Let's hear the word of God from Isaiah chapter 17, beginning with verse one. The burden against Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aruwar are forsaken. They will be for flocks which lie down, and no one will make them afraid. The fortress also will cease from Ephraim, the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel. says the Lord of hosts. In that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob will wane and the fatness of his flesh grow lean. It shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain and reaps the heads with his arm. It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain in the valley of Rephaim. Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in its most fruitful branches, says the Lord God of Israel. In that day, a man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands. He will not respect what his fingers have made, nor the wooden images, nor the incense altars. In that day, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation, because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not been mindful of the rock of your stronghold. Therefore, you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings. In the day, you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning, you will make your seed to flourish. but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow. Amen. We'll end our reading there in Isaiah 17, verse 11. Let's once again ask for God's help in prayer. Our gracious God and heavenly Father. We come to you today asking for illumination, for help to understand this oracle against Damascus, this very metaphorical passage of scripture. And Lord, along with understanding, we would request an open heart. that we might hear and understand, that we might hear and believe, that we might hear and obey. We pray that you would free us in your grace and kindness from the dreadful result of being hearers of the word who are not also doers. Oh Lord, we pray that today your word would have such deep entrance, and such fruitful flourishing in our hearts that it would change how we think, how we speak, and how we act. And Lord, we pray all of this for our own good, but we pray it all believing also that it is for the glory of God, for the honor of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we ask it. Amen. There are three intertwined elements that often go together and that are a continual temptation for the people of God. That is self-reliance, that is political alliances, and that is false or idolatrous religion. Now, if you remember, what we've talked about previously from the book of Isaiah, you can probably carry that out. You can probably verify that just on your recollection of previous chapters in the book of Isaiah. But here, those three elements come up. The political alliance, more by way of allusion, by way of a callback to what we've understood before from chapters seven and eight, and then the other points about self-reliance and false religion a little bit more forcefully. But before we get into the details, just a word of explanation, why would those things go together? Why do we find them interwoven? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. For instance, with political alliances and false religion, if Israel, if Judah, if the people of God wanted to enter into alliances with the nations around them, well, the nations around them were idolaters and might expect a degree of compliance, a degree of conformity, a degree of participation in those idolatrous rights. Or think about it this way as well, what all of those things, self-reliance, political alliances, false religion have in common, what they all have in common is that they are very much about life in this world. Their horizons are dominated by, am I healthy? Am I prospering? Is my family stable? Is my country at peace? It is dominated by blessings of this life. Most idolatrous religion, that was what it had to do. That was what its focus was. You need to secure the rain so that the crops will grow. You need to secure good harvests so that you'll have enough to eat. And that was the point behind most of the practices of the idolatrous religions that surrounded Israel. Well, self-reliance, political alliances, false religion have their horizons. Their whole interest is bound up in the concerns of this life, in health and wealth and prosperity. Now that I've said that, you can probably tell what Isaiah would have said about the prosperity preachers in our own time who tell you that God wants you to have your best life now and who define that best life in terms drawn from this world. Those things go together. And as you'll hear, as you have heard in the reading, Isaiah opposes them. But let's start explaining what is found here. You notice the caption for this section, the burden against Damascus. Damascus, of course, was the capital city of Syria at this time. Damascus had traditionally been quite powerful, quite important, but Damascus was under threat from Assyria. Now, it's easy to get confused between Syria and Assyria, but those two extra letters at the front of the word mean it's a completely different place and a somewhat different culture as well. Now, if you remember, if you cast your mind back to when we were in Isaiah chapter seven and eight, Syria and Israel, the Northern Kingdom, the 10 tribes that were spearheaded by Ephraim, they had entered into an alliance. They wanted Judah to join that alliance so that they could all together resist the Assyrian Empire. And they wanted Edom and Moab and the other littler countries around there to join them as