In Peter Allison's sermon titled 'The Rebel’s Terror on the Day of the Lord,' the scripture from Isaiah chapter 2 is explored, focusing on the themes of divine judgment and the humbling of human pride. The central message is that God will humble all that is proud and lofty so that He alone will be glorified. The sermon addresses the concept of the 'Day of the Lord,' a time of divine judgment and glory, and distinguishes between servile fear, which arises from terror of God's judgment, and filial fear, which is a reverent awe of God as a loving Father. Allison discusses the futility of idols and material wealth, which will be cast away in the face of God's majesty. He emphasizes that the fear of the Lord should lead to righteousness and obedience, contrasting the arrogance of those who do not fear God. The sermon concludes with a warning against placing trust in worldly wealth or human leaders and an encouragement to remain steadfast in faith, trusting in God's moral order and ultimate judgment.

Our scripture reading this morning is Isaiah chapter two, beginning at verse 10. Hear God's word. Hear God's word. Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled.

The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down. And the Lord alone exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up and it shall be brought low, upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, upon all the oaks of Baisin, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops. The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols He shall utterly abolish.

They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty when he arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made for each for himself to worship. To the moles and the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily. Sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he? May the Lord be gracious and merciful to us, according to his word.

Heavenly Father, may we rightly fear You. May we rightly tremble at your warnings. May you, Lord, speak to us this morning through this word, a word that has been written for our instruction and learning. May you open our eyes to understand it, to receive it with meekness as your word, to remember it, that we might not sin against you. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips.

And that you might speak to us this morning. In Jesus name, Amen. On the previous verses that we looked at last week Isaiah had presented the reasons for God's displeasure with his people and he presented the grounds of his judgment upon him upon them. The land was filled with eastern ways, the occult, it was filled with silver and gold, It was a warmongering nation filled with horses and chariots which were the instruments of their aggression and land was full of idols. And the message this morning is that God will humble the pride of all men so that he alone is glorified.

God will humble the pride of all men so that he alone is glorified. That's the message of this text and I had prepared a handout that highlighted this theme throughout this passage. It's not a structure to this these 10 verses and it's really too there's an a and a B okay the a message is enter into the rock hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty. And the second theme is, the lofty looks of men will be humbled, the haughtiness of men will be bowed down, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. That exact verse is repeated twice.

They're in verses 11 and in verse 17 and 18. But there's all this idea that the this a theme the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty that is repeated three different times in verse 10 and then again in verse 19 and then again in verse 21 nearly identical And nearly identical phrase, the terror of the Lord, the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. So that's the message, that's Isaiah's message. God will humble the pride of every man so that he alone is glorified. Now the unbeliever hears language like that and he thinks what a megalomaniac this God is.

But the very thought, that very thought is the epitome of the arrogance of man that will be humbled. That is the arrogance of Satan who thought that he could be as God. That is the arrogance of one who does not fear God. It's the arrogance of one who doesn't know God. And it's this arrogance that will be humbled in the day of the Lord.

God is the sovereign. There is none like him. There is none beside him. He calls the ends of the earth and the islands to look to him and be saved for he is God and there is no other. The glory that he has is rightfully his.

Isaiah describes in this passage the terror and the totality of God's judgment that is coming. Now you remember Isaiah was told that his hearers wouldn't hear the message. So we might ask, well, why does Isaiah have to bring this message if the people that need it won't hear it. I think there's at least two reasons why God graciously sends His servants, the prophets, to bring this message. This message of the coming terror of God's judgment in his day.

First, because God is a merciful God. He delights in mercy. And this message does any and in that mercy he gives many chances to his enemies to repent He's slow to anger And so this message ensures that when men do reject God, they are without excuse. They've been given every opportunity, every chance to acknowledge God, to glorify Him, to willingly bend their knee. But secondly, these passages serve as a warning and an encouragement to those who do fear God.

