In the sermon titled 'Mindful of the Rock of Your Stronghold,' Scott Brown explores the themes presented in Isaiah chapter 17, focusing on the burden against Damascus and the consequences of Israel's alliances with worldly powers. The sermon emphasizes the dangers of seeking security and salvation through political alliances, as illustrated by Israel's and Damascus's shared fate. Brown highlights the importance of where we direct our gaze, urging the congregation to look to God rather than worldly entities for security and fulfillment. He draws parallels between the historical alliances of Israel and modern-day reliance on political powers, warning that such alliances will ultimately lead to ruin, as they distract from true faith in God. The sermon encourages believers to be mindful of God, the rock of their stronghold, and warns against idolatry and forgetting God in their daily lives. Brown uses historical examples and biblical narratives to illustrate the importance of trusting in God alone, reminding listeners that God governs history for the benefit of His church.

Isaiah chapter 17. The burden against Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aror are forsaken. They will be for flocks which lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

The fortress also will cease from Ephraim, the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts. In that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob will wane in the fatness of his flesh grow lean. It shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain and reaps the heads with his arm. It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain in the valley of Refiem.

Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in its most fruitful branches, says the Lord God of Israel. In that day a man will look to his maker, and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands. He will not respect what his fingers have made, nor the wooden images, nor the incense altars. In that day, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not been mindful of the rock of your stronghold. Therefore, you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings. In the day you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning you will make your seed to flourish, but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow. Woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas, and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters. The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters, but God will rebuke them and they will flee far away and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

Then behold, at even tide, trouble. And before the morning, He is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who rob us. Let's bow our heads and ask God's blessing before Pastor comes and speaks to us. O God, You have spoke marvelously in days gone by and have told us of what will come to pass and have warned us that unless you all repent, you too will likewise perish.

Oh God, we see Your church all around us. We see ourselves, Lord, rent and torn asunder by schisms on one side, afflictions and griefs on the other. But, oh Father, Your church will march on, and it will fulfill the purpose You've called it to. Thank You, God, for Your church and for Your people. And I pray as Scott comes and ministers to us, Lord, that You would give him special unction this day, that your spirit would dwell upon Him to speak the words we need to hear.

Amen. As we've been walking through the book of Isaiah, it seems to me that the Lord has been saying something to us over and over and over again through the prophet. And it's a blessing that God would repeat things to us to help us. You know, we are a people gathered here together with a particular set of needs and hopes and problems. And over and over again in Isaiah, he's really in many different ways asking the question, Who are you looking to?

What are you looking at? Are you looking at Babylon? Are you looking at Philistia? Are you looking at Assyria? The gaze of your eyes really determines everything in your life.

And I feel like the Lord has us in this section of the judgments against the nations to help us know who we look to for security. What is it that we look to for help, for satisfaction, and all that kind of thing. And we find ourselves here in another passage of Scripture that speaks of the direction of your eyes. Where are you looking? Do you look to Damascus, or do you look to the rock of your stronghold?

And where you look has everything to do with what happens in your life. And if you look to the right or the left, you'll find yourself in such great trouble. And I think that there's much of that here in Isaiah for us. Now, we have before us a testimony of how one part of the church can become pagan. And it has to do with the gaze of the eyes, without question.

And this passage tells us, first of all, that it happens, that one part of the church can become pagan. And he tells us how it happens, and he tells us what happens as a result of it, and then he tells us how to avoid it. And we see here in this passage that it is very destructive, because the pagan part wages against the more holy part. And this is a picture that Isaiah has been giving to us, you know, over and over again. And how does it happen?

How does a church become pagan? Well, we've already learned that it can become pagan by looking like Babylon, like loving Babylon and all the various other kinds of presentations that Isaiah's brought before our eyes. But here it happens through alliances. And alliances happen because of who you're looking to for security. This is all about where you look to for security.

Are you looking to Damascus for security? And What we find here in Isaiah chapter 17 is that there's this blurring of the lines of Damascus and Israel, the northern kingdom. He starts out talking about Damascus, but after a while you're not sure who he's talking about because he's talking about Israel and he's naming geographical locations that aren't even in Syria at all. So what is he trying to say? After you get past verse 3 into 4 and on, the language really is directed to the people of God and not Damascus at all.

