The sermon, "Don't Waste Your Chastisement" by Scott Brown, discusses Isaiah chapters 9 and 10, focusing on God's unrelenting stance against sin and wickedness. It highlights four sins of Israel: ignoring chastisement, refusing repentance, devouring one another, and making unjust laws. These sins are linked to pride and self-sufficiency. The sermon emphasizes the dual nature of God's hand – one of wrath and one of mercy – and the importance of not taking God's chastisement lightly. Brown stresses the need for genuine repentance and humility, warning that God's wrath is unstoppable except through faith and repentance in Jesus Christ. The sermon concludes by urging believers to turn to God, recognizing His mercy and the salvation offered through His Son.

Isaiah chapter 9 starting in verse 8. The Lord sent word against Jacob and it has fallen on Israel. All the people will know Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria who says in pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars. Therefore, the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and spur his enemies on, the Syrians before and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.

For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For the peoples do not turn to him who strike them, nor do they seek the Lord of hosts. Therefore the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel, palm branch and bulrush in one day. The elder and the honorable, He is the head. The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

For the leaders of this people caused them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows. For everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For wickedness burns as the fire.

It shall devour the briars and thorns, and kindle in the thickets of the forest. They shall mount up like rising smoke. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is burned up, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire. No man shall spare his brother, and he shall snatch on the right hand and be hungry. He shall devour on the left hand and not be satisfied.

Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh shall devour Ephraim and Ephraim Manasseh. Together they shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." Chapter 10. Lo to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who right misfortune which they have prescribed, to rob the needy of justice, and to take what is right from the poor of my people.

That widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless. What will you do in the day of punishment, and in the desolation which shall come from afar, to whom you will flee for help and where will you leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down among the prisoners and they shall fall among the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still." Let's pray. God our Father, thank you for your Word.

Thank you Lord that you are a righteous and holy God. Thank you Lord that you are a God of mercy. That when we turn and come running back to you, after the judgment that we deserve, Lord that you welcome us with open arms. Lord, what an amazing, amazing gift Your mercy is. Lord, would You cause us to come before it's too late?

Would You cause our hearts to soften? Lord, would You direct our affections to delight in and run to the safe haven of obedience in your will. Lord bless the preaching of your word this morning. Soften our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

Well the subject of this section of Scripture is the unrelenting hatred of God toward sin and wickedness. And there are four sins that are identified in this passage, and each one of them is concluded with a phrase that's repeated four times throughout the text, and it's that phrase, and his hand is raised up still. So you have this picture throughout the text of God's hand raised up, and it's raised up in judgment. And it's an interesting picture, and you do see this picture in other places in Scripture, but you also see another picture of God's upraised hand, and it's his hand of mercy that rescues. It was his hand that was raised up in Egypt to rescue the children of Israel from the bondage of the unrelenting devilish abuse of Pharaoh.

So God does rescue from Pharaoh. Nothing can stay his hand. If you've been saved, it's because there was nothing in you that could stop the hand of God. There was no sin too great that stopped His hand of mercy toward you. And He rescued you, He saved you with His righteous right hand out of the bondage of Egypt.

At the same time, there's another hand of the Lord that is absolutely unstoppable, and that is the hand of wrath. And He will punish with His wrath. And that's really the heart of this entire section. And what God is doing here through the prophet Isaiah is he identifies various sins. And these are the sins of the people of Israel, and they're here for us as well, to help us to plumb the depths of sin in our own hearts.

And so the Lord, I pray, will also be speaking to us about these four particular sins that he's speaking of regarding the children of Israel. Now, our greatest problem is that we want to make peace with sin. And we make peace with sin in a number of different ways. One way we make peace with it is that we ignore it. Another way is by justifying it and having all manner of explanations for why we think and do.

We do this so that We can live peacefully with ourselves. We might make peace with sin by feeding it But we don't typically want to bother sin we or make it upset But here's something that is really plain in Isaiah chapter 9, and that is that God never makes peace with sin. He's at war with sin. And In Isaiah 9 we see this in the use of various words in this section. You'll encounter the word anger.

You'll encounter the word fury. You'll encounter the word wrath. And so the focus of this is the wrath of God that is absolutely unstoppable. There is nothing that will stop the wrath of God. He will exercise His wrath.

There is a day of wrath that is actually scheduled and Paul in the book of Romans says that those who have not repented are treasuring up wrath in their impenitent hearts for the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. That's in Romans chapter 2 verse 5 where it says, He will render to each one according to his deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory, honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek for there is no partiality with God." And so this this passage begins with a vision of wrath And if you go to the very end of it, in chapter 10, verse 3, there's this terrifying question in verse 3 where he says, what will you do in the day of punishment and in the desolation which will come from afar?

