In 'The Judgment and Preservation of a Remnant,' Scott Brown discusses Isaiah 1-12, emphasizing the themes of judgment, pride, sin, and the preservation of a faithful remnant amidst widespread rebellion. The sermon delves into the consequences of pride and fear, illustrated through the collapse of Judah and the story of Ahaz, who failed to trust in God's promise. Brown highlights the importance of recognizing one's place in the biblical narrative and urges self-examination to avoid the pitfalls that led to Judah's downfall. The sermon also draws parallels between ancient Judah and the modern church, emphasizing the need for humility, repentance, and reliance on God's sovereignty. Central to the message is the hope of salvation through the Messiah and the transformative power of God's Word, which should be the foundation of a life-giving church. Brown concludes by encouraging the congregation to draw from the 'wells of salvation' and live a life centered on God's righteousness, free from fear and pride.

Isaiah chapter 1 verses 1 through 20. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah. Hear O heavens and give ear O earth for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know my people do not consider.

Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints.

From the sole of the feet, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land and your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers.

So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Unless the Lord of Hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom? We would have been like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord. You rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who is required this from your hand, to trample my courts?

Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity in the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They are a trouble to me.

I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Watch yourselves make yourselves clean put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes cease to do evil learn to do good seek justice rebuke the oppressor defend the fatherless plead for the widow Come now and let us reason together says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Let's pray. Oh Lord, open up our eyes to see wondrous things from Your law.

That You would come and show us the paths of life, that You would convict us, that You would show us Your glory. That you would come among us, O Lord, and do a work. I pray that you would help us to grasp the things that you would have for us, that you would send your Holy Spirit to illuminate and to help us. Amen. Well, we're going to be covering quite a bit of ground here today.

We're going to go back and be reminded of the journey we've been on over the last several months in our walking through the Prophet Isaiah over the last several months we started last summer. And now we've just completed the first section of Isaiah, which is God's judgment, particularly against Judah, as God is speaking to His own people. What I'd like to do today is try to go back to the beginning and walk back through to remind us of things that we've covered so that we wouldn't forget them, and to take each chapter at a time. I pray it's a time of reflection for all of us to go back to the things that the Lord was working in our hearts as we read these things together. And it's always such a blessing for me to be able to consider what has happened to our church, you know, through the preaching of the Word, and how it is that year after year what we found is that as we've gone through various books of the Bible together that God has changed us.

He's modified our thinking. He's shifted our understanding of things. It's caused repentance. It's caused salvation to come to many as a result. But it's kind of a dangerous thing to preach the Word of God in this Church because people will actually do something about it.

And it will change really the whole fabric and sociology of our Church. This is what has happened to us, and I'm so grateful for that. And I know that as we've walked through these first 12 chapters, you know, that has happened. This really is the way of a life-giving church, where the Word of God is honored above everything else. And it's so critical that we understand how we exalt the Lord by listening to Him and taking His Word to heart.

And I've had so many conversations with people and they'll be talking about something that happened in the past and they'll say, oh yeah, that happened back when we were in Matthew 7. Or, oh yeah, that happened back when we were in Deuteronomy 28. And, you know, the history of our lives ends up getting really defined by the Word of God and the things that God was showing us in the midst of the congregation. It's such a blessing that it is that way. I just want to take this opportunity to just say that a healthy church is one who takes the Word of God seriously.

A healthy church is one who has its center in the Word of God, where people see their church life as being led by the Word of God itself. And it's defined by that. And their gratification comes from God alone in His Word. They're not gratified by their building, they're not drawn in by the fellowship so much, they're not kept by the winsomeness and the humor and the profundity of their preacher, or they're not kept necessarily there by the music, they're not attracted by the entertainment or the schedule or the programs or not even the leaders of the church, but they really care about one thing. They care about God.

They care about the voice from heaven that comes into the congregation. And even when it's just read plainly, They hunger for it. They love it. They savor it. They love the words.

They want more of the words of God. This is a sign of a healthy church, and I pray that God would give us that even more as we experience our life together. And I do believe that God has used Isaiah 1-12 in different ways in people's lives. So as we walk back through it here today, I'd like for us just to savor it, consider what God has said, and how we might be reminded of it. It's often easy to forget, isn't it?

What God has said to us. So I hope that it's a time of reminder. Faith comes by hearing. By hearing the Word of God. So I pray that it's a time of building our faith here today and that we would exit this place with more faith, more desire for God, and less hunger for the inventions of man, and a greater satisfaction in the things of God, in all things.

In fact, what we find in Isaiah is that the trouble with Judah is really the trouble of every church and the trouble of every people of every era. In chapter 5, verse 24, Isaiah speaks of it. He says, all of these troubles, all of these things have come because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel. They've taken it lightly. They pushed it aside.

This is really the beginning of all of our troubles, is when we push aside the voice from heaven. And as this voice from heaven was repeated here, right at the very beginning of this time of preaching through the reading of the Word of God it was the voice of God the voice of God was in the church God was speaking to his people directly personally and and speaking of things that are absolutely critical for us. So we're going to survey these first 12 chapters. And as we go through the chapters, There's a critical question that we always should be asking whenever we're reading Scripture, and that is this question, how am I pictured here? Who am I in this story?

How is God explaining the story of my life? Because God has given scripture as an example for us so that we may not be idolaters. That's what 1 Corinthians 10 says. All these things are helpful to us in that sense. OK, you have an outline before you, and I've got a number of markers to remember just before we dive in to the text.

