In Scott Brown's sermon, 'When You Do Not Do What He Delights In,' he explores Isaiah 65:11-19, emphasizing the grave consequences of forsaking and forgetting God. He contrasts the blessings bestowed upon God's servants with the desolation awaiting those who serve idols and forsake the 'holy mountain'—a symbol of God's presence and divine guidance. Brown highlights God's persistent call to both the irreligious and religious, urging repentance and a return to the Word of God. He underscores that delighting in God and His word is essential for spiritual nourishment, unity, and a blessed legacy. The sermon calls believers to prioritize God's Word over personal or cultural preferences, warning that neglect leads to spiritual starvation and loss of divine delight. The sermon concludes with a call to reflect on personal delights and to unify around the Word of God as a community.

I say at 65, 11 to 19, but you are those who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for God, and who furnish a drink offering for men. Therefore, I will number you for the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter. Because when I call you, do not answer. When I spoke, you did not hear, but did evil before my eyes, and chose that in which I do not delight. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, my servant shall eat, but you shall be hungry.

Behold, my servant shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed. Behold, my servant shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and weep for grief of spirit. You shall live your name as a curse to my chosen, for the Lord God will slay you, and call his servants by another name so that he will bless himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth because the former troubles are forgotten and because they are hidden from my eyes for behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall now be remembered or come to mind but be glad and rejoice forever in what I created. For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people. The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. Let's pray. Holy, holy, holy, you merciful, almighty Lord. Oh God, we are a native people.

We need the guidance from our shepherds. We need your help to walk, to follow our God, to follow our Master. Father, I pray that you give us instruction that we need Lord through your work. And yes, thankful we are Lord because you're so merciful in giving us your work every Sunday. Thank you Lord that you are merciful Lord.

And as we've seen many of us, we can say, now I am saved. Now you open our eyes to see, you truly are merciful. Thank you Lord for your work. I pray that you bring conviction to your church today. In Jesus' name, amen.

In the context of this passage of scripture, Isaiah brings us into a scene of high drama. It is the highest of drama in this sense. It's the conclusion of the entire prophecy of Isaiah. And so what Isaiah does is he brings us directly into the voice of God. God is the one who speaks in these last two chapters.

And it is high drama. You cannot separate these verses that we are engaging in now from the previous ones. Isaiah in verse 1 in the chapter of 65 brings us into a scene where God is calling out and he's saying, here I am, here I am. And he says that he's come to people that weren't seeking him, that didn't care about him, didn't even know of him. He's talking about, he's talking about we who did not know God we did not have any desires for God but God came to us and he said here I am Here I am and there were people that he sent to us that were saying there He is there he is and I can't read these these this first verse without being brought back to my my days of salvation When when this was happening to me over and over again And it was as if God was just pulling in the rope very slowly and one person would say here I am and another another and another and then finally It occurred to me that I was his and he was mine But this is a picture of the way that God draws the pagans of the world who have no desire, no knowledge of Him at all.

And He says, here I am, here I am. And He does it in so many ways, as He is now as it's snowing. As He said, your sins will be as white as snow. But God is using so many ways to draw his people. Then he speaks to the religious people of the world and he says, I stretched out my hand to a religious but yet idolatrous people, a people who engage in all the religious practices but they had this sort of side life.

They had this alternative lifestyle where they were going to the high places of various kinds. They went to cultivate their idols even in the midst of all of their religiosity. And so the Lord in this first section that we covered last week, he's speaking of the way he so urgently and patiently and long-sufferingly calls sinners to repent, both the religious and the completely pagan people. And so the Lord, he concludes this first section that we covered last week with this picture of God declaring to us that he will not destroy his new wine that that he will he will bring them into a pasture and he'll feed them and he'll care for them and so after the Lord speaks of how he'll bless his people. Now he turns back again to those who have forsaken and forgotten the Lord and in verse 11 Isaiah brings us to another picture through the voice of God and it's a it's a picture who have forgotten, a picture of people who have forgotten.

They're clueless. They're not thinking of God. All they can think of is their pleasures. All they can think of is their affections that are directed toward their idols. And he explains what that looks like, but he tells what happens to people who are caught in that kind of treadmill.

