The sermon explores Isaiah chapter 3, emphasizing the collapse of society due to turning away from the Lord's ways. It highlights the consequences of rejecting God's laws and the dangers of pragmatism and antinomianism. The collapse affects manhood and womanhood, leading to the disappearance of wise leaders, judges, and prophets. Relationships of authority break down, anarchy ensues, and even beauty dies. The sermon emphasizes the importance of raising a generation that understands the biblical vision of manhood and womanhood.

To Isaiah chapter 3, I'd like to continue some of the thoughts that we are trying to communicate at the Father Daughter retreat, particularly how critical it is that churches are faithful to raise a new generation, particularly in matters of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a leader, and the various, you know, categories of the way that God works in the world. And this passage speaks of really the very serious matters that fall upon a nation, upon a people, individuals when they turn away from the ways of the Lord. It's so critical that we do all we can to bring our children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. And I was so delighted at the Father Daughter Retreat. We had a lot of little girls.

I thought, hey, we're raising up another generation of little girls. A lot of those little girls are married now that we started with, and now we have a bunch of them again. And I'm really, really thankful. But we have a distinct responsibility to help the young boys and the young girls to love the biblical vision of manhood and the biblical vision of womanhood. In Isaiah chapter 3 you see this collapsed, you see this in a state of disarray.

I was thinking about all the the things that we're hearing in the news about the great reset. This was a great reset, but God caused this reset to take place. Society collapsed because people turned away from the Lord. So I want to walk through Isaiah 3. You need to probably have your Bible open because I'm going to make points all throughout Isaiah 3 by reading the text and then making a point.

But so I want us to just understand what what is happening here in this passage. You can see it in the first five verses but then I want to sort of launch into walking through these verses and the rest of the chapter as well. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for your ways. They're all pleasant ways.

All your paths are peace. Pray, oh Lord, that you would give us great diligence and effectiveness, particularly as we bring up a generation, a generation that understands the gospel, is regenerated, and walks in your ways that we would instruct them in the way they should go. Amen. Verse one, Isaiah chapter three, For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water, the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of 50, the honorable man, the counselor and the skillful artisan and the expert enchanter. I will give children to be their princes and babes shall rule over them.

The people will be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor." So this is a picture of the supports of society being destroyed. The stock and the store, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water have collapsed. There is a supply problem, a supply chain problem. People are afraid of that right now. It was God who did this at this time in the seventh century BC, and it happens over and over again, and it may be happening here.

We shouldn't fear it. God is doing it, and he'll see his people through it. This passage makes that very, very clear. But this chapter is an explanation of the implications of turning away from God, turning away from the laws of God, turning away from the ways of God. It's a disaster and it really exposes the dangers of the pragmatism of our day, the antinomianism of our day, and what actually happens.

Well here's what you see in this passage. Everything collapses including manhood, including womanhood and you see the detail here it runs through the entire society verse 2 the wise leaders disappear The mighty man and the man of war. Verse two, the judges disappear. These are the civil leaders. The ability to tell the difference between what's good and what's evil, what's wise and what's stupid, flees away.

And the prophets, verse two. A prophet is a spokesman, a prophet is a person who tells the culture what's right and what's good. And then you have the diviner, verse two. In most contexts, this is used negatively, But Joseph was a diviner. I think there must be a positive understanding of discernment and discernment in a diviner.

But this goes away. Then the elder, verse two, the emphasis here is on old age, the ancient person, the experienced man, the person who's able to look back over the years by experience and give counsel. These men are gone from the culture. So you have mighty men, judges, prophets, diviners, elders, they're gone. These are sort of the upper echelon of leaders.

And then when you get to verse three, you have sort of more common lower levels of leadership and the collapse. Verse three, the captain of 50, verse three, the honorable man. This is your basic man who's living honorably in the world. He has no position, but he's leading a quiet life and he's walking with the Lord. It's such a blessing.

Those men are gone from the culture. The counselor, verse three, this is the one who gives advice, the one who helps people make a plan, a wise plan. And then Also in verse three, even the skillful artisan, the experienced worker, probably in wood or stone or gems or clay wise of understanding men who are able to execute business. And then verse three, the enchanter, everything is in collapse, even unlawful religion is falling down. And then you have relationships of authority are broken down, then there's anarchy.

Look at verses verse five or verse four. I will give children to be their princes and babes to rule over them. And you have immature, unqualified, unwise rulers. And here, they're children, they're babes. The younger generation is often very confused and deceived about things that are really true and right.

You know, this was, you know, this was always a problem in Israel. He had Jeroboam. He wanted to, he could not withstand the young men. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted, He wanted to hang with the cool guys, the old men, and their counsels he rejected. This is always a disaster.