First of all, the author, you know, Isaiah is often referred to as the Messianic prophet because his focus is on the Messiah. By the way, the New Testament quotes Isaiah more than any other Old Testament book. And Isaiah's very name means salvation of the Lord, or the Lord is salvation. And his two sons, Shier Jeshub and Mahar Shalal Hashbaz, they speak of this interplay of judgment and mercy, of the wrath of God and the salvation of God. But Isaiah himself in his very name means the salvation of God.

And of course that's the overarching message of all of the book of Isaiah really signified in Isaiah's name. And then secondly, I think we should just notice the outline here. In the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah is a message of woe. And in the first 12 chapters, the primary focus is on Judah, God's people, the people who worshiped in Jerusalem, not the Northern Kingdom. He does mention that the Northern Kingdom will speak of it, as you'll see as we go on, but the primary focus here in the first twelve chapters is God dealing with His remnant, God dealing with His people, and that there is a remnant within the people who are named the people of God, and it's always that way.

There are always people who appear to be the people of God, and then there are the true people of God, the remnant that exists within the people of God. It's always been that way, and it's that way even today. Even in this church, there are people who have a name of being a Christian, but they're not really Christians at all. And that's why it's a blessing that they are here, so that they can hear the Word of God and be pierced to the heart by that Word, to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit that says, come, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they'll be as wool.

So People of God have always been that way but in this outline you find in the first 39 chapters is a message of judgment and mercy and then in chapters 40 to the end is overwhelmingly a message of comfort and joy and When we hear of now just completed the first 12 chapters, which is the message of Judah. In chapter 13, Isaiah is going to begin to speak to the nations. He's spoken to the people of God because judgment begins in the house of the Lord. Now he's going to turn. Next week as we come to chapter 13.

He's going to speak to Babylon and we'll realize that God's word actually does apply to the nations. And people think, no, no, the word of God only applies to the people of God. Well, actually, That's not the way God thinks about it at all. He judges the nations by the same measure that He judges His own people. And so we find that in the next section from chapters 13 to chapter 27.

The history, I think we should just remind ourselves of what has happened here. Isaiah is speaking to the southern kingdom. There are two kingdoms that are separate. There's the northern kingdom. So far, the northern kingdom has been called by a lot of names.

And I think that's become clear to some of us that wasn't clear before. The Northern Kingdom is called Israel, Ephraim, and Samaria. Those words are synonymous with the Northern Kingdom. After Solomon reigned, his son worked to divide the kingdom, and there was a terrible, terrible division that took place. And brothers were fighting against brothers.

The northern kingdom now against the southern kingdom. The southern kingdom called Judah and the northern kingdom called Ephraim, Samaria, and Israel. And Isaiah says they're eating one another alive like a man who just eats his own arm. You're biting your brothers, you envy one another. And there's such a destruction as a result of it, and it tells really the story of the tragedy of divisions in the church and how devastating they can be and how long how long term the effects can be and how how we should turn away from all envy all slander all division all thing all all unrighteous anger toward one another letting our disappointments with one another rise and then finally destroy, maybe even for generations.

It's such a tragic picture, but that's the history within which Isaiah is writing. Of course, you know, in 722, in just a few years from the time of Isaiah, writing perhaps even right at this moment, because we're not sure the exact chronology through Isaiah itself, you know, Sennacherib will come and he will come and destroy the Northern Kingdom for their evil. And he will completely wipe them out. And so you've got to see this history in the message of Isaiah of kingdoms who are at odds. And then you have a number of personalities that are mentioned in chapters one through 12.

All of them help us hang the truth for our own lives, because we all play different roles like these that are in this first section, in the first twelve chapters, you have Isaiah and his wife and their two sons, Shieres, Yahshub, and Maher Shalal Hashbas. They are for signs and wonders. They are there to stand in the middle of the people and say that Jesus Christ is Lord. They are for signs and wonders, to declare that God is true and every man is a liar. A little family standing in the midst of a corrupt culture.

You know what, that's really the purpose of your family as well, to be for signs and wonders in the midst of a dark period of history. I think you live in a dark period of history. And will your family be like Isaiah and his wife and his two sons to stand and speak truth in the midst of that wicked and perverse generation. And you also have Ahaz, the king of Judah. He's just like you and I, fearful of what might happen next and the threats that are out there.

We find Ahaz and all of his people, because they're just like him, they're shaking like leaves. They're people full of fear. Are you like that? I think we've asked ourselves that question a few times in our time together. Then you have Pekah, who's the king of Israel.

He's Remaliah's son. You have Rezin, the king of Syria, and Sinakra, the king of Assyria. And all these personalities are thrown together in order to tell the story of God's judgment and God's grace toward His people. And all the players in the story have something to say to each one of us. You have these two kingdoms, you learn something about history from Isaiah, you have Syria and you have Assyria.

And you have alliances that are drawn up from the northern kingdom with Syria and the southern kingdom whose king is Ahaz and Assyria. And you have the impulses of man to try to protect himself through human alliances, to try to trust in the arm of the flesh instead of the power of God. And Isaiah is coming over and over again, he's saying, trust God, believe in the Holy One of Israel stop fearing man stop fearing these kings of the earth they are nothing and then and then God proves that they are nothing and they come into and do battle and and miraculously perhaps one of the most devastating miraculous battlefield scenes in the history of the world, 185, 000 of them just die in the middle of the night and nobody knows why. Some battle. That's the kind of power that God has over all of his enemies.

