The sermon by Scott Brown titled 'Cure for a Heart Far from Him' explores Isaiah 29:1-14, focusing on the spiritual dangers of heartless religion and spiritual intoxication. It discusses the dangers of repetitive, dead religion and the importance of aligning one's heart with their words and actions. The sermon identifies two cures for these spiritual maladies: God's judgment and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It emphasizes that the wisdom of the world is overturned by the wisdom of God through the cross of Christ. The sermon also differentiates between tradition, which is good when used lawfully, and traditionalism, which is dead faith. It calls for genuine worship from the heart and warns against the false security of external religious routines. The sermon encourages believers to deepen their desire for God and seek genuine transformation through the power of the Gospel.

Our text this morning 29 1 through 14 Woe to Ariel to Ariel the city where David dwelt add Year to year let feasts come around Yet, I will distress Ariel there shall be heaviness and sorrow and it shall be to me as Ariel. I will encamp against you all around. I will lay siege against you with a mound. I will raise siege-works against you. You shall be brought down, you shall speak out of the ground.

Your speech shall be low, out of the dust. Your voice shall be like a medium's, out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust. Moreover, the multitude of your foes shall be like fine dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones, like chaff that passes away. Yes, it shall be in an instant, suddenly. You will be punished by the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

The multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her fortress, and distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams and look he eats but he awakes and his soul is still empty or has when a thirsty man dreams and look he drinks but he awakes and indeed he is faint, and his soul still craves. So the multitude of all the nations shall be who fight against Mount Zion. Pause and wonder. Blind yourselves and be blind.

They are drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink. For the Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, namely the prophets, And he has covered your heads, namely the seers. The whole vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is illiterate, saying, Read this, please. And he says, I cannot, for it is sealed.

Then the book is delivered to one who is illiterate, saying, Read this, please. And he says, I am not literate. Therefore the Lord said, Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men. Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden." Let's pray. Lord Father, we pray that you would remove the blindness from us, or remove any pride that lurks in our hearts, or that you would clothe us in the humility of Christ, or that we would come knowing our need for our Savior and our need to be cleansed daily, hourly by Your Word.

Lord, may You cleanse us through Your Word, through the preaching of Your Word this morning. May You bless it to our ears and to our hearts. We pray this in your son's name. Amen Well, we're continuing to work our way Through Isaiah and here finding ourselves in the midst of the second. Whoa beginning in chapter 28 I began the first whoa against Judah and that whoa is all about their spiritual drunkenness They they were it was like they were inebriated, you know, they Their speech was slurred.

They're staggering. They can't think right. They don't get what's going on in the room. And Isaiah, in that first woe, provides the cure. There's a sure foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in this second woe that we encounter here, which is very clearly directed to Jerusalem itself, we find this woe explained. And what we find in the second woe is that there are a number of dangers. There's the danger of repetitive and dead religion. There's the danger of being insensible to the Word of God. There's the danger of having your heart far from Him.

And in this woe, the prophet Isaiah gives two cures for these problems. And the first cure is the judgment of God, because God does use His wrath in order to clean out His garden. And also, He provides as the greatest cure of all, and that is the resurrection, and we'll find out how he explains that. Now this also is a great section to help you think through how to interpret the Bible particularly how to think through interpreting the Old and the New Testament because what Isaiah says here is quoted in two places, actually three places in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks of, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

I'm sorry, Isaiah says this. The Lord Jesus Christ quotes this in Matthew chapter 15, and it's also recorded in Mark chapter 7. So we have really the answer to what this is all about because Jesus tells you what he's talking about. The Apostle Paul also does the same thing and he interprets a phrase, explains it, the phrase that we find in verse 14 that God will destroy the wisdom of the wise. How is he going to do that?

Well, he's going to do that through the resurrection of his son. So you find both the poison, the disease, and you also find the cure here in this passage of scripture. Now, this passage also exposes what is a great danger to us, and that is, it's the danger of your heart, your heart not being inclined toward God. And this passage is for two kinds of people. Those who are hardened against God and their lives are so disconnected from their words that it really makes it clear that they're unbelievers.

But it's also a great passage for true believers who really desire for there to be a closing gap between their words and their lives. This is the heart of the believer, oh Lord make me like you. Lord close that gap. You know when you're saved there's a really big gap. You're flattering yourself.

You think you are such special material. You think you are so hot and so wise, and your speech reveals it. But then you become a Christian and you realize that God has better things for you than you. And He puts you on a course to close that gap over time between what you say and who you really are. What a blessing it is that God does this for his children.

He progressively makes them more and more real. And it's all right here in this passage of scripture. Now, you can see the outline that's before you. The first section, verses one through four, speaks of the way that God is going to humble Jerusalem by taking her down. This is one way that God deals with this problem.