You have neighbors who oppress one another in verse five. The people will be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor. Then in verse five, you have insolent children, children who do not honor and respect authority. So many problems that people have that adults have is because they never learn how to honor authority and they become insolent children and they can't keep jobs and they just move from one thing to another. They're arrogant, they're boisterous, they're proud, everybody's wrong, they can't respond to authority.

And then you have responsible men, responsible men have left the building. Verse six, When a man takes hold of his brother in the house of his father saying, you have clothing, you be our ruler, and let these ruins be under your power, in that day he will protest saying, I cannot cure your ills, for in my house is neither food nor clothing. Do not make me a ruler over the people." This is a picture of men who don't take responsibility. They don't rise up and deal with the problems. And there's this desperation.

There's this panic in the land for leaders. There aren't leaders. Men won't take leadership. Men won't step forward. They say, this is too bad.

I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm just going to go home. And these men will have nothing to do with it. They say, I can't cure your ills. I can't cure your ills.

And then you find the city. Verse 8, you know, you have all these various levels of society from leaders to ordinary people. Now you have the city itself, verse eight. The city falls. They stumbled and fell, verse eight.

For Jerusalem stumbled and Judah is fallen. And verse eight, they speak and act against the Lord because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord. And they're provoking God. They provoke the eyes of his glory. Woe to their soul, verse nine, for they have brought evil upon themselves." And then God addresses the remnant in verse 10.

There's kind of a shift in who Isaiah is speaking to. And he says, but it will be well with the righteous. Isn't that interesting? There's light in darkness. You know, often in the darkest times, the light gets lighter.

And that's what you find here. Verse 10, say to the righteous that it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. You know those who sow seeds will receive the fruit of those seeds. What you sow, you reap. In good times and bad times in a nation, the people of God will reap a good harvest.

But then in verse 11, there's a flip side, woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them, for the reward of his hands shall be given to him. And what's that reward? Verse 12, as for my people, children are their oppressors. In other words, the older generation has no capacity to lead the younger generation. The older generation lets the younger generation oppress them with their foolishness.

And this happens to parents. Often you find parents who are unable to withstand their children's foolishness and they can't lead them. They can't bear, they can't bear to disappoint their children and they don't lead them. And children become their oppressors. This is the child ruled home.

Here we have the child ruled nation. It runs all the way up to the top of society. And then verse 12, and women rule over them. So you also have women in authority, which is prohibited in the Bible except in a very, very rare situation. But women ruling over them.

In the Bible, what you find is every single occasion where there's a civil leader, it's always a man, always, always, never a woman. You can bring up the example of Deborah in a very unusual, very wicked time. This is not the pattern. This is not the pattern of godliness. God used this wonderful woman by the name of Deborah to help a nation in a time of collapse.

It was a judgment against the men who could not lead. Verse 12, the leaders are misled. Oh my people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths. And then the consequences, one of the great consequences is that beauty dies. Where?

In womanhood. The beauty of womanhood dies. We talked a lot about the beauty of womanhood at this retreat and we tried to paint, you know, pictures from Scripture that we thought that were beautiful and the messages, you know, that Mike and Trent gave particularly of the beauty of Tabitha and her ministry to the church and the daughters of Shalom who worked on the wall to rebuild the wall with their father and other places that we went. But look at verse 16, you'll see the consequences. Beauty dies, beauty dies.

Moreover, the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk without stretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet. Therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will uncover their secret parts. In that day, the Lord will take away the finery, the jingling anklets, the scarves, and the leg ornaments, and the crescents and the pendants and the bracelets and the veils and the headdresses and the headbands, the perfume boxes and the charms and the rings the nose jewels the festal apparel and the mantles the outer garments and the purses and the mirrors the fine linen the turbans and the robes These are all things that women desire to distinguish themselves for beauty. Verse 24, and so shall it be, instead of a sweet smell there will be a stench, instead of a sash a rope, instead of well-set hair, baldness, instead of a rich robe, the girding of sackcloth, and branding instead of beauty. How tragic is that?

This is the way of the world. This is why it's so important that you raise daughters who understand the beauty of womanhood. It's so important. Society collapses without it. Women are so influential in the culture and they're so precious and they need to be guarded and they need to be taught what it means to be a woman.

And you know our girls shouldn't be allowed to be whatever they want to be. They ought to be led to be what's beautiful in the sight of the Lord. And it's just remarkable to see the difficulty here. And then you have your men, verse 25, and your men will fall by the sword and your mighty man men of war her gates shall lament and mourn and She being desolate will sit on the ground and In that day seven women will take hold of one man Saying we will eat our own food and wear our own apparel Only let us be called by your name to take away our approach So the root of the problem has to do with really the rejection of the ways of God. But there's a haughtiness.