And So he's explaining the greatness of the loss of those who have forgotten the mountain of the Lord. This idea of the mountain of the Lord is the central matter of the text. And connecting it with the word delight, I think, would help you to understand everything in this text. And the question is, you know, what happens when he is out of your mind, when you are deaf to his, when your ears are deaf to his voice and you're blind to seeing him. And what we find in this passage is that in losing his delights, you lose all hope and delight in the world.

This is the tragedy of unbelief. This is the tragedy of idolatry and he explains it so clearly. Now as we move into the the text in verse 11 I just want to ask two questions And the first question is this do you know anyone who has forgotten? Do you know anyone who is forsaken? Then Let this passage of scripture teach you how you ought to respond be like the Lord hold out your hands and say here there he is there he is or a second question have you forgot do your affections run to the high places because there's a very very clear and severe warning that's here in this passage.

So let's let's begin here as you can see in your outline I've identified five elements of this passage. The first is found in verse 11 the unmasking of forsaking God. The second is in verse 12, the punishment for forsaking God. The third is in verses 13 and 14, the life experience of those who forsake the Lord. And then the fourth, the legacy of forsaking God in verse 15, and then finally, the life experience of the servants of God in verse 16.

So you have these two different kinds of people. You have my servants, and you have those who have forgotten and who have forsaken. These are the characters that are in this passage of scripture. So with that introduction, let's begin to move into the text because he begins by unmasking what it is to forsake God. But you are those who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Gad, and who furnish a drink for Menai." now these are the marks of unbelievers and I've there are three identifiers here first they forsake the Lord second they forget is Holy Mountain and Third they spend their energies serving their idols.

And we'll take these one by one. Idolatry is the heart of it all, which is why E.J. Young, the commentator that I typically read in the prophecy of Isaiah said this, idolatry is mentioned as the manner in which these people forsake the Lord. They do not remember his holy mountain Zion where he dwells in the temple but rather seek the high places and valleys of their own delight." And I think the way he said that is very helpful. They're seeking the valleys and the high places of their own delight.

This is the heart of the matter. The question is, where is your delight? What is it that delights you? And where does your delight take you? That's the issue that's before us here.

And that's why I have titled this sermon, When You Do Not Choose What He Delights. And so, we see that, first of all, they forsake the Lord. And he is using a term here that normally indicates a physical action to depart, to abandon, to refuse, to leave, to be distant. And this is the matter of forsaking the Lord. It's a turning away from the Lord and toward other things.

But the force of this is to depart, to find some distasteful thing in God and turn away from him in that sense, and then to be distant to him. And the Lord speaks of this matter of forsaking him. And the Lord makes it very clear, particularly in Deuteronomy 31 and Deuteronomy 16, that if you forsake him, he will forsake you. This is the most terrifying news that can fall on the ears of anyone. If you forsake him, he will forsake you.

That's what Moses says in Deuteronomy 28 20 and Deuteronomy 31 16. He says in Deuteronomy 31, I will forsake them and I will hide my face from them. Imagine that, to be deprived of the face of God, the ministry of God, the help of God in the world. The prophet Ezra was speaking to Asa, the king, and he said, the Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you.

If you forsake him, he will forsake you. So this is the first element of their idolatry. But not only do they forsake the Lord, they forget his holy mountain. That's the second mark of idolatry. And this whole idea of forgetting His Holy Mountain is contrasted with what we read in verse 9, because this whole chapter is connected.

Those who possess My Holy Mountain, and then those who forget my holy mountain. So what is the holy mountain? The holy mountain is a type. It's code for something greater. It speaks of something much larger than a mountain itself.

But the holy mountain that is spoken of here is the place where God meets with his people. And one of the pivotal examples of this is found in Exodus chapter 31 verse 18 where God met with Moses. He met with Moses on his mountain, Mount Sinai, and he wrote ten commandments with his finger and delivered them to him. But what's happening here in this passage is that there's a forgetting of the holy mountain and there's more desire, there's more affection for the gardens and for the graves than the high places, the other places where you might receive direction and help and encouragement and nourishment. Now when we come to the subject of the Holy Mountain, We should recognize that we've already been here before.

You who began with us in Isaiah may remember in chapter 2 verses 1 through 5 and in chapter 4, 2 through 6, we have already spoken about this holy mountain. I would like you to turn to Isaiah 2, 1 through 5 because I want us to understand exactly what this is all about, my holy mountain and Isaiah explains it very very clearly. These these two chapters speak of it. We're going to camp on both of them and I'll give you a little bit early warning. I'm front loading this sermon in the first three points of it because I believe they set the stage for everything else and I think as we build the case for what this means to not delight in the Lord and that the case needs to be built.