What is that all about? Because there's this blurring that is going on. And The blurring is happening because a blurring has happened in the minds and the hearts of the children of Israel. Their vision is blurred because they're looking at Damascus for their security, and they've entered into alliances with Damascus for their protection. They love their security so much, they long for it to such a degree that they'll look for it wherever they can get it, including a political power like Damascus.

Damascus was a political power. And they wanted salvation by politics. I don't know if you've ever had the inclination to think that there was somehow salvation in America by politics. But everybody's looking to Damascus. Everybody wants the favor and the protection of Damascus.

And the reason they want the favor and protection of Damascus is because the gaze of their eyes shifted away from the rock of their stronghold, the holy one of Israel, the ruler of the kings of the earth and they begin to trust in the alliances that that Damascus offered for them. And yet there's also this this backstory here this sort of a back beat in the passage of how many blessings flow when we look to our Maker and are mindful of the rock of our stronghold. And so the first part of our text has its focus on Damascus, verses one through three, and then really on Israel and Damascus, and how strangely they're treated as one. They're sort of dual focal points that blur together, and they're actually treated as one. And, you know, alliances and covenants of the heart are really at the center of our relationship with God and of man.

Our commitments, our being bound together, is really one of the great themes of Scripture. The Bible really begins with the knowledge of a covenant, When he asks a husband and wife to leave and cleave, and there is formed this great alliance between a man and a woman, and it's unbreakable. There's this idea of Joining in a covenant. God is the covenant-keeping God. He enters into an alliance with his people, and he doesn't break his alliances.

In Psalm 106, we learn about joining with unholy things, joining with Baal. The psalmist says, they joined themselves also to Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices and made to the dead. So here, while Isaiah here is talking about a political alliance, David is talking about a sexual alliance. And who you ally yourself with shows who you have faith in. And that's what's really been revealed here.

Isaiah is speaking to a nation that's lost their faith in God because their gaze toward God had been lost and thus their vision was blurred. Israel has left her covenant husband and she's found a new husband and that new husband's name is Damascus. And so here God is giving us insight into judgment in order to warn us to turn our eyes toward Him. Unless we turn our eyes to our maker, then we will likewise perish like Damascus. But yet how many blessings flow when we look to our maker and are mindful of the rock of our stronghold.

God has us here, I think, to just help us remember again that rock, to look toward Him, to remove our gaze from the things that we've looked to for security. There's so many things that we look to for security. You might be looking for security in your husband or your food or your house or whatever it might be. But where are you looking? It's really no different.

Looking for security in any other thing is no different than looking to Damascus for your security. Although Damascus is very, very critical here because this is a political hope. And here I think God would be kind to us to dash our political hopes and place all of our hope in Him. One of the critical matters is revealed in the very last verse here. And that is that when your alliances are with anything else, you're in trouble.

In fact, in verse 14, He says, this is the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who rob us. Here's the bottom line. Your alliances will rob you. There's only one alliance that will bless you, feed you. That's the alliance with the Holy One of Israel, the rock of your stronghold.

Now, the immediate context here is a political alliance between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria. It's a very specific time in history, in the history of Israel. There are the Northern Kingdom is threatened by the Southern Kingdom, so they enter into an alliance with Syria. Ahaz, king of the Southern Kingdom in Judah, becomes afraid of the Northern Kingdom, so he enters into an alliance with Assyria and what we find is both of these alliances are going to end up robbing both the northern and the southern kingdom and so that's the immediate context. So in the backdrop is this, is this, these alliances and these wars that are going on.

The wider context here in this passage of Scripture is that we're in a section of the oracles to the nations. We've already heard the oracle against Babylon, the worldliness of the world, the oracle against Assyria and the brutality of Assyria to get her way, the oracle against Philistia and how she hated the people of God, and the oracle against Moab, the people who curse God and lure others into sin. And now he is dealing with a different oracle. It's an oracle to those who would think that their politics will save them, who will look to the great city, the great center of power. You might think of Damascus like looking to Washington.

Damascus is a political power. And Damascus was the great city, and then there were smaller cities that fed into them, giving tribute to the big city. You know, I was talking with Dan at the beginning of the service here, and he said, It's like using the term Moscow. When you think of Moscow, you think of this great power in this region. But those who look to Washington, those who look to Moscow, they will be robbed.

