Isaiah chapter 27. So I came back to Tri-City. I've been gone for a month and excited and walking in the Spirit and can't wait to preach and teach and share the great things God is doing in my life. And someone puts this on the platform. Wow. Way to make a man go carnal very quickly. I'm just saying. Wow. Way to walk in the spirit and then walk in the flesh really quickly. It was just like, boom! Wow. Isaiah chapter 20. Thank you for whoever put that. A great test of my spirituality this morning. I appreciate that. Let me know where I was in that walk in the spirit kind of thing. Isaiah chapter 27, we'll read verses one to seven. If you're new with us, I read the first verse and then you join me on the next verse. If you don't have a Bible with you, you'd like to follow along, you can pull your Bible out of the P-rack in front of you, but you can also look on the screen. In that day, the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. In that day, sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine. I, the Lord, do keep it. I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day. Fury is not in me. Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them. I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me. He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root. Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? Or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?" Father God, thank you so much for this text. What a great, great prophecy of the future for the Jewish people. But at the same time, what a great blessing it is to us, the applications that we can make in our own lives. So Father God, I just pray that you give me great wisdom to take a difficult text, make it understandable, and make it practical for everybody who hears, because you've dealt with this text in my life in such a real way. So Father God, I pray that you'll help me to explain in good language, Spirit of God, open hearts to understand. Where I fall short as a human, you open minds to see it. Things that I can't explain. Spirit, you do that work that I can't do. Change lives permanently today by your power. In Jesus Christ's name I do pray. Amen. You may be seated. We hear a lot today about justice, don't we? And that's good. I want a just society. I want a just marriage. I want children that are raised with a passion for justice. Justice is a part of the very character of God. Fairness is a part of the very character of God. So it is us living out the imago Deo, the image of God in us, that we want justice because God is a just God. But may I say this, that as a fallen race, you and I don't want justice with God. We want mercy, correct? But when we look out at our fellow men and women and children and the world around us, our heart cries out for justice. I don't know about you, if you've been following the Planned Parenthood videos that are coming out. If you're not following me on Facebook or Twitter, I encourage you to do so, because if you don't know anything about that, I'll help you understand by some of the things I put up. But let me just tell you something, if you don't know who Joseph Mengele is, Joseph Mengele, go Google him, not now. But go Google Joseph Mengele, and let me tell you something, Planned Parenthood has nothing on Joseph Mengele. In fact, Joseph Mengele is a piker compared to Planned Parenthood. He really is. And he was a wicked, vile Nazi who did all kind of scientific experiments that were just horrific. When you watch some of these videos, you're like, those babies are crying out in heaven for justice today. They are. They are. And when I see that injustice, it wells up inside of me. Millions of our children, we haven't just taken their life. Many of them are completely viable outside the room. And by the way, before we accuse Europe of being so horrific, do you know that in Europe, we are considered barbarians in Europe on abortion? Because in most countries in Europe, you cannot take the life of a child in the womb after eight weeks after conception. In fact, in most countries, after eight weeks after conception, you have to go to a judge and have permission. And in no country in Europe can you have an abortion after the 20th week. Most countries in Europe, it's the 8th to 10th week is the last time you can have an abortion. After that, it's illegal. And you and the doctor, the mother and the doctor, go to jail. Wow. And these same people are saying they want us to be like Europe. They don't want us to be like Europe when it comes to abortion. My soul cries out because of that injustice. But we could go around our society and find lots of other injustices, right? They're all over the place. That's because we're made in the image of God and God is a just God. God says, the soul that sinneth, it must surely die. That's a just God. That's his rule. He made the game board and we play by his rule. We're the pieces and we play by his rule, right? So he's a just God in that he gives justice. We want mercy. And what I wanna share with you out of this text the next two weeks, Isaiah 27, 28, we're gonna look at how God performs perfect justice. God is an absolute just God. And so a lot of times we hear, well, how could a just God allow? How could a just God allow? How could a just God allow? And we're referring to sin. But I want to back off and say, when you say that, what you're saying is that that's a bad sin or that's a bad situation caused by somebody else's sin, which is worse than your sin. Because I would come back to you and say, well, how does a just God let you breathe one more moment with your sin? We want to say, how does a just God let X happen? But how does a just God let Mike Sproul exist for one more moment? How does he do that? And it just betrays, when we have those kind of thoughts, it betrays that we inherently think everybody else's sin is worse than my sin. And it's not. Now, I'm going to take a fairly difficult text today. And because it's old King James, it struggles a little bit. I will try to help you with the terminology and I'll try to help you with some of the