In the sermon 'Hide Yourself in His Chambers,' delivered by Scott Brown, Isaiah 27 is explored, focusing on the theme of God's judgment as a means of rescue and transformation. The sermon emphasizes that God's judgment should be seen as an act of kindness, designed to bring about fruitfulness in His people. Five key words—sword, water, wind, wilderness, and trumpet—are highlighted as elements of God's judgment. The sermon discusses the role of Leviathan as a representation of evil and how God's judgment defeats such forces. Water is metaphorically used to describe God's nurturing and protective care, while wind signifies the measured and temporary nature of His chastisements. The sermon also contrasts the desolation of the unrepentant with the fruitfulness of those who respond to God's discipline. The trumpet serves as a symbol of the gathering and salvation of God's people. The sermon calls believers to rejoice in God's sovereignty and judgment, understanding them as pathways to spiritual growth and discernment.

Isaiah chapter 27. That is in the sea. In that day sing to her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord keep it, I water it every moment, lest any hurt it. I keep it night and day.

Fury is not in me. Who would set briars and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me. Those who come, he shall cause to take root in Jacob.

Israel shall blossom in bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. Has he struck Israel as he struck those who struck him? Or has he been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by him? In measure by sending it away, you contended with it. He removes it by his rough wind, in the day of the east wind.

Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered. And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin, when he makes all the stones of the altar like chalk stones that are beaten to dust. Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand, yet the fortified city will be desolate, the habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness, where the calf will feed and there it will lie down and consume its branches. When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women come and set them on fire, for it is a people of no understanding.

Therefore, he who made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will thresh from the channel of the river to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O you children of Israel. So it shall be in that day, the great trumpet will be blown. They will come who are about to perish in the land of Assyria and they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt and shall worship the Lord in the holy Mount of Jerusalem. Let's pray.

Father, we do thank you so much for your word, Father, for calling us together today to worship before you, to hear preaching on this passage. Father, I pray that you will open our ears, Father, that you will give us delight in the wonderful things in your law, that you will send us from this place with joy in our hearts, that your eternal promises of your care for your people. Father, we pray for Mr. Brown as he comes before us to deliver message that you have given to him. Father, I pray that he would speak your words and Lord that you would give them power in Jesus name.

Amen. We've been walking through Isaiah for many many months now and we've been learning about the judgment of God and we've we've acknowledged a number of times that from all evidence as our own nation is under judgment and I think one of the things that we are being taught here as a church is to rejoice in the judgment of God. Most of us probably had a bad attitude toward the judgment of God, bad thoughts about the judgment of God. But what we find really in the doctrine of the judgment of God is that the story of his chastisements is really a story of God's rescue of an unfruitful people. How he takes those who are dead in their trespasses and sins and he brings judgment upon their nation, or maybe even on them individually, and he converts them.

Or he shows them who they really are. He either takes the dead and makes them alive through his judgment or he condemns them to death. But this morning I want us to see how his judgment is summed up in five words and Those those words I I hopeful will bring more joy To our hearts as we consider the judgments of God. The more I read about the judgment of God, the more it makes me think that God brings His judgment to make His people happy. Because He uses His chastisements to rescue them either from an unprofitable Christian life or from a life of darkness and rescue them or to actually give them heads up that they are headed for hell.

These are all acts of kindness. So I pray that we'll see that God uses his judgment to bring about a people who bear fruit. And that's what we see in Isaiah chapter 27. And there are five words that I think give us all reasons to rejoice in the judgment of God. You've got them in your outlines there in front of you.

The first word is sword. The second word is water. This will be explained in verses 2 through 6. The third word is wind. That's explained in verses 7 through 11.

The fourth word is wilderness. This is explained in verse 10. Trumpet. And this is explained in verses 12 and 13. I think these words give us cause to rejoice in the judgment and the chastisement of God.

My prayer really is that is that God would increase our joy in his sovereignty, in his love, to see how he works, to know the mind of the Lord. I think what's been happening to us in some ways is that our minds have been washed so that we think differently about the judgment of God, that we see it for what it really is. And what we've learned so far is that judgment begins in the house of God. And we learned that in chapters 1 through 12, that God begins with his people. And then after that, we learn that God judges individual nations.

And he judges individual nations, interestingly enough, according to the very same standard that he judges his own people. That standard is his word. And they don't regard his word as authoritative, but God has not abrogated his code of morality for the nations. And so we learned in chapters 13 through 23 that God judges the nations. And He names nations by name.

And He speaks of their various inflection points of their sins. Nations, In one sense, they all sin the same way, sort of. But some excel in some sins rather than others. And God comes and He speaks of His judgment against Egypt and Babylon and Moab and Arabia and lots of nations like that. But we see that God deals with individual nations and He also deals with them according to the way that the devil is working in them.

I was at a conference this weekend. I was talking with one of the men there. We were talking about the history of America. And we were talking about how, in American history, I had an opportunity to observe a pivot point in American history. Where I'm pretty confident the demons were unleashed on America.

It was right about the time I started high school. I started high school in 1968. When I started high school, everybody pretty much was dressed kind of like we are today. By the time I finished high school, people were dropping acid and getting stoned and they were dressing and acting and living completely differently. And In that period of time, American culture flipped.

And if you weren't born really close to that time, if you weren't born in the early 50s, early mid-50s, you didn't see the dramatic change that took place. When the Beatles came into America, when the Rolling Stones started singing, Sympathy for the Devil, everything changed in America. If you weren't alive right at that moment when I was alive, you didn't see the flip. But it flipped in a very, very short time. But God deals with nations according to their sins, and nations have histories.