well. When Judah, when the southern nation, the two southern tribes refused to go along with that, Syria and Israel said, okay, well, we'll just overthrow the Davidic government, the government of people descended from the line of David in Jerusalem. We'll overthrow that. We'll install a king of our own. And then we'll have the strong alliance that we wanted so we can stand against the Assyrian empire. That was their plan. They were looking to politics, to military alliances, to deliver them from the threat of Assyria. How did that work out for them? Damascus will cease from being a city. It will be a ruinous heap. And lest you think that the devastation will come just to the capital city, no, the countryside in general, the cities of Arrower will be forsaken. They will be for flocks which lie down and no one will make them afraid. You hear that and you might think, oh, this is a nice, peaceful image. You know, here are the sheep quietly grazing, how beautiful. Yes, but the sheep are quietly grazing because there's no people. Nobody's there to take care of them. Nobody's there to put them in a pen or make them go here or there. That's why there's no one to make them afraid, because the land has been devastated through war. And now Isaiah brings in Ephraim, the northern kingdom, those 10 tribes as well. The fortress will cease from Ephraim, the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. Now, there's a very important thing that it would be easy to miss here. Because those northern tribes have turned away from the true God of Israel, because they have leaned on themselves, their own wisdom, their own understanding, Because they've entered into entangling alliances with pagan nations, because they have practiced false religion, both distorted versions of the true religion and the incorporation of idols and false gods from the surrounding nations, God puts them on a level with Syria. they will be as the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts." In other words, when God's people act like the world, there comes a point in time where they get treated like the world. Maybe you remember from the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus speaking to the church in Laodicea, and he said, you're lukewarm, you're not cold and you're not hot, and if that doesn't change, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth. At some point, if we claim to be the people of God, we do, we are called Christians, we are happy to be called Christians, what was probably originally an insult is our badge of glory. But when we don't act like Christians, the day comes when God puts us on a level with the rest of the world, when God treats us like everyone else because we are, we have become like everyone else. If the salt loses its flavor, what is it good for except to be cast out and trampled underfoot as the Lord Jesus taught us? So there's a warning here. that when the church becomes like the world, we can expect to receive what the world receives. And what does the world receive? Well, ultimately, in the final analysis, if they don't repent, they receive judgment. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. to visit the fatherless and widows and their affliction, and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. We need both parts of that. We need to be consistent about both parts of that. But then the Lord shifts the subject. You know, he'd mentioned Ephraim, he'd incorporated them in the burden against Damascus. because of that alliance that we saw before, but now he moves on to address them a little bit more specifically. In that day, the day of judgment, it will come to pass that the glory of Jacob will wane and the fatness of his flesh grow lean. In other words, all his beauty, everything that made him radiant is going to wither up. Everything that made him strong and robust is going to be eaten away. And then there's an agricultural comparison, when the harvester gathers the grain and reaps the heads with his arms. Well, when you go out to gather grain, how much do you want to leave behind? How much do you plan to leave behind? Not a lot. You're hoping to get most of it, whatever the tractor can reach. Or think about the grapes. How many grapes do you leave back on purpose? or olives. And so it says, like the shaking of an olive tree. They shook the olive tree to get the ripe olives off. But there's two or three way up at the top. There's four or five on the most fruitful branches. What is all this imagery talking about? It's talking about devastation that leaves behind only a very small remnant. Now you remember maybe how important that word has been for Isaiah. Isaiah is the great prophet of salvation through judgment. Isaiah never lets you think that judgment is not coming, that judgment will not happen. Isaiah helps you to see through to the other side of judgment, but he's always very clear that judgment is here. And Isaiah has been saying this again and again in a variety of ways. When God's judgment comes, a remnant will be preserved. On the one hand, of course, that's a warning. Only a remnant, only a few. How much do you want to roll the dice that you'll be one of those four or five olives? on the most fruitful branch, or one of those two or three at the top of the tree. It is a warning. Only a remnant is left. We can't be presumptuous. We can't take for granted that we're among those happy few. But at the same time, it is hope. God has not determined to obliterate even when he's determined to decimate or to devastate. Technically decimate means to destroy 1 10th. So we need a word that's a little