I think that's really important to recognize here. And at the same time, you see the same theme in this oracle that you've seen in all the other oracles, and that in the midst of this picture of apostasy, there's a bright light of mercy, and it happens in all these different oracles and the this occurs in verses 7 and 8 in Isaiah chapter 17 and so God is God is dealing with His grace at the same time that He is dealing with His judgment toward those who look to Damascus. So the sin that is burdening the Lord is that they seek security in their political alliances. That's the burden. You know, and we've been asking, what's God's burden toward you?

Now this might not be God's burden toward you, but maybe, maybe there is a Damascus raised up in your heart that you trust in. Maybe it's, maybe, maybe you've given up on the political process. Maybe you've given up on presidents and congressmen and women and maybe you've given up on all that. Maybe you've given up on laws of man. But my guess is that there's a Damascus in our hearts somewhere.

So as we go through this passage, let's consider what kind of Damascus there might be in our hearts that we trusted in that's actually going to rob us in the end. And actually, the problem with Damascus, he's actually always robbing you, even though he's making promises to bless you. Okay, so let's also, there are six parts to this chapter. You can see the outline in front of you. But let's begin in verses 1 through 3 in this first section, where we see the destruction of the alliance being announced.

The burden against Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aurora are forsaken. They will be for flocks which lie down, and no one will make them afraid. The fortress also will cease from Ephraim, the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria.

They will be as the glory of the children of Israel says the Lord of Hosts. You notice how all these geographical locations are just sort of mixed in together and and but he's speaking of Damascus first of all which is which is the oldest inhabited city in all of history. Damascus is the capital of Syria. And today, Syria is the home of a lot of Islamic terrorist groups. The voice of Damascus has not gone silent in the world.

But you can read a lot about the history of Damascus in the Bible. There are numerous places you can stop off to see what has happened between Israel and Damascus. In the time of David, he was making war, and the Syrians of Damascus allied themselves with the enemies of David. David ended up killing 22, 000 men. This is in 2 Samuel 8.

Well there are lots of stories that we could go to here. But primarily there is this burden and this burden is for the alliances that lead to destruction. He says there, they will be Damascus as the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts. What he's saying is that there's a common fate. Israel entered into an alliance with Damascus, with Syria, and because of that they've just, they have become so closely identified with them that God sees them as one and the same.

And so the fate of Damascus will also be the fate of Israel. God is going to treat this ungodly nation in the same way that he's going to treat Israel. And we see that Damascus will cease from being a city and it will be a ruinous heap. It's really interesting language that Isaiah uses here. A ruinous heap.

He's really repeating the idea of a ruin. It's a ruin of a ruin. Some of you have walked through ruins, You know, where the walls are maybe halfway up and broken down. That's a ruin. But this is better than that.

This is a ruin of a ruin. Take the ruins and ruin them, and now you see what he has there. He's going to bring it not just halfway down, but all the way down. And this is the idea that's here. It's the idea of complete ruins where the fortresses are completely stripped and nullified.

The cities are destroyed. Verse 3 speaks of it, the fortress also will cease from Ephraim. Remember, Ephraim is a term that's used in Israel. Ephraim, Jacob, and Israel. Those are all synonymous terms.

But here he says the fortress also will cease from Ephraim, the kingdom from Damascus. This is kind of a Hebrew poetic form where there's a comparison that's being made. You have the fortress from Ephraim and the kingdom from Damascus. And the remnant of Syria will be as the glory of the children of Israel. So they're sort of lumped in together.

These fortresses and kingdoms and these remnants, they will all be looked on by the Lord of hosts as the same. And of course the background for this is in Isaiah chapter 7 verses 3 through 9 where Ahaz meets Isaiah, the prophet, at the end of the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field. And he has that moment in time. And they're discussing alliances. And Isaiah is saying, do not trust.

Do not trust in Assyria. Place your trust in God. These people will come and rob you. But Isaiah doesn't listen. He trusts in his alliances.

He's got his system down. He knows how to butter his bread, and he's going to do it that way regardless of any warnings that he hears. And here Isaiah, you know, warns him. You also see it in 2 Kings, chapter 16. I'd like you to turn there.