syntax. Frankly, if you read it out of like the new King James, it probably becomes a lot more more understandable to you if you read in a more modern version, but there are so many great truths. But let me give you the background of Isaiah, and then I'm gonna jump into the text, and I'm gonna give you some really good truths today. Number one, let me just say this. You gotta get yourself in the face of Isaiah. So let me, if you're taking notes in your bulletin, write down 2 Kings 15 to 21, write down 2 Kings 15 to 21, and 2 Chronicles 26 to 33. So 2 Kings 15 to 21, and 2 Chronicles 26 to 33. Write that down. That's Isaiah's life. Those are the kings and those are the situations that happened during Isaiah's life. He has both Hosea and Amos as contemporaries or near contemporaries to him. He primarily prophesies to the southern two tribes because the northern ten tribes go into exile under the Assyrians during Isaiah's ministry. All those Jews are killed Hundreds of thousands are killed and taken away in exile during Isaiah's ministry. Do you think that would be impactful to Isaiah and the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin to watch their northern 10 brethren be slaughtered by the Assyrians? Yeah, I think that would impact them, absolutely. Most likely, he was of royal stock. That's why he could have access to the kings. He was probably cousins, a cousin to the king's family. Jewish tradition tells us that he was martyred by Manasseh. Manasseh is Josiah, godly King Josiah's grandfather. Manasseh reigned for 55 years in Judah, and the Bible says he was the most wicked king that ever lived. We believe Isaiah is referred to in Hebrews 11.37, where in Hebrews 11.37, that hall of faith, all these great people that are faithful, it says, and some were sawn asunder. Jewish tradition says that Manasseh put Isaiah in a hollow tree because he hated his prophecies so much and he cut Isaiah in half in a tree and that's how Isaiah died. So we're talking about a bold man of God who prophesies, and the king doesn't, and he prophesies for probably 35 to 40 years. Now, one night, under Isaiah's rule, or under Isaiah's prophecy, after Assyria has destroyed the northern 10 tribes, they attack Jerusalem. And in one night, God kills nearly 200,000 Assyrian soldiers to protect godly King Hezekiah. So tremendous things happen. Now let me tell you one more thing and I'll jump into the text. As I've taught on Sunday night, the Old Testament often has a near fulfillment prophecy and a far fulfillment prophecy. Are you tracking with me now? Stay with me. Let me give you an example. Isaiah 7. Isaiah says there will be a virgin that will bear a child, bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel. Are you familiar with that text? You probably heard that. I've preached on it. Okay, so, but he says that to a king that isn't a very godly king. And he asks the king, well, what do you want? And he says, oh, I would never ask God for anything. And he says, okay, I'm going to tell you what's going to take place. Now my understanding of that text Liberals have said, oh, it's not a prophecy of a real virgin, that Mary wasn't a virgin. But in Matthew, 700 years later, it takes that prophecy and applies it to Mary. And says, this is the fulfillment of that prophecy of virgin. Now in the Hebrew, the word virgin that's used there, can be used of any young woman. Any young woman. you use the Greek word, when Matthew uses the Greek word virgin, he means a woman that's not known a man sexually. He's very specific. The Hebrew word's not so specific. It can mean just a young woman. So liberals have said, oh Mary, it's not a prophecy of a sexually pure woman in the New Testament. It's just, it could just be any woman. But here is what I would say about the near and far fulfillment. My understanding of that passage is that it was a virgin, that Isaiah went to the king and said, there's going to be a virgin. And how you'll know what I'm going to tell you is true about the Assyrian army is that there is a woman who's a virgin that you know in the palace, and she's going to get married in the next couple of years, and she's going to have a child, but she's a virgin right now. So that's the near fulfillment, because it would have to make sense to the king. The far fulfillment is going to be Jesus 700 years later. So in other words, there is a near fulfillment to the prophecy and there's a far fulfillment to the prophecy. If you get that idea, it's going to help you as we look at Isaiah 27. And Isaiah can look at things that are happening now, and he can prophesy a year out, two years out, three years out, but then he can see down the road, and he doesn't fully understand it, but he's prophesying to something that's actually future to us right now. It hasn't even happened yet for us. Okay? And in this, God's gonna give us comfort. God's gonna give us hope. Because God's gonna say to us, I will always be just. And it may not be by your standard of justice, but I will always be just. Trust me. I had one of our young ladies share with me this morning how some things have been uncomfortable in her life in the last month or two. she shared that with me. And I said, yeah, I've been watching that on Facebook. I've been praying for you kind of thing in my mind. And asking her how she was doing. And her comment to me was, she said, I don't say it in a different way. But she said, you know, as uncomfortable as I've been, she said, I've become so much closer to the Lord. And I would rather go through the discomfort to become closer to the Lord than not have had this trial in my life." And I'm summarizing what she said, it's not word for word. But she said it, and I said to her, I said, that's the Christian life. Because anybody, anybody does well when they're comfortable and God's saying yes. To be a true Christian is that you walk by faith when God says no. and you still trust in his perfect justice, and you still trust in his perfect holiness, and you still trust in his perfect forgiveness, even when you're not comfortable, and the plan isn't working out the