bit stronger than that for sure. So let's go with devastate instead. And again, this is happening to people who knew the name of God, who professed to be called by his name, who practiced some of the rites that he had instituted, who had access to the word of God. And in the New Testament, Peter reminds us that judgment must begin at the house of God. We often think that it would be the other way around, right? God would start by punishing, by judging the most egregious, the most notorious, the most outrageous sinners. But Peter says judgment begins at the house of God. God purifies his own residents before he takes care of the rest of the world, so to speak. And so we should. Pay attention to the warning. We should receive that. We should not be presumptuous or high-minded or arrogant, but we should say, if Isaiah had to preach this way in his day, maybe we need some wake-up calls as well. Maybe we need some reminders also. And as we think about judgment, We ought to understand we cannot prevent judgment. We can't make judgment not come, whether you're talking on the national scale or whether you're speaking universally, the final judgment, whether you're talking about little individual judgments in this life that point forward to that, we can't stop judgment. We can ask God to delay. We can ask God to be patient. We can ask God to have mercy, like the prophet Amos. We could ask for God to avert this or that specific judgment, but we can ask. We don't guarantee. We have to wait the outcome. We have to see what God will do. And of course, we don't want to overthrow judgment altogether. We don't want there to never be a judgment. God's judgment is a good thing. But then thinking about judgment, what do we do? How do we handle this? Well, notice what comes next. In that day, you had that in verse four, right? In that day, it shall come to pass. In verse seven, in that day, it's the same day. It's the day of judgment. In that day, a man will look to his maker and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. Do you see what's happened? At least for the remnant, when judgment comes, they learn. to look to the Lord. God brings something good out of the devastation for the remnant of his people that they refocus where they never should have been distracted. They look back to the one from whom they never should have looked away. They look to their maker, to the one who created you, the one who formed you, the one who has sustained you and brought you to this point. Your eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. You will remember the holiness of God as we saw in Isaiah chapter six, where Isaiah was overwhelmed with God's holiness. but it's the Holy One of Israel. In other words, this Holy One who enters into relationship with people, with sinners, who calls them to Himself, who makes a way for them to be able to come into His presence, to rejoice in Him and to serve Him acceptably. Now, what does that involve? Well, on the one hand, looking to your Maker That's a way to describe faith. You trust God. You believe his word. As we were singing a few moments ago, we take him at his word. We rest on him. But it also involves repentance from the areas we failed to do that because look at the next verse. Look at verse 8. He will not, this man, this representative man who is in view here, he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, He will not respect what his fingers have made, nor the wooden images, nor the incense altars. It's talking about he won't look to idolatry. He won't look to false religion. He won't look to these magical charms and amulets and these little rituals that he does to secure the blessings of heaven, et cetera. He'll forget all of that. But notice also how it's described, the work of his hands, what his fingers have made. This is one of the reasons I said that self-reliance and false religion go together. Because false religion teaches you that if you do the things, if you just follow these little prescriptions, then you control what happens. Biblical religion does not teach you that. Biblical religion teaches you that you can talk to God, you can tell him what you need, you can ask him for his favor, and then you wait for how he replies, which is often unexpected, which is often surprising, which is often not exactly what we were looking for. No, God astonishes us because he does better than we knew to ask or think, but the way he goes about it can be very strange to us. But false religion teaches you, it's basically techniques for manipulating reality in your favor. Well, ultimately, what is that? That is self-reliance, even though you're invoking this or that or the other supposed deity, because it's down to you. It's down to your performance of the ritual. It's down to you manipulating reality. So you are relying on yourself. Now, in judgment, When the hard times hit, the remnant learns, we should not do that. The remnant stops doing that. They turn away from it. But not everybody does. Not everybody learns the lesson. In that day again, you see verse nine, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bow and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel. That's a return to this, right? They're not completely annihilated because it wasn't worth it to climb all the way to the top of the tree to get those last two or three olives down. But what does it say? There will be desolation. What's the reason for this? Why is judgment coming to the people of God and not just to the pagan nations around them? Verse 10, because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not been