The reason that we've killed millions of babies is because of what happened in that flip of the culture that took place. It was largely driven by music. But God judges the nations. And then, now in the most recent section that we've been in here in Isaiah, chapters 24 through 27, Isaiah shifts the discussion from the judgment of the individual nations and it begins to speak of a number of the issues that surround the judgment of the whole world. So he begins with the church, he then speaks about the nations, and then now this section that we're finally concluding here in Chapter 27, he's speaking of the judgment of the whole world, and we've seen that Isaiah actually rejoices in the judgment of the world.

He gives thanks to God for it in all its different shades and colors. And it's a remarkable section. And my prayer for us is that we could somehow have the mind of Isaiah, that we would learn how to rejoice in the sovereignty of God in His work in the world, in the nations, in the church, and in your own life. Now have you been rejoicing at the chastisement of God? Have you come to the place where you are Appreciating the way that God is dealing with you the way he's putting his finger on your sins the way He's correcting you the way that he's showing you how bankrupt you are, but but what is it really?

It's that he's trying to rescue He's trying to rescue his people from a life of unfruitfulness. And that's really the whole thrust of this passage of scripture here. And again, the theme continues. There are two cities and there are two songs. There's the city of man and there's the city of God.

There's the wasted city. There's the city that lifted itself up and God brought it down to destroy it. And there's the city of God where there's rejoicing and there's all manner of blessing. The city of man is brought down to the dust and the city of God is actually made happy. We've learned that all throughout this section in chapter 24 through 27.

And why? Why did all this happen? Well, it's very clear why it happened. In chapter 25 verse 5, we learn why. The earth is defiled under its inhabitants because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and broken the everlasting covenant.

This is what brings the judgment of God down upon every church, every nation, and every individual. It's when we set aside the Word of God, when we go down to Egypt for advice, when we live like everyone else lives, rather than to live on the narrow road. You know, on the narrow road, there aren't as many people. There are few who find it. But here, those though, on the broad road, have transgressed the laws and they change the ordinance and they break the everlasting covenant.

And what happens to them? Well, we learn through this section that their joy dies. The things that they wanted the most, they're deprived of the most. And this is the problem with turning away from God. And in chapter 25, Isaiah says, oh, Lord, you are my God.

I will exalt you. I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things. And what did he do? Verse 2, you made a city a ruin. Isaiah rejoices in the judgment of God.

And somehow I think, you know, God is trying to teach us how to sing praises to God in the midst of the judgment of God. Now, also it's very clear here, You know, Isaiah is helping us understand you either live in one city or the other. You're either living in the city of man or you're living in the city of God. And it really matters to you what city you live in. So now upon arriving here in chapter 27, we realize that Isaiah ended chapter 26 with some of the same themes that God was going to disclose the blood that had defiled the world.

And then he begins to speak about Leviathan. Leviathan. Just before the service started I went up to my granddaughter and I said, listen for the word Leviathan. Well, we're here now. Leviathan, the serpent, the serpent of old, the serpent that seemed to conquer man, and now God conquers that servant.

And the whole discussion about Leviathan, I think it's a long discussion, and I wish we had our whole time to talk about the destruction of Leviathan. But here's sort of the bottom line of this first verse. It's this, that God destroys the work of the devil, and He can save the most sin-sick person. He can save, he can take the most unfruitful, unprofitable person who is actually dead, who is hopelessly lost, and he can destroy the works of the devil in their life. Praise God for that.

And for anyone who's tasted the kindness of the Lord, they know how that works. Doesn't it seem like it works too slow though sometimes? But this is what is working in you as the power of the devil has been broken by the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And you believed in his death and his resurrection and you trusted him and you didn't trust in your own works or righteousness anymore, but you trusted in His. And something changed and you began to bear fruit like you never were bearing fruit before.

And it's a marvelous thing. So this is a prophecy about a people who were chastised and their chastisement led to their salvation. The chastisement was the reason that they began to bear fruit. I think we should just think really different about chastisement. Verse 1, the sword.

The first reason we can rejoice in the judgment and the chastisement of God, the sword. This is the punishment of Leviathan. Leviathan will be punished when? In that day. This chapter begins with in that day and we've encountered it, we encountered it again.

This goes back to chapter 24 verse 21. It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will punish on high the host of exalted ones and the earth and on the earth the kings of the earth they will be gathered together as prisoners are gathered into the pit and will be shut up in the prison after many days they will be punished Then the moon will be disgraced and the sun ashamed. The Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his elders gloriously." This is the same situation that Isaiah spoke of in chapter 24. It refers to the time when the enemies of Jesus Christ will be vanquished by the death and the resurrection of Christ. Now who is Leviathan?

Who is Leviathan? Leviathan is both the evil working in the nations and the various expressions of that evil and he is also the one, the personality behind their evil. He is the devil himself. And the worldly manifestations of evil that we see all around us are exemplified by Leviathan in the world. One of the commentators, Kyle and Dalish, they narrow this down to three nations, Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt.

And This is the powers behind the powers of the world. My view is that when you read Leviathan in most places in scripture, you're talking about the devil himself. You know, Leviathan actually appears in the Bible in a number of different places. And there's a major clue right at the beginning of the Bible to know who this Leviathan is. In Genesis chapter 3, the Hebrew word for serpent that's used of the serpent that tempted Eve is exactly the same word serpent or dragon that is that is used here in Isaiah chapter 27.