A warning and an encouragement. We need these reminders of God's wrath on the wicked and the unrighteousness of men, because they serve to warn us against falling away. And they serve to encourage us to persevere in serving the Lord, that the Lord is a rewarder of all those who diligently seek him. And so this passage actually in verse 12 Isaiah introduces for the first time in the scriptures the phrase the day of the Lord Now it's used extensively by the prophets whether Isaiah was the first in chronologically, I don't know, but he certainly, it's the first in our English order of the scriptures and probably one of the earlier ones even chronologically. But there are a number of prophets, subsequent prophets, that speak of the Day of the Lord.

And they use it to refer to the manifestation of the transcendent glory of God when the presence of His Majesty, the very presence of His Majesty, brings terror on covenant breakers or blessing and salvation to the covenant keepers. This day of the Lord, it refers to a specific day, but it does refer to different days in history, depending on when it's used. This reference here in verse 12 is to a specific day of judgment that God would bring on Judah through Babylon, because this was a message to Judah and Jerusalem. Jeremiah 46 describes the day of the Lord as a day of vengeance, when the Lord avenged himself on his adversaries. And we know that God used Nebuchadnezzar, calls him his servant, and he was God's minister of this vengeance on his adversaries.

Joel speaks of the day of the Lord, the prophet Joel, of the day of the Lord in reference to the day of Pentecost, saying, in that day, the sun will be darkened, will be dark, turned to darkness, the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And Peter in his Pentecost sermon quotes that exact same prophecy from Joel and says that prophecy was being fulfilled in their midst on that day. So Isaiah connects two things with this day of the Lord. It connects the terror or fear of God and the glory of God's majesty. Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty.

For the day of the Lord of hosts. Will come and in that day, the Lord alone will be exalted. So that terror or the fear of the Lord, what is this fear of the Lord? There are several different words in the scripture to speak of the fear of God. One is a broader word that speaks of both a good fear of the Lord that we are to have and this terror and the other is more just the terror of the Lord.

But the scriptures speak of this fear in indifferent and maybe even seemingly contradictory ways, because on the one hand, we're commanded to fear God and to tremble before him. Ecclesiastes 12 says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments, for that is man's all. Or 1 Peter 2, 17, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king. But on the other hand, we're instructed not to be afraid of men. And the Bible uses the same word for both these aspects of fear, because the essence of both kinds of fear or is the same.

To fear something in this sense is to place great weight or importance on it, To place great weight on those words or attach great importance to it. It means to think of it or to consider it as very credible. Very true. And so the fear of the Lord, when we're commanded to fear the Lord, is to place great weight on His words, great weight on His promises, on His judgments. It's to have more regard for His words and the promises that He makes and what He thinks of us than we put on anybody else's words and what they think of us.

And that's why when we, The Bible says that when we fear God, we don't need to fear anything else. The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe. See, because we're believing God's words and we're putting more weight on them than we are putting on what other people are telling us. That's that's fearing God. And so the fear of God then brings a carefulness not to do unrighteousness.

Proverbs 16 says, and by the fear of the Lord, one departs from evil because we're putting great weight on his commandments, we're valuing them and on his warnings and on his ways and his precepts and we're paying a lot of attention to them. David said in Psalm 119, 120, My flesh trembles for fear of you and I am afraid of your judgments. There David is being guided by looking at God's judgments and wanting to avoid them. And that's a right use, a right understanding of the fear of God. We know that God is holy and the name of the second person of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit.

And In the same way, fear is used as a name of God. In in Genesis, the fear that is spoken of in this passage here in Isaiah, the same word, which actually is that word. I said there are a couple different words. This is actually the word. The word used here is the word that is generally focused on the trembling aspect of God's judgments.

And that's the word here in Genesis 31. Jacob says to Laban, unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, he's clearly using this as the name of God, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night." He's saying that that because of this fear of the Lord, this trembling at his judgments that Laban had acted somewhat properly toward, although not entirely, somewhat properly toward Jacob. Then he goes on to say, the God of Abraham, the God of Nahor and the God of their father judged between us and Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. It's the same word there Now we know that we're only to swear By God's name and nothing else.