Please turn to 2 Kings, chapter 16 and find verse 1. 2 Kings 16 verse 1. Because here you'll find the political backdrop, the military issues that are in play, and the personalities that are there in 2 Kings 16. Verse 1 reads, In the seventeenth year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. Now Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, is the king in Israel in the northern kingdom.

And Ahaz, the son of Jotham, is the king of Judah. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. Indeed, he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

Then, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war. And they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. At that time, Rezin, king of Syria, captured Eloth for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Eloth. Then the Edomites went to Eloth and dwelled there to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Peleser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son.

Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria heeded him, for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Kire and killed Razan. Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Palezer of Assyria and saw an altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Urija the priest the design of the altar and its pattern according to all its workmanship.

So here is a picture of ungodly alliances, of unequal yokings, and really what's at the bottom of it? It's the fear of man. Ahaz is so afraid of the northern kingdom and of Assyria that he enters into an alliance and he goes to Tiglath-Polizor and he says, I am your son. And at the same time, Tiglath-Polizor is robbing from him and will not keep any of his promises. Well, this is the devil.

This is what the devil does. The devil never keeps any of his promises. Seems like he might for a short moment of time, but he's always got his hand in your pocket and he's robbing you. And that's what we see here. An alliance is, to have an alliance is to say that you have faith in another party.

And Israel is saying they have faith in Syria. And Judah is saying that she has faith in Assyria. And so these are the kinds of joinings with the world, the faith that we have in this world that are presented. And here, Damascus is the great political object of faith. There are many ways that we enter into alliances, many reasons.

Sometimes It's passion that drives us to alliances. That happens in marriage when you become unequally yoked with unbelievers. You just can't wait. Your passion rises and your vision is so blurred and you enter into an alliance with an unbeliever. And you have no idea how damaging that's going to be.

Because all you can think of is your passion. You've never learned how to bridle your passions. You don't know that the devil is there to rob you through your passion. It can come from a desire for legitimacy. Where you want to be seen as as a player?

Churches often do this and they adopt the methods of the nations and they try to appeal to people with worldly things And what ends up happening is they, while they appeal with worldly things, all they get are worldly people and all they get is worldliness. And the devil is right there with his hand in your pocket robbing you as a result. You think you're getting something better, something more interesting, something more exciting, taking the music of this world or the techniques of this world or something like that, you think it's going to bless you, but in reality the devil is there and he has his hand and He's pickpocketing you all along the way. And then finally, he'll destroy you. He'll abandon you.

He'll leave you lying in the gutter, laughing as he departs. It might be a misplaced sense of compassion that leads you to an alliance. This happened actually in 2 Chronicles 20, where Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, allied himself with Ahaziah. It was a misplaced sense of compassion for the wicked, and he entered into an alliance with him. We do it for protection, we do it for joy, we do it for all kinds of things.

We enter into an alliance with the music of this world because we think it's going to comfort our hearts when actually it's just going to take us down. We enter into alliances as we lay our eyes, not on the Holy One of Israel, but some defiling film. We think it's going to give us something, some excitement, some knowledge, something like that, but it always robs you. Well, there are a lot of different reasons that we enter into alliances. This here, though, is a political alliance.

Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 1, speaks of this, where Moses urges the people not to enter into alliances with the Canaanites as they go into the land. He says this, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them." That's the first thing he says. When you come into the land, there are going to be all these opportunities for alliances. Do not make covenants with these people.

And then he says, and don't enter into marriages with them. That's the very second thing that he says there. He says, you shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter to your son. And then he says why, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.

But thus You shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. Well, when the children of Israel were going into the land of Kingman, he said, don't make a covenant and don't let your children marry them and also break down every vestige of paganism that you find.

So there are lots of different ways that we enter into alliances. It could be politically, it could be morally, it could be... There are all kinds of ways that that happens. After the children of Israel did not drive all the Canaanites out of the land, God chastises them for entering into alliances with them to receive tribute. You can find that in Judges chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 where God says, I led you up from Egypt and brought you into the land which I swore to your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.

You shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you." It's so dangerous to enter into alliances, but they, on the front end, they seem so beneficial, but they're not at all. You know, when the problem with alliances is they always appeal to our own personal idols.