You know there are many there are many myths and legends and and stories about dragons that you can find in the world. And I think there's significant evidence in scripture that there were dragons. There were very large animals like this in the world. And people saw that. It was several years ago, my son David and I were in a church in Romania built in the 13th or the 14th century.

And the people who had us there, they pointed to this wall and they said, this painting is from the 13th century. And it was a picture of a dragon being led by a person by a rope. It was really interesting. But you know, Alexander the Great tells of a hissing dragon in a cave when he came back after conquering India. You know, the probably most famous dragon story is, you know, St.

George, you know, that Roman soldier who conquers a fire-breathing dragon. Here, he's in the sea. He's a sea monster. You know, In the Bible, you have these two great monsters. There's Leviathan, who's the sea monster.

And you have Behemoth. He's the land monster. You read about him in Job, chapter 40, verse 15. And there's this huge, stately animal that Job actually describes. Is it figurative or not?

I don't think it's figurative. But he's in the sea, and you don't know when he will come up from the deep blue sea and grab you, kind of like Jaws. You just never know when he's going to come up and take you out. And this is why Columbus, the men who sailed with Columbus were terrified of the sea monsters as they were going across the sea. Well, in Revelation chapter 7, there's a dragon standing by the sea, calling out another beast from the sea.

Job chapter 41 has a remarkable description of this. Leviathan is shown to be very hard to subdue and even harder to kill. And he's depicted with enormous strength and violence. And Here's a word of encouragement. Read Job 41, the whole thing, when you go home today.

Or maybe read it around your table as we talk today during our fellowship time. But what you'll see here is the brutality and the difficulty that the presence of Leviathan brings. I think he's figurative to this Leviathan that Isaiah is speaking about hundreds and hundreds of years later. Psalm 74 verse 17 tells of God's power over Leviathan. He speaks of God overwhelming him and in fact God even gives Leviathan his own food.

In Psalm 104, there's a picture of Leviathan being dependent upon God. In Revelation chapter 12, he deceives the whole world. Read that one too. Read the whole chapter. We read it just a few minutes ago.

Read Revelation 12 and you'll see the language that's tied to Isaiah. It's really remarkable that he also is violent. He hates the church. In Revelation chapter 12, he hates Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and tries to devour him. And then he tries to devour everyone else who keeps his commandments.

He hates those who keep God's commandments. That's what Leviathan is all about. And it says that he deceives the whole world. It's such a remarkable passage of Scripture, but God will cast him down. He's accusing the brethren.

He's trying to tempt the brethren. Anyone who desires to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted by the devil and man. And Revelation 12 is so defining to this whole discussion. But you know, who is he? He's the one who made the whole head sick and the whole heart faint in Isaiah chapter 1.

He's the one that destroys your soul. He's the one who's behind Babylon and Egypt and Assyria and Moab. And now in chapters 24 through 27, He's the one who will be slain by what? A sword. What's the sword?

Well, we know what the sword is. It's the Word of God. He is slain by the Word of God. And it's a severe sword. Look at the Lord's approach.

His severe sword, great and strong, there in verse 1. When Christ battles with the dragon, and whenever, If you ever want to battle with the dragon, use the word of God. That's the way that you slay the work of the devil. In the nations, in the church, and in your own life. The Word of God is sharp.

It's more powerful than any two-edged sword. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ, when the devil came to him in his temptation, what did he say? Those three words, It is written. It is written. It's the Word of God that slays the work of the devil.

It's our greatest hope. You know, I found myself, you know, languishing in some ways over the last couple of weeks. My only hope has been the Word of God. My hope has been Psalm 100. Make a joyful shout to the Lord all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness. Enter into his gates with singing. You know, hey I've been rescued you know maybe a hundred times over the last two weeks by Psalm 100. It's the Word of God that slays the work of the devil. You can go to your friend and look for counsel.

You can ask every person, read any kind of book you want. There's nothing like the Word of God to slay the dragon that's trying to devour you. What a wonderful thing that's here. Now he's being killed by a severe sword. Let me just tell you about that word severe.

There are 36 occurrences. Six times it means hard, five times roughly, five times cruel, three times grievous, three times sore, twice churlish. Once it's called hard-hearted, once it's called heavy. In other places It's translated as obstinate, difficult, severe, fierce, intense, vehement, and stubborn. This is how God deals with the devil.

Hard. It's a hard, it is a severe sword. It works. Hey, it works. It's strong enough.

You know, Unless the weapon is strong enough, the bad guys just aren't going to die. It's like trying to shoot a bear with a .22. You're going to get devoured. But when you shoot the devil with the Word of God, he's come against the heart, the sword he cannot survive against. What a wonderful thing.

He's given us the Word of God. Isn't that fantastic? You know, hallelujah. I mean, let's give thanks for the sword. You know, this is one of the things that we can rejoice in, in the judgment of God and the chastisement of God is that God has given us something.

He's given us a way out. He's given us a way through the battle with that sword. It says here that he's a fleeing serpent. In the KJV piercing, This has to do with his speed. He knows his end, as Revelation chapter 12 says, that if we resist the devil, he will flee from it.

He's a twisted serpent. He's physically and morally twisted. He's the father of lies. He twists absolutely everything, which is why our thinking is so twisted. He's the reptile that is in the sea, or the dragon that is in the sea.

And This word Leviathan speaks of the enemies of God and the way that the devil mobilizes his servants against the people of God. It includes all the enemies of God and it speaks of this remarkable war that's going on. You know, deception is his greatest gift. This is his greatest work. He deceives the nations.