To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory?" In other words, where will you leave all of your accomplishments and everything you've loved? Where will you leave it? What will you do in the day of wrath? What he's saying is that there is nothing that will stop the day of wrath.

And this day of wrath is spoken of in verse 3 is this one day of wrath where Sennacherib will come and he will completely devastate Israel in one day. That day of wrath is a parable of the day of wrath on the final judgment. So that's the subject here. Now, it would be wrong not to mention another kind of wrath, Because the most vanquishing of his battles against sin, his most devastating outpouring of wrath before the final judgment, was the outpouring of His wrath for the sins of mankind upon His Son. And we've seen God's zeal for salvation of His people in this chapter so far, and how He is making a people who somehow they can say in their hearts that He is a wonderful counselor, that He is a mighty God, that He is an eternal Father.

He gives in His kindness because He has laid His wrath upon His Son, He has given to His people a wonderful counselor. And so we've been going through Isaiah 9 for the last two weeks dealing with this and how as God has dealt with the sin of mankind, because He will execute His wrath toward mankind. He will do that. He will either do it according to the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son, who received the righteous wrath of God, or He will do it in the final judgment. So far in Isaiah 9 we've seen that as a result of his laying his wrath upon his son, there will be no more gloom.

There will be an end of gloom. And that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We know that because of that, that joy is increased, that the yoke is broken, that a child is born and a son is given, and he's called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. And so That whole doctrine of the grace of God is the setup for the wrath of God. You can't understand the wrath of God unless you understand the grace of God, and you cannot understand the grace of God unless you understand the wrath of God.

And so here we deal with the zeal of the Lord of hosts in His wrath. And so we'll see this wrath very clearly here. Nahum 1.6 says, Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him." So he, in this section, identifies these four sins.

All of them are related to pride and independence and self-sufficiency. And so what we see here in these four sins is what pride and independence and self-sufficiency is doing to us. We should see these four sins like a mirror. They should show us who we really are. Yes, they were the sins of Israel, but one thing that we know about God and the way that He's wired the world is that there really are no sins that are unique, and the sins of Israel are the sins of Pope Mathis as well.

And so we should look at it that way. When you see someone who has done something so terrible, you shouldn't say, notice how terrible they are. You should ask, how is it that any of these terrible things are in me? That's the way that we should interpret Scripture. So we see, first of all, this first sin.

You have an outline before you where they're itemized. The First sin is characterized in verses 8-12, and it ends with, and his hand is raised up still. The second spans from verses 13-17, where There's a refusing of repentance and choosing of hypocrisy, ending with that phrase, and His hand is raised up still, and so forth throughout the section. And verses 18 through 21 is the next. And then finally, verses, chapter 10, verses 1 through 4, Give us the final sin that that Isaiah is confronting.

So this first sin is ignoring chastisement and just moving on ignoring your chastisement and just Moving on This is what pride does to the soul. It deprives one of a right contemplation of what might ought to be addressed in your life. And so in these verses, we see that the Lord sent a word against Jacob. Now I want you to notice something just to help us get our coordinates here. You see Jacob there in verse 8, and then you see Israel at the end of verse 8.

You have Jacob, Israel, and in verse 9, you have Ephraim, and you have Samaria. Now, who are these? Well, they're all the same people. They're all the Northern Kingdom. Israel, Ephraim, Samaria are all the same.

He's just using different terminology for it. And they say, in their pride and arrogance of heart, The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars. Now the first thing you notice is that the word of the Lord came against Jacob, and it had fallen upon Israel. The Word of God kept falling upon the people through the prophets.

You know, this morning some of our men were preaching in Nigeria And the Word of God was falling upon the people. They're finished now because they're six hours ahead. It's 4 o'clock in the afternoon there. And so they're finished preaching. The Word of God has fallen.

And this is the way that God has designed that he would sanctify and help his people is by bringing them the Word of God through the preaching of the Word and through the reading of the Word of God. This is how God desires to refresh and change and bless and save his people is through the following of the Word of God. Well now it's the afternoon, The Word of God has fallen, but what's happening in the people's hearts now? That's the most important thing, that the Holy Spirit takes those words that Dan and the other men spoke in the churches that they preached at. And will the Word of God take root?

Well, we should pray today that the Word of God would run free as a result of the preaching of the Word by our brothers today. Pray for them. Pray that God would give an outpouring of His Holy Spirit on those people that heard the Word of truth, we know that when the Word of God is preached, there's power and there's goodness. Our only hope for our church is that we somehow have an affection for the Word of God, and it takes root in our lives, and we actually love it, and we want to go do what it says that we ought to do. Because we believe it is from the wonderful counselor.