So I'm taking us to Isaiah chapter 2 in order to build that case. Now in Isaiah chapter 2 you have a picture of people being drawn by this magnet. It's a gigantic magnet. They're streaming, they're flowing to the mountain of the Lord. There's this force in their lives, there's this gravitational pull, and they're being pulled up the mountain.

And the idea is really almost of like water running uphill. It's supernatural. It's like nothing you've ever seen before. People are drawn, they're magnetized, they're being pulled by something, they're being pulled by this force of the mountain of the Lord. And it's the supernatural power of God in the life of a believer where he wants to follow the Word of God and listen to the Word of God he delights in God he wants God and so he's flowing literally uphill like water never does because God does a work a miraculous work in people's hearts and he he completely changes the orientation of their life and they want the Word of God and all idolatry is turning away from the Word of God and flowing in the way of the idols.

And what do they want? They are saying, teach us your ways. Well let's read it. First of all we learn about the timing. Now verse 2, now it shall come to pass in the latter days.

What are those latter days? Those are the days that were launched when the Lord Jesus Christ came and He died and He rose again and He poured out His Spirit upon all flesh. These are the last days. You are living in the last days You don't know if you're living toward the last part of the last days or the mid part of the last days But you're in the last days And so in in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house Shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills This is the exaltation of the glory and the beauty and the power of Jesus Christ in His Word as it spreads throughout the earth, as His glory covers the earth, as the waters cover the sea. And Then you see that there's this magnetic power and all nations shall flow to it.

Many people shall come and say, come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. And we see that these people who are flowing they're unified by one thing The Word of God all of their differences are Solved by one single standard the Word of God the Jews the Gentiles They set aside all of their cultural and personal preferences that have been the result of their backgrounds, their thinking, their culture, everything like that. And they are flowing to the mountain of the Lord so they can hear the Word of God. And the chief unifying factor in this group of people who is flowing uphill to the mountain of the Lord is that they want to learn his ways. And that's why we read, he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

This is the desire of their hearts to learn his ways, to unlearn their own ways, to break out of their paths and get on his path, the highway of holiness. And this is the thing. And so he says, for out of Zion shall come forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people." And then we learn about the effect of it and how his grace is put on display in the very way that they act toward one another, the way they treat one another, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." And these people who have turned toward the Lord, the chief feature of their life is that they're no longer at war with their brethren. Blessed are the peacemakers for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

And The feature of their lives is that the hard edges of their argumentativeness, their harshness, their judgmentalism seems to drop away. And they gather around one standard, the Word of God. They set aside their own preferences for the Word of God. They lose their life and as a result their lives are saved. And they become like those who give mercy because they have received mercy.

And that's the picture that is here. And God, the people of God are not fighting. God settles their differences by his word, which is why we read in chapter 65 verse 25, we'll get to this later, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the Lion shall eat straw like the ox, the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain." This is a picture of the people streaming to the holy mountain. They are so changed, they're so delivered from themselves, from their own offenses, their own personality, their own preferences, their own cultural tweaks that they have been tweaked by all their lives, and they come to the Word of God.

So it's a picture, it's a picture of the people of God. Now in Isaiah 65, he's always bringing before you the people of God who've been rescued and the people of God who have forgotten him and who have forsaken him. He's always going back and forth in this chapter. Remember this is the crescendo of the entire prophecy of Isaiah. These last two chapters are the summary of the entire prophecy and we're now in This moment where Isaiah is in a sense.

He's he's winding up for the final for the final words of the prophecy But he's speaking here of the people of God and there's this great magnet That's drawing them and it's for and it is his word And I think when we think about even what has happened here today as we've streamed from all the different places of the community to the mountain of the Lord, you know what are we like? You know what what do the people in our community think of us? What would they say about us as a result of our life together? Are we known for our love for the Word? Are we known by our love for one another?

Is this the chief matter that marks our reputation? And so there you have it in Isaiah chapter 2. Now let's go to Isaiah 4 Verses 2 through 6 because here I want to lay a foundation for what it means to forsake to forget the mountain of the Lord because this is really the heart of the matter that Isaiah is dealing with And he begins in verse 2 in chapter 4 with the branch. And when he speaks, the word branch is code for Jesus Christ and his body, his church. This is the branch of the Lord.

