Well, this country of England has been greatly shaken in this last week by the events in our city centres, the riots and the looting, the setting fire of shops and of houses, and the whole country has been alive with talk of this matter. Can't turn on the television news without seeing comment on it. All the politicians have come back from their holidays. Parliament has been recalled. The newspapers are full from beginning to end with discussion. And everyone, from the celebrities, to the footballers, to the journalists, to the man on the Clapham Omnibus, has an opinion on what is the root cause of all of this trouble. Our Prime Minister tells us that our society is not only broken, but sick. And whereas many would have disagreed with him a few months ago, now even the opposition politicians are agreeing with him. There is a great problem. There is something wrong with our society. But we in this church must turn to the Bible for answers. We don't care for men's opinions, we care for God's opinions. And God gives us his opinion. Many Christians have commented in this last week or so, how much relevance two chapters of Isaiah have to our situation. Chapters 3 and 4. As I said to you, this prophecy of Isaiah was given to him by the Holy Spirit 2,700 years ago. And it was specific to the people of Jerusalem and Judah in that time. It was a specific prophecy. Isaiah told the people from God what would happen to them because of their wickedness. He went into great detail. He told them exactly what would befall them. Now this prophecy isn't directly for us here in London in 2011. But it is recorded in the scripture for good reason. It is here so that we might see God's mind. We might see what it was that God didn't like about the society in Judah and Jerusalem at that time. And we can compare ourselves with that society to see if there are any common failings. We can see how God behaved, what it was that he liked and what it was that he didn't like. We can apply those things to ourselves here in England in 2011. We can see what God's attitude was towards the wicked, but also what God's attitude was towards the righteous. And all of these things will be of great help to us. We could ask ourselves then, what are the hallmarks, the markings, of a society under judgement from God? Because that's what I would call it. I wouldn't say it was a broken society, although that's partly true. I wouldn't say it was a sick society, although that's partly true. I would say what we have here is a judgment from God. We are a society under God's judgment. And if we look at the pages of scripture, we can see other societies that were under God's judgment and we can compare ourselves with them and see what lessons we can learn. So what are the hallmarks of this society? And are we in any way similar to Jerusalem and Judah in that day? Look at verse 1. Please open your Bibles. Please turn to Isaiah 3, verse 1. The Lord, the Lord of hosts, does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah certain things. And the first things that he takes away are bread and water. The necessities of life. He takes away the things that people need to survive. He sends, in other words, economic hardship. Clearly this is something which God uses. It is a judgement from God when economic hardship comes. Now, I'm not saying that we've had our bread and our water taken away from us here in London. We haven't. We're still very able to feed ourselves and to clothe ourselves. But we certainly have the coming economic judgment, and everyone knows that. For the last three years, Western society has been in turmoil, turmoil, financially speaking. And these things rumble on behind the scenes. Perhaps you don't pay any attention, perhaps you don't read the papers, but anyone who cares to look can see that Europe and America is in deep trouble, financially. These things are part of the judgment from God. But look what else the Lord does there in verse 2. The Lord takes away bread and water. What else does he take away in verse 2? He takes away the mighty man and the man of war. He weakens Jerusalem's defences. He takes away their security. He makes them feel vulnerable. This is one of the signs. It is a great blessing to a nation to have a powerful military, to have wise generals, to have strength against our enemies. But we are finding that we do not have that anymore in our land. We are vulnerable. We can be attacked on our tube trains and on our buses. Our airlines can be attacked. We are frightened of the dirty bomb that the terrorists will bring in, and our wars in Afghanistan and other places, are impotent. The Lord judges a nation by taking away its military defence, but there are more. The judge, the Lord takes away from this land which is under his judgement, he takes away the judge, that is the fair judge, the one who sits in a court and administers justice. The sign of the land under judgement from God is the land where justice is going to pot, where the judges don't enforce the laws anymore, where there are weak judges, and bribable judges, and judges who dish out feeble and pathetic sentences, and a land under judgment from God ceases to be able to properly prosecute the criminal. The criminals are getting away with things on every hand. Now in this last week You may have heard that more than a thousand people have been put up before the courts because of this rioting. And that's good. It's a good reaction. And many people are already in prison for what they've done in this last seven days. But you know, that's a great turnaround, a great change from what was happening only recently. I saw somebody comparing two acts of so-called justice in our country in this last week. There was somebody in the riots who was at home in bed when the riots were going on. But her flatmate had stolen over 600 pounds worth of clothes. And when she