And then secondly, this remarkable disclosure in verses 5 through 8, how God raises up his enemies and then he tears them down. Oh how unfair that is and yet it is what God does. And then thirdly you see the reasons for the judgment and it's because they were dead to the Word of God first of all and their hearts and their words were divided. And then finally, the cure in verse 14. So that's where we're going right now.

Let's begin in verse one, where we see that Jerusalem is going to be humbled all the way down to the dust. He says, woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. He is talking about Jerusalem, and this is the second of the six woes. The first focused on spiritual drunkenness, And now the second woe is about heartless, perfunctory religion that has no real, genuine love toward God in it at all. Where the words of your mouth are disconnected from your heart.

And why these woes? Well, I think that there are two things. One thing, we know from the context that Isaiah is condemning Judah's plan to go into an alliance with Egypt to protect herself from Assyria. So it is about the dangers of alliances and why do you make alliances anyway with the world? Because of your heart.

They want more than God. They don't trust God to protect them. So they try to cobble around themselves all kinds of worldly protections for their lives. And this really is, I think, a parable for the Church, and it's also a parable for our own lives. We get in a tight spot and we want to make a covenant with the world.

We want to be acceptable to the world. We want to have the success of the world. We want to make a covenant with worldly things so that we can achieve our objectives and so we compromise. I mean it has a lot of different manifestations all the way from the way you handle your money to the way that you handle your wife. You're not satisfied with your wife so that you go to the internet for satisfaction.

You trust in the world. You want something that God hasn't given you so you go out to another source and it actually ends up destroying you and your whole family. There's so many ways that We trust in the world. We rest our hopes on psychology and drugs and food. We think that's going to save us.

It's not going to save us at all. Only God can save. So this is the content of the woe. He says, he actually explains why the woe. Because you add year to year, let feasts come around.

The woes are focused on these dead routines, the performance of the sacrifices, year after year, collecting the offerings, having your mails appear three times a year like the ceremonial law required. And, you know, often it is true of the church today and even your own life that the demise of the church is is known by just doing, by just by doing the same right thing, but yet their hearts are not in it at all. It's a very contemporary problem. Matthew Henry said it like this, Hypocrites may be found in a constant track of devout exercises, and treading around in them. And with these they may flatter themselves, but can never please God, nor make their peace with them." because their hearts really are not in it.

And so you have these festivals that they were participating in and they were deprived of their meaning. They were just endless routines. They were trusting in their routines. The Lord, Isaiah has already spoken about this in chapter 1 verse 11. He says, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord?

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts." And then he says, bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. He says, your hands are full of blood.

You're fake. Stop acting like you're worshiping me. I would rather you not do it." And so Isaiah has already been dealing with this and they were they were doing what God wanted them to do but they were doing it without any love for him in their hearts. And I know that every Christian who hears this is saying, oh, Lord, help me. Help me to love you more.

Help me to close that gap even further. Like even maybe this morning, there could be progress in closing the gap from routine to real hearts. This problem continued on. Jeremiah speaks of it in chapter 7 verse 4, where the people are coming in and they're saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. In other words, they're just talking about what you do in the temple, and Jeremiah says, stop doing that.

God is going to come and destroy you for that. God destroys nations and churches and individuals based on their worship, whether it's true worship or not true worship. And he says in verse 2 that he's going to bring distress and heaviness. He says, yet I will distress Ariel. That's a very important word to see, distress.

He's not here for claiming that he's going to wipe them out. There shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to me as Ariel. Now, my view of this, and I think this is probably an open debate, is that he is not going to destroy them with Sinakareb completely, or with Nebuchadnezzar completely, but in 70 AD he is going to destroy them completely. And then it says that he, that they will be surrounded. This speaks about the way that he's going to come and destroy them.

Verse 3, I will encamp against you all around. I will lay siege against you with a mound and I will raise siege works against you. So there's tremendous pressure of an impending battle that he's speaking of here. Whether it's Sennacherib or Nebuchadnezzar or Titus in 70 AD, the Lord is the one that is doing it. He is the one that is bringing this about.

God is laying the siege works himself. God is the one who is doing the attack himself. We often think that when we're attacked it's them. Think again. It's God.

And that's what he's done here. The Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem and he used many of the same words here. And but they were high, They were mighty, they were going through their religious routines, and they were confident. But what would happen to them? They'll be turned into mumbling.

They'll be like the medium just mumbles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble. But a disheartening and reduced kind of mumbling. His disciplines are going to come and they're going to moderate the pride of those who have a fake religion and he's going to make them mumblers. Yet there was a day when they spoke so proudly. And here they're going to be ghost-like.