And we read, in that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. Christ and his body will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped." And then in verses 3 through 6 the the works of the branch of Jesus Christ and his body are described. And it shall come to pass, verse 3, that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for over all the glory there will be a covering. And then it says in verse 6 that God will dwell with his people and there will be a tabernacle or a dwelling place or a temple or a mountain or a church okay there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime for the heat a place of refuge and for a shelter from storm and rain so this is this is what he's talking about when he speaks of forgetting the mountain, forgetting my mountain.

Everybody has their own mountains that they're climbing. Make sure you're climbing the mountain of the Lord. And he's speaking here of what it means to forget the mountain of the Lord. What's the loss in the soul of man who has forgotten or forsaken the mountain of the Lord? You know, we're all very well aware that no man builds without counting the cost.

And it is true that some impulsively build without counting the cost. This would be a good time for every person in this room to consider the cost of forgetting the mountain of the Lord if you have forgotten it if you are forsaken the mountain of the Lord remember there are various features to this mountain and Isaiah's described them here but what what is the cost of the soul that's lost in the forgetting of the mountain of the Lord. And Isaiah is very careful in his prophecy to conclude it with the great tragedy of what is lost. Another way to ask this question is What have your idols cost you? And so this holy mountain is the place where God meets with his people.

And instead of the holy mountain, the people are going up to their own gardens. And Isaiah identifies the various ways that this has happened. They have forsaken the Lord, they have forgotten his holy mountain, but thirdly they spend their energies serving their idols. This is why it's described here, the Lord makes it very clear, you prepare a table for Gad and furnish a drink offering for Menai. Now these two words, Gad and Menai, are words for Canaanite gods and Gad was the god of fortune, of success.

Perhaps it was a specific idol, it's possible that this was a god that was worshipped in Babylon and it may be the title of the God, we're not sure. But this was the God of fortune, making your way in the world. It's replacing the ways of God for your own ways in making your way for success in the world by accepting the the rules of this world rather than the ways of God and then men I This means fate or destiny Though the word literally means number so it's a little bit confusing but It's almost as if he's saying you worship number and now you will be numbered for the sword because the same terminology is used in the next phrase ology of being numbered for the sword But I I think that he's talking about this this idolatry of your own fate, your own destiny to make up your own way in the world, to make up your own rules, to prefer your own methodology in everything, in your marriage, in your work life, in your church life, in how you raise your children. It's choosing your own methodology. This is meni.

It's fortune, making your, I'm sorry, it's fate, it's making your own destiny your own way And controlling it apart from the governing Gravitational pull of the Word of God And what was happening here is that the sacrifices were made, you know, meals were prepared. There was time, food offerings, you know, they were eaten together. You know, in the sacrificial world that we're given information about here, the sacrifice would be offered, but then everybody would eat it. And so they would be gathering out around these various principles of success and future glory. Martin Luther paraphrased this condition this way, they poured out everything for the idols but now they give nothing for the gospel.

Alec Mautier said it this way, they would climb every mountain except where they might meet a holy God. Climbing every mountain to go find a way in the world that's not of God. To spend your life, to spend your preparations, your eating times around Your own affections rather than the mountain of the Lord and This is one of the great truths of life, isn't it? You know your time goes somewhere All of us have been allocated the same amount of time. And the question is, where is your time spent?

Is it spent on the mountain of the Lord, seeking his word, seeking his ways? Or is it creating a kind of a side life, an alternative lifestyle that is engaging in things that are contrary to God and his word? And so This is a people whose attentions went somewhere. They went to their idols. So they forsake the Lord, they forget his holy mountain, and they spend their energies on serving idols.

And this makes it very clear that mixing your life with idolatry is to forsake the Lord and you should be very aware of where you are going. And I believe in this whole context, he's primarily talking to religious people who go to the worship of God. But then after that, they go somewhere else. They go to a different well to drink from. They go to a different place to be fed.

They go to a different source to brighten their eyes and it's not the Lord. And So then the punishment for forsaking God is spoken of in verse 12. And he says, Therefore I will number you for the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter. And the imagery is very clear here. You have a picture of someone bowing down to the god of success or fortune and then he bows down and he's slaughtered and He says I will number you probably means that he got is singling people out.