So I think we should also just consider the contours in addition to the personalities that we see in Isaiah. The theme running through these chapters is consistent. There's sin and judgment, there's salvation, there's refreshment and grace. It's judgment and grace and faithfulness and sovereignty. There are the rebellious and the remnant.

Isaiah keeps going back and forth between these categories in order to try to explain your life and mine, because these things were written for our instruction, that we might not be idolaters like that, that we would somehow see ourselves in all these things. We've seen the sovereignty of God, we've seen the beauty of Jesus Christ, we've seen the judgment and the redemption of Judah, and we've seen that judgment does begin in the household of God. I think we should also ask about parallels here. The parallels are really remarkable here. And if we had time, we could draw, we could probably draw dozens of parallels.

You know, here is one parallel that one of the men in our Bible study pointed out on Tuesday. Isaiah promises a Messiah to Judah, but they have to wait hundreds of years for the Messiah. Because here it's in the eighth century BC and the Messiah won't come for hundreds of years. They will have to wait for the Messiah. In the same way we stand in a period of history in the days of the Messiah, in the era of the New Covenant, and we're waiting for the Messiah as well.

In the same way that Judah would have to wait hundreds of years, so who knows how long we will wait, but we are a people in waiting. We're waiting for our final salvation. God will come someday and He'll rescue us and He'll He will wipe every tear from our eyes and He will bring finally the rest that we've so longed for and that we have so desired to enter into. They were given the oracles of God, but they preferred Eastern ways, and so have we. In many ways, in our own hearts, in our own lives, our own thinking, our own churches, we've done the same thing.

We've been so foolish, and we've filled ourselves up with Eastern ways, rather than the ways of God. We've traded the glory of God for a lie. We've preferred our traditions over the Word of God. We're just like Judah. Don't think for one second that we're anything different than Judah.

You know, when you see collapse and apostasy and trouble in the Bible, Don't think, look at how ridiculous that anybody can be so ungodly. No, no, no. Think, how am I just like that? How am I just like Judah? These parallels need to be drawn.

And so we need to be very careful that we ask these questions. How am I, how am I like this in some way? Now, Isaiah is speaking to the people of Judah, composed of the remnant, the true church, the people who do love God from their heart, and also those who appear to love God from their heart, or maybe they just have a name for it. But what's true about most of us here is that we believe that we're part of the remnant. And for those of us who feel part of the remnant, let's don't miss an opportunity to examine ourselves.

When we get to the celebration of the Lord's Supper today, we'll be examining ourselves. To see if there's anything that needs to be repented, and also to rejoice in the mercy of God and in the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ, His blood that covers all of your sins, His righteousness that comes and becomes your righteousness. But let's be people who examine ourselves as we go through this, because this is for people who examine themselves. Okay, so we're going to consider how we are like Judah as we walk through this whole thing. Now, I want you to follow closely in your Bibles because we're now going to jump into Isaiah chapter 1, and I'm going to try to manage our time well here to try to get through 12 chapters.

So that's going to be a challenge. I think there are very few in this room who believe that we're going to be able to end this sermon at a proper time. But I will tell you that I'm with all my heart. We'll try to manage our time through here so that we are able to at least touch, you know, on each chapter. I hope that somehow, as we touch on each chapter, that the Spirit of God would be poured out in this place, and You would remember.

You would remember where you've been. You would remember what God told you six months ago, eight, you know, three months ago. That moment when the Lord used one single word out of this passage, And it changed your whole way of thinking. It delivered you from your fears, and it helped you see sins. You know, that happened to me a number of times going through this, where God was piercing my heart.

I pray that God would pour out His Spirit, that we would just mechanically walk through these chapters, that we would put on a heart of receptivity and that we would cry out to God that He would come and bring back the things that He taught us as we walked through the first time, as we now review it a second time. Well, as we find ourselves in chapter 1, we find our self confronted with the people laden with iniquity. And the witnesses are called in chapter 2. The heavens and the earth are called. And the Lord says, I've nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider, alas, sinful nation laden with iniquity." And he just goes on and piles up the terminology that speaks of the people who've gone astray, who have set aside the Word of God. And it's a story of how a religious people have lost their way, and how their worship has become false worship, and they have rebelled, and they're insensible, they don't even know. Israel does not even know. They're not even sensible to the presence of God. And they're burdened, they're replicating, they're corrupting the evil continually and they are actually a sinful nation.

They're an unresponsive people. And Isaiah, the Lord says to them through Isaiah, why should you be stricken again? You'll revolt more and more. In other words, it's the people whom God has been chastising over and over again, but they don't get it. They're not turning.

And God says, why should I strike you again? And He's really giving His people a doctrine of chastisement. Often we think that our chastisements, they don't really have anything to do with us. But Isaiah's saying, no, I've been striking you to turn you from your sins. And that's one of the big questions we had to ask when we walked through here, is have we been listening to the chastisements of God?

And is God saying, why should I strike you again? You'll revolt more and more. And he speaks of the remnant that exists among these people. He says that the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. That in the midst of this people who have been who have been wrecked, who are who are laden with iniquity and are who are bruised and you know they're they're full of putrefying sores, the sins that that they've engaged in have hurt them so badly.