Okay, these first verses here, I'm going to bring you five applications just from these first four verses. Number one, you can go through the motions for a while, but it'll come to an end. God will bring it to an end. I think you can say that God wages war against those who just go through the motions. He may let them walk in falsehood for a long time, but at some point it will come to an end.

Here's a second application. The continuation of religious activities will not soften God's judgment against the church or against an individual. Keeping up the game, you know, helping the machine to keep rolling heartlessly will not cause God's judgment to be withheld. You can continue in your worship, your fellowship, your prayer, your biblical practices. These are no protection against the displeasure of God and the wrath of God.

You know, this is another, I think we get an insight too in the whole doctrine of sin from this, and that is how sin is not nullified by external observances. Sin is not atoned for by going to church. Sin is not atoned for by praying a prayer. Sin is not atoned for by singing a song. It just shows you how sin works and how religion doesn't work.

It doesn't work for you. Number three. There's a parallel text here in John 424 where the Lord Jesus Christ says that he's looking for worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth and that God is seeking worshipers. So when you read these first four verses, just recognize God is seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And you know who you are.

You ask, oh Lord, am I seeking you in truth? Is it real? Number four, Tradition doesn't have to be dead. Your routines don't have to be dead. There are things that God has commanded that we do.

We should do them. In other words, it would be wrong to conclude, well, dead traditional religion is bad, therefore all tradition is bad. No, no, no, That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying heartless tradition is bad. But God has given the church to do it.

The things I just mentioned, the prayers, the singing, the preaching, all these things are things that God has commanded. We should do those things. We shouldn't stop doing them. You know, the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, he said, the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Well, tradition is good if one uses it lawfully.

And there's much that's said about the traditions that have been laid down and how they should be followed. One theologian said, tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. So you can follow traditions with your whole heart. The blessings will flow.

It'll be so good for you to sing. It'll be so good for you to read the Bible. It'll be so helpful for you to pray. This is the tradition of a living faith. But the dead faith of the living is traditionalism, where you're just going through the motions.

And then finally, the fifth application for these first four verses. God pierces the hearts of His people. He's willing to wound His people in order to heal them. Just like medical procedures wound the body first in order for it to heal, So God's judgment comes and it wounds. It humbles but it heals at the same time.

That's the beautiful thing about the sword of the Spirit. When it pierces you, when it pierces your conscience and shows you what's there. You do bleed, but there's healing in the blade of the Word of God as it comes out. God is so kind that way. He wounds us in order to heal us.

It's the same way in Child discipline as it is in God's discipline toward us. Number two, the second item here, the second section in this text, verses five through eight, the enemies of God will be brought down. Verse 5, moreover the multitude of your foes shall be like fine dust and the multitude of the terrible ones like chaff that passes away yet it shall be in an instant, suddenly." Now, when you hear that word, suddenly, it's hard not to think of that night when 185, 000 of Sennacherib's army just fell dead miraculously on the battlefield. What an astonishing thing. Is that what he's talking about?

I think that that battlefield scene, which is probably the most astonishing moment in all military history, that this prophecy is for that, but it's not only for that. That this falling in battle that's recorded in 1 Kings 18 is a prefiguring of the final judgment, but it's also prefigured by what happened in 70 AD. And so God gives us these images. He tells you what it's going to be like. Would you rather know what it's going to be like or not?

God gives warning. And here, this is the warning. He is going to come and He's going to make them into fine dust. He's going to make the enemies of the people of God into fine dust. And here in verse 6, you see there are six events of nature that are mentioned.

You see them? Thunder, number one. Earthquake, number two. Great noise, number three. Storm, four.

Tempest, five. And flame of devouring fire. Now, you know, God takes control over nature. He's in the thunder, he's in the earthquake, he's in the noise, he's in the storm, and God is in the flame of devouring fire. God is doing this.

God does judge nations. People don't like it, the idea that God judges. People don't want you to tell them that you can't do this or that. You know, we were at the abortion clinic yesterday and many of the conversations end up devolving down to this. You can't tell me what to do with my body.

You can't tell me to do anything. That's a direct quote, isn't it, Paul? You can't tell me to do anything. Now, in the day that we live in, you know, men really bristle when you try to tell them what to do. But in the society that we live in, if you try to tell a woman what to do, it's even worse.

You know why? It's the spirit of Eve at work in the world today. The rebellion that we've all tasted, that we all experience is there. But here God is coming to punish. He is going to tell, He does tell people what to do so that they can find hope and joy in this world and salvation.

But he also does bring judgment. Verse 7, he says that these nations, these people who are fighting against Ariel, against Jerusalem. He says, the multitude of all the nations who fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her fortress and distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. So it's like these enemies of the people of God, they think they are victorious. They think they're winning.