mindful of the rock of your stronghold. forgetfulness of God, forgetfulness of our Savior does lie at the root of a lot of going astray. When we forget who the Lord Jesus is, it's hard to trust Him. It's hard to take Him at His word when we're not thinking about Him, when we're not remembering Him, when we're not calling to mind the works that He has already done and the promises that He has made. It does become very easy to get worried, to get frustrated, to get desperate. So what do you do? What happens? There's a new problem. There's a new curveball. There's a new burden. You're being crushed under the weight of your responsibilities and your challenges. In that situation, do we not often forget God? We think, well, who could help me? How can I get out from under this? Could I run away? Could I move to a tropical island and just never deal with any of this ever again? Whereas, what should we do? Well, it's fine to ask for help. It's fine to look for ways to make things better. But where should we start? We should start by remembering the God of our salvation, being mindful of the rock of our stronghold. We have to run through this. We have to remind ourselves, this bad thing happened, but God is in charge. I don't think I can do this, but God's grace is sufficient. His power is made perfect in weakness. You have to go through the steps, not to manipulate reality, but to remind yourself of what you already know so that you respond appropriately. assuming you already know those things. Maybe sometimes we need to learn them for the first time. But for people who have been in church for 40 or more years, you probably already know this. Like nothing that I'm saying here is really a big surprise. But you have to do it anyway. You have to put it into practice. You have to be mindful of the rug of your stronghold. What do people do instead? Well, they plant pleasant plants. They set out foreign seedlings. They make their plant to grow. They make the seed to flourish. In other words, they're back to self-reliance. They're working hard. They're like, I'm gonna pull it together. I'm gonna make it better than before. Here's God's judgment, God's verdict on all of that. The harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow. That's pretty vivid, isn't it? There's a day of grief and desperate sorrow and the harvest will be ruined. Self-reliance leads to a harvest of bitter ruin. Self-reliance leads to the day of grief and desperate sorrow. Judgment is coming. We are not able to avert it. We are not able to avoid it. We can be prepared for the day of judgment. We can be sustained in the day of judgment. We can be delivered in the day of judgment. when we look to our Maker, when our eyes have respect to the Holy One of Israel, when we don't repeat the mistakes of verse 10, when we remember the God of our salvation and are mindful of the rock of your stronghold. Again and again, as Isaiah has done before, as he'll continue to do, the message is really very simple. It is stop looking to yourself, stop looking to your politics, stop looking to the false religion, stop looking to all these different ways that you think you can influence the outcome. Stop with all of that and turn to the Lord. It's so simple, but because it's so simple, because it's so basic, people miss it. They're like, well, it's gotta be harder than that. It's gotta be more complicated than that. No, God made it simple for us. Where is your trust? Where is your reliance? Ultimately, you can rely on Christ to give you eternal life, to deliver you from the judgment, to help you and guide you and preserve you in this life, to enable you to live in a way that is pleasing to God, or you can rely on yourself. If you rely on yourself, I don't have any good news that I can give you. There is nothing that I can say to somebody who wants to rely on themselves except the warning, the harvest of that will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow. That's the message, because that's what the self-reliant need to hear. Now, if you're relying on Christ, if you're remembering your Maker and looking to Him, well, now we can talk. Now there's a lot of good news to share. But there is that divine, There is that contrast. If you rely on yourself, ruins, grief, desperate sorrow. If you look to your maker, well, that's another story. So that is the challenge that this text puts before us today. whether we're talking about salvation from sin, whether we're talking about deliverance from judgment, whether we're talking about resurrection and eternal life, or also whether we're talking about strength for today, hope for tomorrow, patience in adversity, thankfulness in prosperity, whatever it is that you need today to live, acceptably, to serve God, to worship joyfully, to have some kind of hope, whether you're talking about the big ultimate things or whether you're talking about the little local personal things, you have to look to Christ. There is no alternative. Most of the people here would say, when it comes to eternal life, when it comes to salvation from sin, yes, I'm looking to Christ. I hope everybody here would say that. Are we consistent with that when it comes to, but I've got a painful phone call to get through? Or there's something I really don't wanna do and I know I need to do it. Do we look to Jesus to help us then too? Because the life of faith should be consistent. If God is near, he's near in our little concerns as well as our concerns about what happens to us when we die. He's present in all of them. So that's the challenge. Don't rely on yourself. Rely on Christ instead.