way you wanted it, because I'm gonna tell you, what we're gonna look at in the text, the plan is not working out the way Isaiah wanted it. The nation is not turning back to God. In fact, the northern 10 tribe is being slaughtered by the Assyrians, and the Assyrians are coming back for the southern two, and they're getting ready to slaughter the southern two tribes as well. plan is not working out well. And Isaiah wants to reassure the godly. So let's look at the text. He said, number one, he says, in that day the Lord God Let me get the next slide up. In that day, the Lord God with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan. Now Leviathan is found in different passages in the Old Testament. Psalm chapter 74, verses 13 to 14, we find Leviathan in the book of Job. The understanding of Leviathan was it was either a mythological or it potentially was an ancient large sea creature. So number one, I want to say this to you, God performs perfect justice, number one, by overcoming the chaos induced by the fall. God is saying, listen, the fall has induced chaos into our lives. How many of you, how many of you say, man, I don't like to go to work, there's drama there. Anybody ever said, I like to go to work, it's like drama. I like to go to school, there's drama. There's a drama queen, a drama king, there's drama. Do you know what creates drama in the world? Whether it's called Iran, whether it's called Russia, whether it's called China, whether it's called the United States, whether it's called abortion. Do you know what induces drama in the world? Sin. The fall. The fall has created drama in all of our lives. Because what is drama? Drama is one evil person wanting to get or have or take away from what another evil person has or wants. James says, where do wars come from among you? They come from inside of you. You want to have and you can't have, and you fight and devour one another, and it's drama! Well, in ancient Ugaritic text, Isaiah has borrowed from the Ugaritic language a theme of this Leviathan. And in the Ugaritic understanding, in other words, he borrowed from his culture a concept, a mythological creature. And in ancient mythology of the ancient Near East, this Leviathan was a twisting monster of the sea that was seen as the enemy of the order of creation. We could say it's a symbol of Satan, an ancient dragon, an ancient sea monster. And even in secular literature, this mythological creature was seen as an enemy of creation. And instead of the perfect creation that was in the ancient world's understanding of their view of creation, you have this Leviathan, this monster that wants to destroy towns and villages and creates chaos wherever he goes. Isaiah refers in the beginning of chapter 27 to this sea monster, and he says to him, he says, in that day, the Lord's gonna put a stop to the chaos induced by the fall in our lives. That's how this whole chapter starts off. That is such a powerful thought. They would have sat up and go, wow, the biggest mythological creature that's always against the order that God wants in our lives because every day on creation God saw the creation and he said it was good. And the serpent comes into the garden, and he creates chaos. That's what sin does. It always creates chaos. It always creates problems. My wife and I were talking about a situation when we were gone, and her comment to me was, doesn't sin cause problems? You know, I've never heard anybody say, doesn't holiness cause problems? Doesn't justification cause problems? Doesn't being like Jesus cause problems? I've never heard anybody say that. What I've heard people say is, boy, sin causes problems. The root of most of our problems is Leviathan. The root of most of our problems is the satanic-induced chaos that the fall brought. And here is the great promise, as Isaiah is seeing the chaos around him, and he's seeing the northern ten tribes being punished for their wickedness, and being sent away into captivity, and he sees the Assyrian juggernaut bearing down on his own land, and they're just a small little country, and certainly the Assyrian army surrounding Jerusalem with almost 200,000 soldiers is more than the nation could ever put out to battle. and they're intimidated, and he sees all of this coming, and he says, the nation of Israel, he says, God will perform justice by overcoming all this chaos that's going on that is induced by the fall because God knows who the true enemy is, and it's not Assyria, it's Satan. What Isaiah says to us today is he says, listen, what you're going through, the difficulty you're at, the frustration you're having, Your inability to understand, why can't I have the A in that class? Why can't I have a better roommate? Because you married her. That was a joke. Why didn't I have better kids? Because they're your gene pool. Here's what I'm gonna say to you right off the bat, is God says, perfect justice will be mine, and I will overcome the chaos that's been induced in your life from the fall forward. I'll fix it. Number two, let's look at the text. So God performs perfect justice by overcoming the chaos induced by the fall. Number two, God performs perfect justice by protecting his chosen. Number two, God performs perfect justice by protecting his chosen. I'm sorry, I'm looking at the wrong text here. In that day, so let me stop. What day? This is that near and far fulfillment. In other words, he is saying to Israel, there's coming a day, it's not here, it's then. There is coming a day when I'm going to perform perfect justice and you are going to be saved. We'll see this in the text. But he's going to protect his kids. This is a great encouragement to me. This should be a great encouragement to you. That you may be going through difficulty. You may be going through the leviathan coming into your life and creating chaos. You may be going through drama. I go through drama. But I got news for you. God is still on the throne and God will still protect you if your faith is in Him. Now it doesn't mean He won't let you be uncomfortable because God's vehicle for teaching me the deepest truths