And, you know, like when safety is your god, when safety is your god, you're going to enter into alliances that are unholy for you. And you'll Always be in bondage to the wrong person if safety is your idol. If money is your god and your idol, you'll always be catering to someone for gain. That'll drive your whole relationship. You will be wanting to enter into an alliance with them for gain, for your own gain, if money is the main object of your life.

Every conversation you'll have, it'll have to do with your gain. And your vision will be so blurred. And at the same time, the devil will be robbing you blind while you think you're gaining. When fame is your god, you'll always be playing to someone to be known, always. And so this whole matter of alliances covers so many, so many different issues.

You know, I was intrigued by the story that broke this week where one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the quote unquote Christian, World Vision, came out saying they were going to endorse homosexual marriage. And they were going to look the other way on this thing. Well, just a few days later, they revoked their statement. They said, no, no, no, no, no. No, we didn't mean it.

We didn't mean that. Now, the outpouring of rage in the Christian community was so deafening. Perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of donors were going away in one week. And so they change their minds. You can ask why would they do that?

Perhaps they're seeking an alliance, the alliance with money, And so they've got to keep that alive. Well, here's the truth of it all. Conformity to the world, loving the world, entering into an alliance with the world, will always ensure that you are conforming yourself to its ruin. In the same way that Israel and Damascus had the same end, so too all those who enter into alliances with the world will find themselves suffering the exact same end. And as a result, their glory wanes.

You can see the second point here in verses 4 through 6, their glory wanes. You know, On the one hand, there are many blessings that flow when you look to your Maker, and when you're mindful of the rock of our stronghold, but the glory wanes. He says, In that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall wane, and the fatness of his flesh grow lean. It shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain and reaps the heads with his arm. It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain in the valley of Rephaim.

Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in its most fruitful branches, says the Lord God of Israel." I haven't counted how many illustrations are just in these verses, but it's remarkable. Isaiah is so graphic in his thinking. He just thinks through so many images. They just roll out of his mind. He illustrates it this way and that way and this way and that way.

He talks about, you know, fatness going lean. He talks of, you know, the flesh just going away. He speaks of a harvester who's Gathering grain and he's reaping you know with his arm. There's all this graphic imagery of Reaping but yet there's none there And he gives us illustration of the Valley of Refhain, this fruitful valley, really on the northern border of Israel. It's actually in Israel, and it was the land of some of the giants and things like that.

I think he uses this just as a picture of fruitfulness and productivity. But again, the lines have been blurred. The borders have been crossed. And the treatment of one pagan is going to be the same as Israel. They were once a fruitful valley, but no longer.

And then you have the gleaner. So you have the fatness, you have the harvester who's gathering the grain with his arm in this very fruitful place, the people of Israel would know what they could picture the Valley of Rephaim. And then the gleaner is there and he finds little. He goes up to the uppermost bough in the top of the olive tree. And what does he find there?

Just a few, just a few olives there. Not enough to get on with at all. So he has these different kinds of people, the harvester, the reaper, the gatherer, the gleaner, and what he finds is that the crops have been stripped naked. There's hardly anything left at all. Even after the poor have gleaned, there's really nothing left.

And so he turns from this imagery of the sick man, this skinny man, and the trees with nothing left on it. And he's giving it a picture. And this is this is what happens when we enter into alliances with the world. This is what happens when we trust in the untrustworthy. We who share in paganism share in the end of paganism.

We who trust in the world find ourselves sharing in the fate before God of the world. So I think Isaiah is just arguing with us, You know, one chapter after another, trust God, trust God alone. Set your eyes on the Holy One of Israel. Don't trust in man. And here he's saying, don't trust in Damascus.

Don't trust in Washington. Don't trust in Moscow. Don't trust in your political process. Throw yourself wholly upon God and trust Him and Him alone. And at the same time, He's speaking about how many blessings flow when we look to our maker and when we are mindful, mindful of the rock of our stronghold and to help us to recognize that our alliances will rob us.

And then in verse 7, again, as we've seen so many times in Isaiah, he declares the gospel in the midst of it in verses 7 and 8. He says, in that day, now he's been saying in that day, there are three in that day phrases here that sort of form the outline of his argument, but here In that day of judgment, there also will be a day of salvation for those who repent. In that day, a man will look to his Maker. In other words, he'll shift his gaze from Damascus, and he'll look to his Maker. He'll shift his gaze from whatever, and he'll look to his Maker.

