Let's hear God's word from the book of Isaiah, chapter five, beginning with verse eight. Woe to those who join house to house. They add field to field, till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land. In my hearing, the Lord of hosts said, truly, many houses shall be desolate, great and beautiful ones without inhabitant. For 10 acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield one ephah. Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may follow intoxicating drink, who continue until night, till wine inflames them. The harp and the strings, the tambourine and flute and wine are in their feasts. But they do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure, their glory and their multitude and their pomp, and he who is jubilant shall descend into it. People shall be brought down. Each man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled, but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness. Then the lambs shall feed in their pasture. And in the waste places of the fat ones, strangers shall eat. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin, as if with a cart rope that say, let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it. And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe to men mighty at drinking wine. Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away justice from the righteous man. Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness and their blossom will ascend like dust because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord is aroused against his people. He has stretched out his hand against them and stricken them. And the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar, and will whistle to them from the end of the earth. Surely they shall come with speed, swiftly, no one will be weary or stumble among them, no one will slumber or sleep, nor will the belt on their loins be loose, nor the strap of their sandals be broken, whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses' hooves will seem like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their roaring will be like a lion, they will roar like young lions, yes, they will roar, and they hold to the prey, they will carry it away safely, and no one will deliver. In that day, they will roar against them like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened by the clouds. Amen. We'll end our reading there at the end of Isaiah chapter five. Let's once again ask for God's help in prayer. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, This portion of your Word is certainly very solemn as it indicts sin, as it reveals the sin not of random nations but of your people, as it announces the swiftness, the certainty, the inevitability, the totality of judgment. O Lord, It is likely the case that for no one will this portion or similar portions of your Word be their favorite verses, and yet here it is, written down in black and white, communicated to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, preserved by your special providence governing the transmission of your Word. And so, Lord, we pray that you would help us to take it in, in all its seriousness, in all its admonition to us. May we not be found among those who reject the law of the Lord of hosts, who despise the word of the Holy One of Israel, but today we pray for humble, open, penitent, and believing hearts. May this word come in. May it do its proper work. And Lord, we would ask that part of its proper work, would be glorifying our Savior in our midst this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. When it comes to announcements of judgment, the prophets don't hold back, do they? They pull out all the resources of language. They pull out phonetic resources, how language sounds, and that's probably the hardest part to bring over in translation. But then they also pull out metaphors and similes, comparisons of many kinds. You notice in the end of the chapter, Isaiah puts so much insistence on how the nation that is coming to judge Judah, and in historical terms, that's the nation of Assyria, is going to be roaring like a lion, like young lions, roaring and laying hold on the prey. And then he even takes it a step further There's this lion-like roaring, but it gets even louder, it gets even more crashing, it gets even more frightening because they're going to roar against them like the roaring of the sea. Now that's just one image. That's the image of the sound of judgment. And the sound of judgment is a terrifying roar that expresses aggressive hostility, and then that passes on to express a sweeping destruction. Now why is God bringing that kind of judgment? Why is there a banner lifted up? God whistles, he puts his fingers in his mouth, so to speak, to summon with a sound, this army from afar who will come speedily, who will come without sleepiness or weariness, who will come with all their equipment in perfect working order, not even a sandal strap broken. with sharp arrows. At that time, they didn't put shoes on horses, so of course, the harder the horse's own hooves, the better for the rider, and the wheels of their chariots are like a whirlwind. All of this that's being described in verses 26 through 30. is about the Assyrian invasion, and it's about the Assyrian invasion as a sign of judgment. And of course the Assyrians would be followed by the Babylonians, and after that there would be other problems. There would be the invasion from the Seleucids, there would be the conquest by Rome, there would be The Civil War, the war against Rome, the destruction of the temple in 1870, there's all of these different things where the pattern is repeated. Now, we might not be afraid of nations coming from afar on horses with hard hooves and chariot wheels spinning like a whirlwind. But that's a sign of judgment. That's an example or an instance