They really do. They have the majority. They have the big voice in the world. They have the highest traffic on the internet. They have the money.

They have the weaponry. They think they've got it going. God says, no, they're just dreaming. It's like they're going to awake from a dream and they're going to realize that it wasn't real, that it was all a paper army, and there was really no strength to it at all. And then not only is it, he gives another illustration in verse 8, he moves from, He continues the idea of dreaming, but he speaks of a hungry man who dreams.

And it shall be as when a hungry man dreams, and look, he eats, but he awakes, and his soul is still empty. Or as when a thirsty man dreams and looks he drinks but he awakes and indeed he's faint and his soul still craves so the multitude of all the nations shall be who fight against Mount Zion." They think they're victorious. You know, the enemies of God think they've got it going. They don't. And this is one thing you always need to recognize.

When you are with an enemy of God, you need to remember this. It may appear to them, and maybe even to you, that they're victorious But it's a dream They are in dreamland and you are not You're living in your father's world. They're living in their father's world You know, the Bible says that he who destroys the Church of God, him I will destroy. Paul said that. You try to destroy the Church, God will destroy you.

That's the way it's going to be. Maybe that's why God has taken down every great civilization as they've risen up and railed against God. He takes them down, another one comes up and he takes it down, another one comes up and he takes it down. This is what God does. But they're dreaming they're victorious, that they're successful, but the dream always ends.

The perceived success is only an illusion because God is almighty. This is the false sense of accomplishment of the wicked. It fits for Assyria, it fits for Babylon, it fits for Rome, it fits for the great nations of the world when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to gather his church. The Victory is always short lived. God is not mocked.

Ezekiel 35 profiles the story of the Edomites. The God says, blood will pursue you. God let the Edomites go for hundreds of years and then finally their blood caught up with them and that's how it will be. In Revelation 13 verse 10 we read the same thing, he who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword.

Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." So God wakes up those who are in dreamland. There will be a wake up, believe it. Now I'm going to give you three applications from verses five through eight. Number one, God raises up enemies of the church for a purpose and he will destroy them whom he has raised up. Now If your worldview teaches you that the rise of the enemies of God is the worst possible thing that can happen to you, then you'll always be fearful.

I'm going to say that again. I tried to write it down carefully. If your worldview teaches you that the rise of the enemies of God is the worst possible thing that can happen, then you'll always be fearful. You'll always see the threat and not the threat of God's historical narrative that has continued to run for all of history and will continue to run all the way to the end of history. Number two, every unbeliever lives in dreamland.

The confidence that they have, just realize when you're with them, they're dreaming. Try to wake them up from the dream, try to urge them out, poke them, talk to them, needle them, wake them up from the dream, you know, sometimes you know, you have children and some of them are harder to wake up than others, you know, And it's like that for people. Is there anybody that's just so hard to wake up? Keep trying to wake them up. They live in dreamland.

Three, the devil is under God's control. He raises up enemies and he takes them down. You know, in John chapter 12 we read that the rulers of this world are cast out. We also know, resist the devil and he will flee from you. He's not omnipotent.

The devil is not omnipotent at all. The devil is under God's control. And they won't achieve their objectives, even though they might appear to be victorious. They are going to go away empty and they're brought down to desolation. You know, we often miscalculate two things.

We miscalculate the danger, but we also miscalculate the cure. And both of those are here in this passage. And then also in your outline you'll see the reasons for this judgment. They're spelled out really plainly in verses 9-13. And I'll just summarize them in two, under two headings, and then I'll take them one by one.

But the reasons that judgment is coming is because they are dead to the Word of God. They're dead to the Word of God. This is a great danger. We often miscalculate the danger there is in being dead to the Word of God. And I say that to all of us.

If you're dead to the Word of God, you need to recognize the danger that there is in that. And then he's also speaking about the heart and the words and how they become divided. That's in verse 13. So first of all, you see this picture of deadness of the Word of God And there's all this illustrative language. Verse 9, pause and wonder.

Blind yourselves and be blind. They are drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink. They're intoxicated. People have certain perceptions about themselves.

Most people feel that They're very enlightened, they're stable, they're rational, they're reasonable, they're compassionate, and we have ways of telling ourselves lies about who we are when really we're spiritually drunk. The unbeliever is spiritually drunk, and Isaiah's revealing what had happened to the spiritual leaders of Judah. They were intoxicated, but not with wine. It was a spiritual intoxication. And there is such a thing as being inebriated before the Word of God.