It hurts so bad to turn away from God. No one turns away from God without getting hurt and getting sores and bruises and pains, psychological and physical, in relational problems just come upon the head of those who reject God. This is what was happening with Judea, was a picture of a people laden with iniquity. And one of the expressions of that is their worship was useless. He says in verse 11, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?

He says They're worthless. When you spread out your hands, I'll hide my eyes from you." And it just speaks of how a religious people can have a biblically ordered worship, and yet it's an offense to God. Because their lives outside of the worship are different than their lives inside the worship. And how it is that a people who try to heed the Word of God, and they try to order their worship, and they might even subscribe to the regulated principle of worship, and yet God hates their worship. It's how God can hate the worship of a regulated worship gathering and experience.

Because there's hypocrisy. And so this is chapter one. A people laid in with iniquity, a people who are worshiping but it's worthless. They're just putting their words into the air when God does not regard it. And then in the second chapter, there's a picture of two things.

You have a humble people going to the mountain of the Lord in chapter 2. And people are streaming to the mountain of the Lord. This is a picture of the future glory of the Gospel. Isaiah does this over and over again where he pictures the people who are being destroyed and then the light dawns and he shows the beauty of people who turn to the Lord. And it's a picture of people who say, come, let us go into the house of the Lord.

They're on the outside of the house and they're saying, come, let us go and feed on food from heaven. It's a beautiful picture of heaven. And it's a beautiful picture of a reformed people. Their lives on the outside do hunger for God, and they say, come, let us come to the mountain of the Lord. And you have this picture of the nations flowing, and it's a picture of the Jews and the Gentiles, the defiled peoples of the world coming, who have repented of their sins and have found rest for their souls.

But then also he contrasts it beginning in verse 5 of a proud people, people filled with Eastern ways. And you see in chapter 2 how it's a picture of how people have been saturated with Eastern ways, the ways of the world, filling up your mind with the wisdom of this world, rather than the wisdom of God, and really the destruction of it, and how God judges it, and what is it? What is the problem? It's really one thing. He identifies it so clearly.

It's pride. It's pride. How the lofty looks of man will be humbled, verse 11. And at the very end of chapter 2, he says, sever yourselves from such a man. God here is declaring that he is going to destroy all pride, that the lofty looks of man shall be humbled.

When we were in this section, I think we were all asking, oh Lord, show me my pride. Show me the effect of my pride in my business. Show me the effect of my pride in my marriage. Show me the effect of my pride in my business. Show me the effect of my pride in my marriage.

Show me the effect of my pride in my discipline and my relationship with my children. Show me the effect of my pride in our church and how I think of the people in our church, oh God, come and show me my pride, deliver me from my pride so that you won't have to bring it down, so that you won't have to destroy me in my pride, because the lofty looks of man shall be humbled. That's the maxim in verse 11 in chapter 2. It's just a maxim. It's just something that is going to happen.

You can't escape it. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up and brought low." And he then identifies the various emblems of pride, like in verse 13, where people are so proud of their impressive place that they live, and the natural resources, and the beautiful place that they live, and the technical accomplishments their high towers in verse 15 their advancements and in transportation upon the ships in verse 16 But then God says in verse 18 that the idols he shall utterly Abolish and then he says the things that you you've used to build up your pride, the things that you've done to make yourself look good, you will hate them in that day. You will throw them down.

You'll want to throw them to the bats. You'll want to throw them into the holes, into the caves of the earth, and you will hate them. You will hate the things that you use to build up your pride." And so He was calling Judah to turn away from pride. In the same way he was doing that to us, he was showing us the vanity of our pride and how we desire, the things that we do to puff ourselves up, to make ourselves look good, to make ourselves acceptable to other people. But this maxim in verse 11, you know, was a terror, I think, to many of us, that He will destroy everything that's lofty and lift it up.

You know, how many problems in your marriage have just come from pride? You know, it's just so much better to deal with your pride than to have God deal with it in judgment. And then in chapter 3, the result of all this pride, the result of being lifted up, you find a culture in collapse. It's a picture of the destruction of manhood and womanhood. And here you're sort of walking among the ruins of social collapse.

In verse 2 you see the first explanation of it, that wise leaders just disappear. The mighty man and the man of war, the judges, the prophets, the diviners, the elders, all what happens when pride rises up is that you lose something and you lose wise leaders. And you also lose in the lower levels of leadership in verses three and four, the leader, the captain of 50, the honorable man, the counselor, the skillful artisan, and the expert enchanter. And all of this leads to anarchy. Pride leads to anarchy.

Pride leads to anarchy in your heart. Pride leads to anarchy in your home. Pride leads to anarchy in your church. Pride leads to anarchy everywhere. It's so destructive.

You have to ask, you know, what losses have I suffered because of my pride? What wisdom has been lost? What has gone away as a result? You have these immature, unqualified leaders in verse 4, I will give children to be their princes and babes shall rule over them. And you have neighbors who oppress one another in verse 5.

You have insolent children in verse 5. You have insolent underlings. The baes shall be insolent toward the honorable. And you won't have any responsible men in verses 6 through 7. You know, manhood is completely destroyed here as a result of pride.

There's nothing to destroy manhood like pride. And so we were asking ourselves about pride. You know, when we were going through this, we should ask ourselves again. As a result, The city falls, verse 8, for Jerusalem stumbled and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord. Woe to their soul, for they have brought evil upon themselves.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women shall rule over them." And then you see this judgment. But what you also find here is not only does manhood die, but womanhood dies as well. And you have women, the daughters of Zion, in verse 16, they are haughty, the same thing. Their pride is destroying them. What do you get with a pride woman or a pride girl?

