In the sermon 'Why Does the Lord Wait?' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Isaiah 30:18-33, highlighting God's purposeful waiting to be gracious to His people and to exalt Himself through mercy. The sermon contrasts those who trust in God with those who seek guidance from Egypt, illustrating the dangers of relying on worldly advice. It emphasizes the dual themes of waiting and blessing, portraying how God's justice and mercy are integral to the restoration of His people. Adversity and affliction are presented as instruments of divine teaching and growth, while the restoration under Christ's reign is marked by blessings such as abundant provision, spiritual insight, and healing. The sermon underscores that these blessings come with conditions, including crying out to God and rejecting idols. Ultimately, it conveys the transformative power of the gospel and the collective experience of God's people in waiting and receiving His promises.

Our passage is Isaiah 30 verse 18 through the end of the chapter. Therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you, and therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for Him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem.

You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, he will answer you. And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers. Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it, whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.

You will also defile the covering of your images of silver and the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing. You will say to them, get away. Then he will give the rain for your seed which you will sow the ground and bread of the increase of the earth. It will be It will be fat and plentiful.

In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures. Likewise the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and fan. There will be on every high mountain and on every high hill, rivers and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of his people and heals the stroke of their wound. Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and his burden is heavy.

His lips are full of indignation and his tongue like a devouring fire. His breath is like an overflowing stream which reaches up to the neck to sift the nations with the sieve of futility. And this shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept, and gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty one of Israel. The Lord will cause his glorious voice to be heard and show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger in the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering tempests and hailstones.

For through the voice of the Lord, Assyria will be beaten down, as he strikes with the rod. And in every place where the staff of punishment passes, which the Lord lays on him, it will be with tambourines and harps. And in battles of brandishing, he will fight with it. For Tofet was established of old, yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made it deep and large, its pyre is fire with much wood.

The breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone kindles it. Lord, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would teach us from it today. Lord, I pray for Mr. Brown as he brings the message.

Lord, speak through him. Lord, I pray that You would save the lost among us. In Jesus' name, Amen. Before us in this second half of Isaiah chapter 30 is really a disclosure of the power of the gospel among a people, among a gathered people who are named really as true believers in the world. And there's a contrast here between what happens to those who trust in God in the time of Isaiah and also what happens to those who trust in God in the time of Isaiah, and also what happens to those who trust in God in the time of the Messiah, these are contrasted with those who love the advice of Egypt.

Those people who went down to Egypt for advice, they sort of, they got their life out of Egypt and they lived their life out of the advice that came out of Egypt. And So before us is the question, why the Lord waits in the salvation of His people and the destruction of His enemies, because He has both of these in balance in this passage of Scripture. And there's this matter of waiting, And everyone is waiting. God is waiting. The unbelievers are waiting.

And also the believers are waiting. And the whole context here is this historical situation where Judah is under a great threat. Assyria is threatening to devour Judah, this gigantic, powerful nation. You can go see its artifacts in the British Museum today. It was a very powerful nation.

It's getting ready to swoop down to destroy this little piece of land in Judah and they're under the kingship of Hezekiah. Hezekiah panics and he goes down to Egypt to get help and first they sought the advice of Egypt, that's chapter 30, and then chapter 31 they seek the help of Egypt. So it's a very dangerous time that the people of God are in during this historical context that Isaiah is speaking in. You know, it's easy to argue that today are dangerous times for us. The news is filled these days with Islamic beheadings around the world.

Last week a race riot in an American city. You have a moral collapse that we've never seen in our land today. We have a new generation, which at least if you believe the press, they're the most distracted, unable to concentrate, undisciplined, unproductive generation. And there are all these articles all over that they are absolutely, are now the poorest generation and will continue to be so. So I mean, there are all kinds of threats and bad news really all around us as well.

And where do we go for advice? Where do we go for help? Why does the Lord wait? Well these are the things that this passage of Scripture addresses. And again, these things are written for our example.

Yes, they did happen in the 8th century BC. The year is probably 701 BC when the context of these events is taking place. And yet they're timeless. They teach us about today. We should always be asking, how does that thing that happened be used of the Lord to instruct me in the way in which I should go today.