Not getting it. Not seeing what it means. Not understanding what's happening when you read the Word of God. Now, God has not given us a simple book. He's given us a book that on the one hand is very difficult, on the other hand it's incredibly simple.

It's both at the same time. It's miraculous in that sense. But here, even with its great simplicity and beauty, even when the smallest child can understand so much of the beauty of the Word of God, at the same time there is a malady. There is an inebriation where you just don't get it. And then he moves from being intoxicated to being asleep, verse 10.

For the Lord has poured out on you. This is something that God did. The spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, namely the prophets, and He has covered your heads, namely the seers. He's saying that it's the leaders that are asleep. And notice he mentions namely the prophets and the heads or the seers.

The ones who are supposed to speak truth and clarity, they're asleep. You know, It's always such a tragedy when the shepherds are asleep, because that's when the flock gets ravaged. But that's what was happening here. Shepherds who are asleep, they're dead to what's happening around them. Their eyes are closed.

They have blinders on. They don't really understand what is facing the people. They're not sensible to the wolves. They are asleep and the wolves will just come right in and get them. It's such a tragic picture of shepherds being asleep.

It's, you know, it's one of the greatest dangers of this congregation is if your shepherds are asleep and they don't see what's going on. We also see that they are, they are unwilling. I'm still not sure exactly how to explain verses 11 and 12. Let me try a little bit here. The whole vision has become to you like words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is literate, saying, read this, please.

And he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. Now, look at verse 11 very carefully. The whole vision has become to you. Those words. Has become to you.

Let's just camp on that for a second. In other words, over a process of time, as the days were passing, as the days were passing, the vision has become to you. This is progressive desanctification. This is sanctification in reverse. Where there was some level of understanding, but then it disappears.

And this is a literate person, And he says he can't open it. He can't open the seal of the book. He's looking at the seal and he says, I can't open it. And then in verse 12, there's a similar scene. Again, I'm so struck by the scenes in Isaiah.

Here's another scene. There's an illiterate person sitting there. Joe illiterate is sitting there. And the book is delivered to him. And everybody knows he's illiterate.

And the person brings, says, read this. And he says, I'm not literate. The illiterate person says he can't read it, and he can't read it because God has shut his eyes. We learned that in the previous verse. God did this.

He made them so that they could not see. They are not able to understand because there's none who understands, there are none who sees. And God has blinded their eyes. Here's some applications to these verses here, verses 9 to 12. Number one, the presence of the truth is no guarantee for love of the truth.

Truth truth all around. Truth in this book, truth in that book, but it's not opened up. They had the scrolls, but they didn't love the scrolls. It's one thing to have the Bible. It's another thing to read it and love it.

It's another thing to open it and enjoy it and be benefited by it and be corrected by it. It's one thing to have the truth at your fingertips and it's an entirely other thing to love that truth that is in your fingers. Second application, God promises to open it if we desire. James says if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God. The wisdom is there.

Matthew Henry said that the Bible is a sealed book to every man, learned or unlearned, till he begins to study it with a simple heart and a teachable spirit that he may thence learn the truth and the will of God." How does that happen? How in the world can anyone understand what God has said in His Word. You must be born again. Only God can do that. Only God can open your eyes to it.

People read the Bible and they do not understand it because their hearts haven't been changed. They've not been born again. It's the worst thing that can happen to you, not to be able to hear the voice of God. All you hear is your own voice and the voices of the culture, but your only hope is that God would somehow open the eyes. We're so dependent upon him.

There is an intentionality in denying the truth. I don't want to leave that out of the discussion. That deceivers are also deceived, but they believe a lie, they buy the lie, and it becomes reality. And they do suppress the truth and unrighteousness. It's both.

Those whose eyes God has shut, they also suppress the truth and they're unmoved by the Word of God. They're unaffected, They're unalarmed, they're unchanged. And then I think we find ourselves in the last two verses, which is really, I think, the capstone of it all. And there we learn two really important things. And the first really arises out of the word therefore in verse 13.

Therefore the Lord said, inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men." So now here, in the midst of this woe, Right at the very end we learn what the heart of the matter is, the heart of the problem. Verse 14 we find the cure, verse 13 is the problem. And Isaiah, Isaiah is identifying the disconnect between a person's outward appearance and what's actually going on in his heart. It's a heart condition. That is the malady.

Where honor toward God comes from the mouth, but not from the heart. I think that as a church, I think we can look at this from two different perspectives. If you're a Christian, if your heart does love the Lord Jesus Christ, then it's such a good opportunity to say, Lord close that gap between my lips, keep closing that gap Lord. Enflame my heart more. Oh Lord, help me to feed my heart so that it's inflamed even more.