about who He is is almost always through discomfort. I am very rarely taught the deepest truths of Jesus Christ through comfort. It almost always comes through discomfort. He says, in that day... A vineyard, in that day, sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine. So the picture of a vineyard, often in the Old Testament is a picture of Israel. It's used this way in other chapters. It's used this way in other texts. But it's a picture of Israel. In fact, back in Isaiah chapter 5, verses 1 to 7, the emphasis on the vineyard there was in the judgment, the destruction that was coming to Israel, to Judah, because of their sins. But now he's saying, he's going to emphasize the comfort, not the destruction. So this is why it's a far fulfillment. The destruction is coming. Assyria is bearing down on them. God will save them in a few years from Assyria. But then a hundred years later, the Babylonians, the southern, if we think of Iraq today, the Assyrians are northern Iraq. The Babylonians are southern Iraq, if you can kind of put that in your mind. The Babylonians are going to come in a hundred years. God's going to give them a reprieve because they have a couple of good kings. Hezekiah is a good king. Josiah is a good king. They have a couple of good kings and God gives them a reprieve of a hundred years. But the evil day is still going to come to them, and Isaiah is saying, in a future day. Now he's talking about something in the distant future. He said, this is what's going to happen. I, the Lord, do keep it. I keep this vineyard. I keep Israel. That's why I believe there's a future for ethnic Israel in the land of Canaan, in Israel. My Reformed friends, from a Reformed tradition, would say, oh no, there's no future for ethnic Israel. They have to throw this verse out of the Bible, and many, many, many others. Most of my good Presbyterian friends, most of my good Sovereign Grace friends, who I have as chaplain friends, would take this verse and text like it, and literally rip it out of the Bible and say, it doesn't apply. There's no future for Israel, because there's no millennium. There's nothing that's just where Jesus is gonna come back and it's just all over. Well, the problem with that, some will say, well, pastor, eschatology, the doctrine of last things, it's not that important. Not that important, about a quarter of the Bible is taken up with it. You just told God that 25% of what he wrote down isn't that important. It is important. And when you say, oh, I just don't believe any of that has, that's not that important. You just called God doing something not important. So when we say, oh, well, there's just no millennium, you literally have to allegorize huge sections of the Old Testament, Zechariah, Isaiah, Haggai, and you basically have to tear up the entire book of Revelation and throw it away too. You can't do that. You can't do that in my understanding of the text of Scripture and be honest with who God is. God says here He's going to protect them even though judgment is coming short term, He's going to protect them long term. He said, I the Lord, verse 3, do keep it. Oh, I need to go forward there so you can read it. Thank you. He said, I the Lord do keep it. I will water it every moment lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day. And you say to God, wait a second. In a hundred years Babylon is going to come and wipe them out. How can you say you're keeping it? That's because there is no explanation for the Jewish nation and Jewish people to exist today except that this is an actual promise of God to keep and protect the Jewish nation and the Jewish people. And any president Any leader who attempts to destroy God's chosen people will suffer the destruction at God's hand. I hope you get what I just said in light of current events. God says, I will keep it. I will keep that vineyard. You can't explain the Jewish nation without understanding, or Jewish people, without understanding the Philistines are dead, the Moabites are dead, the Canaanites are dead, the Jebusites are dead. God keeps them. Do I understand that? No. Do I know some really, I hate to say this, because there are rude Scots-Irish, and I'm Scots-Irish, but I've been to Israel enough times, and I've run into some really rude Jewish people. That's just the fact. I've run into some really rude Scots-Irish people. But you know what I know? Is that that's God's chosen people and he says, I will protect them, I will keep them, I will take care of them. And it doesn't matter if Hitler wants to wipe them out. It doesn't matter if Haman in the book of Esther wants to wipe them out. It doesn't matter if the Russian empire with its programs wanted to wipe them out. None of that matters. God will protect them. That's his promise in Isaiah. And it's still active today as much as it was active a long time ago. He said, I will keep them. I will do it. I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it. I will keep it day and night. Now, it doesn't mean that they won't suffer discomfort and judgment for their sin, but he says, I will keep them. Then he goes on, fury is not in me, verse four. He says, who would set briars and thorns? In other words, who's going to take me out in battle? I would just go through them. I would burn them together or let him take hold of my strength that he might make peace with me and he shall make peace with me. In other words, anyone that tries to take out my people and then make peace with me, he said there's going to be a problem. Let me tell you something. There was a suicide in Berlin in April, May of 1944 by a guy who tried to take out God's chosen people. It never ends well. There's a guy who was hung on his own gallows in ancient Persia because he tried to take out God's chosen people. It never ends well. And any nation that tries to do that, to do ethnic cleansing to the Jewish people, will come under the condemnation of God. Because God says that. Then he says in verse six, he shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root. Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. Now that's far fulfillment. So let me stop and ask, so has that ever taken place? Has Israel yet budded and filled the whole earth? Have the ethnic Jewish people, and the answer would be, not really. I mean, they've influenced the world through the diaspora, but what I would take verse seven or verse six to be is that's in the millennium. That's future. That's the end of the book of Revelation when that thousand-year reign of Christ is described. This is a far fulfillment. In other words, what Isaiah is saying to the people is he says, I know there's chaos out there, but God is going to protect you. Now let me say this to you as a believer. If you've placed yourself in Christ, I don't care if you're Scots-Irish, You're from India. You're from Mexico. You're from Iraq. You're from Scotland. I don't care where you're from. If you placed your faith in Christ, you have been grafted into the body of Israel. You are the Israel of God, as Paul talks about in Galatians. You are in this dispensation, you are his Israel. And you know what? The same promise that God gives to Israel that he will take care and protect and care for and nurture is a promise that you can say, hey, that's me because I am also the Israel of God. And you can take New Testament passage after New Testament passage that will line up with that. I will never leave him nor forsake him, God says. So the primary interpretation is to a future millennium, but there is an application to us who have been grafted in as wild olive branches, as Paul talks about in Romans 9, 10, and 11, that we've been grafted in. Let me tell you something, from this text and many in the New Testament, God in the chaos of your life is gonna take care of you. It may not be comfortable, it may be hard, it may cause a lot of tears and sleepless nights and maybe some fasting and praying. It may be uncomfortable, but God will be there with you. God will be there with you by protecting his chosen. So let me take, give you another one. Number three, God performs perfect justice by drawing his undiscerning children. Oh, I love that word. Drawing his undiscerning children. All you have to do is read Facebook to find a lot of undiscerning people. Because they tell you every day how undiscerning they are. Oh, I mean, not by saying, hey, I'm undiscerning, but you just have to read them a little bit and you find out how undiscerning they are. By drawing his undiscerning children back to his covenant through whatever means necessary, and I'm telling you what, God is currently in the process of drawing Jewish people back to Him by provoking them to jealousy over the gift of the Spirit that He's given to the church. This is exactly what Paul taught. This is what I just said. He said God is going to use the indwelling of the Spirit. Now stop and think. Jewish Old Testament saint goes to the temple and in the temple the Shekinah glory of the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit comes on him for service, but leaves him, comes on him for abilities, but leaves him. And now you get to the church, which is Gentile. It's meant to those uncircumcised Gentiles. And all of a sudden, God does something he never did for the Jews. He gives the permanent indwelling of a Holy Spirit. What? Don't you know, Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 6, that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Oh, this changes. In the dispensation of the church age, God does something for the church that he never did for his chosen people, which is give them the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And that, as Paul says, causes Israel to envy, to pull them into the church. He gives them this, why were we given the Holy Spirit as permanent indwelling? That's Paul's whole teaching in the book of Romans. God is in the process right now in this dispensation, the church, of drawing His children, His Jewish covenant people, back to Him. They will fully understand during Daniel's 70th week, after the rapture takes place, And the church is gone. Both Jew and Gentile who are part of the church in this dispensation are gone. There are going to be 144,000 Jewish people who recognize that Jesus was their Messiah and they've made a millennial mistake. For millennia they've made a mistake. And they go out in the world and they preach the gospel of Christ. God is in the process of preparing Jewish people for this last great mission of evangelism. And when they weren't successful being the light to the Gentiles in the Old Testament during the 70th week of Daniel, that Daniel prophesied in his book, they will be wildly successful, empowered by the Spirit like never before. There will be worldwide revivals. Millions will come into the kingdom of God while the Antichrist breathes down their throat. to destroy them and kill them and slaughter them, but they will be the boldest witnesses for Jesus Christ that the world has ever seen and they will fulfill God's plan for them during the tribulation. God's gonna draw them back. Look at Isaiah's prophecy. He says, hath he smitten him? As he hath smote those that smote him, or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him? In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it. He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind. Now the east wind is, the east wind to Israel was always hot. So what is, think geographically, what is west of Israel? Go ahead. The Mediterranean Sea. What kind of weather blows in off the ocean generally? Cooler weather. What's to the east of Israel geographically? The desert. It makes Arizona look like a really hospitable place. If you've ever been to Jordan, if you've ever been to Saudi Arabia, I've driven all over Saudi Arabia, by Mitsubishi Gallant, 1991. I drove from Jeddah all the way to Dharan, out to Al Qarj, we used to call it Al's Garage. I've driven all over, and it makes Arizona look scenic. I mean, I'm talking about the southern part of Arizona. It's inhospitable. It is hot. The winds that blow into Israel from the east are the miserable, hot, summer, dry. They hate those winds. But where was