What relevance does it have for me? Because these things have been written not just to be interesting stories to die on a bookshelf, but actually to live in your heart and to move through your feet and your words and your thinking and everything that you are. They really are designed to help us today. And so in the previous section in chapter 30, we learned that when you go down to Egypt for advice, two things are true. First of all, it's rebellion.

And second of all, you're going to be ashamed of the advice that you got from Egypt. There'll be a day where you'll say, that was so stupid when you go down to Egypt for advice. And so, but at the same time, there's this opportunity for salvation. There's this opportunity to return. And in verse 15, In chapter 30, we read, for thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest, you shall be saved, in quietness and confidence, shall be your strength.

And so there's this call to turn to God, to trust in him alone, to be still and know that he is God. But then the most terrifying words in the text are in verse 16, and you said no, But you would not. And so as a result they are left alienated. And in the last verse, verse 17, and in chapter 30 that we discussed last week, They're left as a pole on the top of a mountain, all alone, all by themselves. And so that's where we leave it.

Now, as we move into verse 18, and to finish off the chapter possibly here this morning, We find there are two segments. And the first you'll find in verses 18 to 26. And this is the restoration of God's people. This is a wonderful picture of what it looks like when God redeems the people. What happens to people?

And I love passages like this. And we're going to itemize them. My son came up to me at the beginning of this service, and he was shaking this in front of me. He was saying, Saint Paul, but either you've reformed, or you have 10 points under each one of these things here. Well we are going to walk through the glories of salvation one by one.

There actually are more than one or two or three of those that you'll find in the blank space between these two sections. And then the second section is the judgment for God's enemies. And here what you find is the disclosure of the faithfulness of God to destroy his enemies and to bring his people to praise him. It's the downfall of the wicked that causes a great celebration among the people of God. Two things about this section that really got to me.

There are two great themes throughout this whole section. And the first theme is characterized by these words, the Lord will. Like the Lord will do something. Here you do not have a God who is not at work. He is at work.

The Lord will. And then the second phrase is, you will. Two things. What the Lord will do and what will happen to you. Those are running through here and I hope you'll see them as we go.

So the first thing that we see here is this vision of the restoration of God's people. This is the transforming grace that comes upon those who turn to the Lord, the ones who are waiting on the Lord. This is a picture of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you've ever considered believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ, here's what it's all about. Here's what happens to you.

Here's what God will do, and here's what will happen to you. And here's what you will do as a result of the power of the gospel. And so I want to bring you in this section of this vision of restoration of God's people what happens under the reign of Christ. And I'm going to identify 11 things that happen under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Number one, He waits in order to bless His people.

Verse 18. Therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you." So the Lord is waiting and we know in our study in Isaiah so far that times are hard for the people that Isaiah is speaking to. In chapter 1 he said, the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. There's nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. It's the people who are suffering under the hard hand of the devil himself, who've turned to him for advice.

And it's not going very well for them at all. And we've also learned in a couple of places, it's even frustrating for the animals. In the last passage of Scripture, Isaiah says, you took all those animals down to Egypt and there are the snakes and the fiery serpents and the lions you you you terrified these animals for what for nothing to go down to Egypt for advice even the animals get a bad deal when the people of God turn to Egypt for advice. And so because Judah runs down to Egypt for advice and refuses to wait, then the Lord will wait. God does not destroy in an instant.

He's patient and He's compassionate. Now the word wait that is used here can also be defined to long for. The Lord waits. The Lord longs to be gracious. And so this word has to do with an expectation or a desire for something and God is longing, he's longing to be gracious.

This is his character. To be gracious, you know, means to grant favor, to feel sympathy, to have compassion, and it depicts a heartfelt response by someone who has something to give, to one who has a need. That's a direct quote out of the theological word book of the Old Testament. This is what this word means. And I think there are many things that we could say about this first phrase in verse 18.

And one thing we can say is that if you're waiting, you're in a good place. Because God is also on the other side waiting. There is someone behind the door. As you're in the waiting room, God is also waiting. And it's not as if he's unaware.

It's not as if he doesn't care. He is waiting along with the waiting of his people. A lot of times you think you're waiting all by yourself. Not true. When you are waiting, God is waiting as well.