So that the rivers of living water are flowing. You know, The rivers of the Lord are deep. And nobody ever gets to the bottom of it. So for the Christian, it just should be an encouragement to less and less be less about what you say and more of your heart, your genuineness before God. It's the person who says, Lord, Lord give me greater real urgency toward you and love toward you and let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight because they're not disconnected from who I really am." So a believer can understand this.

But also, also Isaiah is speaking of an unbeliever, of the hardened unbeliever, whose life is progressively moving. His heart is moving in this direction, and his words are moving in this direction. This is a mark of an unbeliever. Where there's a clear understanding within that person's heart that what they say is not what they do. And they remain hardened in it.

And they continue progressively in that direction. So this verse here can expose what it means to be an unbeliever. To say one thing with your mouth, to sing the songs, to go to the preaching, to read the Bible, to have your devotions, to get up in the morning and have family worship, and do all those things. To have your children memorize the catechisms And your heart's not in it. You're just doing time and your heart is not moved.

I've had times where my heart wasn't moved. And every one of those times should be an impetus to either say, Oh Lord, save my soul. Or, Oh Lord, draw me near. Oh Lord, I want my heart to be moved by you. Make my heart move." It's one of those two.

So that's one thing Isaiah's doing. He's also exposing how we fear men and the result of that fear. We set aside the commandment of God. We fear the rejection of man and so we accept man's traditions and we follow man's traditions. People would rather live by a set of rules than by their hearts longing for God.

It's a lot easier. Just tell me what to do. This is Islam. Five things. Bam, bam, bam, bam.

Everything is beautiful. Christianity is not that way at all. Christianity is about your heart. And the result of a heart seeking the Lord is that he produces works. The unbeliever starts with the works and never gets to his faith.

The believer starts with his faith and it works outward to his works. Faith, that's why James says, faith without works is dead. Christianity always works from the inside out. It does cast a vision, but you never can really get there right unless it begins in the heart. It does say here that the people do draw near, in as much as these people draw near.

In other words, they draw near to religion, they draw near to outward religion. They want to get a religion, They want to get a framework, you know, some way to understand how to get through this world, a community and, you know, a way of people. There's a niche for everybody out there. You can find all kinds. If you just want to weigh through life, you know, almost any organization can give it to you.

Can give it to you. But these people draw near, but it says they draw near with their mouths and they honor with their lips. But they have removed their hearts far from him. There are lots of examples of this in the Scriptures. Saul making a sacrifice when Samuel didn't show up.

Nadab and Abihu. The Pharisee in Luke 18 who stood up in the marketplace and he prayed. He said, I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like those extortioners. He just wanted to be seen. The Lord Jesus speaks of this in Matthew chapter five as well.

You have Ananias and Sapphira go to Pilgrim's Progress, and there's a character there who exemplifies this. Do you know his name? Talkative. He has a lot of talk. But his life is completely different compared to his talk.

It's the religion of the lips. You can say all the right things. You know, this is particularly dangerous to children who grow up in Christian homes, because they can say all the right things. They know how to answer the questions. They get sound doctrine.

And they can spout it out to you really, really well. You know, it's remarkable to me. I've done lots of baptism interviews and all kinds of things like that, but you can interview people and they can give you all the right answers and you find out After a little while they realized they really weren't believers. They had all the answers and they could tell you the gospel. We've had interns from the NCFIC come and they could tell you the gospel as good as anybody.

But it hadn't touched their heart. They had it in their mind, which it should be in their mind. They had it straight and it should be straight. But they did not love the gospel even though they could talk about it as good as the most seasoned of them. Now, he also says that something else happens to this kind of person.

He says, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandments of men. Now notice the word fear. Their fear toward me is taught by the commandments of men. Now the term that he uses, I mean it really expresses the idea of fear. A pretty tuned out version of fear it's it's translated a hundred eighty eight times as a fear seventy eight times as afraid terrible twenty three times six times as a terrible thing, dreadful five times, reverent three times.

In other words, it's a pretty heavyheader word. You're afraid of something. And what you do is because of the fear of man. That's it. Your fear toward God really is informed by the commandments of men.

What men want you to do rather than what God wants you to do. It's another way to ask the question to get to the meaning. What do you awe? They were in awe of what man did to enhance his worship. They were in awe of that.

And they perfected a man-made religion. They respected the commandments of a man-made religion. And instead of seeking the Lord, they did just what men told them to do, rather than what God had told them to do, and they perpetuated what men said rather than what God said. That's why Jesus quotes this in Matthew 15, because Jesus is going after the Pharisees because they're going after him on the matter of tradition. And in Matthew 15, Jesus is speaking about the difference between the traditions of man that have crept in to the Jewish religion and the traditions that were actually ordained by God and you know this whole is a very dramatic scene the Lord Jesus and his disciples have had just come off a storm in the sea Peter has walked on water he said Lord save me and the wind ceases And then he's healing everyone in the area.