Maybe secondly, he's the accuser of the brethren. Thirdly, he's filthy and he'll make you do filthy things. But his work in deception seems to be one of his most, one of the most prominent gifts. You know, you have, you have all, You know, you've got Marxism and higher criticism and Mormonism and relativism and materialism. He's the deceiver of the nations.

It's interesting that the nations really buy into the devil's lies. You look at the driving forces behind the nations. You look at the driving forces behind the great wars that the nations have engaged in. It's the devil, it's deception. Right now the devil is having a heyday in our land making laws and using people to affirm those laws.

Right now the nations are really in the grip of the devil, but he knows his time is coming. He blinds the eyes of human beings, the 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Now there are two mistakes you can make about dealing with the devil. Mistake number one is ignoring the devil. Mistake number two is making too much of the devil because the devil is not stronger than you.

Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And you can rejoice, you can rejoice that you have a weapon against him that cannot, that he cannot stand against us. You know, we sang that song that Martin Luther wrote, A Mighty fortress, the prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fell him." And he's slain here by the sword, by the word of God.

You know, God is taking his steps to deal with Leviathan. You know, in one sense, Leviathan has been slain. In another sense, Leviathan is being slain, and in another sense, Leviathan will finally be slain. This is how God's dealing with Leviathan. And this is worth singing about.

The disarming of the powers and the principalities is something that we ought to sing about. You know, when you, when God rescues you from your unprofitable, unfruitful life and he begins to destroy the works of the devil. That is worth singing about and that's what verse 2 through 6 is all about. We move from the sword to the water, the sword to the water. You can rejoice, you can rejoice in God's judgment because there's water.

There's water implied in it. There's water that flows as a result of it. Verse 2, in that day, sing to her a vineyard of red wine. The Lord keep it. The Lord, I the Lord keep it.

I water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I keep it night and day." So verses 2 through 6 give us another song. Here's another song in Isaiah. This is the fourth time in Isaiah that we have encountered a song. You know Isaiah sings a song in chapter 5 and of course chapter 26 the entire chapter is a song what we have been dealing with for the last three weeks. And this is a song about a productive vineyard that produces the best of wine.

It's a vineyard of red wine. That's what he means when he says red wine. It's fantastic wine. And remember the song of the vineyard in chapter 5? Well, that wasn't as happy a song.

In one way it was a happy song, because Isaiah said, now let me sing to my well-beloved, a song of my beloved. It's a song of love toward God, giving thanks to him for what he's done for his vineyard. And the song is about how well God has appointed his vineyard. What a fantastically productive potentiality he created in his vineyard. He did everything.

He made, he had the most lavish investment in a vineyard that anyone ever did. But the problem was, He did everything he could and all he got from it was wild grapes. And God came to judge that vineyard. And so this is a song about God watering his vineyard. Well, in chapter 5 it was about a vineyard that was so well appointed, but it only produced sour grapes, or stinky grapes, literally, in the Hebrew language.

And so He's singing to her. I think it's figurative of the people of God, the church, the bride of Christ, the daughter of Zion. I think that's who the song is being sung to. In other words, so it's a song sung to the church. When we sing together in the church, we sing to one another in Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.

We sing to one another. In singing, we teach each other. You know, this whole idea that singing is, you're before an audience of one. No, that's not exactly true. It's partly true.

It's only partly true. You're also in an audience of the people of God and you sing a song to the church. You sing to your brother. You know, I always loved holding my little children in my arms and singing in their ear in the church. I love that.

And this is sort of a picture of a song for the church. And in this song, we learn about the Lord. We learn about how good He is. We see how kind He is toward those that He has called and those who He has chastised and turned their head toward Him. This is what He does when He chastises you.

He turns your head to what? What kind of life is he drawing you into? Well, here it is. It's right here. I, the Lord, keep it night and day.

In other words, he's saying that he's constantly working on you. He's working on his church and he's also working on you. And if you have a long life, he'll work on you for a long, long time. What a blessing that is. When you get up in the morning and you know that he's working on you, he's given you his spirit, he's given you his people, he's working on you, he's given you a conscience, He's giving you disciplines and He's working.

He's constantly working. He gives you people who will offend you and hate you, and He's still working. He gives you hardships. He may take away everything you have. He's still working.

He's always working. He says, I keep it night and day. In the high flying times and in the low times God is working. God is working. You know, we have a big garden this year.

Have you ever had a garden? Have you ever, well here's another question, have you ever had a garden and you didn't work it? Has that ever happened to anyone? Well, I banned gardens in the Brown family for several years because we just couldn't figure out how we would find time to work it. So I said, no, no more gardens.

Well, now we have a garden. The garden's actually producing fruit. You know why? It's being worked for the first time. For the first time in the history of the brown world, a garden has been worked.

Now, that's not completely true, because we have had these raised beds that have been worked in the heaven but we've not had a garden like this one but he says I keep it night and day you know he who began a good work in you will will complete it he will he's working every day. In Ezekiel chapter 34, he calls his garden a garden of renown. Peter says that you are kept by the power of God. Kept. You are being kept by God.

He also says He waters it. I water it every moment. He's always giving His church a drink here. It's a description of the kindness of God toward his people. And there's so many pictures of this, of God giving living water to his people.

You know, Jesus said, if any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." This he was talking about the Holy Spirit that he would pour out. In Jeremiah chapter 31, there's this beautiful song, "'Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the Lord for the wheat and the new wine and the oil for the young of the flock and of the herd and their souls shall be like a water garden." And what happens to them as a result of that? And their soul shall not sorrow anymore at all. He waters. He waters his people.

