In the sermon titled 'The Cause & Consequences of Cultural Collapse,' Peter Allison explores Isaiah chapter 3's depiction of societal decline resulting from disobedience to God. The sermon outlines how God removes essential societal roles such as leaders, judges, prophets, and skilled workers as a form of judgment. These losses lead to a lack of guidance, justice, and productivity, causing further societal decay. Allison emphasizes that cultural collapse is not merely due to chance or natural causes but is a direct result of turning away from God's commandments. The sermon highlights the importance of repentance and seeking God's ways to rectify these issues. Additionally, the protection and prosperity of the righteous are assured even in times of judgment, as God's favor remains with those who are faithful. The sermon draws parallels between the societal challenges faced by ancient Israel and contemporary issues, urging modern believers to remain faithful amidst cultural decline.

Please turn in your scriptures to Isaiah chapter 3 this morning. We'll be reading the first 12 verses. Hear God's word. For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from 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 and the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the honorable man, the counselor and the skilled 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. The child will be insolent toward the elder and the base toward the honorable. 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 of the people.

For Jerusalem stumbled, and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord. To provoke the eyes of His glory, they look on their countenance witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as sodom. They do not hide it. Woe to their soul, for they have brought evil upon themselves. Say to the righteous that it will be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

Woe to the wicked, it will be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, those who lead you cause you to error and destroy the way of your paths. May we not delay to keep His commandments. Heavenly Father, make your word a swift word this morning, passing from our ears to our hearts and to our lips and to our conversation and to pervade every aspect of our thinking.

May your word accomplish the purpose for which it was sent this morning. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that they may proclaim the riches of your grace. In Christ Jesus we ask, Amen. We are beginning this study of Isaiah, or we are in the beginning of our study of Isaiah. And in chapter 1 was a summary of the prophecy.

As it were, the table of contents. And the covenant lawsuit that God was bringing against His people, Israel, is laid out in that chapter. In chapter two then, begins to describe the situation in the land of Judah and Jerusalem. And it describes how the fools who bowed down to the idols and served them, who at great expense had acquired silver and gold and at great effort had made them into idols, would be throwing away their worthless idols. And the last, When God's judgment came upon them.

And the last verse then we saw last week sets the stage for the chapter that we're looking at this morning by asking the question of what account are these people? What account, what significance are they? Why do you continue, since God is asking, why do you continue to follow them? Why do you continue to honor them? And Isaiah's message in this chapter is God's answer to their veneration of these people.

This chapter gives the consequences of cultural collapse. What does it look like? How does it happen? Well, the first thing we see is it's not by chance. It's the Lord that does all these things.

Behold, the Lord of hosts is going to do these things. And the first thing that Isaiah lists is the Lord causes famine, The loss of bread and water. Now those who want to evade the fact that this is a personal judgment from the Lord because of their sins and the forsaking of His ways. Those who want to evade the fact that the famines that come upon the land are from the Lord will look Instead for natural causes for the famines and their loss of food and water they will look to drought or to damage to their water infrastructure from natural consequences like hurricanes or tornadoes or fires or wars or terrorists. They might look to the operational failures of critical equipment that caused the problem.

Or to management failures, the failure to use resources in a wise and judicious way. Or they might look to maintenance failures that causes equipment to fall into disrepair and not work. And so in finding all these so-called plausible reasons for their loss, They believe they have shown that it's therefore not a personal judgment from the Lord Himself. You see, however true all those secondary causes might be, both can be true. The Lord uses means.

He controls them in a very direct and personal way. The nations or group that engages in terrorist activities or wars are moved by the Lord to attack. Droughts are sent by the Lord. Fires are directed in their scope and extent by the personal and direct providence of Jehovah for His own purposes. See, and until we repent, until people repent and begin to seek the Lord, and to seek where we went astray from His ways and where our culture has abandoned truth and justice, all the fixes that we attempt to implement to correct the problems will actually only make the problem worse.