He's such a good counselor. He's such a good shepherd. But the effectual work of God among us really is dependent upon God and His Spirit. I know that the various mouthpieces of the Lord can be used here, but there is no enduring power except that it comes from the Word of God. If there's any change that happens in this church, let it be because God has spoken and God alone, not a man.

We don't follow men, we follow Almighty God and His Word. So here what we find is that the prophets have been speaking, the word of the Lord was sent and it has fallen upon Israel. And it just speaks again of the truth of the Word of God is the only thing that we need. But What happens to the Word of God is it is rejected. And there's one reason why it's rejected.

Pride, self-sufficiency, independence, the desire to make your own life your own way. And this is what was happening. And so it says, they say in pride. Now, if you if you read Isaiah, you'll notice that this phrase pops up in a number of places, what people say. Now, we just were in a section where it says, And He will be called wonderful counsel.

It's what happens to you when you love Jesus. You call Him something. Same thing happens in chapter 12. If you look over there, I can't wait to get to chapter 12. It says, in that day you will say, you will say, oh Lord I will praise you.

What a wonderful thing it is to have something that you're saying in your heart because of the goodness of God. Well, that's so opposite to what's happening here. Here, the people will say in pride and arrogance. There are only two ways to speak. You say in pride or in arrogance, or you say in humility and hope in God alone.

But here, they are saying something in pride and arrogance. Those two words, arrogance, which implies greatness and strength and magnificence and insolence and self-sufficiency and relying on your own thoughts. That's arrogance. And then pride. Lifting up your own thoughts as most important, thinking that you have the right analysis, thinking that you are lifted up in your wisdom.

You know, the Christian says, oh, wonderful counselor. The Christian says, oh, I praise you, oh Lord, for saving my soul. That's what the Christian says. But what these people are saying in verse 10, if you could look there, The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.

So it's a picture of perhaps a military attack where the walls have fallen down, The bricks are falling down. And maybe you've seen pictures of World War II and the great cities of Europe that were just in absolute rubble. That's sort of the picture here. It could be the earthquake that Amos spoke of in Amos chapter 1, which took place during the reign of Jeroboam II, somewhere around 786 BC. Speaking of the fact that the bricks have fallen down.

But what do they do? There's no reflection of why the bricks fell down. Instead of learning the lessons from the past, they're just going to move on. But they're going to move on in arrogance. They're going to build better.

The bricks fell down. They're going to build with stones. The soft, cheap trees were what they made their houses of. Now they're going to make it out of more expensive materials. So instead of learning the lessons from the past, they're just going to press on to greater heights.

They are wasting their chastisements. It might be appropriate to say, don't waste your chastisement. Don't just move on. You know, this is such an appropriate text for a new year. This is the first Sunday of the new year.

And we ought to always look back and see what God has done and then how we ought to operate in the future to take advantage of the new year and One of the most important questions we can ask is what were the chastisements that I need to learn from from last year? And not just to move on in arrogance and say, we're going to build bigger and better. That's what we want to do. We just want to go out and build more. There's so many ways this has manifested itself.

We say, well, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Just get to the business of making the lemonade. Well, we should do that, but we should not neglect to reflect upon the lemons so that we might be sanctified, so that God might teach us to abandon our sins. So there's this misuse of the chastisements of the Lord that comes from pride and arrogance in the heart that just makes you want to move on quickly from your chastisements by ignoring the discipline. So don't stop, don't evaluate, don't repent, just keep on moving.

You know, the final volume of Winston Churchill's history of the Second World War, here is what he says. He says that it was about, after the war, it was about how the great democracies triumphed And so we were able to resume the follies, which had so nearly cost them their life. That's what happens to us. Remember when the Twin Towers came down? I'll never forget watching that on the monitor in Washington, DC, right when the Pentagon was attacked.

And the Twin Towers came down. And instead of serious reflection, even though the church is filled up for a couple of weeks. There was nothing but hubris. And what did we say? We're going to build a building higher.

And so a 1, 776 foot Freedom Tower is being built, the tallest building in New York's skyline. And in the groundbreaking ceremony that was held on July 4, 2004, it marked the beginning of the construction of what was going to be the largest building in New York City. And the governor, Governor Pataki, said this. Today, indeed, is a momentous day. Today, we take the 20 tons of Adirondack granite, the bedrock of our state, and place it in the foundation, the bedrock of a new symbol of American strength and confidence.