What does he water them with? The water of the Word, the washing of the water of the Word. This is what Jesus Christ does for his church. This is what husbands are supposed to do for their wives. You know, in the same way that God, the great husband, the great husband man, the great keeper of the vineyard, he waters, he waters his garden.

A husband is supposed to water his garden, the garden of his wife. So here's a question. We've got a bunch of husbands here today, don't we? Is this what you're doing with your wife? Are you washing her with the water of the Word?

Is she like a water garden or is she dry? Is she parched? Is she thirsty? And there's just nowhere to get a drink around here. You know.

But God is so kind to be, He will water, He will water. You know in Psalm 87 there's this line I love, both the singers and the players on instruments say, all my springs are in you. It's a picture of the people who are playing instruments, you know, among the people of God, and they're saying, all my springs are in you. Every good thing I have came from you. It springs out.

And he says, I water you every moment, every moment. This is why the Lord says to his people, I will never leave you or forsake you. This is why Jesus said to his disciples just before his resurrection and just before he poured the Spirit out he said, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. What was he talking about? He was talking about the Holy Spirit.

He says, I will send another helper. Another helper. And he uses the word another. There are different Greek words for another. There's another of a different kind and there's another of the same kind.

He said, I send you another helper of the same kind that I am. I know true Christians, they wish they could walk with Jesus and say, hey, what should I do about that? And get counsel from him, you know, to actually be with him physically. Wouldn't that be fantastic? Well, Jesus says, no, I've sent you another helper.

Another one just like me. And here he says, I water it every moment. And not only does he water it, he also protects it. He says, lest any hurt it. Do you see that in the text?

Lest any hurt it. In other words, He will keep you from harm. He will keep you in the midst of any difficulty that takes place in your life. And then we learn that his anger is propitiated. It says, fury is not in me, verse 4.

Fury is not in me. What does that mean? That means that God's anger is propitiated. God's anger is soothed. It's like what we read earlier in Isaiah chapter 12, where Isaiah says, you're no longer angry with me.

The wrath of God has been directed toward His Son as the substitute. And God is angry with sinners all day long. But there are certain people in the world that He's not angry with in that way. That His anger has been directed toward his son, and all the wrath that they deserved was shifted to his son. And then in verse 4 also it says that he will take out his enemies, that his enemies are easily taken out and put out of the way.

And there's this kind of confusing phrase here. Look at it with me in verse 4. Who would set briars and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them. I would burn them together.

And what he's saying is that if someone is going to attack, he's just going to effortlessly vanquish them. It's like attacking someone with briars. I'm going to stab you with briars. That's not really a very formidable weapon you come at me with briars I'm just gonna you know that's that's the that's the basic idea briar briars are no problem for me that's what God is saying the accuser the brethren comes against you to condemn you and he if anyone wants to wage war against his vineyard, just recognize that one little word shall fell them. That's the idea.

He will deal with them. They're just briars and thorns. Leviathan is like Briars and thorns. And also he will subdue Leviathan. Look at verse 5.

Now I hope I had this one right. Maybe we can talk about this later. Verse 5. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he will make peace with me. Now, this is clearly speaking of an enemy of the church and the enemy is making peace.

Now does this mean that it's also Leviathan? I think it's reasonable to say it's Leviathan. I think it's reasonable to say that Leviathan will make peace with God. That Jesus will have his foot right on his neck. But does it mean that the serpent will surrender?

Well there is a day that he will be completely brought to surrender. He'll be thrown into the lake of fire. Is he speaking of that time or is he speaking of the time when Jesus Christ disarms the powers and principalities because he died and he rose from the grave and he sits at God's right hand interceding for the saints? I'm not sure which one it is, but here's one thing that I am sure of. It's really not a very good thing to be an enemy of God.

That's bad news. You want to resist God? Recognize what that means for you. You're nothing. The enemies of God are nothing before God.

And you will make peace with Him. You know, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I think this is this is the day that the devil makes peace with God that he recognizes and finally yields. Could mean something else but it seems to me that's what he's talking about. And then, and then those who come, what happens to them?

Oh boy, they're here. This is the part I love, verse 6. Fruitfulness. He takes the unfruitful of this world and through his judgment he makes them fruitful. This is why we should love the judgment of God because the judgment of God is designed for your fruitfulness.

So verse 6 says, those who come, he shall cause to take root in Jacob. Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. This is the beautiful result of the chastisement of God, is that he takes the unfruitful and he makes it fruitful. Has God been chastising you? Let me say this very carefully.

I hope so. I hope so Because it's your opportunity to bear fruit. You were barren. You were unprofitable. There were things that you were doing that were actually harmful, and God brought a rod to turn you around, to turn your head.

So is He chastising you? For that reason, I hope so. Do you hope for the chastisement of the Lord? That's a difficult thing to pray for, for sure. But I think we have to think differently, maybe, or at least rightly, about the judgment of God, to have sort of an attitude shift toward the judgment of God.

For example, is there anybody here who's depressed right now because of the judgment of God, because of some chastisement, and you're downcast and you're just staying there. You know like Spurgeon said you got a face so long it would go all the way to the bottom of a long vase you know and you're walking around with a long face and you're kicking the dog and yelling at your kids because so you lost something. Well actually God took something away for a reason. That's why David said it was good, It was good that God afflicted me. It was good.

Well, here's why it's good. Verse 6 tells you why it's good. Because you blossom and you bud. That's why it's good. And it says here that they come to Him, I love that, you know, Jesus Christ says, Come, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I'll give you rest.