I'm not to swear by anything He's created the only thing we are to swear by and we are commanded to swear by is the name of God. And so Jacob here in swearing by the fear of his father Isaac is swearing by God's name. And so the fear of God is something that is very good and something that we ought to have. And it's not just an Old Testament concept. This same aspect of fear shows up in the New Testament as well.

Of course it does. Shouldn't be surprised by that. Therefore, 2 Corinthians 5, therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord." He's talking to Christians here. Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. So this is a right use of the fear of God.

On the other hand, the wicked are described as those who do not fear God. Psalm 36, one, an oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked, there is no fear of God before his eyes. He places no weight on God's words. He doesn't tremble at God's warnings. He says God is somebody who's a far off.

Who is he? Where is he? I don't know him. Those are the words of arrogance, but they are the words of someone who has no fear of God. Now, there are also times when we are instructed not to fear or be afraid of God.

When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water one night, they thought it was a ghost and they were afraid. But Jesus identified himself to them, remember, and said, it is I. Do not be afraid. Do not have fear. But also at the transfiguration.

When the disciples heard God's voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am. Well, please remember what the response of the disciples was they fell in their faces and they were afraid and Jesus came and he touched them and said arise and do not be afraid. So what distinguishes between this fear of God that we are to have and the fear of God that we are not to have? Well, this fear of God arises, as Isaiah says, from God's majestic holiness, the glory of his majesty, his perfect righteousness, the unapproachable light in which he dwells, this inexpressible glory, this infinite exaltation and transcendence of God over all of his creation. When the soldiers guarding Jesus' tomb saw this glory of the angel they fell over as if they were dead and whenever anyone sees any peace any portion of the glory of God we are overcome in the same way.

When that majesty, the glory of His majesty confronts the sinner, the glory of the majesty of a holy, righteous, perfect God confronts the sinner, The only instinctive response is terror, utter terror. That's a servile fear. That's the fear of the covenant breakers have. But a believer who is clothed in Christ's righteousness, we see God as a just and holy Father. We come in Jesus' name to the Father.

And we know him as our father, a father who provides for us and who cares for us, and who knows us and who loves us. And so we don't have, should not have that servile fear, that terror of judgment of the wrath of God. Because we have passed from condemnation. We are no longer under condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ that's been removed, and we don't need to have that terror of judgment.

See, servile fear sees God only as a threat, as a judge, a just judge. The dominant emotion of servile fear is frightful terror of punishment but filial fear the fear of children for a father who loves them brings a sense of awe, of reverence, of great reluctance to grieve or offend the Lord. To serve our fear results in drawing back from the Lord, incringing and wanting to be hidden. But a filial fear results in drawing near to the Lord with a sense of gratitude and love. And the difference there is simply whether we are covered in the blood of Christ and His righteousness or not.

And sometimes you see when our doubts arise, we may have a servile fear. But the Bible says don't have that fear of God. We are not to have that We don't need to have that because we are not under His condemnation. See, the servile fear sees God's majestic holiness as a danger. But Ophelia fear sees God's majestic holiness is beautiful, was desirable, was lovely.

It's the beauty of holiness. And we see both of these kinds of fear exemplified in the scriptures. And Deuteronomy 225, God said, I will begin to put dread and fear of you upon the nations under the whole heaven and they when they hear the report of you, they shall tremble and be in anguish because of you. God would do that. And in second Chronicles 17, the fear of God fell on all the kingdoms of the land that were around Judas.

So they did not make any war against your Hashaphat. That's the servile fear of God and his judgments that he would bring could bring through this Josh Jehoshaphat so that they didn't dare attack him. But we also see that fear in a filial sense when Saul took those oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them out throughout Israel by the hand of a messenger and said whoever doesn't go with Saul and Samuel this is going to happen to your oxen and the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came with one consent. It moved them to obedience to fight the Philistines. And in second Chronicles 19, Jehoshaphat gives instructions to fear to the judges to fear the Lord.