Notice this in verse 16. Moreover, the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty, They think too much of themselves and think too little of God. And that's really the heart of the matter. They desire to exalt themselves. They want to be someone, there's such pressure, There's such pressure, particularly among women, to be exalted, to be so successful, to be so powerful.

But frankly, it plays upon the vanity of a woman, and it doesn't cause her to be humble and to do just the things that God wants them to do. It's the same problem that we saw with Lucifer. If you go back and read the narratives of the fall and Lucifer, what do you read? Over and over again, two words, I will, I will, I will, I will, I want to be someone rather than to fall in line with the beautiful vision of God. And beauty dies upon all these things.

You have this description all the way through here, the way they use their eyes, verse 16, wanton eyes, the way they look when they walk, they're walking for allurement. You know, there's a way that a woman walks gracefully and properly, not like a truck driver, but there's also a way that a woman can walk that's seductive, it's very different. And you know, we should train our daughters how to walk in a in a graceful and proper and decorous way not like a runway model and there are all these descriptive explanations here you know making a jingling with their feet and all these things. And then the tragic result, it doesn't, they're on a train to nowhere and the Lord will strike them with a scab and their nakedness will be uncovered and their beauty will be replaced by ugliness and he uses a very offensive imagery he says that they smell they verse 24 instead of a sweet smell there will be a stench you know it would be right for a woman to have a beautiful aroma about her, but not here. Not when you reject the law of God.

Everything falls apart. And you have a sash and a rope instead of well-set hair or baldness. Instead of a rich robe girding with sackcloth. That's verse 24. Branding instead of beauty.

That's just a terrifying image of what you find, women who want to be something, they want to be something else, and they ended up getting branded. And and then of course the men are killed off in verse 25. And the women are desolate. They sit on the ground now. She's alone.

Now there's no one to impress. The men are gone. And who is she? She's destitute. And but she can't get rid of her desire though to be with men, and seven women will try to take a man, just to take their name.

You cannot erase the impulse of a man and a woman together. And these women are just desperate for men. Go to chapter four, we'll just look at verse one. And in that day, seven women will take hold of one man saying we will eat our own food and wear our own apparel only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach. You know women don't normally want to share their men But things get so bad that it seems reasonable.

The most ridiculous thing seems reasonable when the word of God is rejected. We see that today on so many levels. I'll try to restrain myself from going on and on about just the insanity of the world that we now live in when it comes to manhood and womanhood, and just the unthinkable things that we're seeing. So, the upholding of the beauty of womanhood is a great responsibility for a church of Jesus Christ. Upholding the beauty of womanhood in a home is a great responsibility for parents to keep your eyes on God, to keep your eyes on the word of God, to fulfill the things that scripture has said.

You know, in one of my messages at the father daughter retreat, I, you know, I gave, I think it was 11 or 12 explicit elements of biblical femininity, the things that the Bible says explicitly about women and daughters. And in this church, my prayer is that we will hold those dear and we'll keep them up from one generation to the next. So I can't tell you how thrilling it was to be able to be with the daughters of our church at the retreat. It was such a joy, and especially to see the little girls and their daddies there and to know what could happen. Here's the reality.

We've really seen the beauty of womanhood break out here in the younger generation and I'm so thankful for it and I keep thinking about those little girls that I used to speak to in the father-daughter retreats who are seven eight nine ten twelve years fourteen years old and now they have one two three four eight babies you know and they're attempting to the best of their ability to raise up another generation of women and men in their homes. So I don't want us to discount these things. Whether there's a great reset coming or not, let it not be here in this church. Let's uphold the things that are beautiful and true. I love that verse that just speaks of the protection that God has for his people and how he blesses his people.

He does bless his people who obey him. He blesses his own ways, but he doesn't bless the ways of the world. They always fall apart. So anyway, I just wanted to say, hey, let's press on, you know, let's keep bringing the Word of God to our daughters and our sons and preserve biblical manhood and womanhood. You'll have to fight for it, and people will fight against you for it.

But don't be deterred by it. It's not worth it. You know, I've been around long enough to know it's not worth it. And I'm really, really thankful for families who've understood it because God really blessed them and I can see it all over this place. Let's pray.

Oh God, pray that you would fortify all of us, that you would give us a great sense of the importance of your Word to uphold every word not to add or subtract to anything but to uphold it. We thank you for the the blessings that you've promised even in the book of Revelation. The happiness is the blessings of those who keep the word of the prophecy. Oh God help us to do that here. Amen.