Today we lay the cornerstone of a new symbol of this city and this country and of our resolve in the face of terror. Today we build the Freedom Tower. Well, that's what people want. They just want more freedom. They just want more strength.

And the couple of dozen billions of dollars of revenue that was going to come into the state as a result of the building of this new tower. Well, we just want to move on. We just want to build bigger and better and move on. Well, don't do that. That was the sin of the children of Israel.

God had been striking them. God had been dealing with them, but they weren't listening. And so the question that we should ask as we part 2013 and enter 2014 is, what do we need to consider? What chastisements came upon us that we need to pay attention to. So we find here a people who did not see their calamity correctly.

They did not see the judgment of God in what was happening. They didn't believe it was God. And this is so common among us. We don't think that we're bad enough that God would chastise us. We have such a high opinion of ourselves.

We think so well of ourselves that God would never, ever dare to chastise us. He wouldn't bring a hurricane to us. He wouldn't cause a car accident to us. No, he's not in control of anything. I'm in control.

And this is our mentality. But what Isaiah says is that it's just the result of two things, what were they? Pride and arrogance, those two things. So as the near new year launches, let's simply not move on. Have you moved on?

Have you moved on yet? Not so fast. Was there a business failure? Was there a broken relationship? Was there a financial disaster?

Was there a sickness? Were there things that broke your heart? Was there trouble in your life? Don't move on yet. Stop.

Stop and cry out to God. What is he doing? What is he saying? Do you think God just speaks in a still, small voice? No, he speaks in many, many ways.

God would not be content to let Israel continue to ignore his chastisements. He would be faithful and he would say, my hand is stretched out still. God is not going to give up. By the way, you know, for those who do not contemplate their chastisements, God will not stop the chastisements. You know, remember what we read in Isaiah chapter 1, where the Lord says, why should I strike you again, you'll revolt more and more." Well, he will strike them again, because God is in an unrelenting war against sin, and he will win the battle against it.

Nothing can stay his hand. And so in verse 11, we see how he is not content to give up. Therefore, there's that word therefore. It's an interpretive marker in the text. Because of this, because you just want to build bigger and better and hotter and better, because of that, therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of resin against him and spur his enemies on, the Syrians before and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.

For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." So he's going to bring destruction through the Assyrians. And it's because they, as we read earlier, they've rejected the quiet waters of Shiloha. But the waters will rise and the Assyrians, the Philistines and the Assyrians will come in as a flood. And God is going to set up these adversaries. It says, spur his enemies on.

This is a declaration of God's sovereignty in the movements of the armies of history. Do you understand that God is sovereign over the movement of every army that ever marched? They were His armies. When we get to next week, God will say that Assyria is His rod. So maybe there needs to be a change of thinking in your minds.

Maybe you've just always thought that there were these random calamities that were always coming upon the world. Well that's not what the Bible says at all. There are no random calamities that come. Every army that ever marches is an army of God. That's why he says, Syria is my rod in verse 5 of chapter 10.

But it says here, he will spur his enemies on. In other words, he's moving the armies. He's moving them ever maybe faster or maybe bigger in order to come do his will. And he uses this terminology of horsemanship to spur. You know how you spur a horse on, to put spurs on your boots that will make greater sensitivity to the directional intention that you have for that horse.

So he speaks of it like a spur, But it also says something else here, that God raises up these adversaries. God raises them up. Now, we should always recognize that it is God that raises up adversaries. And We often think there's just some random terrible thing that has happened to us when there's an adversary. Not true at all.

God has raised up any of your adversaries. Do you have adversaries? Do you have any? God has raised them up. He's raised them up for His own glory.

He might even spur them on. He might kick them. He might kick them so they might run harder and faster. He might pull them to the right or the left. He might put a rumor in their mind.

He might place a lie in their brain. He might make a virus of wickedness in them to be his own instrument for his own glory. But God is doing this. It says it's like an open mouth here at least for Israel. You picture to the north there's Syria, and in the south, Philistia.

And he's picturing it like an open mouth, a gaping mouth, getting ready to clamp down. You have Syria to the north, and you have Assyria, this gigantic military force, to the northeast. And you have Philistia down below. And so he's picturing it like a gaping mouth. I'm going to devour you.

That's the picture. The jaws are going to be clamping down, is the picture. These are the adversaries. It's always important to remind ourselves to ask the right question. Here's the right question.

Who set up your adversaries? And the right answer is God Almighty. So don't fear. God is in control. God will make all things well.

He always does things well, and He always causes things to turn out well. Now we like to look at this, you know, just individualistically, but God is doing something greater than just with individuals, with me or you. He's doing something greater. So then it says, for his anger is not turned away. In other words, you can't turn away his anger.