This is why the psalmist is so helpful to say, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. You know, my wife Deborah has been reading Pilgrim's Progress to us in the night over the last several weeks. And we read last week in one section, they are in a valley of humiliation. And here's what she read, This valley of humiliation is of itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flies over.

For indeed, it is a very fruitful soil and brings forth fruit by handfuls. The place of waiting can be the most fruitful time in your life, especially if you know that God is waiting behind the door as well. So this first power, beauty of the Gospel is that He waits in order to bless His people. The second thing that happens under the reign of Jesus Christ is that He is exalted in His mercy. Verse 18.

And therefore, He will be exalted that He may have mercy on you. This time of trial has its purpose to extend mercy to you. And the word that he uses here is a word that means to love deeply, as a superior would love an inferior. God is demonstrating His mercy, and He glorifies Himself through His mercy. Notice His intention is not to glorify you, but to glorify Himself.

His mercy glorifies Him. In other words, when He extends His loving kindness to you, it isn't really all about you. It's all about Him. He does it in order to demonstrate how good he is. So that not that you would feel so great about yourself, but so that you would feel great about him.

One of the worst things that can happen to us is to feel too great about ourselves. That's usually where most of our problems come from. Think about where your marriage problems come from. Think of where your problems at work have always come from. It's by thinking too much of yourself.

And, you know, there's this idea that if you think much of yourself, then you'll be just fine. That's not true. If you think much of yourself, you will not be fine. God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. But if you think much of God, it will be well with you.

And he brings his judgment upon you and hear his mercy upon you not so that you'll you will be or feel great but that he will be great in your mind But He is exalted in His mercy. We are not the center of the universe. You notice the double therefore in verse 18, Therefore exists twice. And that double therefore, I think, means that God must do His work of judgment before He restores. The sins must be exposed before the restoration can be accomplished.

And so here we find ourselves in the region of the compassion and the mercy of God. And in God's mercy he judges, and then as a result of his judgment you see his mercy. And so that's what Isaiah is speaking of. So that's the second thing that happens when you're under the reign of Jesus Christ. God is exalted in His mercy.

You might think about that for a minute. How has God's mercy on you in your troubles exalted Him? That's the purpose of His mercy. And then the third thing that happens to you when you're under the reign of Christ is that you who wait for Him will be blessed. You who wait for him will be blessed.

Verse 18, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him. And here we find that it's God's justice that is a blessing as well. And there's blessing in the waiting in the midst of God's justice. And you know, God is just, And His justice must be satisfied.

And that must mean that there's a punishment when the justice of God is violated. Because the Lord God is a God of justice. And what is true about God and His people is that both of them wait for the vindication of His justice. Ultimately, the vindication of God's justice happened at the cross when the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Him all the sins of the world and He satisfied the justice of God. God's wrath toward man that had sinned against Him.

How would God's wrath be made calm? And that is by this act of justice. And his justice was satisfied at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's justice isn't satisfied by you trying to be a better person. That's absolutely impossible.

It can only be justified by the justifier, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says blessed are those, all those who wait for Him. Again, I want to point out, who is He talking about? He's talking about the people of God. It does apply individually, but I think we need to recognize He's talking about a people of God that are gathered together.

These are His people who name His name. So when He's speaking these words, I think it is right for you to take them personally, but don't just take them personally. Take them corporately as a body of people. This is what happens to us. Blessed are all those who wait for Him.

There's a sense where all of the people of God, all of us together, wait for Him. There's a sense where there's the justice and the judgment of God that comes to us. And we are sort of together in this. But he said, blessed are all those who wait for Him. You can add that as another one of your Beatitudes.

Blessed are all those who wait for Him. In other words, happy. Happy are all those who understand that God is right behind the door. He's right there. You're waiting, that's true, and it might be painful.

But it really helps to know who is waiting also along with you. There's these times of waiting that take place, you know. The Bible says that there's a time for everything. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, it says, to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, A time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, A time to love and a time to hate.

A time of war and a time of peace. God has His times. And here, there is a time to wait. And blessed are all those who wait for Him." This is one of the things that happens under the reign of Jesus Christ. You wait differently.