He's treating them as individuals here. It's possible that he's speaking of the larger people of Israel as a corporate entity. Quite likely he's speaking of both. And then he gives the reasons for it. You know God is very kind.

He always tells you Why he's doing what he's doing and in this case he does it here He gives well, let me get back up God doesn't always tell you every reason for everything he does but over and over and over and over again in the Word of God He tells you why and he does it right here Because when I called you you did not answer That takes us back to the image of the very beginning. I held out my hands to you while you were up on your high places. When you were going up there, I was crying out to you. My hands were held out. I said, how long, how long I wanted to gather you as a mother gathers its chicks, as a mother hen gathers its chicks.

So he says, when I called you, you did not answer. When I spoke to you, you did not hear, but did evil before my eyes, and chose that in which I do not delight." So these various reasons are itemized, and he's very clear and careful to explain them so that we understand what the will of the Lord is. He says, because I called you and you did not answer. That's the first reason. And this has to do with rejecting the Word of God.

Notice that he judges them on what they did with his words. God approaches his people on the basis of his words. And they did not hear, they could not, would not hear his words. This is the matter of life and death, your relationship with the Word of God. And the second reason for the punishment is that they did evil before my eyes.

They had feet that ran toward evil. Evil always begins in the heart. And they cultivated evil thoughts that caused them to carry them out. And it was the evil that made them forget the mountain of the Lord. There are things in our hearts that rise up that take us in this direction, away from the mountain of the Lord.

In Psalm chapter 15, the Lord says, David says, who may abide in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy hill? So he's speaking about that matter of evil. And he says, he who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the truth in his heart, he who does not backbite with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend, in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the Lord. He who swears to his own hurt and does not change, he who does not put out his money at usury, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved." In Proverbs 24, he speaks very specifically as well about the hill of the Lord, the mountain of the Lord. Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? Proverbs 24.3. Or, who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully, He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of salvation." And so the second reason for the punishment is that they did evil before their eyes away from His holy mountain.

And the third reason is they chose that in which I do not delight. I think that's the heart of the matter right there. God does not want us to construct our lives out of the wellspring of our own delights but His. And He takes pleasure in certain kinds of things. You know, God is a person.

He's a person with feelings and responses. Somebody, I just quoted somebody who said that in Bible study on Tuesday. God is a person and when we lose our delight in what he is delighted then we not only lose his delight, but we lose our own. Another way of saying it is, you know, when we find our delight in the world, we find no delight in life. Because in Christianity, you lose your life to gain a better one.

You change kingdoms. Your heart of stone becomes a heart of flesh and you begin to be guided by different words not your own words not your own pleasures but delighting yourself in the Lord and he will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth This is the delights of God and the Lord has given us so many ways to see it and know it. But what does God delight in? In Genesis 1.31 we know that God delights in his creation. When he created all that there was, he looked at it and he said, behold, it is good.

He delights in his creation. In Hosea 6 verse 6, we remember that he delights in mercy. For I desire or I delight in he uses the same word delight for I delight in mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings in other words He doesn't care that much about your religious practices. He cares about whether you have mercy and whether you love the knowledge of God. Offerings are inferior to love and mercy.

He delights in those who fear him. That's Psalm 147, 10 and 11. He does not delight in the strength of the horse. He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.

In Jeremiah 9, 24, we learn that He delights in loving kindness and judgment and righteousness. But let Him who glories in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight, " says the Lord. In Proverbs 12-22, it says that he delights in those who deal truthfully. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are his delight. In Proverbs 11-20 he Delights in the blameless.

Those who are of a perverse heart are an abomination to the Lord, but the blameless in their ways are his delight. In Psalm 149, 4, he delights in his people, for the Lord takes pleasure in his people, he will beautify the humble in salvation. In Psalm 16-3 he says a very similar thing, as for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. To delight in the things that God delights in. You know what a precious thing it is to have a church where people delight in one another, where there's such a delight in the church.

In Matthew 17 verse 5 we learn that he delights in his son. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased. Hear Him. We've heard this in Isaiah 42 verse 1 where we learn that He delights in His servant, Jesus. Behold, My servant, whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights.

I will put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles." In Isaiah 53 10 we learn that he delights in sinners. So much does he delight in saving sinners that he says this, yet it pleased or delighted, so this very same word, it delighted the Lord to bruise him. He delights in salvation. He delights to save sinners. And this is why he stands at the corner of the streets and says, Here I am.