He'll shift his gaze from whatever, and he'll look to his Maker. And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. And he will not look to the altars. You see this emphasis on the eyes? Because where your eyes go is where your soul goes.

Life always follows eyes. It's so important what you place before your eyes and what you have there. I'm so concerned for the generation that we live in that is so visually inundated. And everywhere I go, I find people who are being devastated as a result of what they laid their eyes upon. Some of you are being hurt right now.

Some of your marriages are being damaged because of what you're laying your eyes on. Your eyes have shifted from the Holy One of Israel, from the rock of your salvation, and you want satisfaction somewhere else. You want to get help and pleasure somewhere else. Your marriage is suffering, and you know what? It might lead to the absolute dissolution of your family.

It happens. It does happen. It can mean the dissolution of your career and the destruction of all your relationships. Just keep on looking, keep on gazing, keep on leering. That train goes somewhere, brother or sister.

It matters what you look at. Here, here we find an image of a person who was looking at Damascus. And his eyes shifted. It shifted. And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

And he will not look to the altars. So it goes two ways, right? It's what you look at and it's also what you don't look at. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands. He will not respect what his fingers have made, nor the wooden images, nor the incense altars.

And he's speaking about the things that your heart idolizes, the things that you look to for pleasure and help and security, comfort, prosperity, anything like that. That's what the wooden images are. Idols live in the heart. We can speak distinctively about the picture of idolatry that's here, because there are words here that teach us about idolatry as well. But what we find here is that it's a scene, really.

It's a scene in this moment, this historical moment. And this scene gets repeated over and over again in the world, and it gets repeated in my life and your life, and I pray that it gets repeated right here this morning. That when God strips you and He punishes you, that you turn away from the idols and you quit looking at the high places and the groves and you look to your Maker. The language is beautiful. He will look to His Maker.

It's very personal. And He is looking. He is looking. He looks at life completely differently. The work of his hands is seen differently.

The passions of his soul are seen differently because his gaze has shifted to the Holy One of Israel. You know, we've talked about Babylon, we've talked about Assyria, we've talked about Moab, we've talked about all these different, you know, sort of idols of the soul. And now we're talking about the idol of the soul that looks to some political solution for help and not God. And then we see the reasons for the judgment in verse 9. In that day, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation, because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not been mindful of the rock of your stronghold.

So how does all this happen? How does the gaze shift? Isaiah is going to tell us how it happens in your life. And there are two images that he gives here. There's the forsaken bow and the uppermost branch.

So Isaiah is comparing Israel to this desolate bow. And why did it get that way? What happened? Verse 10. Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your stronghold.

So they have forgotten, that's one thing. And then there's another thing, they have not been mindful. Do you see the difference between those two? Just pause on that for a second. What's the difference between forgetting God and not being mindful of God?

Those are two particular categories that Isaiah's bringing before us. And now when he says forgotten, It doesn't mean that they've forgotten about God. Like, it's not like their theological knowledge died. It's not like they don't remember that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth. It's not like they've forgotten the facts about God.

It's not that at all. They might still pray to God, they might still give thanks to God, they might still read the Word of God, they might still traffic in God, you know. They might even have a job for God or something like that. You know, they might be, you know, in some kind of ministry for God, but they've really actually forgotten God. He's not just talking about that you know about God.

He's talking about something far deeper than that. It's not that they forgot the doctrine. They forgot the doctrine. But it's just that God made no difference in how they lived. You can speak of God, you can act like you know God, but if it doesn't really make any difference in your life, you've forgotten God.

That's the idea. You know, This is really a fulfillment of Deuteronomy chapter 8, by the way, where Isaiah is actually quoting Moses. The prophet quotes the prophet again. And he's telling the people to remember Moses. And Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 8 said, you know, every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers.

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years." And then he goes on, but the whole rest of the chapter is about forgetting. You're going to go into the land and you're going to forget. Now they didn't forget the doctrine, but they forgot to love the person and had him move their lives. They had forgotten the God of their salvation. And then in verses 10 and 11 we see how their efforts for prosperity are frustrated.

Therefore, you will plant pleasant plants, set out foreign seedlings, in the day that you make your plant grow to grow and in the morning you will make your seed to flourish but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow so it's all coming down now you know The devil has been robbing one day after another, and now it is all coming down. But there's a picture of these men are still just busy as beavers going about their religious business. And they're searching for success from the work of their hands. But they're trying to be in recovery mode from the destruction. But they're still acting as if there's no God.