This is the message of chapter 26, verse 2, where the gate is open and they come into the gate. They come into the gate and then later on in chapter 26 they close the gate and they find all their refuge in Him. And they have roots in Him. He shall cause to take root in Jacob." So where there were few roots, the roots are now strong roots. It matters how deep your roots are, how strong they are.

These are roots in Jacob, these are roots in God. There are no stronger roots than that. You can root your life in a lot of things. You can go through your life and root it in all the philosophies of this world, the entertainments in this world, the games of this world. You root your life there, and guess what?

When the winds blow, you're going down. You've got to be rooted in Jacob. People don't really understand what they lose when they root their lives in unprofitable things. They don't realize it until it's too late. But they have roots, and then they will blossom and bud through Him.

Isn't that beautiful? It's a picture of life. This is what happens. This is why it's not a bad thing, necessarily, to say, I hope God is chastising you. Because you blossom and bud.

And then there's this multiplication of it. It'll fill the face of the earth with fruit. In other words, you replicate yourself. God, you enter into times chastisement. You realize what you've been doing.

God puts your roots down. He waters you. He takes care of you. And then you have an effect in the world. Everybody wants to have an impact in this world, don't they?

They want to be somebody, right? Well, this is God's way of having an effect in the world. It's bearing fruit and replicating fruit. This is a picture of the worldwide harvest. And then the third word that should give us cause to rejoice is the word wind.

There's the sword, there's the water, and now there's the wind. We can rejoice in the judgment and the chastisements of God because of this word wind that we find in verses 7 through 11 because it was it was the winds that blew that caught that brought about the salvation it was you know Jacob's punishment ended up purifying them so that they would get rid of their idols. And I think in this, possibly in this scenario, the Assyrians had not come yet, Nebuchadnezzar had not come yet, but the hard time was ahead. God was going to purify them of their idols through his judgment. He was going to bring Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar and then perhaps even others later on.

But this chastisement actually purified Judah. The chastisements were good because they removed her sin. Verse 7, has he struck Israel as he struck those who struck him Or has he been slain according to the slaughter of those who are slain by him? Now notice there's a question and the question I'm going to try to simplify the question. Did God strike the nations the same way he struck Leviathan?

Like does God deal with Leviathan the same way that he deals with his people? That's the question that's at hand here. Was Israel treated like the nations? Was Israel treated like God treated Leviathan? So you get the question?

And the answer is that he treats his church differently. He treats his church with restraint. He deals with his people that he loves differently. They may experience the same expression of judgment or chastisement, but different things happen and he does it for a different purpose. He does it to the wicked to warn them of the wrath to come and to tell them who they really are, that God is going to destroy them.

He's given them heads up. This is another thing about God. Why all this about judgment? Well, is it better to know beforehand? Is it better to know that judgment's coming?

Is it better to know that the policeman is down the road waiting for you or not? Is it better to know upfront? Is it better to have heads up? Yeah, it absolutely is. God's kind that way.

So he warns of judgment. But in verse 8, we learn what this looks like. In measure. In other words, he measures his judgment differently. The devil gets the full force of his wrath.

The church doesn't. In measure, By sending it away, you contended with it, he removes it by his rough wind in the day of the east wind. Now, this verse 8 is really highly debated. And The Hebrew in verse 8 could go a lot of different ways. So I'm just going to tell you what I think it is.

It may be something different. But what I'm going to say is absolutely true, whether it's in this text or not. I think it's in this text, though. Measured and restrained judgment is needed out to Judah. He measures judgment precisely.

He doesn't bring too much wrath or too little to his people. Maybe you've had this experience with your children. They disobeyed grievously, and you spanked them. And you may have spanked them too lightly. Has anybody ever done that?

That's, in my experience, that's usually, that's the big mistake that parents make, they do it too lightly. Now, some do it too hard, and that's a mistake too. But most people do it too lightly but God when He punishes He does it just right. He does it, He just does it exactly with the right measure of force that's necessary to accomplish the work that He's trying to accomplish. That's how he's been chastising you right now.

He's not been chastising you too hard or too light. He's been doing it just right. It's measured. This is what the Apostle Paul was speaking about in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. He says, he gives us pictures that we're like earthen vessels, you know, we're like pots.

Human beings are like pots, they hold stuff, you know. He says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. So you've got this vessel, this large pot, it's being pressed but it's not crushing the vessel. He says we are perplexed but not in despair.

In other words, pushed emotionally and mentally just enough, not to the breaking point though. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. Always caring about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, but that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh." What Paul is saying is that there are enormous pressures, But why?

Why do they come? So that the life of Jesus might be manifested in your life. So that you'll bear fruit. But you're not crushed. You are pressed.

But you're not crushed. This is a promise from God. He will not give you more than you can take. This is just something you can count on. You can say, I can't take it anymore.

Have you ever said, I don't need any more of this? You ever said that? Well, yeah, you might actually need more, okay? You definitely needed what you got. You better quit complaining about what you got.

Because you got what you were supposed to get because he was measuring it perfectly. He never, ever, ever gives false weights and measures. He always gives the right weight of pressure in your life. Now if you don't believe that, you're going to go out of here just as depressed as you came in. But let's just recognize the measurement of perfection that the chastisements of God are needed out with.

In that same chapter, in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, Paul goes on. Verse 12 he says, So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith according to what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke. We also believe and therefore speak, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes that grace may be spread through the many may cause thanksgiving to abound for the glory of God." In other words, he's saying the reason we're being afflicted is so that thanksgiving would abound for the glory of God.