The people of God wait differently. You know, the people of God do a lot of things differently. You know, I've been to a number of funerals. Here's an absolute rock-solid truth. Believers grieve differently than unbelievers.

Absolutely. They grieve that you see the same tears, but you don't see the same strength. But the same thing with waiting. A person who's waiting waits differently when they have the Lord Jesus Christ, when He is their Comforter, when they know that He is behind the door and that He is waiting with them. And then the fourth manifestation of the reign of Christ, the fourth of the eleven, is you will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem." That's verse 19.

For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. That's what it says. And the question is, is this heavenly Jerusalem or returning from captivity after Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem? I believe the answer is yes, it is. The return of the captives in the time of Nebuchadnezzar is figurative of the time of the return of the captives of the devil at the end of the age who've been saved, those who are part of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you know, this imagery of Zion and Jerusalem run all through the Scriptures. And Zion and Jerusalem are also the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are the people of God. In other words, we're back to this whole corporate idea. And it's the people of God with God in heaven.

You know, Jeremiah spoke of this in Jeremiah 31, where he says, And therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, for wine, for oil, and for the young, for the young of the flock and of the herd. And their soul shall be as a watered garden and they shall not sorrow anymore at all." That's Zion. That's God's waiting room. That's the church. That's heaven.

It's all of those things together. We get a foretaste of that through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Lord Jesus Christ. As He's our Comforter, as He's our Guide, as He convicts us of our sins, We become part of this people who have that same thing in their hearts. But this happens to you. This happens to you when you are under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The fifth thing that happens to you is in verse 19, you will weep no more. You will weep no more. Now, Is he saying that on earth there will be no tears? No, he's not saying that. But he is saying that the power of the gospel will take you to that place where you will weep no more.

And there are present tears, but the promises of the future make the tears be experienced differently than if there were no hope for that time when there are no tears. You know, a Christian can see through the tears. He'll have tears, yes, but he sees through the tears. And They're not too heavy to blur his vision. They're not so heavy that he cannot see anymore and his eyes don't get so blurry that he loses his way completely.

The weeping ends. And the weeping actually ends because the thing that causes the weeping declines. Sin. Sin is what causes the weeping. Either your sin or someone else's.

You will weep no more. You will weep no more. And I do take that, that there's a change in the tears when a person turns to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then they have something in the future that the non-Christian does not have, and that is their tears will be wiped away. While there will be tears in hell, there will be no tears in heaven.

Someone wrote a song about that, about tears in heaven. But there will be no tears in heaven. And then number six, He will hear your cry and answer, verse 19. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry when He hears it. He will answer you.

Again, let me just try to just pull us out of individualism for a minute, you know. This has to do with the prayers of the people. Things happen to the people of God. They're disappointments, they're sins, they're tragedies. And the people of God have things to cry out to God about.

We have a lot of things to cry out to God about in our church. You know, there is hardship, there is sin and suffering in our church. But here he says, He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. It's good to have the sound of a cry in your church. We gather together every Wednesday to pray.

It's good to hear the sounds of the cries. The people of God always have to make sure that they are crying out to God. That they're not just praying shallow prayers about things that don't really matter. But that there really are problems to pray for. There really are victories that need to be accomplished.

And that's why one reason God's put his people together, is so that they would cry out together. One of the tragedies that can happen in a church is where people are so fake They don't cry out for anything because they don't they act like they have no problems If you have a church where nobody has any problems You don't have people crying out And guess what else you don't have? You don't have the ear of God. So it's a tragedy when you're in a church that has no problems. But a church should cry out.

He says, he will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. You might think, well, if I cry out and tell the truth about what's wrong, maybe I won't have any grace. Well, you'll have grace with God. When he hears it, he will answer you. I don't know if you've noticed here, there really are conditions here for the power of the gospel, by the way.

You know, these marvelous blessings, they only happen to certain kinds of people. They don't happen to everybody. This is the exclusivity of the gospel. In verse 19, they cry out to God. You must cry out to God.

That's one condition. In verse 20, you must respond positively. In verse 21, you must respond to His guidance. We'll get to that in a minute, where you hear His voice behind you. Verse 22, you must listen to Him.