Here I am. This is why he stretches out his hands to the religious who have lived a double life. And he calls them to come. Because he delights in salvation. The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus in chapter 5 verse 2 Jesus who has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.

This is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that was delightful to the Father. It delighted the Father that the Son would give His life as a ransom for many. And it was like a sweet smelling aroma that delighted Him. You know, when God looks at His people, he delights in them because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, not because of their righteousness, not because of their wisdom, not because they made all the right moves, not because they said everything right or did everything right or thought everything right, not because of that at all. He delights in his people because he delights in the sacrifice of his son and it's a sweet aroma that rises up.

If anyone has lost any delight in any of the saints here, please recognize that Jesus, that God the Father delights in his children. And we should think that, we should think rightly about one another. He does not relate to us according to our faults. He relates to us according to the perfection of his son, of the fact that his son kept every law. His son never spoke anything wrongly.

His son never did anything contrary to the law of God. And so Our delight in one another can never be based on one another's performance. And the truth is so clearly communicated here that when we lose our delight in what he is delighted, we lose all our delight. And then he speaks in verses 13 and 14 of the life experience that comes from forsaking God. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry.

Behold my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed. Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart and wail for grief of spirit." you realize in two verses the word my servants appears? This is the focus, this is the emphasis. But there's a counter emphasis as well, which I think is really the theme, and that is those who are not my servants, those who have forgotten my holy mountain.

Here is what is going to happen to them. But remember, don't disconnect this from the entire context. God has begun to say here in chapter 65, here I am, here I am. And now he's saying, here is what will happen to you. And I think here's what you're already experiencing when you set aside the Word of God.

Whenever you set aside the Word of God for your own preferences, I've engaged in idolatry. Every time we set aside the Word of God for our own cultural or personal preferences, we've engaged in idolatry. God is pleading with his people and he's saying, don't you see what this does to you? And he's making it very clear And so he's referring to his servants and those who have forgotten. And he's using bodily imagery to speak of spiritual circumstances.

Isaiah has done this over and over again. The imagery is so beautiful in Isaiah. I pray that we get the imagery, that we can never ever have another glance of our eye without seeing the glory of God somewhere. And now Isaiah takes us to these matters of bodily nourishment. And not just bodily nourishment, but emotional and spiritual strength and joy and you know satisfaction he he takes you to these two items one is physical and the other is more spiritual and internal and He says behold my servants shall eat another So now he takes us to the matter of eating.

My servant shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, my servant shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servant shall rejoice." Now we get to these more emotional, spiritual, or psychological categories. Rejoicing. My servant shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed.

These are things that happen inside your heart And he's using that as an illustration. And then he says in verse 14, behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart and wait for grief of spirit." So here Isaiah is speaking of the refreshment and the vitality and the abundance that comes to those who love the mountain of the Lord, who desire the Word of God to be their chief guidepost of their life, who desire to delight in the things that he delights in, to delight in all the things that are so delightful to God, his people, his mercy, his truth, his loving kindnesses, to delight in the things that he delights in. He's speaking of what this does. You know, the Lord has said in the Psalms that he has a river of delights. And the truth is that when you delight in what he delights in, you have found yourself in the river of delights and you will be delighted.

And so these blessings are compared with these matters of the body. So in the same way that the brightening of the eyes comes from food and the refreshment comes from drink and rejoicing comes from the ending of shame and singing arises out of the heart that's set free, you find the beauty and the happiness of those who are on the mountain of the Lord and who while on that mountain are listening are listening to his words so that they would be changed by them. When we come before the Word of God and when we come before one another, We are either on one mountain or another. We're on the mountain of blessing or the mountain of cursing. We're either...

And we have to recognize the impact that it will have on us. You know Jonah really understood this. He was in the belly of the whale. He was in the middle of a whale of a trial. He had sinned against the Lord.

He ran the other direction. He went away from the mountain of the Lord to Tarshish, where he thought he could make his way more happy. And it didn't turn out that way. God has set that historical narrative before us to teach us something. But just before Jonah was ejected from that great fish, he said something that I think is perfectly consistent with the whole thrust of this chapter.