You see this theme rolling throughout this narrative here, that his anger, his hand cannot be stopped. And it says here, His anger is not turned away. The word that he uses here is the word for a flaring nose in fuming rage. Just a fuming. And his Anger is not turned away.

He uses the word wrath. It's an outburst. He uses the word fury. That's indignation. And then it says, but God is not finished.

His hand is stretched out still. He will stretch out His hand. And again, we come to this use of the language of the hand. And in Scripture, God uses the hand in two ways. He uses a hand to save, and he also uses a hand to judge.

These are the two hands of the Lord. There are many places that this is used. But what should we conclude from this first sin that He identifies? We should see what pride and independence and self-sufficiency can do to us, And that God's confrontation of this will not stop. His hand is raised up still against this sin of ignoring chastisement and moving on.

Ignoring chastisement and moving on. I pray that we'll, as a church, allocate time to consider our ways and to seek the Lord about our sins and not just move on. There's nothing worse than a proud church that just thinks it's just fine, thank you. The second sin is refusing repentance and choosing hypocrisy. For the people do not turn to him who strikes them, nor do they seek the Lord of hosts.

Therefore the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel, palm branch and bull rush in one day. The elder and honorable, he is the head. The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tale. For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows.

For everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this, His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. So this is a sin of refusing repentance. We are tipped off to it right off the bat in verse 13, for the people do not turn to him who strikes them. Now repentance is an act of turning.

What does it mean to repent? It doesn't mean that you cry and you're sorry about your sins necessarily. It would include that. It's not carrying on and making resolutions. Repentance is to turn around.

You're going a direction. You're going one way. You're headed toward the world and worldliness, and you repent and you turn around and you start coming the other way. That's repentance. And that's why Isaiah says, the people do not turn.

They do not turn to Him when He confronts them with their sins. That's the sin of not repenting. A repentant church is always a happy church. A repentant church is always a happy church. A repentant church is always a humble church.

And that's the sin that's being confronted here, refusing repentance and continuing to go on, which is nothing more than hypocrisy. And there are different elements to it. And you can see how disastrous it is not to repent. And there's this appeal in this text here to turn to him, to seek him, but they do not turn to him who strikes them. And this is pride.

But you see there's a very specific kind of pride. This kind of pride does something to leaders. When leaders do not repent, something happens to them. Well there's a downfall in the leadership in verse 14, therefore the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel, palm branch and bull rush in one day. Now he's talking about just a comprehensive destruction of the leaders.

And then We see that what this pride does, this lack of repentance does, is that it causes prophets to teach lies. That's the effect. When you don't have a culture of repentance among the prophets, then you don't have a culture of truth among the prophets. They actually teach lies. And it says in verse 15, the elder and the honorable, he is the head.

The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail. Now, The term that Isaiah uses for elder indicates really a prominent man, a powerful man, but not necessarily a man with an office of leadership in the state. He's like many men that you know. They're strong men, they're wise, they're creative, they're active, they do things, they have something to say. These are, this is the elder and the honorable.

He is the head. But the honored men had an effect on the prophet. Well, he became the tail. When the elder, When the honorable men are proud, then the prophets are the tail that they wag. That's the idea.

And what you have is The honored men are manipulating the prophets. Let me say it this way. Power corrupts prophecy. That's the idea. Power corrupts prophecy.

And The prophet is being wagged, because he is the tail. Do you see the mathematical formula here? You have the honorable man, and you have the prophet who is just his little puppet. But something else happens. There's a third element in the equation, and that's the people.

Something happens to the people when this happens. In Isaiah chapter 30, verses 10 through 13 actually speak of it. That what happens to the people is that they just want to hear nice words. They just want to hear smooth things. Isaiah 30, 10, who say to the seers, Do not see, and to the prophets, Do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things.

They don't really want the voice of God anymore. When you have prophets who are unwilling to speak the truth because of pressure from the honorable men, you end up getting a group of people who just want to hear smooth things. That's the thrust of this. And this is a danger, it's always been a danger for the people of God, for the prophets to be subject to the honorable men, and to speak niceties to them, to keep them satisfied, and keep them in the game, maybe keep them giving their money. And often it's the honored men in the church that destroy the preaching in the church because the prophets aren't willing to cross them up quite enough.

And it happens to people. The Apostle Paul spoke of it. He told Timothy about this as he was a pastor in the church in Ephesus. Where he said in 2 Timothy 4 verse 3, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. And the result is found in verse 16, For the leaders of this people cause them to err, And those who are led by them are destroyed.