of judgment. That's not the end of judgment. That's not the only way that judgment happens. That's the specifics of this judgment. But that one was an anticipation of a much greater judgment. and the principles on which it proceeds are not temporary, are not limited, they apply to all times. Where there is sin, especially where there is sin among God's people, there will be woe, there will be judgment of one kind or another. In fact, in the New Testament, Peter announces this as a principle, as something you can Take bets on, you can stake it out. Judgment begins at the house of God. Judgment begins at the house of God. God deals with those who profess his name before he deals with others. And so all of this that is being announced is being announced on those who are included in the covenant, on those who practice circumcision, on those who are coming into the temple on a regular schedule. Why? Well, the answer is in those woes that you noticed repeated in our reading, verse eight, verse 11, verse 18, verse 20, 21, 22. In those woes, you have the reason for all of this. You have the sin of God's people. Now, as we briefly explain those, I would like you to do two things. One, I would like you to ask yourself the question, are we familiar with these sins in our society? I think the answer to that will be pretty clear, but just to make sure, raise that question. But please don't stop there. because that's all too easy. It's like, yeah, those other people, they do that. I can totally see that. My neighbors are that way. My coworkers are that way. My employees are that way. The government is that way. That all may be true, but the purpose of the word of God is not to give you ammunition for clubbing other people, for criticizing them. The purpose of the Word of God is to call you to holiness. So please don't stop with those other people. Do you recognize these sins in our society? Great! That's step one. Second, are these sins present in your life, in your heart? Maybe they're more subtle. Maybe you do a better job of keeping them covered up. That doesn't mean they're not there. And we need to hear this. So what are these sins on which Isaiah pronounces this woe, this lament for the evil that the sin is and for the evil that the sin brings. Well, first of all, there is the sin of excluding others out of greed. That's in verse eight. You have people who are buying up properties, not because they use them, not because they can invest in them, not because they can do something fruitful with them, but so that other people can't, so that others don't have a chance. That's an evil. Now, there might be multiple things that motivate it, but it's not good when you climb up and succeed and then pull up the ladder behind you so nobody else can, that's really not great. That's not commendable behavior. This sin had a particular weight and flavor in the situation of Old Testament Israel where God had distributed the land and where everybody was supposed to own a share of the land. There were not supposed to be non-landowners in Israel with the partial exception of the Levites who had a different approach. In our society, we don't have the metaphysical value of the land. God hasn't distributed something to every family the way he did then. So we might have to adapt this one a little bit, but are you looking to run all your competitors out of business? Are you looking to have a monopoly? Are you looking to make sure that other people can't get ahead? Is that what you use your resources for? Well, then that principle of greed and of harming others still applies. Well, the evil that that sin brings with it is great desolation, unproductive lands, and nobody to live in those big houses. We could spend more time on each one of these sins, but we've got so many to go over, we've got to be brief. The next one is in verse 11. Woe to those who rise early in the morning. Now, I realize that maybe some of the kids would like me to stop there and would like to just be able to spit the first part of Isaiah 5 11 back to their parents when their parents say, it's time to get up. Woe to those who rise early in the morning. Wouldn't that be nice? You've got to read the verse in context. It's not a critique of getting up early. It's a critique of getting up early in order to get your drinking started right away. If you gotta get up at five in the morning in order to start your drinking, there is a problem. And the problem here is not that somebody gets up and has a drink first thing, not that I'm recommending that, but they continue in it all day. At evening, they're still drinking. And then it goes on to talk about their musical instruments. What is envisioned here? Well, what is envisioned here is not just an alcoholic, a wino out on the street, whose whole life is alcohol. Obviously, that's wrong. But what's envisioned here, I think, is people whose only pursuit is pleasure. This is their recreation, drinking and going to parties. These are party animals who are being described here. And the problem is not an occasional feast. The problem is that they're partying their Pursuit of entertainment lifestyle prevents them from biblical meditation. Notice what it says at the end of verse 12. They don't regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of his hands. They have all the time in the world for entertainment, for pleasure. They can get up early to drink, but can they get up early to come to church? Well, that's another story. That's not possible. Well, again, I think we see a lot of that in our society because of the accessibility and the variety of forms of entertainment. There are people who just spend their lives bouncing from, well now I'm being distracted this way to now I'm being distracted that way. And what suffers as a result of that? serious consideration of the work of the Lord. If you don't have