These are the conditions, you know. You know, people want to get to these blessings here, But they want to get there without verses 19 through 22. They don't want to throw away their idols and they don't want to really listen to Him. And they think that somehow these blessings will come upon them. Not true at all.

Now there's another thing that happens under the reign of Christ. Number seven, He will give you adversity and affliction. Verse 20. He will give you adversity and affliction. Verse 20, And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.

Now, here we find that the Lord does something with his people. He gives them adversity. He gives them affliction. I heard a preacher the other day say that God doesn't do that. He wasn't reading, he had never read this verse.

Because here it says that God gives you adversity and affliction. This is why you should never despise your adversity or your affliction. You should never say, woe is me, because God brings adversity and affliction. Somehow the church today wants an adversity, affliction-free kind of life together. Well, that's not what God's doing, because He does bring these things.

These were the people who were faithful and unfaithful to God, both of them. I believe it's both camps in Israel. Both those who went down to Egypt for advice and those who didn't. They both got some affliction. These words here, bread of adversity and water for affliction.

They appear somewhere else in the Bible. They appear in 1 Kings Chapter 22. You don't have to turn there. I'll tell you the story. It's about 847 BC.

King Ahab is about ready to die. He doesn't know it. And he went to battle against Ramaph-Gilead. And so Ahab, who's the king of Israel, went down to King Jehoshaphat of Judah in the south. Jehoshaphat was generally a godly man.

Ahab was not. And Ahab once helped from Judah to go to war against Syria in Ramaph-gilead. And so Jehoshaphat says, how about this? Let's ask the prophets what they think because Jehoshaphat's our godly man. And so, you know Ahab has 400 prophets and so the prophets, the prophets come in and they say, oh yes, go to battle.

A king Ahab, you will win. And Jehoshaphat, I think Jehoshaphat's kind of scratching his head. And he says, are there any other prophets? Well, yeah, and Ahab says, yeah, There's one prophet, but I hate him. His name is Micaiah.

And I hate him. I hate him because he always tells me things I don't want to hear. So strangely enough, Ahab says, yeah, bring Micaiah in. Here we go again. And Micaiah stands up there, and he brings a fake message.

And everybody knows he's just bringing a fake message. It's obvious. And then Micaiah gives the real message. And Micaiah says, no, you're going to go down there, and you're going to be destroyed. And so As a result of that, Ahab says, take him to prison.

So Micaiah has landed in prison. And this is what Ahab says to the guards. And say, thus says the king, put this fellow in prison and feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction until I come." There's that there's that term, those terms, Bread of affliction and water of affliction. Now here the affliction came because of faithfulness. And often the sufferings of the people of God come from their faithfulness, just like it happened with Micaiah.

But what is going to happen is that he is going to have to eat a certain kind of bread and drink a certain kind of water. Not very good bread, not very good water. And it's from the Lord. And it might seem grievous at the time. And you might have affliction because of your godliness.

And you also might have affliction because of your ungodliness. But here's one thing. Here's one thing that you have to know. God is the one who brought it. You know, I hope that we have that clear as a church, That there are afflictions that come upon nations and churches and families and individuals, but they are meant for your good.

They're meant to wean you from this world. They're meant to win you from thinking that this world is your home. They're meant to take away the idea that this world is all about you when actually it's about God. And so these things do happen. But here it's very clear in verse 20, He will give you adversity and affliction.

And notice the terms that he used. It's the bread and the water. These are things that you just need every day. I think that means that you'll experience times where it goes on daily, day after day, just like you need food and water every day. It's repetitive.

And you might say like with David, how long, oh Lord? How long? And the truth is, it will be long enough. It won't be one minute too short and it won't be one minute too long. Because God is the one who is bringing the bread and the water.

And when he decides to bring the bread of abundance and the water of abundance, then he will. But we're not in charge of this world. And then number eight, another blessing from the reign of Christ. Your eyes will see and your ears will hear. Verse 20 at the end of it.

Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore. But your eyes shall see your teachers. Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way walk in it so here Isaiah's brain another graphic picture you have you have bread of affliction and water of affliction you're drinking it you're going through everyday life but you also have teachers in other words, you're not going through this alone. There are teachers. There is someone behind the door.