So The church is destroyed, the people of Israel were destroyed, because the honorable men had so much to protect, and the prophets had so much to lose, and the people just wanted to hear smooth words. That's kind of the beginning of the end of a church, end of a people. And the Lord's response here is in verse 17, Therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their fatherless or their widows. For everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." Now, what's so remarkable about this is when you have this downfall of truth, then, and the people really just care nothing except to hear some pleasantry, It says that God will have no joy in the most remarkable categories of people.

I mean, God has compassion on the youth. God has compassion on the fatherless and the widow. He always has compassion on the fatherless and the widow. But here, he doesn't have compassion on the fatherless and the widow anymore, because they're hypocrites. And his wrath shows no partiality.

Even upon the fatherless and the widow. What he's saying is that everyone is godless, even the fatherless and the widow. We have this idea in our minds that if someone is poor, or if they're fatherless, or if they're a widow, that somehow they're righteous. This is the teaching of liberation theology, by the way. The only thing that really matters is to remove the yoke of injustice, because the poor are so pure, they're so good, they must have the yoke of oppression off of them, which absolutely they ought to, it ought to in any place.

But liberation theology really argues that God is always on the side of the poor, no matter who they are. And that's not what Isaiah is saying. He's not on the side of these poor. He's not on the side of these fatherless. And He's not on the side of these widows.

His hand is upraised. And nothing will stay his hand of judgment against them. You know, wickedness has no partiality. The poor can be just as wicked as the rich. And so this is what Isaiah is saying here.

Now, When there's a refusal of repentance and the choosing of hypocrisy, you still have a vestige of Christianity. Because, hey, the people here in Israel, they still believed in God. They were still doing the sacrifices. They were still using the right words. They still had priests.

They still had prophets. And they still came to worship. And they were doctrinally sound. They had right views of God. And yet, because there was no heart of repentance, God was going to destroy them.

And they had a look of spirituality, but they were bankrupt. Now here's what we learned from this. You can have some semblance of doctrinal soundness and still be under the mighty angry hand of God. If you have refused repentance and you still just want to be your own self the way you've always been and walk in hypocrisy, that's what Isaiah is attacking here as a sin of Israel. And it's a picture of how the powerful men manipulate the prophets, and the people just want to hear what they want to hear.

And here's the point. It shows what pride and independence and self-sufficiency is doing to us. And that God's confrontation of these things will not stop. And His hand is raised up still. God will not stop dealing with your refusal to repent.

He will not stop. Well, that's a good thing, because there's such refreshment in repentance. The third sin, the first being ignoring chastisement and moving on, the second refusing repentance and choosing hypocrisy, the third is devouring your brother and getting devoured. This is the third sin that Isaiah is identifying that God has raised his hand up against verses 18-21. For wickedness burns as the fire, verse 18, it shall devour the briars and thorns and kindle in the thickets of the forest.

They shall mount up like rising smoke through the wrath of the Lord of hosts. The land is burned up and the people shall be as fuel for the fire." And then it says, why? Why such judgment? No man shall spare his brother, that's why. Verse 20, and he shall Snatch on the right hand and be hungry.

He shall devour on the left and not be satisfied. Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh shall devour Ephraim and Ephraim Manasseh. Together they shall be against Judah, for all his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." This is a picture of wickedness and what it looks like. This is not a purifying fire, but it's the fire of wrath because there are two kinds of fires.

Just like there are two kinds of hands, there are also two kinds of fires. There's the kind that purifies and blesses, takes away the impurities, but there's another kind. It's the kind of wrath that's here. And what's pictured here is the civil war that's going on among the people of God in Israel where the brothers Ephraim and Manasseh are at war, The people are at war with one another. And Isaiah is saying, it's like biting your own arm.

Why are you biting your brother? And you're biting your brother up there, but you also want to kill your brother down south in Judah. It's a picture of brothers against one another in war. It's a civil war. And it comes from self-seeking.

You know, our family started reading to go through the Bible this year, in Genesis this week. And we read the first several chapters. And it was so remarkable to just read about sin and what sin looks like. And right, right from the very beginning, what does sin look like? A brother hates his brother, and he hates him so much that he kills him.

And then it goes on with Lannach and his killing a young person and another man, and it proceeds on where in the days of Noah, there was so much violence in the earth. And God wiped it out. His hand raised up and he wiped it out. And God's hand will always be raised up against those who devour their brothers. Always.

You know, when there's such self-seeking, it says here, no man shall spare his brother. No man shall spare his brother. In other words, no man will have mercy on his brother. There's no sparing. There's no tolerance.