In other words, you're going through something so that thanksgiving and praise would be multiplied in the world. That's part of the way that you bear fruit. And then he says this, he nails it down this way, he says, therefore we do not lose heart though our outer man is perishing yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are seen are eternal. So God brings the pressure so that his eternal weight of glory would be communicated through your life. And you need to know that you're not being crushed, you're being pressed so that you'll bear fruit. And your Fruit is born so that people will praise God who come in contact with you. So you're not this sour, puss, unhappy Christian walking around this world thinking that God's been too hard on you.

He's not been too hard on you at all. He's been just right. It's like the three little bears, right? Just right. This soup is just right.

That's the soup you've been eating. You know, Jeremiah spoke about this in Jeremiah 10. He said, Oh Lord, correct me, but with justice, not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. God's not going to bring you to nothing through this. You say, oh yeah, but I've lost all my money.

That's not bringing you to nothing. That might happen several times in your life. It could. Jeremiah chapter 30, He says, God says, for I am with you, says the Lord, to save you. Though I make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you.

Got that? I will not make a complete end of you. Now listen to this, but I will correct you in justice and I will not let you go altogether unpunished. I think we can praise God for His judgment, for what it is designed to do. It says here that He removes it.

In other words, He covers the sin. Also, notice He says, it's in the day of the east wind. It's like the east wind. It's not constant wind. He uses a word that's most likely referring to the Chiraco winds that blew in that region.

And the Chiraco winds, they blow hard, but they don't blow all the time. And they're kind of predictable, you know, they come but they go. They're going to go away. And that's the idea. The pressure will come but it will go.

It'll be made, the wind will blow with strength. Yes, it will blow hard, but it won't blow too hard, and it won't blow too long. And That's the great truth of God's judgments. And the Babylonian captivity was definitely reflective of that. It was a rough wind.

It was a harsh judgment. But it was also a temporary judgment. And then we learn that something happens. And this is a beautiful part of this. And this is another reason why we can rejoice in God's chastisements towards us, is that the judgment does the best thing that could ever happen to you.

And that is you get delivered from your idols. Remember what idol is? I mentioned this several times in our studies in Isaiah. Idol in Hebrew means nothing, emptiness, bankruptcy. So idols actually are unprofitable.

They don't do you any good. They only do you bad. So verse 9, therefore, okay, therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered or purged, cleansed. The iniquity is cleansed by the pressure. And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin.

Okay, so now we learn what is what happened? What's the net? What's the net result of all this? What's the gigantic blessing in the room? There is this huge elephant he's going to speak about right now.

The fruit is hu'en. You see that word hu'en in the middle of verse 9? When he makes all the stones of the altar like chalk stones that are beaten to dust. Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand." So the fruit of this is proven when a man, he starts crushing his idols, he starts breaking them down and then he gets happier and happier. You crush one idol, you get one idol happier.

You crush another one, you get two idols happier than you were before. You keep crushing them. Well here's the problem, Like John Calvin said, the human heart is a factory of idols. It keeps cranking out the idols. So you're always having to smash the idols.

But this is the fruit of the chastisement in your life. It shows you your idols. When you lose something, you've just been shown that you love something too much, and maybe it's an idol. And you've been petting and shining up that idol and keeping it close to you and you know loving to think about it, googling about it and looking and all this stuff back because you like it, but it's hurting you. There's a lot of opportunity cost in that idol.

But the fruit of it is the turning away from idols. And so the iniquities are covered, purged, cleansed, And then out comes this fruit of destroying the idols. This is the tangible outward manifestation of faith in Jesus Christ. It's that you change, that you see that idol and then you deal with it and then you see the next idol and you deal with that one as well. And then the fourth word, the fourth word that should cause us to rejoice is the word wilderness.

This is the destruction of the unrepentant in verse 10. Yet the fortified city will be desolate. So this is a contrast. You've got fruit bearing, you've got happiness all over the place for those that God chastised. But on the other hand, the hard-hearted, unrepentant, they have a totally different experience.

Verse 10 shows you what that experience looks like. It's a fortified city. It was a fortified city. It's desolate. It's forsaken.

And it's left like the wilderness. And there the calf will feed. And it'll lie down and consume its branches. You know, Hey, when cows are wandering around a city, what does that tell you? It means the city has ceased to function like a city.

When women are running around just looking for dead branches for burning, the economy of the city is in big, giant trouble. And that's the picture that's there. There's this forsaken city, and it's like a wilderness. But why? Why?

This is really important right here. This is something we've got to see. Why did this happen? For it is a people of no understanding. Okay?

For it is a people of no understanding. They lack discernment. Hey, what was it in the people that where they couldn't see what was coming. They were looking around what was going on in their society and they didn't see it. They didn't understand that there was judgment coming.

God was judging the nation. I mean the whole head was already sick and the whole heart was faint. God was judging the nation and they just kept, they kept as in earlier chapters of Isaiah made it clear, they just wanted to party. The walls fell down. Hey, let's just build bigger and better.

Life gives you lemons. Make lemonade. We're going to use better bricks next time. Oh, yeah, we're going to rise again. It was pride.

God was giving them all these signs, and they just completely ignored them. What was it? Why couldn't they see it coming? When Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar walked in, when the Romans walked into Jerusalem, or the Visigoths later on to destroy Rome. I mean, what were the people thinking?

Were they thinking, hey, everything's fine? Yes, that's exactly what they were doing. You know what? They're just like America is today. The walls are falling down And we just keep on charging ahead.

