If you would, please turn to Isaiah chapter 29. We'll be looking at the first 14 verses of Isaiah. And if you recall, as you're turning there, we started a new section last time, beginning at the beginning of chapter 28, it runs through the end of chapter 35, and it's made up of three I'm sorry, two sections of three, six total sections. We looked at the first last time, chapter 28. There, Israel is said to, is going to be judged there at the beginning, and then it turns and it addresses Judah, asking the question, or provoking the question to be asked, if you will, What about Judah? Will they follow in the same path as their sister to the north? Will they, too, come under judgment and be swallowed up like a fig in a moment gone? Of course, that section ended with the hope of the salvation of a remnant, but the question was, what about Judah? What about Judah? Judah, in that section, does or is said to make a covenant with death. They have reached out to Egypt, and they are celebrating that fact. So it ends with their chains, and then the wisdom of the Lord at the end of chapter 28, excellent his wisdom, or excellent in wisdom. That's the end of chapter 28. That is going to be important for this section that we are in this evening, verses 1 through 14. Ariel, the city where David encamped, add year to year, let the feast run the round, yet I will distress Ariel. and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel. And I will encamp against you all around, and I will besiege you with towers, and I will raise siege works against you, and you will be brought low. From the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down. Your voice shall come from the earth like the voice of a ghost. and from the dust your speech shall whisper. This is a reading of God's Holy Inspired Word. You may be seated. Let's pray. Gracious Father, Lord, you know us better than we know ourselves. We come into your presence this evening in desperate need of your help, your grace, your mercy. Father, we need your word to be addressed by your word, to hear it and to understand, to believe it and to be strengthened by it. Father, would you do the work that only you can do through your Son and by your Spirit here among us. We do not hope in horses and chariots. We do not place our hope in our strength or our wisdom or our riches. Our hope is in you, Father, and a sure hope it is. We pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen. Well, anyone sin today? No, just me? Okay. Well, I managed to sin right before leaving the house, got myself in a little mood. Sorry about that, baby. I was grateful, though, actually, on the way here as I was preparing to preach this. It ministered to my own heart. It may not seem to be all that encouraging of a message if you've read it beforehand. There may not seem to be a whole lot here to encourage the downtrodden, but I assure you that there is great hope in this passage. We're going to see that Judah is going to be humbled. Judah is going to be judged and humbled, but the Lord is going to deliver Judah. Then we're going to see that both the chastisement that brought Judah low and the deliverance that will free Judah from her enemy neither do anything to actually deliver Judah from Judah's biggest problem. the heart. And so the Lord will do something wonderful. Wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder, and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden. And so the passage ends. So let's jump in and just walk our way through, and I'll give you the big idea when we get there, if you'll allow me to wait just a moment for it. First, let me pull up the right notes. There we go. All right, so the Lord is going to humble Judah. That is, the Lord is going to distress Jerusalem, specifically. This is, by the way, if you're tracking through Isaiah, this is simply the fulfillment of what the Lord has already said in Isaiah chapter 8. If you go all the way back at the beginning of Isaiah's ministry, remember Isaiah's call to ministry in Isaiah chapter 6, he sees that vision of the Lord, and he confesses his sin, and he's touched by a coal, and he's made clean, he's atoned for, and then he's sent. The Lord asked for a messenger, and Isaiah is the messenger who is sent, and his ministry, as it's described there, is actually not going to bring the people to repentance, but it's going to make the blind more blind. It's gonna make the deaf more deaf. It's actually just going to harden the hard hearts of God's people. But even that passage ends with hope. If you remember, there will be a root that comes forth. And that hope of salvation throughout Isaiah, in the darkest moments of Isaiah, that hope shines brightest. But, in Isaiah chapter 7, Isaiah is sent to Ahaz. Ahaz is told to not be, Ahaz the king of Judah, not to fear the king of Israel and the king of Syria who are coming against them. The Lord says it will not happen, do not worry. Stand firm in faith, for if you do not stand firm in faith, you will not stand at all. Ahaz sends off to Assyria, says, no thanks, Yahweh, I'm going to put my hope in Assyria. And so the Lord says, okay, Assyria, you will get. And Assyria will flood over into the banks, so it's going to roll past, Assyria's going to roll past Israel and into Judah and right up to the neck that is Jerusalem. So here, once again, we are hearing that that's exactly what is going to transpire, that Jerusalem is going to be encamped by the enemy. Recognize that Jerusalem is in the heart of Judah. If the enemy is encamped around Jerusalem, then Judah's