He cries out in his prayer, those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy. And so here in this section in verses 13 and 14, you have a people, you have a unified people on the one hand who are streaming to the mountain of the Lord and their only care in life is that they would find themselves in accordance to the Word of God. That's their chief thought. They're concerned about themselves primarily in their relationship with the obedience and conformity to the Word of God.

This is life on the mountain. And they're a unified people And they're saying to one another, let us go to the mountain of the Lord. That's what every church needs. Every church needs people that that's their chief concern. And he feeds these people and he waters them and he gives them joy and he removes their troubles.

And this is how the Church of Jesus Christ is the face of Jesus Christ in the world. That they are an organism that represent Jesus Christ himself. And the question is, is what do they delight in? Do they delight in their own ways more than they delight in the Word of God? And I think everybody knows it's always a struggle for us as sinners to become conformed to the Word of God.

If you look at the Word of God you see how short you fall. Every single person does. Every honest Christian reads the Word of God and says, Oh Lord, have mercy on me. And their only hope is to cry out for his salvation, cry out for the righteousness of his son to clothe them with his righteousness Because we're hopeless without His mercy. And then you find the legacy of forsaking God in verse 15.

You shall leave your name as a curse to my chosen, for the Lord will slay you and call his servants by another name." Now who is God speaking of here? He's speaking of the formalists, the apostate religion that God was holding his hands out to. And what he is saying here is that If you continue down the pathway of your double life, of your idols in the day, and your religion on Sunday, then I will make your name a curse in the world. This is what will happen. This is a promise.

It will be fulfilled. And they will have a name. Now the name, the name is in the Bible signifies everything that a person is. It sums up the whole person. And when you turn to God, you have a different, he gives you a different name.

You become a different person. But what he's saying here is really an application of Proverbs 10, 17. The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. So the legacy is destroyed when you do not love the mountain of the Lord and you've forgotten it. But when you turn to God you become a different person and your personality changes and the whole thrust of your life changes and he gives you another name we recently read of you'll be called Hepsaba and and Beulah you'll no longer be called forsaken.

The Bible makes it very clear that God gives his people a new name. Revelation chapter 2 verse 17 says, He who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it. And so you will no longer be called forsaken, you will no longer be called desolate, you'll be called Hepsaba and Beulah, for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin so shall your sons marry you and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride So shall your God?

Rejoice over you and this this verse here verse 15 about the losing of the terrible legacy the cursed legacy that happens is just another illustration that when you lose his delights, you lose all hope of delight in the world, in time to come. In the raising of your children, the next generation, what will happen to them if you forget the mountain of the Lord? What will happen to them? Your legacy will be a legacy. Your children will go out and they will curse the name of God.

If you do not desire to build your life on the Word of God, your legacy, your name will be a curse. I think this should be a warning and an encouragement for all parents particularly to fill their houses with the Word of God, to help their children to delight in the Word of God, that they would see their greatest delight in His words. Not in the words in those movies, not in the words of all those other things, but they would exit your home knowing of the delights of the Word of God. That this would be your chief legacy. Hardly anything else matters, by the way.

You can teach your children so many things. If you don't teach them to delight in the Word of God, your legacy will be a curse. I'm old enough to have seen that play out a few times. And then finally, in this set of verses that we're focusing in on, verse 16, you see the experiences of the servants of God. And here, like I said earlier, Isaiah's going back and forth.

He gives one illustration, he paints one picture, and then he paints another, and then he paints another. And he's giving us Illustrations to help us to understand the kingdom of heaven and what is at stake and here he turns to a beautiful picture again I don't How many beautiful pictures have been painted before us of the glory of salvation? Well, here's another one, verse 16. So that he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth And he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth, because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my eyes." This is a picture of the people of God being blessed. Now it's a little confusing when you read the first phrase because it when you it says so that he who blesses himself in the earth your mind immediately goes to just self-satisfaction and self-aggrandizement and you know just trying to please yourself in the earth you know kind of sinfully But that's obviously not what he's talking about.

Because the next phrase qualifies it and tells what it really is. Shall bless himself in the God of truth. So this blessing comes from blessing in the God of truth. It's blessings that come from the God of truth. Now these are the earthly blessings that come from loving the God of truth.

Now the blessing here is more like kneeling and adoring. The blessing is more like, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. It's this kind of blessing. It's loving, seeking, bowing down before God. That's the kind of blessing.