You get an irrelevant girl is what you get. And they walk with outstretched necks. They've lost their fear of the Lord. They're haughty. The way they use their eyes in verse 16, their wanton eyes, The way they look when they walk, they're walking, ninsing as they go.

They're making a jingling with their feet. They want to be noticed. And what happens when a woman is filled up with pride and she just really cares about how she looks and how she attracts attention to herself, When she stands in front of the mirror, she thinks, how do I look? She doesn't think, how do I glorify God? She doesn't think, how do my robes declare the glory of the robes of righteousness of Jesus Christ because I've been covered for my sin?

She doesn't say that. She says, don't I look good? The devastating pride on a woman is what makes her irrelevant. The devastating pride on a man is that it completely emasculates him, and he loses his power in the world. The same thing happens to a woman when pride grips her heart and all she really cares about is how she looks and how she smells and how she sounds.

That's the picture here. It's a picture of a culture in collapse where manhood and womanhood have died. And what happens? Verse 17, and the Lord will uncover their secret parts, and their finery is taken away in verse 18, and their beauty is replaced with ugliness. And then finally, toward the end of the chapter, the men are killed and the women are left desolate.

The women are left, in verse 26, sitting on the ground. They wanted to get the attention of a man, but they ended up sitting alone on the ground because their pride had taken away everything that they desired. Now the lesson is really an illustration of the tragic effects of pride in men and women. A vain glory is the right word. Their over-concern for their outward appearances has destroyed them.

The same thing with their men. Take note of what happens with vanity. Take note of what happens with vanity. Take note of what happens with pride. Manhood dies.

Beauty dies. And then we go into chapter 4, and again the sun comes out again. Isaiah does this. He shows the devastating consequences of turning away from God, and then he shows the beauty of the Lord, the glory of His Majesty, the magnificence of His grace. Isaiah can't speak of the judgment of God without turning in a moment saying, come, let us reason together.

Come, come to the waters. He's always doing that. And in chapter 4 he does, he speaks of a branch that's beautiful and glorious. And in that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious and The fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped and there's this remarkable language You know he's saying Yes, you have ashes. Yes, you are destroyed.

But don't let it in there. Come to the branch. Come and let Him nourish you. Come and let Him rescue you. He says it's beautiful and glorious and excellent and appealing in verse 2.

And then the words of the branch are described in verses 3 through 6. You know what he does? He calls his own holy in verse 3. He records their names in a book in verse 3. He washes them of their filthiness in verse 4.

He purges them of their sin in verse 4. He leads them in verse 5. He dwells with them in verse 6. He provides shade for them in verse 8. He's a refuge.

He's a shelter. And then in chapter 5, we come to a song. It's the first actual song in Isaiah. It's a song about a vineyard. And of course the vineyard is Judah.

And Isaiah is singing a song. You know, Isaiah knew how to sing. And he wrote a song. This is the first song that appears in Isaiah. Chapter 12 is the second song.

He sings twice in this first chapter. And these are woes upon a vineyard. And what God says is that He made a vineyard. And Isaiah sings, he says, now let me sing to my well beloved. He's giving thanks.

He's so grateful for God's provision. And in the song, God builds a vineyard on a fruitful hill, and he digs it out and he clears it out, he clears out its stones, he builds a tower, He builds the best vineyard. I mean, it's a factory. It's a factory for the production of grapes and the production of wine for abundance. And God says, I built the best vineyard you can build.

I outfitted it better than any vineyard. And what happened in the song is that those who occupied the vineyard, they did not appreciate it. And they did not use it properly. And then in the song in verse 5, he says, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned and break down its wall and it shall be trampled down.

I will lay it waste. And it's a picture of God providing everything for life and Godliness, it's a picture of God providing everything for you that you need. But then you don't take it. And you don't receive it. You're not attentive to it.

And you know, it's really a picture of people who did not cherish what God provided. And so, they blame God for what's wrong in their life. But actually, God provided everything. You know, God is not to blame for the problems in your personal life or your family life. God provided everything.

And that's the picture. So God comes and He speaks of what has happened in the vineyard and He delivers six woes in chapter five. And there are six clusters of bad grapes. Actually, literally in the Hebrew, stinky grapes. Stinking, rotten, putrid grapes.

They were meant to produce beautiful grapes, but they were stinky grapes. And so these grapes were characterized by covetousness and greed. Woe to those who join house to house. People who just only think about expanding their financial holdings or their insatiable self-indulgence in verses 11 and 12, this is the second woe. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may follow intoxicating drink.

Just people who are looking for self-indulgence, They've silenced the voice of God. The woe in verse 18, the third woe, keeping sin at hand, woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity. And he speaks of another woe in verse 20. There's a whole redefinition of truth and beauty. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

And then there's self-congratulatory pride in verse 21. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and are prudent in their own sight. And then God judges, verse 24, he says, Therefore as the fire devours the stubble and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be rottenness. And God will come in anger and in speed and he'll bring a furious people upon them in verse 29 with remarkable weapons and they will roar against them. And what you see here is what happens to those who reject God, who reject the abundance of His vineyard and who ignore it.