He's teaching. He's instructing you. And he says that the teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore. Into a corner, that means they're thrust aside. That won't be that way anymore.

It may be that the teachers were in a corner because you didn't want to hear them. But because of the affliction, now you're ready to hear. A lot of times people aren't really ready to hear the Lord until they go through a time of affliction. I mean, how many people that you have known are a lot humbler today because they had a great crisis. Maybe they lost all their money or something else happened.

I've known a lot of people like that. They're different. But they're different because they're sweeter and better and wiser and more valuable because of the affliction. That's why David said, it was good that you afflicted me. But here, this all has to do with being taught.

The teachers are no longer in a corner. In other words, it implies that teachers were in a corner. I don't want to listen to you. Remember Ahaz? Ahaz who met Isaiah at the end of the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field that one time, that one freeze-frame moment in his life where Isaiah said to the king Ahaz, he said, trust in the Lord.

The teacher was there. The teacher was right in front of him. And Ahaz put the teacher in the corner. He did not want to listen, just like Ahab didn't want to listen to Micaiah. But the teacher is not in a corner, but rather in the center place.

What a wonderful thing it is to have teachers not in a corner. This has to do with the desire for teaching. One of the marks of a Christian is he desires teaching. He wants to be instructed. He wants to hear the preaching.

He wants to hear the Word of God. That's a mark of being a Christian. It's one of the wonderful things that happens to you when you believe in the gospel. Your teachers are no longer in a corner, silenced, but they're before you. And of course, Isaiah's speaking of a very, you know, real situation, a very specific situation.

Judah's impulse to go down to Egypt to be taught, to get advice. She wants advice down there, but she doesn't want it from God. You know, she wants to get Egypt's consultants to tell her how to protect herself. But God is already her protector. You know, we live in a world of consultants, don't we?

They're business consultants and psychological consultants to help us unpack our mental problems. They're medical consultants. You know, pastors are consultants, you know, often as well. And people come to pastors asking questions. I think it's a good thing when they do that, But it's not always a good thing.

Some people come for counsel because they really don't rely on the Lord. And they know what they should do already. God has already revealed it to him. But they go and they seek a counselor. And in that way they go down to Egypt for advice when God has already told them everything they need to do.

How many times have you gone to a counselor when you really didn't need it? I'm not making an argument at all for not coming to your elders for counsel. I'm not making an argument for that at all. I hope you do come to us for counsel. I really do.

How many times have you had a marriage problem and you spent hours with a counselor, but you knew the real problem was you just had no mercy for your spouse. And that was the problem. You know, where did the mercy and the forgiveness go? These are just the basic things of Christianity. But you don't really have a problem that a counselor can fix, you just have the self-absorption problem.

And that was Judah's problem. I mean, She wanted the consultants of Egypt, when all along there was the wonderful counselor that had already told her what she should do. And that happens with us. It's such a blessing to have a counselor right there. And Jesus Christ is the wonderful counselor.

And He does give others to help as well. And here you have a picture of a person. It's almost like they're walking away and they hear a voice behind them. And something catches the ear. And that voice is irresistible.

And they hear it. They cannot ignore it. And the hearing implies the nearness, because He is there waiting with you in the midst of your trial. You know, David says this, I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will guide you with my eye.

And then the result of this, The result of hearing the teaching, the result of having the teacher right there. And God has given many teachers. He's given the Word of God, He's given us the Spirit of God, He's given us the people of God. He's surrounded us with teachers. And so he says, yes, the teachers are there.

They're no longer put in the corner. You want to hear what's good. And something happens. You will obey. Whenever you turn to the right hand, or whenever you turn to the left.

And this covers all the actions of life. You're not swerving and staggering anymore like the drunkards of Ephraim that Isaiah spoke about before. The drunkards of Ephraim, not thinking clearly, not walking straight. That all changes. And wherever you go, there's his advice.

And wherever you go, your instructor is there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who regulates your thinking and he moderates your reactions, he establishes his authority, he directs your steps. This is a marvelous power of the gospel. When your teachers come out of the corner and they're right there with you, This is such a wonderful thing. God has given His people counsel from heaven. That's why Jesus Christ is called Wonderful Counselor.

