are studying Proverbs, and this is the word chakam, like chakma, wisdom. And this is one of those passages that tells me what wisdom is. It's a skilled artisan, a skilled craftsman. Because Chachma doesn't mean a guy sitting up on a hill, smoking a peace pipe, waiting for someone to ask him a question. Grasshopper, can you take this out of my hand? That's not what a wise person is. Wisdom is skill, skill for living, a skilled artisan here, a skilled craftsman. And the insightful magician, Well, that guy's gone too. The divine are an elder in parallel to the insightful magician. OK, we have influences from the East, influences from the East and pagan religion. Now the Lord's going to give. Isn't this backwards? Doesn't the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away? Well, we just had the Lord taketh away all the men. Now the Lord is going to give. Watch this. And I will give Natan. Did you see it when you read it through the first six or seven times? I will give, because you didn't see it, because he didn't translate it that way. Verse four says, I will make. Well, that's because giving as a leader means making a leader, but the word is give, and that's interesting. I will give youths as their princes. And that's in a perfect tense, Natan, which means it's a done deal. In poetry and not in narrative, but in poetry, I take it that this means it's as good as done. Your next leader gets to be an idiot as far as leading goes. It's going to be a naar, a child that went behind the ears, just a fool. A gullible youth is what you're going to get for a leader instead of someone that is actually trained and prepared. I will give Natan youths as their princes. And wanton children, I translated it, wanton children will rule over them. I think he said capricious children. Similar word. Capricious means that I change my mind a lot. OK, off with their head. No, no, I'm just kidding. Come back, come back, come back. OK, off with their head. And you're talking about a head of state who's capable of making those decisions. send out all my armies to the riverside and make them pluck peaches off the orchard there and bring them back as soon as possible. And no more than three days. And that kind of decision will destroy your whole country. We have a similar thing. Watch your debates. You have guys saying stuff that they're like, you're going to do what with the military? What is on the table as the highest office in the lands, the commander in chief? What are you suggesting doing with our foreign policy? Wanton children will rule over them. Capricious means make it change your mind. Wanton means unruly. This is children. Children in charge. And that is kind of what we have today, is it not? The baby boomers are running the show now. They never grew up. These people in power that are self-promoting, they never got any humility. They never went the distance with the military. And I don't mean you. I mean that you baby boomers. I mean those people that you've been looking to your left and right and saying, What have you been doing with your lives? These people in charge of things now. This is kind of what we have, wanton children ruling over them. And oppressed Nagash will be the people, each by the other. And each by his neighbor. Whoa. Do you see that God's lanes of freedom for everyone to serve him without anyone crossing the lanes because we have governments in place? You see how these have been broken down? My neighbor is now pressing me. Today we have government in place, and if your neighbor presses you, after about six months of lawsuits and working the system, you may actually get a verdict, a ruling of justice. But you see, that's what they're saying. The people are going to be oppressing each other. There is no more national function. There's no more function of national entity. There's no more function of divine institutions. You take God, the author of the divine institutions, away from that and you lose the basis for them. And so hopefully, I know it's late in the hour, but you should start seeing your country's self-portrait in this passage. Now, how did this come about? God gave it to Judah and Jerusalem. Am I saying we're a covenant nation? No, I'm saying that we are a nation and they were a nation and God works through nations. If you're biblical, you will be nationalistic. If you are satanic, you will be internationalistic. On government structure, not on who is the church, the church is international organization. They will storm Rachav. They will storm. The youth, those same Naar, the boys, will storm against the elder. This is just a general pattern in history. Ooh, do we have that now? Do we have young people disrespecting their elders as a norm? Yes. I don't have to respect my authorities. There are no authorities. I'm the authority. And I'll tell you how it is, because that's how I'm going to have it. Everybody thinks that way. You're just joining the rank and file. The weird thing, the strange thing, the God thing in your life is when you submit to authority. They will storm the youth against the elder and the contemptible, the detestable, the kala against the honorable, the kavod. Isn't that amazing? That now you have people with no standing in government, absolutely no basis to stand on because they're detestable. They have all sorts of baggage, all sorts of reasons why they don't get to say and make policy, they get to oppress the people who have lived up right before the Lord. This is the total breakdown of the nation. And this is what the Lord gives. Now, see, if you take out the divine institutions, this is what you get when when human default setting goes into play. When the old sin nature runs rampant, we destroy each other's freedom. I want what I want and forget about you. I'm just going to take it. That's why you can never be a libertarian. I don't try to be political. I will be ideological because that's the level we're dealing with. Why do we believe what we believe? I'll never tell you about a candidate, but I will say that libertarian politics has no government. That's not biblical. Biblical Bible says freedom, liberty, but by establishing government. And so you can't, you can't go there either. Wouldn't it be nice if we just all burn up? So the Lord gives leadership, verses 6-7, when he grabs hold to Phos, when he grabs a man of