There's no forgiveness. There's no long-suffering. There's no sparing of the brother. You think this is just some sort of great sin of Israel, No, no, no, no, no. This is a sin that is run in every family I've ever encountered, including my own, where there's a tendency of a brother not to spare a brother.

No man will spare his brother, verse 19, and he shall snatch on the right hand and be hungry. He shall devour on the left hand and not be satisfied. This is mercilessness in the family of God. You know, Manasseh and Ephraim were brothers. They were sons of Joseph.

And they were biting and devouring one another. Remember, the children of Israel are a picture of the Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of this whole matter. First of all, he says that the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He says that in Galatians 5.15. He says the whole law is summed up. And then he says, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. It's this exact same picture in Isaiah where he's biting his own arm. He thinks he's biting himself.

He's biting his own family member. Well, you know, why are we here? Why are we in this passage? Because there's a tendency in all of us to bite and devour our brothers, all of us. Who are you biting and devouring?

Or maybe who is it in your heart that you have to bite and devour? Just because of your thoughts, you're biting and devouring them in your heart, through your self-talk. Maybe you haven't even spoken to people about it, but it's being spoken in your heart and mind. And you're biting and devouring your brother. And don't you really understand you're just biting yourself.

You're biting your own arm. There's an interesting book that's just come out called Resisting Gossip. And he has some really powerful insights in the book. Here's what he says. He says there are five different kinds of people you'll meet in this matter of gossip.

And he says you're one of them. You might be several of them. Here are the five kinds of people. The spy, the spy, that's the first kind. This is the kind of person who wants to get, he likes the power of getting secrets so they can betray a confidence, so that they can know, be in the know.

And then there's the grumbler, the second kind of person that you meet. The grumbler murmurs about people behind their backs. Then there's the backstabber. This is the person who wants to destroy. This is sort of a ratcheting up of the grumbler.

There's malice and hatred and offense and payback in the backstabber. He really does want to destroy a reputation of someone. He wants that person diminished so that they can be exalted. And then the fourth kind is the chameleon. This is the person that just goes along with gossip to fit in, just to be part of someone's life.

They're driven really by fear of rejection. They don't want to be rejected by anyone, so they'll just affirm what everyone says, whether it's true or not, and they'll sit there and listen to defiling gossip and not even stand up against it, because they're just chameleons. And they are the kind of people who listen. They're just such good listeners. Oh, yes, I understand.

I understand. It's so heartbreaking, isn't it? But they're chameleons. And they will not call you out for being a gossip and a slander. And then finally, there's the busybody.

They just want to know what's going on. They want to know what everybody's doing. You know, the internet age is the perfect place for the busybody. He's always looking into other people's business. You know, there actually must be billions of these kinds of people in the world.

You know, Facebook was tailor-made for busy bodies. But God calls His people to live at peace with one another. And it begins with wisdom from above. James says the wisdom from above is first pure, peaceable, And it brings forth a harvest of righteousness sown in peace by those who make peace. Mark 9.50 says, Be at peace with one another.

Romans 12.18 says, If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 2 Corinthians 13 and 11 says, live in peace with one another. Romans 14 and 19 says, let us pursue what makes for peace. Ephesians 4 and 1 and 2 says, Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. 2 Timothy 2.24 says, And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

This sin, this sin of devouring your brother and getting devoured is one of the sins of Israel. And we shouldn't think that it's not among us as well, in our own hearts. Have you ever been exasperated with anybody in this church? Have you ever been? Ah, an opportunity for mercy.

Have you ever had your feelings hurt? Have you ever had to bear with one another? Do you think people have ever had to bear with you? You know, it's a lot easier for us to think of how we are bearing with other people's weaknesses. But the truth is, people probably are having to bear with you too.

In our pride, we don't want to think about it like that. But they are devouring their brothers, and they are getting devoured. So This sin here is identified. It shows what pride and independence and self-sufficiency is doing to us. And it's an affirmation of God's confrontation of these things.

His hand is raised up still. God will always be doing war against those who are devouring one another. It doesn't go well with us when we do that. So not only is the sin that he has his hand stretched out about ignoring chastisement, moving on and refusing repentance and choosing hypocrisy and devouring your brother and getting devoured. Also in chapter 10 verses 1 through 4 we come to the final, the fourth sin, making unjust laws and harming the defenseless.

Verses 1 through 4, woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune which they have prescribed, to rob the needy of justice and to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless." And then he says what he will do, what will you do in the day of judgment, of punishment, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? I think this is a summary statement of all of these four sins that he's identifying. There are a number of things to recognize here in this last sin. First of all, laws are important to God.