We need His counsel so badly. But here, for those who went down to Egypt for advice, God gives them a counselor. There's hope. If you went down to Egypt, get your teachers out of the corner and bring them to the front. You can always do that.

And then the ninth thing that happens under the reign of Christ is that you'll despise your idols. Verse 22, you'll despise your idols. You also will defile the covering of your images of silver and the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing and the King James it's a menstrual cloth. You will say to them get away.

You know you you begin to you you defile your idols. You deconsecrate them, you know. They were consecrated to you, now they're deconsecrated. And you think differently about them. You've had a shift in your perspective, and you put them away.

And you can see there's a change of heart that's really implied here that they're transformed in relation to their idols. Everybody has a relationship, a personal relationship with their idols. People talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Well everybody has a personal relationship with their idols as well. And you're protecting them.

You're appreciating them. You're petting them. You're hanging around them. But that changes, and you start to hate them. You defile them.

You make them unclean in your eyes. And you used to care about your idols, now you're transformed and you disrespect them and you throw them away as an unclean thing. This is a mark of the work of the gospel. You begin to hate your idols. And when you find one, you start looking at it differently.

And it's like a menstrual cloth to you. You should throw it away. And then you start talking to them, because remember, you have a personal relationship with them. And what do you say to them? You start talking to your idols, and you say, get away.

Get away. And so the devotion gets replaced with revulsion and the desire is replaced with rejection and the homage is replaced by denunciation. And it's like saying to the devil, get out of my face. This is filthy. I do not want you anymore.

Get away. That's really your only hope when you recognize you have an idol is to say, get away. One of the proofs of genuine repentance is known when you have an abhorrence for your idols. You know, earlier Isaiah said, you'll throw them to the moles and the bats. In verse 5 in chapter 30, he says that you'll be ashamed of them and they'll be ashamed and a reproach.

In chapter 31, we'll get to that soon. And verse 7, it says, For in that day every man will throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold. Sin, which your hands have made for yourselves. By the way, What is an idol? It's sin.

Right there. 31 verse 7. You know, an idol is not some third world, you know, worship location where you have a statue. Now, it can be that, but it's... Idolatry is sin.

So we have to be clear about that. In Acts chapter 19, they burned their idols, And we learn that in the church in Thessalonica they turned to God from their idols. It was a mark of their conversion. The Apostle John said, little children keep yourselves from idols. But one of the great marvelous things about the Gospel is that the profane and filthy things begin to drop away as you renounce your idols.

And then the tenth, the tenth thing that happens to you under the reign of Jesus Christ is that he gives abundance, verse 23. Now, is he speaking absolutely and only literally of material abundance? Or is he speaking of a spiritual abundance, or is he speaking of both? Good question. He starts out with rain.

Then He will give the rain for your seed, with which you sow the ground, and bread of the increase of the earth. It will be fat and plentiful. So there's rain and there's growth and the result of it is bread. There's something to eat. And then your cattle are well fed.

It says in that day your cattle will feed in large pastures. It's always fantastic for cattle to have large pastures. Again, you know, the blessing of the people of God flows down even to the animals. And he goes even further And he says, likewise, the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder which has been winnowed with the shovel and fan. This is the best donkey food anybody ever saw.

I mean, I know some people quite well who make really fine food for their dogs. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it's a sign of love, isn't it? You know, if you're going to make really good food for your dogs. And here the donkeys and the oxen get really good food. And it's winnowed and it's shoveled and it's cured.

It's just fantastic food. Calvin says it like this to explain it, under the reign of Christ we shall be happy in every respect and that there will be no place in which there shall not be an abundant supply of blessings of every description, that nothing will be so barren as not to be rendered fruitful by this, by His kindness, so that everywhere we may be happy. That is what we should actually experience. If we are fully under the authority of Christ, We should plainly see his blessing on all sides if we sincerely and honestly obeyed him. Everything would go on to our wish and the whole world and everything in it would contribute to our comfort.

But because we are very far from yielding that obedience, we have only a slight taste of those blessings and enjoy them so far as we have advanced in newness of life. I mean, Calvin believed there was a direct connection between holiness and prosperity. There's a lot to say about that, a lot to qualify about that, but there's also abundant water. Do you see that in verse 25? There will be on every high mountain and on every high hill rivers and streams of waters.