And then, even though chapter 5 ends in darkness, It says that the light is darkened by the clouds. There will be darkness and sorrow. So chapter 5 ends with darkness, but then now a light dawns. Light dawns on a man, Isaiah. This is the call of Isaiah in Chapter 6.

And what you find in Chapter 6 is a man who is humbled and he's cleansed. And here is a picture of the humbling and the calling of Isaiah. We're told exactly when it happened, in the year the king Uzziah died. And he saw the Lord, he saw the seraphim who were crying out, holy, holy, holy. He saw his sinfulness.

He said, Woe is me, for I am undone. He saw God's provision for his sin, as one of the seraphim flew with a hot coal and touched his lips and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away. Your sin is purged. But he didn't just see his sin.

In his cleansing he saw his usefulness. In verse 8, and he heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And he said, Here am I. Send me.

And then he saw God's sovereignty in verses 9 through 13 where God said to him, go and tell this people, keep on hearing but do not understand. Keep on seeing but do not perceive. In other words, you preach, I will say. You just preach. This is your message.

The people's heart will be dull. I will make them dull. They will be hard of hearing. But he saw God's sovereignty. And then in contrast, we move from Isaiah to Ahaz in chapter 7.

And Ahaz is a proud man and fearful. And Ahaz is shaking with fear in verses 1 and 2. It says in verse 2, So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods were moved by the wind. And here we come to a man who's fearful. And God Sends a messenger to a fearful man to deliver him from all of his fears has that ever happened to you Where you were in a time of fear and God sent you somebody and they said something they ministered to you and You were delivered from your fears.

That's exactly what happened here. And the Lord says to Isaiah, he says, go out and meet Ahaz, you and your son, Shere Jeshu, and go at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field. So Ahaz and Isaiah meet at the end of the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field. There's this meeting, there's this moment in time, and it's like so many moments of your life and my life where you are met, you are met with something. And what you do at that moment makes all the difference in the world.

There are critical moments in your life when you take a position or you make a decision, and it affects absolutely everything. And when Isaiah met with Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct, on the highway to the Fuller's Field, it was a defining moment in his life. You know, he could have gone one way, but he didn't. He didn't go the right way. And Isaiah meets him there.

And you know, here's what Isaiah says to him. He says, listen up, be quiet, do not fear, don't be faith-hearted, your enemies will fail and you will not succeed unless you believe. And he says in verse 9 of chapter 7, if you will not believe, surely you shall not be established. That's really the hinge point of everything in life. Do you believe?

If you believe, you'll be established. If you don't believe, you will not be established. Ahaz, Ahaz saw the opportunity right before his eyes, standing there at the end of the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's field, and God was speaking to him, and he turned the wrong way. And it just reminds us of those times in our lives, these critical moments in your life when God brings something to you and you take a position and it affects everything in your life. Ahaz continued in his fear.

He continued to try to prop himself up with alliances. And so in chapter 7, God comes to Ahaz and says, Ahaz, ask for a sign, any sign and I'll give it to you. I will prove this. I will prove that God is faithful. I will prove that you don't need to fear.

I will prove that you can leave your faint-heartedness here. And trust me, believe me, ask for a sign." And Ahaz did not want to know a sign. He didn't want to hear from God. And so Isaiah says, I'll send you a sign. Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign.

Verse 14, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He will give you a sign. He will give you a sign. And interestingly enough, his name is really the answer to all of Ahaz's fears. And yet he doesn't want God's answer to his fears.

He still wants to turn the dials. He still wants to prop himself up with human means. But God says, No. No. Emmanuel.

God with us. God will be with you. This is the sign. This is the sign of your deliverance. But Ahaz rejects the sign as a result.

And there's destruction as a result. And because of Ahaz's decision, it didn't just affect him. You know, it affected all of his people. And it just reminds us again about how important it is that God has put governors and authorities in the world. But how they respond to the moments in their lives is really important.

Because they don't just take themselves in a direction, they take everyone with them. Ahaz took the whole nation with him. And you know, when God shows up in your life and He says, do not fear, and you say, no, I'm gonna keep trusting man, and it defines the rest of your life, remember, it's not just your life, it's your children's lives, It might be your whole church's life. You know the sin of one person in a church can affect the whole church. We saw that with Achan in the battle for Ai.

How one man missing the moment. Just like Isaiah, God met him and he turned the wrong way. And it affected the whole nation. And many people died. You know, when you find yourself at the end of the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field and God is saying to you, do not fear, trust me, just remember the consequences of turning away from God and continuing to trust yourself.

You don't just take yourself down that road. You take everyone with you. And you might even take your whole church with you. Is there anyone here hiding sin and it's affecting this whole church? Is there anyone who's got a root of bitterness or immorality or theft or lying?

Is there fornication going on in this church and it's hurting the entire church? You know, when Ahaz turned away from Isaiah and continued to nourish all of his fears, it affected everyone in the nation. This is why God has made the church a body, it's a family. We're not our own. We all affect one another.

But there are times, there are times in life where you take a position and you make a decision and it affects everything. For Ahaz, it was all about his fears. To me, fear may be, you know, it's either the number one or the number two trip cord for men. It's lust and fear. Those are the two greatest enemies of men.

And here God was engaging Ahaz on the level of his fear. And then chapter eight, You know, you find this devastating reality in chapter 7, as Ahaz turns away, but then the light comes out again in chapter 8. There's the sun lighting the way. Now, Chapter 8 begins, is a sermon that runs really from Chapter 8 all the way to Chapter 12. The next four chapters are really one unit.