time to think about what God has done, as that's revealed in Scripture, if you don't have time to think about what God is doing in his providence, odds are your priorities are out of whack. Odds are something has taken the place that seeking the Lord should have. Now, obviously, some of these entertainments are worse than others. Somebody who's drinking from morning till night is not in good shape. But we don't have to get to that level to keep ourselves so distracted that we're not regarding the work of the Lord or considering the operation of his hands. What does that lead to? Well, therefore, my people have gone into captivity because they have no knowledge. How would you have knowledge when you never stop and think, when you don't consider? Of course, then, you don't know what's going on. And so, not only are they carried away into captivity, but there's tremendous mortality among them. The Lord is humbling all the things they took refuge in, all the things they trusted in, so that he alone will be exalted in judgment. God will be hallowed in his righteousness when you live an entertainment-dominated lifestyle. And yes, I am including the kids in this. When you live an entertainment-dominated lifestyle, God is, so to speak, put under a necessity of exhibiting his holiness, of being hallowed in righteousness by bringing judgment. We were not created to seek entertainment. We were created to serve and glorify God. But we still need to move on. In verse 18 he says, woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as with a cart rope. The imagery there seems to be of people who are working really hard but who are also in bondage. Instead of having oxen draw the cart, they're pulling it. It's a heavy weight and they are sweating away under it. But although they're tied up, It's a decision they're making. They're working at it. They're exerting themselves in it. And here's their attitude. Let God make speed and hasten his work that we may see it. Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. In other words, they think they don't have anything to worry about. They hear what Isaiah is saying. They hear him announcing judgment. They even take the words out of Isaiah's mouth. Isaiah is the one, far more than anyone else in the Bible, who calls God the Holy One of Israel. And so now they're throwing his words back in his face. They're saying, yeah, we hear what you're saying. And so to speak, they're saying, let God do his worst. We'll be fine. We're okay. We're not worried. Such presumption, such arrogance from those who are already in bondage to sin, from those whose work is spent on ways to become more sinful. What a nightmare that is. And now, There's no announcement of punishment. There's just the next sin following. Why is that? Well, there's a couple of reasons. One is the announcement of punishment is going to be longer, so he heaps up more charges first. But the other is that one sin leads to another. Being given over to sin is a punishment for sin. So when your attitude is, I'm gonna work hard at sinning and I don't care what God says about judgment, notice what woe comes next. This is probably the most familiar one out of the whole chapter. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You see what's happened. They have not taken God's word seriously, and now they are completely blind. Now they're standing everything on its head. What is good, they say, oh, no, no, that's evil. And what is evil, they call good. They've even lost, so to speak, their sense of taste. They can't tell when something is bitter versus sweet. They like what is horrible, what is awful. They like it because it's wrong. They like it because it's messed up. The perversity, the depths of perversity to which human beings can reach is unspeakable. There are ways that people go wrong. I don't even feel like I can talk about them openly. But you can just get online and you can find out all about all of them. Please don't, but you could. What are we living through in our society now if not this inversion of values? If not, not only preferring darkness to light, but pretending that darkness is light. That's going on all around us. How do you get to that level? You disregard God's Word. You say, let God do His worst. You have no fear of God. You're not concerned about the judgment at all. And this follows. And this next woe is also very related. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. You can't tell them anything. You can't correct them. You can't change them. You can't challenge them. They've got too good an opinion of themselves. They're certain, they're sure of their own rightness. And then he proceeds again, woe to men mighty at drinking wine, woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink. That's not what strength and courage are for, but here you have these renowned mixologists who are also perverting justice, justifying the wicked for a bribe, taking away justice from the righteous man. People think, well, we can tolerate this amount of rot. We can deal with this amount of decay. We can cope with so much perversion, and it won't spill out. It won't contaminate other things. It won't mess other stuff up. Yeah, I know, I indulge myself in a few little sins here and there, but it's not that big of a deal. You don't take God's Word seriously. You don't care about His judgment. You don't consider the works of the Lord. You see where this ends. You put your effort into other things. You let other things crowd out the work of God, the Word of God. Well, judgment comes for that. You remember, we noticed the pattern before. There's woes and two therefores, and then there's more woes and there's two more therefores. Well, in verse 13, there was, therefore my people have gone into captivity. In verse 14, therefore Sheol has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure. Now