Rivers usually aren't on mountaintops, they're usually down below. And so there's water everywhere, you know. Interesting, water instead of tears. And this is, I believe, an allusion to the living water. The living water of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when does it happen? It says right here, in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. When is that? When we are in Bible study on Tuesday, the teacher gave us three different options from three eminent scholars. I'm just going to say it either, it could be Babylon, it could be Assyria, It could be at the coming of Christ when he breaks the authority of the devil at the resurrection.

It could be 70 AD. But whatever it is, what we find here is this marvelous outpouring of living water happens as a result of Christ. And then in verse 26 there's light, and it's an intensifying light. Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days. So this is like more light than you've ever seen.

More concentrated light than exists in the natural world. And I believe he's talking about the extra blessing and power of the new covenant. That there are better promises, that there's a better covenant, that Christ is a better high priest. He serves the best wine last. He just gets better and better and better with the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's like nothing you've ever seen before. And Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. And He is like that. You know, right in these last few verses there have been a number of pictures of the Gospel. There's been the bread in verse 20.

Jesus Christ says, I'm the bread of life, which comes down from heaven. There's water in verse 20, where the Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself to be living water in John chapter 4. There is a way, a way in which you walk, Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the light. Then there's light, and the Lord Jesus Christ says, I am the light of the world. Well, this is what happens to you when you have the reign of Christ.

You have the light and the bread. You have abundance. You may go through a period of privation, but your spirit can be fat. And I think that Isaiah is using physical things to bear witness to spiritual things. At the same time, I don't want to deny that God does bless materially his people many times, many ways, for their faithfulness.

And then the 11th, the final thing that happens when you're under the reign of Christ, is that he will heal the bruise. He'll heal the bruise. How about that? Verse 26. And in that day the Lord binds up the bruise of his people and heals the stroke of their wound.

It was pointed out on Tuesday that bruise is singular. It's something that has happened. It's the work of the fall. It's the result of sin. And it's also experienced by all of his people.

And when did the people of God corporately receive the capacity for healing of their wounds? When? It's always been through the Lord Jesus Christ. He's speaking of salvation in Christ. And He will give it.

He heals what was hurt through the fall. He heals what was hurt through the effects of our apostasy. He even heals what was hurt when you went down to Egypt for advice. He's so kind. By his stripes you were healed.

Peter explains it like this in 1 Peter 2, 24, Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseers of your souls." You know, this is a picture of a people who went down to Egypt for advice, and now they're returning to the overseer and the shepherd of their souls. And God blesses them. He blesses them with so many things. I'll repeat the 11 things that He's blessed them with.

He waits in order to bless them, verse 18. Number two, He is exalted in His mercy. Number three, you wait for Him and you'll be blessed. Number four, you will dwell in Zion and Jerusalem. Number five, you will weep no more.

Number six, he will hear your cry and answer. Number seven, he will give you adversity and affliction. Number eight, your eyes will see and your ears will hear. Number 9, you will despise your idols. Number 10, he will give you abundance.

Number 11, he will heal your bruise. And let me just remind that he's talking to his church. He's talking about the things that the church experiences together. You know, it's such a wonderful thing to be part of a church. I love the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ever since I was a boy, God has cared for me and blessed me and taught me and chastised me and brought me through affliction. And It's a marvelous thing to be a part of the people of God who have these things happening to them. And you know what? These things are happening here in this church. They really are.

And I'm so glad that God has designed that he would bring his people together and he would save them through his grace and he would become their shepherd. And he would be as a teacher no longer in the corner. And they would be waiting in the midst of their afflictions, but they would know that He is waiting too. And as a result of that, they can hold their head up, they can make their way forward, they can love one another, and they can rejoice in the promises to come. Now we're going to handle the next section next week, verses 27 to 33.

Dan Horn will preach on this and we'll complete the instruction of chapter 30. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for the waters of salvation that are so deep, they're so beautiful, they're so crystal clear, they're so life-giving. Oh Lord, and these waters have shown up in the most surprising places where they don't normally happen among sinners who went down to Egypt for advice. I praise you, O Lord, for your mercy, for your grace.

Amen.