And then the scribes and the Pharisees, they come to him from Jerusalem And they say, why do you disciples transgress the tradition of the elders, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread? Well, there wasn't anything in the law about washing your hands before you ate. They did something cool and new, something more fascinating than God, that you would have to wash your hands before you eat. And the Lord Jesus Christ says, Hippocrates, well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching his doctrines the commandments of men. And then he called the multitudes to himself and he said, hear and understand.

Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth this defiles the man. And then he calls them blind leaders and blind guides. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ here is telling them that they cannot add to the commandments of God for their worship. But men were respecting the commandments of men, which in this case had to do with washing their hands before they ate, and made it a religious ceremony. If you just wash your hands, you'll be clean.

If you just do this and that and this and that, you'll be clean. That's the whole idea. And the Lord Jesus Christ is attacking the traditions of man, the traditions of man and the worship of God. And you know, I think it's obvious to most of us that we live in a day where lots of inventions of man have been entered into the church. We want to do almost everything but what God has commanded us to do in worship.

And we want to add all kinds of things to it. You know, the reading of the Word of God is not interesting enough, so let's show some video clips. Let's do a play. Let's do this. These things are not prescribed by God for worship.

God gave the Church Just a few things to do. To read the Word, to pray, to celebrate the Lord's Supper, to preach, to fellowship, to baptize. That's what God gave the Church to do. So I mean, I guess my prayer is if you come back here in 15 years, we're still going to be praying and preaching and reading and fellowshipping. That's what God gave the church to do.

We're not going to invent a new religion that's hipper and better so that people can be attracted to it. And so Jesus says, why do you transgress the law of God for the sake of your tradition? Now when you get to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is quoted here, but then The Lord Jesus gives an example that they set aside the commandment of God for the sake of their tradition. The commandment of God that they set aside is honor your father and mother. And the Pharisees had convinced the people to dedicate all their money to God, so that their parents didn't have support.

And the elders said, as long as you give your money to God, then you don't need to take care of your parents. When actually, Paul said to Timothy, if anyone doesn't provide for his own, especially his own household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. I mean, God says honor your father and mother. And what Jesus is saying is that you've set aside the commandment of God to honor your father and mother for the sake of your tradition. And that's exactly what we do.

He says, well did Isaiah prophesy. Now, Jesus is not revoking traditions. The people of God are commanded to hold fast to traditions. That's one application here. Jesus is not revoking traditions.

He's revoking the dead heart in the midst of the tradition and the heart that wants to replace the commandments of God with his own inventions. The people of God are commanded to hold fast to tradition. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 15 says, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by our epistle. So It's good to keep the traditions. We don't throw the traditions out and go do our own thing that's more interesting to us.

The problem isn't there. The problem is with our hearts. In fact, the apostle Paul also says to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 3, 6, he actually commands to withdraw from those who do not follow the traditions that were taught. Those who want to go and do their own thing. You know, traditions, traditions are handed down.

Some of them are biblical traditions that the church should follow and some of them are not. But You know, you think about your own traditions in your home. Let's, you know, praying at meals, tucking in your children at night, family worship, things like that. I mean, these words here of Isaiah should just help us to consider all of those kinds of things that we do and ask ourselves to what degree is our heart bent toward the love of God in all of our traditions. That's the critical matter here.

Application. When I pray, is my heart praying? Or am I just mouthing words? You know, the wonderful thing about prayer is that when prayer is real, there's help from heaven. Because all prayers fall short.

Like Romans 8 says that there are groanings too deep for words that are communicated By the Lord Jesus there's help for that for the inadequate prayer I think I think it should also cause us to ask, is it obligation that's driving us in our church or is it opportunity that we're drawn with? Is it obligation that we're driven by or is it opportunity that we're drawn with? This is this kind of a difficult subject in a lot of ways. I mean you know, here's a question for you who have grown up in Christian homes. Like if your parents just happened to disappear for a while, Would you want to go and sing and pray and fellowship and hear the preaching?

Would you want to? Or would you want something else? Now it was right, it was right for your parents during your childhood to bring you. It was the right thing, it was obedience to God that they brought you. But now what?

Now what? Now you're an adult, you know, you're in your teens now and you're nearly grown up. But where are you at now? Do you desire the worship? Or is it just dead to you?

And if it's dead, if it's dead, cry out to God that He would save you. Cry out that He would give you a heart within you to love Him. Because you can't love Him without Him coming and changing your heart. Cry out to Him and be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And say, Lord, pour out your living water. Give me your living bread. Oh, Lord, help me. Oh, Lord, I want to believe, help me to believe. You know, for...