here in verse 24, there's another therefore as the fire devours the stubble and the flame consumes the chaff. Their root will be as rottenness. Their blossom will ascend like the dust. Well, you're talking about a plant from the root to the blossom. What's left over? What's excluded? As Isaiah said in chapter one, the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. There is no soundness in them. From head to toe, it's wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. And here, he gives the bottom line. He's focused in on these different particulars, right? Like there's all this drunkenness, there's all this entertainment lifestyle, there's this inversion of values, there's this rightness in your own opinion, there's this hard work at sin. Where does all of that come from? What's the bottom line? How can you summarize it all? The middle of verse 24, because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel, therefore, The anger of the Lord is aroused against his people. He has stretched out his hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuge in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. The judgment that has come so far has not been enough. Judgment isn't enough until it stops sin, until it stops this behavior. So here's the bottom line. Here's the root from which all of this comes. They rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. All of this started because of their attitude towards the Bible. Now, how do you reject? the law of the Lord of hosts. Well, you could say, I don't believe that. You could say, I don't take it seriously. You could say, well, you know, so many academics and scholars say, you could do that. But there's a much simpler way to despise the word, to reject the law, and that is to say, I believe it, it's all true, but I'm not actually gonna follow it. And I think that was mostly what these people did. Yes, some of them at least did get to the point of saying, yeah, let God do his worst, we don't care. But they probably didn't start there, and there may have been quite a few who were not willing to go as far as that. You don't have to go that far to neglect, to reject, to despise the Word of God. He's speaking about everything that God has said. We shouldn't limit this too much, but just for the sake of convenience, think about the Ten Commandments. Review our society in the light of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Well, we know that one's not observed. We know that one's rejected. Don't make any idols. Our world abounds, it's flooded with idols. Don't take the Lord's name in vain. Is there anything that you hear more frequently? Is there any expression that's more common on people's mouths than taking the Lord's name in vain? Think about the millions of people who profess Christianity but have zero evidence in the way they live that they actually believe. That's taking the Lord's name in vain right there. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? Oh, that one's completely out of style. Honor your father and mother? Oh no, they're unsafe people, they can't be trusted. Thou shalt not kill? Who are we kidding? What floods of blood could be poured out from the violence against the most vulnerable, the most defenseless in our society? Don't commit adultery? There's whole industries that are based on nothing but committing adultery. And on through the rest. You can fill in the blanks. Our society has rejected the law of God. But what about us? What about us? Is our practice in contrast to them, not because we're trying to be weird, not because we're trying to be different, but because we actually believe because we take it seriously, because the law of God sets boundaries around our behavior? If that is not true for you, then on what grounds will you say, yeah, but I'll be okay when judgment comes. It won't happen to me. I'll be different. On what grounds? On what possible grounds? Yes, you're forgiven in Christ. A gift that goes along with forgiveness is being called to holiness. Do you consider the work of the Lord? Do you remember his word? Do you even tremble at the threatenings of his word? You should, because if you believe it, you take it seriously. Now, when you believe it and you take it seriously, Of course, your behavior changes, but if you're taking the whole thing seriously, you know your change in behavior is not gonna deliver you from judgment. That's not gonna cut it. That's never going to be enough. And so if you take it seriously, you look to those wonderful words that God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness. And you understand that this is also a promise. It's not just a threat. It's also a promise. It's a promise that the holy God finds a way to be perfectly holy, perfectly upright, perfectly just, and yet to have mercy on his people. It's a recognition that in the crucifixion of Christ, God was hallowed in righteousness. He showed that there is zero flexibility with regard to his judgment. He judged his own son. He poured out his wrath on Christ. God's righteousness was exalted. His holiness was shown to be without stain or defect, whatever. And yet, those miserable sinners clustered around the foot of the cross, those disciples who had run away and betrayed Him could be forgiven and restored because He took their place. Your sin deserves God's judgment. Your sin as much as the sins of anyone else. Your sins today, as much as the sins of anyone else today, deserve God's judgment. And God's judgment falls. But when there are those who believe God's word, when there are those who take God at his word and trust Christ for salvation, their judgment has fallen on Christ. And so, of course, now they live in gratitude, in the pursuit of holiness, not perfect holiness, but in its genuine and sincere pursuit. Amen. May God grant that to each one of us.