But God hasn't forgotten them. God is punishing them. You know, it's like earlier in Isaiah, when the bricks were falling down, and people said, we're just going to make more bricks. We're just going to make bigger and better and badder bricks. That's what they were doing.

They weren't understanding their chastisement. Now, the meaning here about the setting out of foreign seedlings and in the day that you make your plant to grow and in the morning you will make your seed flourish. What is that all about? Well, I'm not absolutely sure. It could be that they just continued to take time to choose excellent plants and cultivate them, but their expectation never materialized.

They would sow, they would work, they would do all the right things in farming, but nothing came up. It was like they had holes in their pockets. It could be that. Men who sow in worldliness, they'll reap unwanted plants. They'll expect one thing, but they'll get something different.

It could also be, secondly, that he's referring to a way that people engaged in idolatrous worship. And my understanding is in the high places, quickly blooming plants would be used to sort of bring an illustration of how quick the gods move. There are some seedlings that will come out right away, and they'd perhaps develop strains of plants that would flower quickly, quickly in the morning, in order to give hope for the morning. Of course, they died. But I'm not sure what it is.

But whatever it is, their efforts are being nullified by God. These are the problems that come when you forget God. God resists everything you do. He resists the proud, He gives grace to the humble. And there are things that happen to us.

Some of those things have to do with the judgment of God on us, and we disregard it. You know, you just might ask, what adverse circumstances is God trying to speak to you through? You invest in a business that doesn't work, you leave a job, you go to the next one, it's worse, you've got all these repairs on your car, you just can't, it just doesn't seem to work. What is happening? Well, God does these things for different reasons, not always for chastisement.

Sometimes for chastisement. I mean, God, think about Job, you know, God wasn't chastising Job. God was trying to demonstrate that the devil was a liar, and he did it. And he used the affliction of a man. God may be afflicting you now, so that you would glorify him and to tell the world that the devil is a liar, and that you know that God is good.

Or he may actually be doing these things to you as he was here. But they're finally forced to admit that their ways are unprofitable. And then you see in verses 12 through 14, this radical destruction that takes place, this sudden divine intervention begins with the word, woe. Woe. Woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas and to the rushing of the nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters.

The way I understand this, I forgot how to read Hebrew. I used to know how to read Hebrew, but I can't read it anymore. But Hebrew scholars say that there's such violence in the Hebrew here, that it's such a tumultuous couple of sentences here. They just speak of this radical shaking of this mighty rushing, and the rushing waters are the Assyrians, and they're just rolling, they're rushing. It's just a remarkable situation.

But, but with all their vigor, with all their power, with all of their crank, guess what happens? Verse 14, Then behold, that eventide trouble, and before the morning he is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who rob us. That night, 185, 000 die mysteriously on the battlefield. And so, you know, it's such a chastisement to Judah and Israel, who they're looking for their alliances for protection, and then God puts out an entire army of 185, 000 with some mysterious thing that fell upon them and they died in the night.

And God is saying, trust in me. Look to me. Stop looking to your places for security, but look to me and me alone. Stop looking to your politics, stop looking to your music, stop looking to your husband, your wife, stop looking to anything but me for your security. The story is in Isaiah 37, maybe this afternoon you could read it.

Applications. I'd like for us to really consider as a result of this the importance and the value of history for us. God is telling us to look at the past and see how he has acted. He's walking us through these histories of these nations. Why is God doing that?

We've been in a long history study of these different cities and situations that have happened there. But God has us in a remarkably dense historical narrative. Well, here's the deal. History repeats itself. Because God's hand is stretched out in judgment against anything that defies Him.

And His hand is also always held out to redeem. And what is He redeeming from? The idols that will rob you. And he's using this historical scene to show you again, so that you would have so many reasons to know why you ought to look at the Holy One of Israel. He's just piling them up.

He's walking you through this nation and then that nation. He's walking, He's putting you beside Tiglath-Peleser and Ahaz. And He has you at the end of the aqueduct, at the highway to the Fuller's Field, to have a moment in your life to say, trust me. History, history matters. In Psalm 77, David said, I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.

I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our God?