Says, let the fear of God be upon you and take care and do it, for there is no partiality with the Lord God. No iniquity with the Lord God, no partiality, no taking a bribe. So he's saying the fear of the Lord should motivate godly judges to not take bribes, to not show partiality, but to judge justly. See the same thing in Esther when the fear of Mordecai comes upon the land. So this is the fear of the Lord.

In this case, what Isaiah is speaking of is a servile fear that will fall on all covenant breakers. Man will be humbled. Every pride of man will be humbled before the Lord. The idols abandoned. The Lord exalted.

So verses 11 to 17 speak of the humbling of man. He speaks of what Isaiah speaks of lofty, of lofty looks and loftyness. He's speaking, using a gesture here, a metaphor to speak of the inward pride of the mind. It comes out in the eyes. This this sinful pride is comes out in a contemptuous look upon men and upon God.

Proverbs 30 says, There is a generation, oh, how Lofty are their eyes and their eyelids are lifted up. God says that loftiness, all that loftiness of man will be bowed down, will be gone. For the day of the Lord of hosts will be on everyone that is proud and lofty includes everyone every man is humbled both the rich and the poor and both can be proud Certainly we can see that the rich can be proud. They have like Nebuchadnezzar, they looked around at all the wealth that they thought their ingenuity and power and cunning had gotten them. And they were he was lifted up.

He was proud and God humbled him. But poor people can be just as proud. You don't have to be rich to be proud. The heart of a poor man can be lifted up in the same way. God says, everyone, every man will be humbled.

And then Isaiah lists. A number of things that will be humbled that God will bring low. And I again I don't have the handout I prepared, but verses 12 all the way down through 16, there is a the same two words are used on every line. I think it's about 10 times. And if you line them up, it's very striking.

The day of the Lord of hosts, this day of the magnificent, the manifestation of God's magnificent glory, it would come upon everything lifted up, and it would be brought low. And here's all the things. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon, upon all ants, and there's an ant in the Hebrew. Some of the English translations Put some of the ends in but not all of them, but in the Hebrew The end is there and I'm not criticizing the translation. This is we have to translate it that way to make it readable in English, but literally it says upon all the cedars of Lebanon upon all the oaks of Basin upon and upon all the high mountains and upon all the hills and upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall and upon all the ships of Tarshish and upon all the beautiful sloops the loftiness of man will be brought down And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day So is he lists every great and glorious thing in which man placed confidence?

He's not speaking when he speaks of the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bation. He's not speaking of necessarily of trees and mountains. He's not speaking of nature itself, but he's speaking of everything in which proud men glory. The cedars of Lebanon were desirable woods, what Solomon used to build the temple. It's there were that it was beautiful.

This is what you use to make great works, great monuments. The whole temple, remember, was clothed, covered with cedar so no stone was visible in it. If you wanted to make something of great beauty, it was used cedar. The oaks of Bacchan, mighty, great trees. So speaking to great, great things speaks about the Every high tower and every fortified everything in which man takes pride and glory and God says he will bring it low or military might upon upon all the ships of Tarshish Josephus identifies Tarshish with Tarsus the capital of Cilicia where Paul was from and he claimed that Tarshish was a biblical term for or an old term for Cilicia.

Modern scholarship disagrees with them, and so if you read the reformers they they follow Josephus. So I don't know. The Jews had much traffic with this nation. Actually, the modern scholarship doesn't really know where it is, but they just don't think it's solicia. I tend to, times like this, I tend to rely on the older scholarship.

But whatever the case, the Jews had much commerce with this Tarshish. Scripture frequently mentions the ships of Tarshish. Now it's not condemning navigation here, but this is an import-export trade. This would be like the trade with China. China is the source of all the cheap goods that we have.

Most of what we have today is made in China. It's hard to find stuff that's not and it's a We can buy things very cheaply. It's because we have are the world's reserve currency We're able to get these things cheaply. So it's a source of wealth Not for long, but it is has been. And so he's not condemning this, this commerce per se.