Babylon coming from? The east. Where was Assyria coming from the east? So it's like a twofer that Isaiah has when he talks about the east wind blowing. It is a picture of bad weather, and it's a picture of the coming judgment of God on the nation of Israel, both the northern tribes and the southern tribes. He says this judgment is coming, and notice it says, If you'll debate with it, he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind. In other words, who are you to argue with God's justice, is basically what Isaiah is saying. Isaiah is saying, I will protect you, but justice demands that you've sinned, and you've rebelled, and you've sinned, and there's judgment to come. Because that's righteous justice. He said, by this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged. How is it going to be atoned for, Isaiah says. Isaiah says it's going to be atoned for through the captivity. We read, under the pen of Jeremiah, who follows Isaiah by a hundred years in prophecy, that they hadn't been taking care that every seven years they were supposed to have a year of Jubilee. And God pegged the 70-year captivity to the fact that for 490 years they did not practice the year of Jubilee. And he says, I will let the land rest for 70 years to make up for the fact that you've disobeyed me by not letting the land rest every seven years. So you can do the math. Seven times 70 is 490. For 490 years, the chronicler tells us they hadn't done what God wanted them to do, and the consequence was captivity. Isaiah calls it, a hundred years before it happens, a purging. A purging. He prophesies this. He says, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin. Sorry, I don't have the... I got a busy reading. There we go. By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is the fruit to take away his sin, when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalk stones. In other words, here's what God is saying. He's saying, I'm gonna take down all Baal, all the Baal monuments. In other words, all those stones that you offered sacrifice to false gods, how the nation is gonna get purged is that when you come back, you're gonna wipe, you're gonna recognize your evil. What happened when the Jewish people came back from Babylonian captivity, Ezra the scribe came with them. I preached about that a few weeks ago. And Ezra the scribe came back and he likely wrote the books of 1st and 2nd Chronicles, which are about the nation of Judah. And in those books he teaches the people why they went into 70 years of captivity. And he gives them their history of their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers' sin. And the people come back and they divide out the wives that were wrongly married, and Ezra does all that for them, and Nehemiah rebuilds the wall, and they tear down, and ever since then, the Jewish people have never worshipped pagan gods. When Jesus comes on the scene 500 years after Ezra, they are worshiping pagan gods. Now their problem is they've invented a lot of rules that God never gave them, and so they've gone to the other extreme. Instead of following false gods, they're now inventing things God never said. But they never went back to the sin of worshiping Baal. Now, it's very fascinating. The next thing he says, that are beaten asunder and groves and images shall not stand up. In other words, they had wood gods. And it was called the places of the grove. And they had gods that were made of wood that they would go and bow down to. And arms, they crafted them and they had arms and they had faces. And he says in verse 10, yet the defense city shall be desolate. That's Jerusalem. This is when the Babylonians are gonna come in a hundred years. He says the defense city will be desolate and the habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness. There shall the calf feed. This literally happened to Jerusalem. That's why Ezra and Nehemiah come back 75, a hundred years later and rebuild the city because it was uninhabited for almost a hundred years. And there shall a calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down and consume the branches thereof, when the boughs thereof are withered." What is, what are we talking about when the boughs are, we're talking the Ashtaroth poles, the false god poles. When the bowels are withered. In other words, he's speaking metaphorically and talking about the fact that when those Ashtaroth gods that they worship can't protect them from the Assyrians and the Babylonians, they will be withered. You know what, we as Americans trust a lot of things that will be withered one day. We trust our bank account, we trust our car, we trust our house, we trust our IRA, we trust our job, we trust our health. And you know what, we trust on those things and we don't trust in God. Some of us worship Ashtaroth poles just like the ancient Israelites do. And he said, when those are weakened, he said, when they're broken off, the women come and set them on fire. In other words, what's gonna happen, he says, the siege by the Babylonians will be so bad that your God, think about how ironic this is, he says, your God, this wood pole that you say, oh, save us from the Babylonians, you're not gonna have any firewood to prepare any food and you're starving to death, you'll cut up your God and burn your God to stave off starvation. What irony? I mean, you think, now make that application to yourself. You're a controller, or a perfectionist, and you gotta make everything be perfect. And you trust in you. You're your own Ashtaroth pole. And then difficulty comes, and the Babylonians come into your life, and the chaos induced by Satan, by the Leviathan comes into your life, and you stop, you learn, I can't depend on my Ashtaroth pole, I need to depend on God. And it's doing the same thing to Israel. He's mocking them. He says, this Ashtaroth pole that is supposed to be the savior, when push comes to shove, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna cut off its arms and burn it so you can have food. You're not gonna last. He said, for it is a people, verse 11, am I there? Nope, let