You are the God who does wonders. You have declared your strength among the peoples. You have with your arm redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph." So we've been studying these various burdens against the nations, Babylon and Philistia and Moab and now Damascus. And God is showing us something about history. So let this be one of the legacies of our church.

Let's help our parents understand how important it is that their children understand history. I want to really encourage you, while we're in these sections, study the history, study the locations, take the opportunity. God has these things here before us. You might think, I don't understand it. When you read Isaiah 17, did you understand it right away?

I'll tell you, I didn't. I mean, there are people in my family who say, what is that supposed to mean? Well, I've had the same question. But you have to take time and inspect it. And, you know, There are many purposes for this.

Here's why you should do it. I'm going to give you some reasons. I'm going to give you three reasons. Three reasons why you should do this. Because God is trying to teach us that He governs the world for the benefit of His church.

Paul said that He gave Him to be head over all things. He is head. We're learning that God governs the world. There's nothing more powerful for your children to know that God governs this world. I have a feeling there's a day coming when they're really going to need to know that.

Because some of their fathers are going to get thrown in prison, and the sons and daughters, and daughters, this is a very egalitarian society, may be thrown in there with them. Secondly, to show us how to understand how God uses the nations. God uses the nations. Now, I just want to say that one more time. God uses the nations.

That's what He does. You really need to know that. You know, go back in history. Go open up your history book. They should title history books, How God Used These People.

If you don't understand that, you really will not understand what God's doing in the world. Number three, to show us that all of history is in God's hand. And there's only one way to interpret history, and that is to interpret it in relationship to what he's doing with his church, because God uses all these things for the purpose of glorifying himself in his church, to rescue a bride out of the nations. History is really for one purpose, to rescue a bride. To call people out of darkness and into light, to help people to stop looking to Damascus and Babylon for their hope and to look to God.

So that's why we should teach history. Here's another application. Don't be deceived by appearances. The church can look like it's going to lose, but it will not lose. And the Bible makes it really plain, woe to those who rise up against His church.

God will preserve His church. There's always a remnant. He will always have a people. But on the other hand, and this is another application, Any individual church is not guaranteed to survive, because they might turn away from God and God will destroy them. That applies to this church here.

It could be swept away through a time when people took their eyes off of God, and they had their eyes on their own pleasures and their own wants, their own needs, and they forgot about God. That can happen. That can happen to this local church. It does happen to a lot of local churches. By the way, how many of the local churches mentioned in the New Testament can be found today?

History shows that you cannot guarantee the survival of any individual local church. I pray that this local church survives for a thousand years, that faithfulness is proclaimed year after year and the body is built up, but you can't guarantee it. I think it also teaches us, here's another application, that when there seems to be a gigantic threat against your life like Tiglath-Palazer and his 185, 000 soldiers. When there is a big threat against your life, and I hope you're thinking about the threats in your life right now, Do you have any threats in your life? Have you thought of them several times so far today as we've been together?

But when there is a threat or a conspiracy, here's what you need to know. God, if He wants to rescue you, He will rescue you despite any of your alliances. He doesn't care about those alliances, and in the sense that He doesn't regard them, He will do what He will do. And in that sense, we're safe. So here we are, placed before a chapter of the Bible, so that we would consider our alliances.

That we would ask ourselves where we placed our hope. That we would ask ourselves, where have I gone for help in this world? And to say how many blessings there are when we look to our Maker and when we are mindful of the rock of our salvation. He is our rock. You know, His rock is not like their rock.

His rock stands. And you can always trust him. But you cannot trust the Damascus of this world. You cannot trust the Babylon of this world. You cannot trust Moab of this world.

You cannot trust Assyria. And you cannot trust Philistia. But you can trust in God. And He will bless you. He will keep you.

He will make His face shine upon you. He will give you peace. He will rescue you. He will take you to heaven. And he will set you in his presence forevermore and you'll be the most delighted that you've ever been.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we thank you for showing us the contours of history so that we might know our own history, that we would turn our eyes upon You, that we would not regard the work of our hands any longer, but that we would trust You. Oh Lord, I pray for such a trustful and happy people here. Oh Lord, that you would bless this people. That you would grant them the assurances of your power.

That you would show them the hope that's found in your kingdom. That you would show them the bread and the wine and all that it means. Amen.