came home, she showed these clothes to her flatmate. And this woman who'd been in bed and didn't take part in the riots, she saw a pair of shorts that she liked. And she decided to wear them. And she was wearing them when the police came round. She was prosecuted for receiving stolen goods and she was put in prison for five months for wearing a pair of shorts. Well, you may say that sounds harsh. I say we should be hard on criminals. But this article was compared with a man from Essex, a young man, 19 years old, who got into a fight He was aggressive, he was drunk, and he attacked a 60-year-old man, punched him in the face, broke his eye socket and his jaw. The man lost his eyesight in one eye, but the teenager was let off with a caution and a warning. You see, in our land, justice is being watered down. And every sentence is automatically cut in half or down by a third, so that we can keep the prisons not too full up. And justice is starting to go by the way. And this is what the Lord says will happen. The judge will be removed out of the land. What else will happen? What else will you remove out of the land, Lord? The prophets. Well, we don't have prophets in this land, do we? Well, we have preachers. We have those who preach the word of God. And they, as a judgment from God, will start to be removed from the land. There'll be less and less churches. and the churches will have less and less in the way of gifted men able to preach the gospel. And you will find it is a rare thing now in our land to hear the gospel properly preached, whereas a hundred years ago there was a church on every street corner. There was a preacher, or in these terms a prophet, in every neighbourhood, usually several. It's a great sign of the Lord judging a land, that there are fewer and fewer true preachers of the word. But then the Lord says he will remove the prudent, that's the wise, and the ancient, that is the experienced, and the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, these good men. These pillars of society, these people who understand what the world is all about, these people who've got their heads screwed on properly, who have experience of life, the wise counsellor there in verse 3, and the cunning artificer, that is, the man with skill. In this day and age you would say it was the nuclear scientist perhaps, or the great inventor, or the talented businessman. The Lord will take those people out of the land, and the land will be poor afroit. And the eloquent orator, perhaps you think of that as a politician, well maybe, yes. But the men of experience and wisdom who can stand up in the Houses of Parliament, whether it be the Commons or the Lords, and make sense. Or stand up on television and articulate a good argument. The Lord will remove these people. And what, Lord, will you replace these men with in these lands that are under your judgement? You see there in verse 4. I will give children to be their princes and babes shall rule over them. This is the disaster that God will bring on the land. The land will be ruled by inexperienced people, by childish people, by petty, foolish people who don't know what they are doing, by men who are driven by passions and lusts and not by good sense. This is the judgment that the Lord will bring upon our land. What will the result of that be? In verse 5, the people shall be oppressed. Who by? By the army? By the politicians? No. Everyone by another. And everyone by his neighbour. Well, that sounds like our land, doesn't it? We're scared of each other. We're scared of going onto the streets at night. We're scared of the person on the bus. We're scared of the mob in the street. We're scared that our property will be stolen. We lock our doors. Doesn't seem strange to us, does it, here in London? You always lock your door, make sure your car is well locked up at night. But that is strange, you know. Where I was in Scotland when I was younger, where my parents lived, they never locked doors. They don't need to. Nobody would come into your house in those places. Nobody would think of stealing your car or going into your house. It would never happen. But here in London, We would never do such a thing because we're frightened of our neighbours. Did that not come across so very strongly in the news items in this last week? People were terrified that their neighbours were going to come and burn their houses down. They were frightened that their neighbours would loot their shops. And with good reason. We have started to become oppressed, every one by another. And it says here in verse 5, the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, that is the older, elder, the venerable people, the mature people. The child shall behave himself proudly. Now this is just so obviously where we have got to in our society. I feel foolish mentioning it, but think about this. This is not the normal way of things. I mean, this morning I was speaking to Mrs Adewale and she was telling me that back in Nigeria, when she lived there, her children respected her and they obeyed her and they wouldn't even dare to look her in the eye. But as soon as they came over to England and they mixed with The English children in the English culture, well everything changed and now it was acceptable to shoot out the lip at your parents, to say no, to rebel. This society in which we live here in England, in London, is a disaster because it's been turned upside down. The children do not have any respect for the elders. Did you see those interviews during the week? The teenagers and the children saying, we will loot We will rob and steal and set fire to things because we don't care. Our parents can't do anything about it. They don't know where we are. When they get home they might shout at us, but what does that matter? We won't listen to them. We will go out and steal to our heart's content and