And so it's all about this scroll. A scroll is unrolled. And what is introduced here continues on, you know, really to the end of this first section of chapter 12. Verse 1, Moreover the LORD said to me, take a large scroll and write on it with a man's pen concerning my hair shall all hush buzz hasten the beauty the booty you know he's speaking of the judgment of God open up this scroll so this This scroll is going to tell the story of the judgment and the grace of God as it plays out. And some of the most beautiful language in here is in here, and some of the most devastating language of judgment is in here.

And you have these two sons that are spoken of here in this chapter, the two sons of Isaiah. And we will either relate with one or the other. The one is the sign of the remnant, the other is the sign of judgment. And we are either sons of one or the other." And he speaks of this scroll, this light that's rolled out. The problem that is identified in chapter 8 is that something was refused.

The waters of Shiloha. The Lord spoke to me again saying, inasmuch as these people have refused the waters of Shiloh that flow softly, the soft gentle waters of the Word of God, the beauty of the kingdom of heaven, The soft gentle waters that soothe and cleanse and refresh they've been rejected that's that's that's the heart of of the message there and Isaiah the Lord speaks to Isaiah and And he he is instructing him not to walk in the ways of the people, because the people have rejected the waters of Shiloh. In verse 11, you see it. God speaks to him with a strong hand. And he says, Don't say what the people say around you.

Don't say it's a conspiracy. Do not say a conspiracy concerning all the people who call it a conspiracy. Don't be afraid of their threats. He says people may have a conspiracy, but their conspiracies are worthless. And he says in verse 13, the Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow, let him be your fear.

Remember Ahaz feared Sennacherib and Israel. And, and Isaiah is saying no, fear the Lord, only fear the Lord. Him you shall hallow. I think that's one of the critical phrases in this first section. Him you shall hallow.

Do not fear Assyria. Do not fear Israel and his king and his power. Him you shall hallow, him you shall fear. It says, and let him be your dread. And then in verse 14 he says, he will be as a sanctuary to you.

And then Isaiah says, bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. In other words, trust the word of God. And here in chapter 8, we're confronted again with a really important question. Who do we hallow and who do we fear? Who you hallow is usually who you fear.

And, you know, are we tossed to and fro in saying it's a conspiracy? Or do we recognize that God is the only true sanctuary? Do we look to God for our refuge and for our strength? Or do we go to the mediums and the wizards of our age as Isaiah points out in chapter 8? Him you shall hallow him you shall dread don't dread anything else don't dread man Don't dread your relatives.

Don't dread the government. Don't dread anything dread me. That's what he's saying And then in chapter 9 Again, the Sun comes out again. There will be no more gloom to Him who is distressed, on her who is distressed. And of course this is another vision of the Gospel.

The flower of the Gospel is opening again, and there's a greater and greater clarity of the love of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atonement. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be on her who is distressed as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. This is a prophecy of Jesus Christ and His time in Zebulun and Naphtali. It speaks specifically of it. We know this is exactly what He's talking about because the Gospels confirm it.

But what you find here is with Jesus Christ you go from darkness to light. Verse 2. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And then they dwell. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has dawned.

And then joy is increased. In verse 3, you have increased its joy, and they rejoice before you, according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. And how did it happen? Well, the yoke was broken in verse 4, for you have broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, where God sent his son. Verse 6, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will rest on his shoulder.

And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government in peace, there will be no end. His government will reign. And then there's a further description of the chastisement upon those who reject the Messiah in verses 8-12 in this chapter. And it's speaking of people who have really ignored their discipline.

And the people are saying, the bricks have fallen down. This is in verse 9. The people will, and they will say in pride and arrogance, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars. You know, when we were in this chapter, it was the first Sunday of the New Year.

And we said, this is a perfect New year's verse, because what happens to people in the New Year is they just get giddy about the future. They just start planning great things, but they often do so without considering the chastisement of the past. And they say, the bricks are falling down, we're just going to build bigger and better. You know, if life gives you lemon, make lemonades. We're just going to keep going.

But it's really a picture of the people in pride and arrogance. They just move on quickly from their discipline. They don't listen to their discipline. They don't learn anything from it at all. They just say, the bricks are falling down, we're going to build bigger and better.

It's a voice of pride that doesn't look back to see the discipline. And we said, you know, don't waste your discipline. Don't move on into the New Year without really examining how God has chastised you and corrected you. Learn from it. Learn from the sins of 2013.

But what pride and independence and self-sufficiency do to us is that they cause us to ignore our chastisements. And then in chapter 10, we find another critical matter. There's fear in chapter 10, and Isaiah says, "'Do not be afraid of the Assyrian.'" Do not be afraid of the Assyrian. Do not be afraid of the Assyrian. Why?

Because he's just my axe. He's just my tool. He's so proud. He thinks he's doing everything on his own, but He's not doing anything on his own. He's mine.

He is just the axe. I am the woodsman. I am wielding the Assyrian. And what we said is that who is your Assyrian? Who are you afraid of?

But you have to recognize That the you're a Syrian that you're afraid of is just God is just God's acts God is wielding And so you can know that he is a tool of God's wrath, that God has sent him. It's so important that you understand this. Who is your Assyrian? And then chapter 11, again, chapter 11 really seemed to form one unit again in this longer sermon, the branch. It's a poem, by the way.