in big trouble, okay? So. Why is the Lord doing this? What is the purpose? Verse four, to lay them low. Notice here in verse four, you have two movements, if you will. Their status is going to be diminished. That is, they are going to be brought low in that first, from the earth you shall speak, from the dust your speech will be bowed down. You will be made low. Your status will be decreased or diminished. And then in the second part, your voice shall come from the earth. Same word there, by the way, I don't know why the SV chose ground instead of earth. From the earth, like the voice of a ghost. I haven't talked to a lot of ghosts. I don't have a lot of expertise in this area, but I don't, I'm guessing ghosts, they're just not all that loud. They don't have a strong voice. In case it's not clear, it's made clear in the next part, and from the dust, your speech will be a whisper. The voice you had, It will be next to nothing. The strength, status and strength both diminished in Judah. They are being humbled. They are going to be brought low. By the way, just because someone here is interested, I'm sure. Ariel is a difficult word to translate. In fact, there's probably a footnote in your Bible. You can look at that. We're gonna go with a hearth altar, okay? And the reason for that is because I think it fits the context best. The term is translated that way in Ezekiel, and so it likely refers to this altar. And Mottyer points out that that would likely could actually explain well the relationship, God's relationship with his people. There on the altar where the fire is burning, you have a picture of God's wrath, but you also have a picture of his favor. And so, here is God's relationship with His people. Holy wrath and preserving favor at work in the midst of His people. Again, it fits the context well because the Lord is not only going to humble His people, but as we move into the next section, He's also going to deliver them. But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff, and in an instant, suddenly, you'll be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, the flame of a devouring fire, and the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her shall be like a dream, a vision of the night. as when a hungry man dreams and behold he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied. Or as with a thirsty man, or when a thirsty man dreams and behold he is drinking and awake faint with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. So what in the world is Isaiah saying there? Well, that Zanacharim, if we wanted to put a name to it, Assyria, is going to be right there. It's like they're clenching Judah, Jerusalem, they have Hezekiah in his hands, and then boom, he wakes up and Hezekiah, Jerusalem, Judah, they're all gone. He was this close, in other words, but then the Lord, in a moment, sends him away. And that's exactly what the Lord does. An angel strikes down over 180,000 of them and sends Zechariah back to Assyria, where he's actually cut down by his two sons. I mean, I get this, actually, this illustration. It works well. In ranger school, we'd be up so long that we would actually, not every one of us, but on multiple occasions, you'd see someone standing there. And you have to go over and shake him and wake him up. He thought he was standing in front of a soda machine, getting a soda and drinking a soda, but he's just so stinking tired that he's just seeing things. He wakes up and boom, the soda's gone. Oh. The tragedy of it all. The point is that the Lord is going to deliver his people. And listen. The message is ambiguous on purpose. The prophetic word is not just trying to be clever and paint pictures and kind of be enigmatic and not let God's people know what's going on. The reason that Syria's not mentioned specifically, the reason that the specific details, the historic moment isn't mentioned specifically, because this could really be any moment. The point is that the Lord is sovereign over history. If Jerusalem is going to come under siege, it's because I will distress them, says the Lord. The Lord will do it. It's not Zennacherib, it's not Assyria, just like it's not Nebuchadnezzar, and it's not Babylon, it's not Pharaoh in Egypt. If Jerusalem, if God's people come under distress, it's because the Lord is at work. The Lord is doing it. If the Lord saves them, it's because the Lord saves them. He is the Lord of history. Why is the Lord humbling them? Well, because as we have seen throughout Isaiah, they refuse to believe what I just said. They refuse to believe the word of the Lord. I was just speaking broadly, but they have received a specific word at multiple points. Think Ahaz, for instance. Don't worry, this thing will not happen. Syria and Israel are going to be done away with before they ever come to actually hatch their plan against you. But they refuse to listen. So in the last chapter, for instance, instead of trusting in the Lord, by the way, this is during the days of Hezekiah. Ahaz, he was a bad dude. We expect that out of Ahaz. But no one trusted like Hezekiah. But this is happening during the days of Hezekiah. There was an invoice sent to Egypt. Now, Hezekiah's never directly attached to it. Maybe he was unaware. But Assyria was aware, they bring it up. Oh, you're not trusting in Egypt, are you? By the way, this is in Isaiah. You could also go to 2 Kings and see this, but we'll just turn over to Isaiah 36, where the envoy from Assyria, the king of Assyria comes and he says, do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting in Egypt. that broken reed of a staff which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it." Now, we know that that is indeed the case because in the very next chapter, Isaiah is going to, the Lord is going to chastise his people in this way. Ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan but not mine, and who make an alliance but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh." So there, that's specific. It's explicit. In fact, it's worth noting while we're there that if you go to chapter 30, verses 9 and following, you will find a description there of the general attitude and disposition of the people. For they are rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers, this is important, do not see, and to the prophets do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel. So that's chapter 30. What we're coming to now is a description of that response in chapter 29. Astonish yourselves and be astonished. Blind yourselves and be blind. I don't think this needs to be interpreted or translated as an imperative here. Being drunk, or they are drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, the prophets, and covered your heads. the seers. It's interesting because that's exactly what apparently they were asking for anyway, right? Please, have these seers stop telling us all these things, these prophets stop prophesying things against us. Just give us smooth words. Prophesy illusions, lead the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel. The vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book, chapter 29, verse 11, that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. By the way, I think this most likely points to neglect. Just, ah, there's a seal here. Sorry, I would love to read it. You know what, come back when the seal's broken. I'll see what I can do. Read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot read. Neglect and indifference. I can't read. and I don't care. This is God's people's attitude towards his word. And so the Lord speaks in verse 13, and the Lord said, because as people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men. Therefore, but we're gonna stop there. What's the problem with this picture? One, you have Judah, right? This is God's people under God's man, that is the Davidic son. You have Jerusalem. That's God's place where he chose to cause his name to dwell, right? So you have the city of the king, you have the temple, you have the Lord, you have God's people, and yet this people look and sound a lot like all the peoples, all the nations. It's not because their God's arm is too short to save. It's not because the Lord has not spoken a word to them, instructed them in the way that they should go. It's not because the Lord is not sovereign. I mean, after all, he's the one actually wielding the axe of Assyria against his people. He's the one who's telling them beforehand what I'm going to do. That is, I am going to rescue you. And he tells them beforehand. He demonstrates time and time again that he is willing and able to save. And still their hearts are far from him. So here's the lesson. Another deliverance or more chastisement will not change anything. The Lord is going to have to do something else. And that's exactly what he commits to do. Therefore, behold, I will again. So he's done this before, now he's gonna do it again. Wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder. Now, just that half, that sounds actually pretty good. That word wonderful, used three times in this context, should actually give God's people some hope, for God has done wonderful things before. Like the exodus, for instance. The same term shows up in Moses' song, because the Lord indeed did wonderful things as he rescued his people from Egypt and brought them through on dry ground and brought them to himself. The Lord is going to do wonderful things. By the way, this term is used a lot, but rarely, very rarely, though I did find two occurrences, one and a half, occurrences of it being used negatively. It is almost always used positively, and almost always in reference to God's saving work, and often, a majority of the time, referring specifically to the Exodus. It's actually used in Isaiah. Go back just a little bit to chapter 25, for instance, and we read, oh Lord, and this isn't too far away from chapter 29, oh Lord, you are my God, I will exalt you, I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things. Plans formed of old, faithful, and sure. And he goes on, but you know what else is in that chapter? You should, if you don't, you need to just write this down and commit it to memory. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined, and He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us." Listen, this is the message that Judah did not get. It's come in many forms. Is anything too hard for the Lord? For instance, the Lord said to Abraham, Genesis chapter 18, Hannah understood this when she sung, not by might will man be saved. David understood this when he stood before Goliath and said, the battle is the Lord's. Salvation belongs to the Lord, Jonah said from the belly of the great fish. The Lord's arm is not too short to save, Isaiah will say. Jesus, responding to a legitimate question from His disciples, said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. This is the message, the big idea, if you will, No removal of a physical enemy is going to help God's people with their hearts. No amount of physical chastisement, no amount of humbling will take care of their biggest problem, their greatest enemy, themselves. They desperately, as we all desperately, needed a Savior. They needed someone who would come and actually remedy their greatest problem. That is, satisfying the divine wrath that was stored up against them for their sins. Actually, fulfilling all righteousness, so that having satisfied divine judgment against them, that is, having fully paid the debt, they don't just stand before God with an empty bank account, but with all righteousness, clothed in Christ. Now that's a salvation. That's a marvelous thing, or a wonderful thing. That's a wonder upon wonder. It's also something that wisdom cannot understand. It's also something that the discernment of the discerning men just don't get. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, right? Ultimately, what Judah needed, what we all needed, was the cross. We needed the message of the cross, which is the power of God unto salvation. Why? Why? Because it is ultimately that good news and the proclamation of it that actually brings us from death to life. We hear, and by the grace of God, when he's doing this wonderful thing, a wonder upon wonder, he actually does what no man can do. That is not just give lip service, because that's about as much as we can do. Not just go through the motions, because some of us can muster that up. but actually speak a word from the heart, Romans chapter 10, confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. Now that's a wonderful thing. That's a wonder upon wonder. And it's here in Isaiah too. I don't think I'm gonna take the time to flesh it out. because we're gonna be there on Sunday. But I do wanna just quickly point out that this deep sleep that Judah is put in, if you will, it is fascinating, okay? I'm just gonna suggest this, let you guys kind of wrestle with it for the rest of this week, and then it'll kind of come back up Sunday, but not explicitly. You remember that Adam was put in a deep sleep, same term, a deep sleep, right? That's interesting. He was put in this deep sleep and out of Adam came woman, right? Abraham was put into a deep sleep as well. Genesis chapter 15, he was put into a deep sleep, and then the Lord explained to him how his children were going to go into exile, and that in the fullness of time, the Lord would bring them out. Adam experiences this deep sleep, and out of Abraham comes Israel. It's used one more time in 1 Samuel chapter 26, I believe. And at first, this one seemed odd to me until you look at the bigger context. And that is that Saul actually experiences this deep sleep. It allows David to come into the camp, you remember? Comes into the camp and he takes his spear and his water jug, I think. Anyway, interesting. Precisely because the next thing that David does is goes into self-imposed, but exile among the Philistines. And the next time that David will come back in, Saul will have died and out comes David. Adam, deep sleep, out comes woman. Abraham, deep sleep, out comes Israel. Saul, deep sleep, out comes David. Judah, deep sleep, and out comes us. Christ is the true and better Judah who experienced the deep sleep, if you will, so that we might be new creation. Isn't that beautiful? So, as we'll hear Sunday, that's why we are called to wake up. I'll save that for Sunday. I would also point out from this passage that we do have a new status and a new strength, not our own. Praise be to God. He was humbled so that we might be exalted. We also have the very same temptations that faced Judah. Do we not? Don't we tend to actually place our trust in Assyria's and Egypt's and in all sorts of things when all the while our Lord has proven that he is sovereign and able to save? And not just in the big things, which he certainly is, but in everything, you're his. He cares about your day-to-day life. He cares about every trial and every tribulation. I think that we are most tempted right there. We're like, yes, I trust the Lord to save me, but right now, I've got a problem. And he's already done the big work, he's already done the heavy lifting, and he's already saved me. I'm grateful for that, but I'm gonna have to whistle for Assyria to take care of this one here. This is really a problem. And we forget that our Savior, our God and Savior is our high priest. who's able to sympathize, who knows our every struggle, and who invites us in, has made the way for us to come in to the throne of grace and receive what? Help and grace in our hour of need. Which hour? Every hour. Which need? Every need. Our whole lives are to be oriented towards that truth. Our God is able and willing to save. His arm is not too short. There is nothing too hard for him. The battle belongs to the Lord. He's said it 100,000 different ways, and he's proven it 100,000 times over, but he needed only do it once when he did not spare his own son for us, right? So let's start trusting him in all the little things. just as we've been called to trust Him in the big things, right? Let's pray. Oh, gracious Father, Lord, you know our hearts better than we do. And you know how often we refuse, or at least fail, to come to you and to ask for help in our hour of need, to trust that you provide grace sufficient for the moment. Father, would you cause us more and more to be a people who look to your hand? Father, who know that your arm is not too short to save, that you are at work in every moment, in every molecule for our good, for you have saved us and we are yours forevermore. Gracious Father, we thank you for this truth and we pray all of this in Jesus' precious name, amen.