It works... It works also for people who are Christians. What a lot of times, not a lot of times, most of the time, what you get out of the worship of God, what you get out of the Word of God, like when you read it individually, when you come and hear it preached. What you get out of it is largely dependent on the measure of your desire. How is your desire?

Is your heart desiring it? And if you come with a large measure of desire, you'll have a large measure of filling. You come in, you bring a teaspoon, and you'll probably get it filled. You bring a cup, and you'll probably get it filled. You bring a 55 gallon drum, and you'll probably get it filled.

But it has to do with your heart. The openness of the desires of your heart. How do you inflame those desires? How do you grow a heart toward God? Well, we know how that, how it is grown.

It's grown in the secret places. It's grown by filling your mind up with the knowledge of his will. Do you want to increase your capacity? You can increase your capacity as a Christian, but that capacity is dependent upon your heart. And so we're in this passage about your heart.

And the question I want to ask is, you know, do you, if you have a teaspoon, could you bring a cup next week? If you have a cup, could you bring a gallon tomorrow? If you have a gallon, Could we become a church full of 55 gallon drum people coming in and getting the waters of life? I mean, the waters are deep in the Kingdom of God. Now, we come to the second great principle that's here in this passage, and It's the cure.

It's in verse 14. You see the problem in verse 13. It's the heart that's disconnected from the words. The heart that has very little desire. That's such a danger.

Do you realize what a danger it is when you have little desire? Do you understand what that can mean? And so there's this very sobering thing that's being said here. Calculate your desire. Check your heart.

Ask yourself, What is the condition of my heart? And then verse 14. This is the cure. God will do a wonder. Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people.

A marvelous work and a wonder. And then he says something that just kind of sounds weird. It sounds like it's not consistent. How wonderful is that, right? Well, he says the wonder is this, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish.

That's wonderful. It's wonderful to destroy the wisdom of wise men, to wipe wisdom out. How could that be wonderful? And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden." So there's no prudence, there's no wisdom. This is the good thing you're going to do, God.

You're going to wipe out the wisdom of the wise. Is that what's good? Well, yeah, it is good. It is good. It's a marvelous work.

So, wise men will perish, and the understanding of prudent men will be hidden. And that's a good thing. How does that happen? Open your Bibles of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and find verse 18. 1 Corinthians 1, 18.

And you'll find how it could be that the wisdom of the wise would be destroyed, and it be such a good thing. 1 Corinthians 1, 18. We're going to read several verses here. You know, we've spent most of our time here in the malady, the disease, the disease of the heart turned away from God. Now the cure is right here in verse 14.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but To those who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, and now he quotes Isaiah 29 verse 14, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Verse 20. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?

Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Here he's saying that God is going to replace the wisdom of this world with the wisdom of God. This is the cure for the heart that's turned away, where your own wisdom gets destroyed by the cross of Jesus Christ. Verse 25, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.

But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of this world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of this world, and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring about things which are, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that it is written He who glories let him glory in the Lord. This is the cure. It's the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the cross of Christ. It's the cross of Christ that shows you your foolishness and your stupidity, and you replace that stupidity with the wisdom of God.

And who is that wisdom? It's Jesus Christ himself. And what is he doing? He's ruling on his throne. He died and he rose again and he sits next to his father on his throne, dispensing his wisdom to people.

This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which you also received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold fast to that word which I preach to you. For I delivered to you first of all that which was received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Now, there is no tighter grip than the grip of false religion. There is nothing more impossible to get loose of Than a heart that is disconnected from God. There's nothing there's nothing more difficult to deal with than that Because the Bible says that you're dead in your transgressions and your sins.

You're dead. Nothing can save you. You cannot save yourself. All you can do is cry out that God would save you through the work that he did on the cross. No arguments apart from the Gospel can cause the heart to turn.

And the Gospel is that Jesus Christ died and rose again, and whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And the power of sin will be broken. And so When you're caught in this impossible treadmill of religion, your only hope is the cross of Jesus Christ and the power. That's it. There is no other way out of the treadmill.

And That dull repetition of a fake life is to believe in Jesus Christ and cry out to Him and say, Lord Jesus, save me from my sins. God exerted His power through the cross, and he saves sinners. So here we have in Isaiah, we have the problem that's presented, a heart far from him, and the cure, the power of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue those who could not rescue themselves. But God gave them a voice to say, save me. And he saved them.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your remarkable disclosure of your will across the centuries. How you spoke in times past through the prophets, and now you speak through your son, Jesus. And whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Oh Lord, thank You for the cross.

Thank You for the victory that took the failures of this world and folded them into your victory. Amen.