Laws that legalize oppression are noxious to God. Laws that keep you from keeping the law of God are reprehensible. And it's proper to speak out against those. We should be doing that. We have people every week that go down the abortion clinic to try to cry out to God for the killing of babies.

You know, there are laws that are being made today, you know, the transgender laws getting ready to be implemented in the California school system. You know, ten years ago, you know, sodomy was seen as evil by most people, not today. It's a virtue. It's a virtue to praise and bless and promote. And if you don't promote it, and you have a large enough company, you've got big trouble.

These are bad laws. These are the kinds of laws that he's speaking about. Where do we get our laws? We ought to get our laws from the Bible. These are all perfect laws that are here.

But people don't like the laws of the Bible. People are so afraid to have the laws of God. It says here that they are without me. In other words, they're just on their own. Their own.

God is very concerned about laws. We should recognize that. That means that we should be praying for our government, for the executive branch, for the judicial branch, and for the legislative branch. We should be praying for them. We don't not pray enough for our government.

I know that's true. I'm in the prayer meetings, and I don't either pray enough for our government and cry out in the square. But we're actually obligated to do that as the people of God. And to cry out for what? For oppression.

Cry out for oppression and injustice, for laws that hurt people. Well, Let's examine ourselves regarding pride and what independence and self-sufficiency is doing to us. In the New Year, let's not rebuild without considering how God has struck us. Let's remember Amos 4.6 where he says, I gave you cleanness of teeth, yet you have not returned to me. Let's don't do that in 2014.

Let's seek the Lord. You know, Sparrow was struck many times, but he would not return. And God has been saying to these people, why should I strike you again? You'll revolt more and more. Let's not be like that.

So these four sins, sins of pride really, ignoring chastisement and moving on, refusing repentance and choosing hypocrisy, Devouring your brother and getting devoured. Making unjust laws and harming the defenseless. Now, this whole section makes it very clear that his anger, his wrath, cannot be turned away. You cannot do it. And he says at the very end, what will you do?

What will you do in that day? He's warning everyone that there's no way to escape the wrath of God. There's no way at all. And the wrath of God is against sinners and against sin. And our sins are beyond measure.

We have violated every command of God in thought and in word and in deed. Our lives are full of rejecting the ways of God. And That is our problem. And yet God in His kindness has made it so that He would satisfy His wrath. He would satisfy His righteous judgment in two ways.

One, He would satisfy it in final judgment when he would finally throw the unrepentant into the lake of fire forever, and they would be tormented forever, and their worm would not die, and they would be conscious, self-conscious for all eternity of their hatred of God. And they'll cry out in anguish, he will satisfy his righteous wrath that way, that way, or his hand was stretched out against his son, and his anger turned toward his son, His anger for our sins. And this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot understand the mercy of God until you understand the wrath of God. And that's why the apostle Paul made it so clear that it was God who would satisfy the anger, his own anger through his son.

His son would be a propitiation, in other words to satisfy his wrath, to quell his wrath towards sinners. And so he says in Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness, because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who had faith in Jesus Christ. And so here in Isaiah is this picture. In Isaiah 9 is a perfect picture of the gospel. It speaks of the Son who is given as a sacrifice for sins.

He is the perfect Lamb of God. He never broke a law. He was perfect in every way. He was the only perfect one that ever lived. And yet God satisfied His wrath by laying your sin upon Him if you repent and you believe in the Gospel.

And you've truly turned toward Him. And you've actually repented, you've not just said you're sorry, you've actually turned around, you've turned toward Him. Your eyes are toward Him. You want to love Him. And you say to Him, wonderful counselor, and you say, oh, I love the light, and you say, I praise you, oh Lord, for you were angry with me.

But now there is no wrath toward me. So there is a way for the anger of God to be turned away and that is through repentance and faith in His Son. And if you've turned toward Him, then His wrath has been stilled. His hand is not raised up still. His wrath has been stilled.

And His hand is now a hand of loving kindness and mercy. It's a hand of help. It's a hand upon your head. It's a hand that parts the waters. It's a hand of loving kindness.

And this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? Lord, Lord, I thank you that you have been so kind to show us the poisons of sin, that your hand would be upraised against it, that you would cleanse it, that you would sanctify, that you would rescue by your mercy. Oh Lord, that you would give us such a heart within us to repent of our sins. Help us Lord with these various sins, these sins of ignoring chastisement and moving on, these sins of refusing repentance and continuing to walk in hypocrisy, these sins of devouring our brothers and being devoured, These sins of making unjust laws and harming the defenseless around us.

Oh Lord, we know that there is nowhere to go to escape except to flee to the cross of Jesus Christ. Oh thank you Lord for the covering and the safety and the refuge there is in your cross. Amen.