But it's as is frequently happens as it happened with us. This abundance leads to pride, leads to arrogance. In our case, it's led to us thinking that we can be the Kings of the world and decide what every other country can and can't do and what weapons they can and can't have and so forth And so this kind of wealth leads to pride, to cruelty. And God says he's going to bring it low. It also leads to a lot of corruption and dishonesty as people seek to further that wealth and to continue that wealth.

And so Isaiah is saying these Jews are going to be deprived of their riches. They're going to have to learn that God is not mocked. That God is not mocked. He talks about and upon all the beautiful sloops, now again the modern translations consider this as boats And I think that's the idea of a sloop. The older, the Reformation and older have a different word here.

They call it pictures, elegant pictures. These are the material possessions, the riches that follow wealth, the luxuries that follow wealth. Interestingly, where great wealth is, and we saw that you see this in Rome. Isaiah is speaking of it here. We've seen it in our day where great wealth is you have luxury, effeminacy, and, and gross materialism.

It always follows. So people get carried away with their wealth, with their perversions, and with their the things that they can buy, the pleasures that they can obtain. God says all that is going to be destroyed It's going to be removed The idols will be cast away this silver and gold that things that people valued are going to be cast away. Whether it's your buildings, their monuments, their sports teams, their corporate empires, the banks that are too big to fill, whatever, whatever is an idol, God says it's going to be cast away. They're going to be ashamed of their foolishness, because remember the idol is something that man has to make.

It can only say what man says. It's going to speak the words that man puts in it. It can only go where man moves it. It can only do or whatever man makes it to do. And Isaiah says they're going to be ashamed of their folly in their idolatry.

And they're going to cast away their silver and gold, which they made for themselves to worship to the moles and the bats and to the clefts of the rock and the crags of the rugged rocks. They're going to cast away their gold. That's how terrified they will be of the majesty and holiness of God. Calvin says this Same thing almost always happens with idolaters who are not ashamed of their wickedness so as to cast away their idols until they have been visited by very sore distress and made almost to think that they are ruined. So the Lord can use this as this as this humbling as a blessing to his people right when we my heart is carried away he sends a chastening hand through it and we can realize our folly and turn away from it Isaiah's final exhortation is to sever yourself from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils.

That's a reference there, Breath is in our nostrils is a reference to our existence, the transitory nature of our existence. Our existence is totally dependent upon God who gives us our breath. Psalm 104, a little later from what we sang, in verse 29 says, you hide your face, they are troubled, you take away their breath, they die. Speaking of God's creatures, they die and return to the dust. You see, the sustainability of our existence depends entirely on something outside of ourselves.

It's entirely dependent on the Lord that gives us each breath that we take, each moment. Our plans are also dependent on someone else and have no sustainability in themselves. Psalm 146 says his spirit departs speaking of man he returns to the earth and in that day his very plans perish. So all these grand plans of these people they pass away they're gone in an instant. Psalm 78, for he remembered that they are but flesh of breath that passes away and doesn't come again.

So Isaiah is referring to our lives are but a vapor here today, gone tomorrow. And so if that's what we're trusting in. It will fail. For of what account is this person? Isaiah asked a question there And chapter three is the answer.

Sever yourselves. So that means cease from being this man. Cease from trusting in these people because they are of no account. And chapter three, the whole chapter three is is a detailed account of the Lord taking away all the people that we think are important and in whom we might have trusted the people that we might have looked up to. God says they're going to be gone.

They're not there. It's a loss, a loss of leadership, a loss of all of the important men are gone. There are two commands here In this passage, verse 10, enter into the rock and this closing command to cease from trusting in these people. This is God's. Warning to us.

It says warning to us to not trust in this world and what it has in our wealth or ability to gather it because it's going to pass away and not to trust in people because they too will pass away in the day of the Lord. So the message this morning is for us should be a warning and an encouragement. A warning not to become enamored with the wealth around us, with the idols around us, but also to be encouraged that God will uphold the moral order of his world and that he will visit his wrath on on evildoers. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we ask that we might be instructed out of your word, that we might be warned, and that we might be encouraged.

In Jesus name we pray, amen.