enjoy ourselves. And so what if the police catch us? They can't do anything. This is my first offence. They'll have to let me off. No respect for authority. Oh, how our society has fallen down, and how these words of Isaiah 2,700 years ago, perhaps they sounded dreadfully shocking when people heard them. Perhaps they might have sounded dreadfully shocking to the Victorians in London a hundred years ago, but they don't sound shocking to us, do they? They sound like a very good description of where we have got to. Look at verses 6 and 7. This is an interesting phrase, I must explain it to you. When a man shall take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, saying, thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruler be under thy hand. What this is saying is that there will be a man and he will say to somebody else, will you be in charge? Why? Why should this man be in charge? Well, only because he's got quite nice clothes. In this day, things will have come to such a low ebb that somebody will be asked to rule the country simply because he's got some nice clothes. And this man will say, I'm not going to run this thing. No, I'm not going to take this responsibility. I'm not going to feed the people. I'm not going to be in charge of this mess. I don't want to be. country will come down to such a low ebb that nobody wants to be in charge and therefore nobody will be in charge and there will be anarchy. Have we reached that stage yet? Well, I think we've got to the stage where the only people who want to be in charge are fame-hungry, power-crazed people. They're not doing it for our sakes, I think they're doing it for their own sakes. I get that impression. I may be being unfair on them. But we have got to the stage where it's almost a poison chalice to be the Prime Minister. Before the last election, people were saying, whoever wins this next election, they'll rule for a little while and then they'll be out of power for a generation. Because there's no money left. And the cuts that they'll have to make in the economy will be so deep, that they will become so unpopular, that nobody will ever vote for them again until a whole generation has died out. So it is true of our nation to a certain extent. Look at verse 8 where the Lord explains why. We've seen the how and the what, but why Lord? Why are you going to bring this ruin on a nation? For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen. Why? Because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord. to provoke the eyes of His glory. If you know anything about the history of God's people, you know that they were called out of Egypt for God's glory. And they were supposed to serve Him and love Him all their generations. They were supposed to keep His law. They were supposed to be His glory here on earth. But instead of doing that, instead of working with and for the Lord, they work against Him. His children have become his enemies. Is this a characteristic of our society? Do we work against God? Well, of course we do. We tear down his laws and replace them with anti-laws. We promote things which he hates in our society. You've seen it all, the promiscuousness, the sexual license, the homosexuality. All of these things we promote, we vault them up, we glory in them. We kill the unborn child. We promote covetousness and theft. We promote dishonesty. Lying is celebrated. And we work against God. Our schools largely set up to prove he doesn't exist. Our scientific establishment bending its back, bending over backwards to prove evolution and to convince people that there is no such thing as a creator. Oh, how we work against God. Our crime and sin in our society is no different from this crime of Jerusalem and Judah. We provoke the eyes of his glory. And then in verse 9 it gets worse. The show of their countenance, thus witnessed against them. Or to put it another way, you can see their guilt in their faces. You just need to look at them. You just need to turn on the television and see the guilt in people's faces. See the sneer on their lips. See the arrogance and the haughtiness. as they jut up their chin, see the lascivious looks in their eyes. All of this is as plain as day. It's not hidden away. It's not practiced in the deepest, darkest rooms. No, it's written upon their faces. God can see it so clearly and so do we. And they declare their sin as Sodom. They hide it not. The great sin of Sodom, of course, was homosexuality. But Sodom was proud of its sin, and so was Jerusalem, and so is England. We are so proud, we go on pride marches to celebrate our debauchery. And therefore, we have brought this calamity upon ourselves. There's no use blaming the politicians. No use blaming the underclass. No use blaming one race or religion or one colony of people against the other. No, it's the whole of society from top to bottom. It's not the upper classes or the working classes or the middle classes. It's everyone together. We have brought this upon ourselves. The policies and practices of the last 60 years have resulted in this rioting and it will get far worse. It's only the tip of the iceberg. And that's what the Lord God says here. Woe unto their soul for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. That's what we've done. We have rewarded evil to ourselves. We have brought up a generation who have no respect for their parents. We have told them to expect everything and given them nothing. And is it any wonder they set fire to property. But look there in verse 10, here is a ray of sunshine, because you may say, but what does this mean to us? If our society is to be judged, what is to become of us? Well, there are two potential outcomes and they are outlined in verse 10 and verse 11. The Lord says, say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruits of their doings. If you are righteous, In other words, if