Why didn't they discern that? You know what? There are so many signposts that should show us the state of our nation. Just last week, just last week, a really large, large poll was conducted, I think, by the Gallup Organization. And they said that Obama's approval rating was really high among certain religious groups.

What religious groups had the highest rating for Obama? Do you know? Who gets the most converts from Obama? 72% Muslims, 72%. 20 points higher than any other group.

55 percent Jews, 54 percent atheists, 52 percent the main lines, 44 percent of the Catholics, 39 percent of evangelicals. Who is the lowest approval rating? What religious group? The Mormons, 18%. Hey, why is it that the walls are falling down and we do not understand what is going on?

We're like clueless to the coming judgment. We're clueless. We do not have understanding. That's what Isaiah's speaking about. There's discernment.

There's understanding. That's why they didn't see it coming. They had no underst- it was a people that was bankrupt of discernment. You know, I was in the hotel the other day, you know, down in the cafeteria, and on the TV screen there was this war- this report in San Francisco. In San Francisco of all places, the city is going to begin taxing sugar drinks by the ounce.

While the men in this city, they go in to bath houses and get sick and the average doesn't live beyond age 42, and they're going to tax sugar drinks by the ounce because it's just not healthy. I mean this is a culture that's lost its discernment, completely lost it. You know I read the other day, just yesterday, the National Park Service is going to commemorate homosexuality in different parks, different locations that played significant roles in the rise of homosexuality in the country. I think they're going to start with the Stonewall Hotel in New York City, where in 1969 there was this riot for the legitimacy of homosexuality. The National Park Service is doing this right now.

They're going to go celebrate the defilement of our nation in our national parks. We live in a nation of such a remarkable, devastating lack of discernment. I mean, even, you know, just last week, you know, the gender Nazis were absolutely everywhere. You know, did you know, for example, did you know, 370, 000 babies are born in the world every day, like today. And there's a writer in Slate Magazine, he says, did you know that there are 37, 000 crimes against these children being committed?

It's a form of child abuse against every child being born. And you know what that crime is? Well, this transgender activist, Christian Malloy, on Slate Magazine is warning us about this danger to infants, this terrible danger, this child abuse, you know what it is? Gender assignment. Which means when the baby is born, this terrible abuse of children takes place when you declare that it's a boy or a girl.

I mean this is a serious one, one of the mainstream liberal magazines. The title of the article was, don't Let your doctor do this to your baby. Don't let your doctor say that this is a boy or a girl. We are a people who have lost all discernment in our land. That even an article like that could even be printed is astonishing.

Let me read you from the article. Obstetricians, doctors, and midwives commit this procedure on infants every single day in every single country. In reality, this treatment is performed almost universally without even asking for the parents' consent. Making this practice all the more insidious, it is called infant gender assignment. When the doctor holds your child up to the harsh light in the delivery room, looks between its legs and declares his opinion, it's a boy or a girl based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring's genitals." He says, or she, I don't know, this infant gender assignment is a willful decision, and it's a reinforcing tradition.

What could be the harm of letting the child wait to declare for themselves who they are once they are old enough, which is generally believed to happen around age two or three. Okay, we are living in a culture without discernment. Okay, Do you realize where you live? Do you realize what's going on around you? Do you realize that we are living in a nation under judgment?

The very fact that an article could be written like this and actually published by a major news outlet is a sign. It's a sign that we're under judgment. And we know what should the people of God do when there's judgment on the land? That is, recognize that God's chastisement is here and turn to the Lord. If there's never been a time, probably perhaps in our lifetimes, then the church needs to turn to God and His Word.

To slay the works of the devil. To take out that sword. To drink the water. To recognize that the wind is blowing and it's perfectly needed out for our own good to know what God is going to do to make a wilderness of those who hate Him and why He will do it. He will do it because of lack of discernment.

Because they don't know their right hand from their left. Can God save a society like that? Yes, He can. Yes, He can. And God does bring judgment upon nations for one reason, to turn them back, to turn them back or to destroy them.

But the people of God will turn and they will be watered and they will be cared for by God. And in that sense they really have no reason to fear. You know, the last word, trumpet, I'm not going to be able to develop it. This is the best news of the entire section here. But these Five words give you reasons to rejoice in God's judgment.

There's the sword, there's the water, there's the wind, there's the wilderness, and there's the trumpet. And this is the trumpet call of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the picking and the gathering out of the Church. This is a picture of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He died, He was crucified, he was laid in a tomb, and he was resurrected on the third day.

And there's a trumpet that sounds. And I pray that God would allow the people in our land to hear that trumpet, and they would turn to him, and they would be like a watered garden. Can God save America? Yes, He can for sure if He desires. I pray that He desires to do it.

But here we find the secrets of God's judgment and we can We really can give thanks for God's judgment. I pray God does give us his mind on all these matters of judgment, from the judgment in our own lives, from the judgment in our own church, and from the judgment upon our own nation, that we would be the happiest people in the land. Would you pray with me? Lord, I thank you for your judgment. I thank you for your chastisement.

Lord, I pray that you would deliver us from wrong responses to your chastisements. Lord, I pray that you would make us a discerning people. I thank you for the way that you're using Isaiah to help us think rightly about the judgment of God, that we would have some level of discernment about these things. Thank you, Lord, for your kindness. Thank you for watering us.

Thank you for glorifying yourself by taking us out of our unprofitable, unfruitful life and chastising us so that we would bear fruit. Thank you Lord. Amen.