his brother, I'm sorry, okay, here's how it works, when he, a man, grabs his brother in the house of his father, when a man grabs hold of his brother in the house of his father, and he says it this way, in the Nazbi it says, you have a cloak, you shall be our ruler. That's pretty cleaned up. Let's do it in Hebrew. Coat to you, ruler you'll be to us. It's exactly said that way. It's very beautiful, the terseness of the statement. You got a coat, we got a ruler, is what they say. And he means you. You get to be the guy that rules us because you have a coat. It's written, it means this in the English. It's correct meaning. I just want you to see the terseness of the poetry. Some of you got it. Some of you said, What's that the word of God or something? Okay, and ruins these under your hand and ruins You get these ruins see this rubble that we're around. We've just been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, bro All this is now yours you get to clean it up He will raise Nassau now this is this is why we had to go through the end of chapter 2 he will raise this is the first time we have anything raising up in this passage and He's going to raise up an indignation and say, wait a second, you're trying to stick me with this mess. He says, he lifts up his hand. He just says he raises. And Dr. Thomas said it's, he says, he will protest. The Hebrew says he raises up, he nassaz, he lifts up. He lifts up his head, he lifts up his body, he lifts up his hand, he lifts up his voice, yeah. What? No, wait a second! And everyone, you can just see the family, everyone's hungry. Nobody wants to assume responsibility for this mess. They're going to behead all the rulers, whatever. We don't want to be this ruler. So we think Bob should do it. Bob's got a coat. No, we don't want to mess with Bob. Kermit. Kermit's got a coat. Kermit should be the ruler. And Kermit's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Attention. Mr. Vice point of order. I'm not going to be in charge of this. And he says, why? No, I won't be your doctor. That's right. He says, doctor, I'm not going to be the one to fix this problem. That's why he protests. Not because he doesn't want to be made the head of the household, but he doesn't want to be the doctor because he can't. For in my house, there's no bread and there is no coat. He says, you should not set me as the ruler of the people. And now that's just what the men do. This is all the men like I'm not in charge. No, I'm not in charge. That's what you have in your culture today. You have as many households as you have, 90% of them, men do not want to be responsible. That's the place where I go. It's my cave to go, have warmth, and I can have food if I'm nice, and I can have my thing if I just got to do the thing she wants, but in the morning I can get up and leave. And and or or it's maybe not quite that bad but but but it's it's this emotional This is just my home and and and there's not much difference between mom and my wife That's what that's what your culture do. Yeah, right enroll and function now careful there, but um Don't take it don't take it to the Proverbs chapter 4 level or 1st Corinthians chapter 6 and What we're saying is that men are basically abdicating their responsibilities to be men, and women are starting to rule. And that's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing when women rule. Why would I, in a room full of women, why would I say such a thing? Why would I say it's a horrible thing in your country when women begin to rule? And I'm not making a statement about Hillary or Margaret Thatcher, one of whom I like, one of whom I don't. I'm making a statement about what God designed people to do, the way man and woman were designed, and what their functions are before the Lord. That's the level I'm talking about, not at the personal, give me an example of a good woman ruler, okay, Deborah, and Yael. But there's a historical context in which Deborah and Yael functioned, where men were not men, were not functioning as men. And that's what we have here. The reason I can say it's a horrible thing in every case when women rule and men don't is because I'm about to preach chapter eight. I mean, verse eight, verse eight, nine and 10, where we're going to have women rule them. And it's a horrible thought. Why the judgment? Now, she has staggered who Jerusalem and Judah has fallen because their tongues and their deeds are against the Lord. That is your summary statement for the problem. There's your problem. Their tongues and their deeds are against the Lord in order to rebel, to mora against the eyes of his glory. That doesn't sound quite the same as it will in your English, but I want to argue the meanings very close. I'm saying the same meaning with different language to get there because I'm giving you a wooden literal translation so you can see how a Hebrew mind thinks. That's what I want you to do, see how the Hebrew mind thinks. The country is staggered and fallen. Why has she fallen? Well, first we had God gave it. God took away the men and God gave the loser, the little boy leaders, because their tongues and their deeds are against the Lord. And they are against the Lord so that they can rebel against the eyes of His glory. Now it says, verse 8, to rebel against his glorious presence. The reason he translated eyes as presence is because when God's seeing you and he's there and it's glorious, there is this idea of presence. And it may be an idiom for presence, but it's at least that God's watching because his eyes are there. God is always watching you, not just like Santa Claus, but he is always watching you. And I mean that because Santa Claus isn't watching you. Verse nine, the look of their faces answers against them. Wow, does this sound like your household if you've got parents with teenagers at home? Does the look of their face answer against them? Are you seeing that disrespectful, arrogant sneer? Did you just want to slap that look off their face? Give me the fly swatter! Don't slap your kids with the fly swatter. The look of their faces answers against them, and their sin, like Sodom, they display, and they display it like evidence. Here's our sin. What are you going to do about it? I'm going to send the thunderbolt. I'm going to send the death angel. I'm going to send the army that I'm building up