me go one more. Let me get one more. Sorry, I've been reading from my Bible and not reading in the screen. It said, for it is a people of no understanding. Literally, in the Hebrew, it's no discernment. He said, my people are so dumb, and they have so little discernment, that they would rather trust a wood pole that they made themselves, or a mound of stones that they made themselves, or an image that they made themselves, they would rather trust that, than the God that created every star in the sky that they see at night. You know what? Americans aren't much better. We have a list of things we trust in, and often God, even for Christians, is at the bottom of our list. He said, the women come and set them on fire for as a people of no understanding, no discernment. God says, I'm gonna draw you back because you're my people. Even when you lack complete discernment, even when you go after false gods, even when you set yourself up as a God, I will come after you and come after you and come after you and come after you by whatever means necessary. And the means necessary for Israel was going to be the Babylonians were gonna come and take them out. But he said, there will be a remnant that will be saved. And he said, he that formed them will show them no favor. And he said, in that day, when the Babylonians come, he said, I'm gonna protect it. I've already made that promise, but the judgment is going to be that I will show you no favor when Nebuchadnezzar comes, when the Babylonians come. And then fourthly, and I'm done. Okay, hey, I haven't preached in a month. Give me a break. Next, let's, there, oh, I click it and click it and it doesn't go, and then, there we go. Lastly, by restoring his rebellious children through submission to his will. Wow, this is good. Because this is where we all are. By restoring his rebellious children, how are you restored to a relationship with God? by submission to his plan. Let me just clue you in on something. His plan is very rarely your plan. Anybody that's been a Christian more than six minutes, figure that one out. I spent more time on hospital beds trying to have God explain to me his plan rather than my plan. By restoring his rebellious children, sometimes you can go to church and be a rebellious child. You can tithe and be a rebellious child. You can teach Sunday school, an adult Bible fellow, and be a rebellious child. Here's the deal. So, when my kids were younger, we lived over on Gulf and we would have, you know, the church would come over at Christmas time, right? And it wasn't so much like today we can kind of put a string across our staircase and just kind of keep the riffraff, that's you, out. And so we really couldn't do that. So it was some, my mom or my mom, my wife would always say, the kid's mom would always say, listen kids, make sure you clean up your room. I mean, because somebody will probably come down the hall and they'll see your room and make sure it's really cleaned up. And it's like, we've got company coming over, make sure the room is clean. So we get down to crunch time. And not always had they been as meticulous as their perfectionist mother would like them to be in the cleaning environment. Just saying. Sometimes it wasn't always up to her standards. And so, we'd go down the hall and we would see a mom. She would say, well just throw it in the, you've done this, in the closet. How many of you moms have ever just throw it in the closet? Okay, the rest of you are liars. So anyway, just throw it in the closet. Just throw it in the closet. And then people come down, oh, you have some lights open, they're all nice, oh, you have nice, oh, you have kids, oh, you have kids, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't look in the closet. Oh, your kids are nice. Don't look in the closet. Here's the thing about God. God says, not only do we look in the closet, we're gonna open the door and show the world the closet. Because see, a lot of Christians, they say, sure, God, you can have the living room. Sure, God, you can have the bathroom. Sure, God, you can have the family room. Sure, God, you can have the bedrooms, but God, the closet, that's where I, that's mine. That's just, and we'll just close it, and we'll pretend to the world that everything is good to go with you and me because the house looks so good. You have such a nice house. But we know in the closet, in the closet is me saying, no, God, I want my plan. I want it my way. I wanna do it the way I wanna do it. Let me just tell you this. The longer you walk with God, the more closets you find in your house. Those of you who haven't walked along with God, you don't understand how many closets you really have. And God is in the business of cleaning out your closet by forcing you, you say, what, I'm doing so many good things. God doesn't look at it that way. God says, be ye holy as I am holy. You have one sin in your closet. God's gonna come after you because he considers you rebellious. It's not as bad as the guy out there. No, but you have a sin in your closet. He is going to restore you. He promises he's gonna come after you. He's gonna restore you. But it's always through the immediacy of the submission to his plan. Look at verse 12 when he says to Israel, and it shall come to pass in that day. Remember, it's that day. Remember, theologically and eschatologically, we said back in verse two, in that day. He repeats it. He goes back. This is the millennium. That's why I'm not an amillennialist. That's not why my eschatology is not reformed. And I believe so strongly they're in deep error because of the way they handle the text of scripture in prophecy, which is massive amounts of verses and chapters in the Bible. That's why I don't believe in that. And it's becoming very popular, especially among young people. That's why I'm starting to talk about it more openly, because you can't In that day, isn't today. He's talking about ethnic Israel. And nobody reading this thought, oh he's talking about the church. They understood that he was talking about in that day. In the future glories that are presented