you love God and serve him, if you keep his commandments, it will be well with you. You will be safe. You will be blessed. You will be kept. You have no need to fear, for God is your refuge. And therefore, though the mountains be moved and cast into the midst of the sea, you will not be afraid. He will keep you. Alternatively, there in verse 11, the Lord says, Woe unto the wicked, for it shall be ill with him. It will not turn out well. The reward of its hands shall be given him. You will get your just desserts. There is no question of that. But verse 12 is astonishing, and it just kept coming back to me in this last week. This is us. This is our situation in one verse here in England, verse 12 of chapter 3, As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee, cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. This is the case, my friends. Children have oppressed us in the streets in recent times. Women and other weak rulers rule over us. And they that lead us have caused us to err. Oh, how they've turned us aside from where we ought to be. They have destroyed the way of thy paths. Yes, they have made our pathway rocky. They have led the society astray, they have perverted us in the media. on the television, in the entertainment industry, and in the houses of Parliament, they have destroyed our paths. Well, verse 13, the Lord says, the Lord standeth up to plead and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people and the princes thereof. He will come and take them, these rich men. He will come and deal with them, the people in power, and he will punish them. Why? For they have eaten up the vineyard, and spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord God of hosts? Well, you know, in other countries, Of course there are oppressors who steal everything away from their people. Think especially of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, how wealthy he is, a billionaire, and yet his people die of starvation and of easily preventable diseases. He is one who grinds the faces of the poor. You might say we're not like that in this land. This land, we all have plenty to eat. You can have, if you cannot get it for yourself, free housing, free healthcare, free education, even free food and drink, if that's what you need. You need never want for anything in this land, even if you're not prepared to work for it. And we'll give you extra money to go and spend on luxuries that you don't need. And yet, the poor in this land are oppressed spiritually. Oh, how they've been led astray. How they are made fools of with the popular entertainment, with the national lottery, with the celebrities that take money from them. Oh, they are just slaves to consumerism and they have no idea of what this world is all about. Truly, their faces are ground into the dust. But the Lord in verse 16 starts to talk about women. And here we see something quite extraordinary. He really spends quite a few verses here criticizing the women of Jerusalem with very extraordinary language. He talks about these women who care only about their outward appearance and who are sexual predators and who care about their bodies too much. They do not care about their souls, they care about their looks and their appearance, and they go about trying to consume men. And the Lord is very angry with these people. But read the description, it's fascinating. It starts in verse 16. Moreover, the Lord said, because the daughters of Zion are haughty or proud, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, They walk with their heads up in the air and their eyes are wanton, searching out what they might consume, desiring things, alluring to men, walking and mincing as they go. That means taking tiny little steps. They walk, not to get somewhere quickly or efficiently, they walk in a way so as to attract the attention of the opposite sex and making a tinkling with their feet. their little bells and chains on their ankles. Perhaps that's why they walk with little steps. But they do it to attract attention of men. Therefore, in verse 17, the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will discover their secret parts, their private parts. What a terrible and terrifying verse that is. The Lord will attack those women. He will make them, lay them bare and make them naked and smite their heads, which they're so proud of, with a disease and a scab. Verse 18, in that day The Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their calls, their hats, and their round tyres like the moon. This is all the various colourful things which they wore, jewellery and accessories to make themselves attractive. Nineteen, the chains, the bracelets. the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, and the rings, and the nose jewels, and the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, that's the mirrors they look at themselves in, And the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. Goodness me, it does seem, doesn't it, that they really went to town making themselves look beautiful. How much care and attention they gave to their outward appearance. How important it was to them to be seen to look good, so that they could attract the attention of the opposite sex. But the Lord is angry with them, because they give no care and no time. to their inner beauty, to their souls and spirituality, they are completely superficial. Much like our society today that spends thousands of pounds on shoes, handbags, millions of pounds every year in this country on cosmetic surgery. It's so crucially important that we have our teeth a shade or two whiter, or our hair is straighter, or more curly, or a different colour. And these things we give over tremendous care about. Now, of course, it's not wrong to make yourself look acceptable and practical, but you can clearly see, can't you, from this chapter, how these