And it's a picture of a person who sees the blessing in the Lord. That in the Lord is where the blessing is. It's on that mountain. That's where the blessing is. It's not in any of the high places.

There's no satisfaction there. There's no real joy there. There are only counterfeits there. But he's blessing himself in the God of truth. And he believes that God is a rewarder.

He believes that God is a tree of life. He believes that God is a God who blesses his people And so he blesses him himself in the earth in the God of truth He's talking about the way you live, the way you bless yourself in the earth. How will you bless yourself? How will you make your way in the world? Only in the God of Truth will you truly be blessed.

All other blessings will be deprivations and counterfeits and will deprive you of all delight." That's the whole argument that the prophet is making here. And then he talks of swearing, and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth again I would just suggest to understand it turn turn the sentence around and say you shall swear by the God of truth and swearing in the in the earth So it has to do with the act of devotion to God swearing to God has to do with explicitly devoting oneself to God, you know carefully and Covenantally committing yourself to God making changes You know taking oaths in the name of God. The Bible says that one of the acts of worship is to declare vows. In other words, to hear the word of God and then to make a decision and make a promise to God that you're going to turn to or away from something. Ecclesiastes 5 makes that very clear.

That when we come together, we're taking, we're seeing who we are, we see our faces and then we go away and we must change. And so we swear, we make commitments that we're going to be different when we leave here. And what he's saying is that when people are like this, when they seek the God of truth in the earth, and when they devote themselves to God to make changes, then they will have hearts full of blessing in the earth. God will bless those who live this way. And this is the normal life on the mountain of the Lord.

Now sometimes we stray from this and we forget it. Sometimes we fall into other paths. You know when God promised that through Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed in Genesis 12 verse 3, He was speaking of this. Of when you find all of your blessing in the God of truth and you find all of your lifestyle coming out of your desire to be devoted to God and you swear to Him in loyalty, in love, in adoration. And your troubles are forgotten because they are hidden from His eyes.

And I believe He's Speaking of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, where it pleased the Lord to bruise His Son so that your sins would be forgotten and you'd be set free because you heard His voice. He said, here I am, here I am. And you said, oh Lord, I see you. I want you. I want your mountain.

I am so tired of my mountain. This is one of the chief memories I have of my own conversion. I was so sick and tired of my own ways. They had only abused me and I wanted a different way. I wanted God's way.

But the troubles will be forgotten. What are they? I think it goes back to what he said in verses 13 and 14. The hunger, the thirst, the shame, The sorrow of heart, the grief of spirit, these are all things God heals his people of over time. All of them.

He heals us of all these things. And these things will be forgotten. And you won't care for the world like you did before, because you'll see that God is healing you. You'll see how much He loves you. How He stood there and He said, here I am, here I am.

And you weren't seeking Him, but you heard Him. He opened your ears. And then you, maybe, or maybe you were a very religious person, and He held out His arms And he said, come to me. This is the love of God in Jesus Christ who seeks to save the lost. I want to close by reading a passage of scripture from Hebrews chapter 12 which speaks of this mountain.

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, that burned with fire, and to the blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow and so terrifying was the sight that Moses said I am exceedingly afraid and trembling but verse 22 you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who speaks, for if they did not escape, who refused him who spoke on the earth? Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.

But now He has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. And he's speaking of salvation. That's the shaking of the earth in heaven, in the soul of a person who's inebriated to him. Now this, yet once more, indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, of the things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire." We come to the mountain of the Lord because we do see his vanquishing power and the absolute insanity of resisting him and we should fear any resistance But we come to drink of his river of delights, to find ourselves being plunged into the things that delight him.

And I think the counsel from the Word of God this morning to our church is consider your delights, consider your thoughts, and let's be a people like this who find all their delights in the Word of God. And this would be our unifying factor. Nothing else. Would you pray with me? Father, I thank you for your words that you have delivered directly to our ears in Isaiah 65.

You have spoken, and we are so thankful for your delights. Lord, I praise you that your delights are truly delightful and there's no delight anywhere in the world apart from you. Oh Lord, that you would give us such a heart within us that we might fear you and love you, seek you with all of our hearts to obey you, and that you would you would cause us even today to delight in one another, to delight in your mercy, to delight in your righteousness, and to delight in your Son and especially the sweet aroma that raised up to your nostrils, oh Father, your great delight in the saving of sinners. Amen.