to the nation, for the nation. God says in that day. He says, will come to pass the Lord shall beat off the channel of the river into the stream of Egypt. Most likely this is the Nile. From the Nile, And ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel, and it shall come to pass in that day that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, that's where the northern ten tribe was going into captivity, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, that's to the south, and all Israel will come back and worship again. That hasn't happened. There's no temple in Jerusalem. This has to be a prophecy. If you believe the Bible is grammatically and literally true, this has to be a prophecy that takes place in the future. And John tells us about that in the book of Revelation when he says there's a thousand year millennial reign of Christ. In that day, here's what's great. No matter how bad your closet is, you're grafted in child of God. And God says to you, I will come after you and come after you and come after you, and eventually you will submit to my plan. To Israel, Israel's going through right now, literally, God coming after them and putting pressure on them and coming after them to help Jewish people understand that Jesus is their Messiah. But God says in one day, that it will be the Jewish nation, 144,000 strong, and their converts, because you see them in Revelation under the throne, crying out to God. They've been martyred by the Antichrist, and they cry out to God, and they say, how long will our blood cry out for the martyrdoms that the Antichrist does against them? Let me give you really quickly a couple takeaways. It should be in your notes. Number one, this is so good. Number one, God promises to destroy the chaos-induced drama of the fall. I don't know about you, but maybe if you're younger than I am, I turn 52 next week. And the older I get, the more I hate drama. And it's like, really? That's what you're upset about? Seriously? I don't have brain cells to waste on, I have more important things to do with my life than waste brain cells on dumb drama. And most drama is induced by sin, and all sin is induced by the fall. Let me tell you something that is so encouraging to me, that there is a time when God will create perfect justice and he will do away with the drama that induced by the fall in all of our lives. That's such an encouragement to me. Number two, God has chosen to protect me from eternal loss if my faith is in him. You can go back to verse five. If you can go back to verse five and he says, or let him take hold of my strength that he may make peace with me and he shall make peace with me. In other words, God is saying there that I'm gonna, it's my people, I'm gonna protect them. If you place your faith in Christ, no matter what happens in your life, God's, you're in his hand. John 10, my sheep hear my voice, verse 27, and I know them and I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish. No man is able to pluck them out of my hand and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand, Jesus says. God has chosen to protect me. He's chosen to protect the Jewish ethnic people from complete extermination by his own power. He's chosen that. Number three, this is one for me. I am often fooled by the subtle nature of Satan's deceptions and need the covenant love of God to pull me back even if I'm uncomfortable in the process. You let that one sink in. That is a statement full of trust. He says in Isaiah 27 and verse 11, he says, the bows therefore are withered. In other words, the Ashdod poles are no longer powerful. They'll be broken off and the women will come and set them on fire because the tragedy, the Babylonian attack is so great. And therefore he that will have no mercy, he's not gonna show favor because they didn't discern his will. And you know what? I get fooled by how subtle Satan is. You get fooled by how subtle, oh, there's nothing wrong with that. Oh, be careful about the subtlety of Satan. The first adjective to describe Satan in Genesis is he was more subtle than any beast of the field. And Satan thrives on your pride. Subtle tricksters thrive on the pride of the victims. That's how they operate. I have to admit that I'm often fooled by Satan, and I need the covenant, the non-ever-giving-up love of God to pull me back constantly, and often I'm not comfortable when he does it. And lastly, God's promise to me is that based on His nature, get this, get this, based on His nature and His word and His power, He will rule and I with Him. I don't know what you're going through today. I don't know what struggle you're in the middle of. I don't know the pain you're going through. I don't know what drama you're going through. I don't know what Leviathan is coming into your life. But let me tell you this, God tells me in verse 12, it shall come to pass that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river. In other words, he says future Israel is gonna go from the Nile River all the way to its ancestral homes in the north. and that the Jewish ethnic people will come back to Israel and there they will worship just as John prophesied 700 years later in the book of Revelation. The application to me is that God has based this not on whether the Jewish people individually are all great people, but he's promised that based on his nature and his word and his power. That same promise is good to me because we read in Revelation that we will rule and reign with him during the millennium. So He will rule and I with Him. So it doesn't matter what the Leviathan is doing in your life right now, God's perfect justice will take over. God's perfect justice and His perfect timing, all your goals, all your plans, all your ambitions, everything you thought you wanted to accomplish or not accomplish, God's taking care of it in His plan, in His time, in His role, in His way, and you will rule with Him. That's the bottom line. So be faithful to Him. based on His nature and His Word and His power, He will rule and I will rule with Him. Father God, thank You so much for Your Word.