people were going far too far And you know that our society is skin deep, and superficial, and shallow, and gives over so much time and attention that you cannot watch television at night without seeing dozens of adverts for cosmetics that will make your eyes slightly less wrinkly at the cost of 40 pounds a pot. And it's preposterous, and it's idiotic, and God hates it! And so he says in verse 24, it shall come to pass that instead of a sweet smell, there shall be a stink. Instead of that lovely perfume that you spent £60 a bottle on, there will be a stink. And instead of a girdle, a rent. In other words, instead of an expensive belt, there will be a rough rope. Instead of well-set hair that you spent seven hours down at the hairdressers getting done, baldness. And instead of a stomacher of girding, or clearly that's some expensive piece of clothing, there will be sackcloth. And burning instead of beauty. So, all the women will be shown up as shallow. And then what will happen to the men? Verse 25. Thy men shall fall by the sword and the mighty in the war. And her gates, the gates of Jerusalem, shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate, shall sit upon the ground. The Lord says, you are a proud city, spending so much time and attention on your appearance, but your men will die in war, and you will be like a woman, sitting naked in the ashes of the scorched field, being desolate. And indeed, when Rome did sack Jerusalem, They did produce a coin on one side of which was a naked woman sitting desolate upon the ground in direct fulfilment of this prophecy. And in that day, chapter 4, verse 1, in that day seven women shall take hold of one man saying, we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach. They will be so ashamed of their singleness and yet there will only be one man for every seven women. What disaster will fall upon that nation and what disaster awaits our society as well. But in chapter 4 there is good news, there is wonderful news. Verse 2, in that day shall the branch of the Lord, well the branch of the Lord is a phrase which means the Messiah or the Lord Jesus Christ. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. Although there will be all of this disaster, there will be some that escape. And through the branch of the Lord Jesus Christ there will be fruit in the earth, i.e. Christians in the earth. And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, he that has survived all of that, that he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living of Jerusalem. So some will escape, some will survive. Surely these are the same righteous ones spoken of in verse 10. My friend, if you're trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need have no fear about our society. Yes, you may weep for it. Yes, you may be concerned for others, but you do not need to be concerned for yourself, because you will be kept safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for upon all the glory shall be a defense." What this means is that the Lord will purge Jerusalem. He will burn it down. He will get rid of the filth of the daughters of Jerusalem. He will get rid of the blood that flows through the streets. And I don't doubt that he will come and do the same to our society as well. Unless we repent very soon, he will come and wipe us away. But for those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will have this blessing similar to the blessing that the children of Israel had when they were in the wilderness. That cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a fire, flaming fire by night. Do you remember that? It was with the children of Israel as they went through the wilderness place for a defense, for a comfort, for a guiding light to them. And in verse 6, there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covet from storm and from rain. My friends, there is storm and rain coming. There is a great purging, a great turmoil, a great judgement of society. But for those who will trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will have a defence, a comforter, a guide, to be with us. My friends, are you amongst these righteous? Or are you still part of the mainstream society? Are you still living like a child of the devil? Are you guilty of the same things that our wider society is guilty of? Or have you left all of that behind? Have you come out of the world and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, I'm not saying anyone here was a looter. Last Monday night, Tuesday night, I'm sure none of you got your hands burnt down in Croydon or Clapham or Woolwich or Peckham. But just because you weren't there doesn't mean that you're not part of this problem. This society which has turned aside from God and rejected Him. My friends, we do live in worrying and perilous times. But we live in times when there is still grace. when the Lord still has this promise for the righteous. Let's read it again there in verse 10. Say to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruits of their doings. And you can have this tabernacle for a shadow, as the Lord calls it, a cover, a refuge from the storm and from the heat. The Lord will give you a dwelling place. and keep you safe. Children, men, women, you must come to the Saviour now. Come out of this disastrous society. Leave it behind. Reject it. Cry out to the Lord God that he would forgive your sins and by that branch that is the Lord Jesus Christ, by his death on Calvary, You can become one of these righteous ones and be safe. Oh, my friends, do not leave this to chance. Do not ignore this any longer. Do not stay any longer in this godless society in which we have been born into. Come to the Saviour. Make no delay. Come and ask Him for your sins to be forgiven today and He will answer your prayers. Forgive your sins. and be your rock and your refuge forevermore.