It's a poem with two parts, two stanzas, and speaks of the beauty of the Messiah. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. In other words, He is the source of all good counsel. He is the way you make your way in the world by crying out to Him, by getting counsel from heaven. His delight is in the fear of the Lord.

In other words, He delights in the fear of the Lord. You have not been delighting in the fear of the Lord, but He delights in the fear of the Lord. You think about all the times you didn't fear the Lord. How do you grapple with that? Well, first of all, you repent of it, but recognize that there is one who feared the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, always delighted to fear the Lord.

You know, think of all the times you didn't delight in the fear of the Lord and the trouble it got you in. But the Lord Jesus Christ always delighted in the fear of the Lord. What do you do with all those times you didn't delight in the fear of the Lord? Well you have a Savior who always delighted in the fear of the Lord. And His delight becomes your delight.

This is His salvation. His righteousness becomes your righteousness. His delight is in the fear of the Lord. You trust in Him. You trust in His delight for all of your lack of delight in Him.

And then in chapter 12, finally, the wells of salvation. The hearts of people praise God. When you drink of the wells of salvation, you are comforted because his anger is turned away. Verse 1. You will trust and not be afraid.

Number 2, you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Number 3, you will proclaim and exalt His name, you among the Gentiles. And you will know why all this has happened to you." Verse 6, For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst. So there it is. There's a flyover, flyover of the first 12 chapters of Isaiah.

Let's just close with a few applications. So do these chapters in any way declare publicly the secret sins of our church? Has Isaiah stated publicly what might be the secret sins of our church? Because remember, he's talking to a people. He's talking to a people in the way that they're functioning together.

He's talking to Judah primarily. He's talking to a people. And it just caused me to think, what are our sins that have been declared here in these chapters? Right before our eyes. Which sins of these are ours?

You know, So Isaiah is confessing the sins of Judah and Ephraim. That's what he's doing. He's not just talking to individuals, He's talking to a people and how they function together. You know, in the Old Covenant and the sacrificial system, recorded in Leviticus 16, the priest, specifically Aaron, would lay both of his hands on the head of a goat, and he would confess all the sins and iniquities of Israel. He would confess the sins by vicariously transferring the sins onto that goat as a picture of the Gospel, as a picture of the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

But what's interesting, what Aaron would do is when he put his hands on the goat, he would declare the sins of Israel. He would declare all the sins of Israel. And in a way, Isaiah's done that, at least some of the sins of Israel, and which of our sins has he declared publicly that are atoned for? Secondly, I think we should ask a question about fear. Him you shall fear is really the statement that Isaiah uses here.

You know, there's so many troubles that come upon our lives because of fear. We anticipate consequences out of fear and we do the wrong thing. Instead of just doing what we know is right, we're trying to strategize and trying to protect ourselves, rather than just doing what is right, regardless of what might happen. Because we're so fearful of the Assyrian, of what he might do. You know, so could it be that God's brought us through this, to deliver us from our fears, to make us the less fearful people than we were?

Like going forward, that we wouldn't do things out of fear, But we would do what's right and trust God. And we would know who that Assyrian is. We would call him by name and rebuke him with the fear of the Lord. Here's another. What about pride?

Let's don't get through this section and ignore our pride. Because God will bring all pride down. You know, self-exaltation takes many different forms. You saw how the self-exaltation manifested itself in the daughters of Zion, with their jingling and their anklets and all kinds of stuff. Well, men are that way too.

They just do it differently. But, let's don't ignore our pride getting through this. Let's don't get past Chapter 12 without dealing with our pride. You know, does anyone need to confess to their wife, their bride? The sovereignty of God.

Let's remember the sovereignty of God. God says Israel is my axe. Israel is my saw. Let's rest in the freedom that comes from knowing that God is sovereign, that it's His acts, it's His saw, and rejoice in it. And then finally, let's remember these marvelous windows of light into the gospel that are scattered all through this.

The gospel comes to a person and he says, come, let us go into the house of the Lord. He wants to be with the Lord and His people. Let's remember the blindness. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but my people do not consider. You know, in the sinfulness of your blindness, you know, Christ, Christ will be your sight.

He is the substitute for your blindness. In the loftiness of your pride, Christ will be your humility. It's His humility that saves, not your own. In the collapse and the destruction of your manhood and womanhood, the Lord Jesus Christ, He will be your repair. He is the one.

It's His righteousness. It's His root. It's His branch. It's His light. It's His mountain, it's His strength.

The Lord Jesus Christ here is presented as the Holy One of Israel. The Holy One of Israel is in your midst. And when He is in your midst, He frees you from your pride, frees you from your fears, He frees you from your sins. And He actually comes alongside and he says, My righteousness is your righteousness. For all those who repent and believe in the gospel, for all those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He delivers those.

But those whose hearts are hardened, those whose worship is false, He will throw into everlasting fire. He will bring down the proud. He is going to judge pride. He is going to judge the fearful. He is going to judge the immoral.

He will judge either one way or another. He will either lay the condemnation on His Son, or He will lay the condemnation on the unrepentant. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, pray that you would come and give us such clear understanding of these things that we have just studied.

For the last several months you've walked us down a road, And now Lord help us to look back, to drink in the waters of salvation with joy drawing water from these beautiful wells, to praise you for you were angry with us but your anger has turned away. Amen.