to destroy you. Their sin, like Sodom, they display as evidence against them. They don't even conceal. They do not conceal, literally. Woe to their souls, their nephesh, for they've ripened. They've brought, ripened, or brought for themselves evil. I like the word ripened because that's usually how this word is used for like a fig tree that brings forth figs. We say it brings forth, but it's the idea the fig is ripening. And sometimes this is used that way. And we're going to see fruit in just a second. So now the standard. So say to the righteous man, good, for a fruit of his works, ma'aleel, he will eat. The righteous man will eat the fruit of his works. This is what the My pastor growing up called the law volitional responsibility right here in Isaiah chapter 3 verse 10. He's going to eat the fruit of his works to the righteous man. This isn't the self-righteous man. It's the right. I know we're going way over. I know. But trying to don't look. Don't look. No, no. We're going over, but you can handle it for the fruit of his works. He will eat. Woe to the wicked man. Bad, he just says. He didn't say, say to him, just woe, as in funeral dirge, we're at his funeral. Bad, for the produce of his hands will be done to him. The produce of his hands, just like fruit of works, just like the thing that was brought forth earlier. My people, their oppressors are grubbers. That was a hard translation. Ma'aleel is just like this word we had before, ma'aleel, and he uses that for a reason, to parallel that with you. Ma'aleel and Me'aleel. Those who act wantonly, which is sometimes considered children. You have maybe in your margin, verse 11, I'm sorry, verse 12. Oh no, they didn't do it in this one. There's two possible translations. Their oppressors are children or their oppressors treat them poorly. I take it that it means that oppressors are children who treat them poorly. And that's why I said grubbers. The actions of children. You know what a grubber is, right? The grubber is the three-year-old at Kentucky Fried Chicken that'll bend down and pick up that gummy bear off the floor and eat it. That's a grubber. And that's who these people's oppressors are. The children just are running the show, and that's the kind of decisions they make. And that's what I wanted to end on for your Christmas message tonight. And women rule over them. That's a thought. You're supposed to click your tongue in the top of your mouth and say, woe is we that this is how far we have fallen. Women rule over them. Does that offend you? Does that offend your feminine sensibilities? Hopefully not. Hopefully you recognize that for you to glorify God as a woman, Men, for you to glorify God as a man, you must function in your role, in your design. The worst, the saddest thing you'll ever see is a beautiful army officer who looks 10 years older than she is because she has been through things for which I will argue she was not designed. Now I'm on record saying that and I have many people I respect But understand, we have a design, we have a function, we have a purpose, and that function is always to glorify God. And I'm not going to say Isaiah is in a cultural setting where he's just talking to the boys in the gate. This is God's eternal truth for us, for all time. And you're not going to be happy. You want to go do this thing, you're not going to be happy. Look, check it out. These people aren't happy. They're not fulfilled. They think they're going to be fulfilled. They're not fulfilled. They're just doing their Genesis 3.16, usurping their husband's authority. That's all you get. It's just fulfill you what you go, do what you need to be. Be what you need to be and fulfill your potential to really go as far as the flesh will take you. That's what they're doing. That's what their mentors have told them. And the reason this happens, the reason the feminist movement in America, which is all but dead now, No thanks to anybody from Arkansas. But this thing's all but dead because, it's not all but dead, but it exists because men have not been men. Not because women are trying to just do Genesis 3.16. It's because men are not fulfilling their role as husbands, as fathers. That's the men's prayer study. Notice, maybe you ladies have noticed that we haven't had a women's study yet. You say yet. Yeah, the plate isn't, it's full, but we haven't set the second stack on top of the plate and everything. But the reason I strategically said men study is because I recognize a cultural problem with us. It's that the men are not men. I'm not saying in this church, I'm saying that we have men who are now going to go into work, into the workplace and influence other men. And that's the that's the pattern. That's what's going to start the engine back up and national restoration is going to be men that do it because women will respond that wives and will respond to their husbands if the husbands will be men. And so notice the compliment I'm paying you ladies by not having a women's study. I'm assuming I'm assuming a lot when I say you're there. You don't need it as much as they do. You put your patch kit on the biggest hole on the bike tire. You let the other one go as long as you can. None of you are bike tire holes, just understand that. Heavenly Father, we thank you as always that you've spoken this incredible book into existence. You've said so much. We don't even have time in our lives to comprehend the tenth part of it, but we're trying. And you've set us on this path of righteousness to know you and to seek and to search the words so we can unravel the things you've said, so we can work through them and they can work through our souls as the Spirit does. Please remind us every day, please remind us through this season, this idolatry of self, idolatry of the market idolatry of family through this season of Christmas when we are supposed to focus on your self-representation through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Please help us focus and remember that as we apply these things it is not us, it is not we who must apply them, it's the Spirit We must allow to apply them. It isn't our capability of thinking your thoughts. It's our submission to the Holy Spirit and letting Him remind us of these things. Please let us be submissive to this grace work in us so that we can glorify You in Christ's name. Amen.