It's kind of like an animal that's caught in quicksand whose panicked responses to escape the quicksand only drags them deeper. In the same way, the efforts of people who are denying the hand of God, People who are denying the hand of God and trying to fix their problems other ways will only in the end exacerbate them. At the dedication of the temple in in first kings eight Solomon prayed when the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you afflict them, then hear from heaven and forgive their sin, that you may teach them the good way in which they should walk and send rain on your land which you have given to your people as an inheritance. And when there is famine in the land, or pestilent, or blight, or mildew, locusts, or grasshoppers, when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whenever plague or sickness is there, then whatever prayer or supplication is made by your people, when each one knows, and here's the key words, when each one knows the plague of his own heart and spreads out his hands toward his temple, Then here in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act.

Solomon's request of the Lord, his prayer was that when God sends judgment that each person would recognize the plague in their own heart And each person would lift their hands to the Lord in confession and repentance. And then he prays that God would act and forgive and give everyone according to his ways whose heart you know, for you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men." And so that should be the response. When we see droughts and famines, we should inquire of the Lord the purpose for that. And it should be a reason to examine our own lives and see where the Lord might be chastening us to bring us back to greater faithfulness. But the second consequence in this collapse of culture is the loss of leadership of all types, in all spheres of the culture of the society, beginning with the decimation of the military and those soldiers that are capable of defending the land, the mighty man and the man of war.

The mighty men were the elite soldiers. The Hebrew word there is Gabor, which is actually one of the names of God El Gabor meaning mighty God it's different from El Shaddai which is usually translated God Almighty El Gabor mighty God second Samuel lists all of David's mighty men, the Gabor, beginning with the group of three that distinguished themselves above all the others. And the first in that group of mighty men was somebody called Dino, who killed 800 men at one time. And then there was Eliezer, who when he was with David and they defied the Philistines, all of the rest of the Israelites fled in fear. But he arose and attacked the Philistines so tenaciously and doggedly that it says his hand was stuck to his sword.

But the Lord brought a great victory from that mighty feat. And then there was the third mighty man was Eliezer. And there was another occasion when they were battling against the Philistines and everybody again in the Israel army fled. But he stationed himself in the middle of a lentil field and defended it. And the Lord brought a great victory through his courage.

And so the chapter then goes on to list a second group of three mighty men who didn't quite attain to the level of the first three and then after that it lists another 30 mighty men who didn't attain to those first two groups of three. But these were David's elite warriors. And that's what this is saying, that there will be a loss of these kinds of men in the land. They won't be there. A man of war is simply a warrior, a soldier.

David was not allowed to build the temple because he was a man of war. But that designation is not a it's not dishonorable at all. In fact, in Moses song celebrating the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, Moses calls Jehovah, God, a man of war. God member brought that great victory, defeating the Egyptian army and causing their bodies, dead bodies, to wash up on the shore. And so a strong army and military is essential for any strong and prosperous nation.

And a number of Judah's kings were known for their skill and their strength in war. But When God begins to judge a nation, he removes that military power, either through death or through making the men weak and effeminate. About 80 years ago on the eve of World War II, as we prepared to go into World War II, roughly 50 to 60 percent of the population were fit for military service. Without any comment on the justice of that war, the nation had fit men. But today, today that number is barely above 10% if it even is.

Now some people are quick to point out that that the standards today are much higher than they were back then. And that's one of the main reasons why there's big disparity. And one of their proofs of that is that today a high school diploma is required. Well, back then it wasn't. And, you know, a significant number of people back then, you know, didn't have high school diplomas.

And so therefore, they wouldn't be qualified today. But the only problem, of course, with that comparison is that in my experience, eighth grade graduates back then were the equivalent of college graduates today in terms of literacy and comprehension and the ability to do things. When I lived in the Dakotas 40 to 50 years ago, I knew people with a third grade education that were more widely read, more literate, and far more educated than many college graduates today. So we are seeing what Isaiah is speaking of in our day. Now, and I would be quick to add and quick to note that it is it is unwise and naive to simplistically think that prior generations were better than our generation.

I don't want to convey that. That generation years ago endured very severe droughts and in depression as bad as any this country has ever seen. And while in some ways, their outward, the outward sense of that generation may not have, may not have progressed to where our generation is, their unbelief was no less a sin as the unbelief of our day. And so Ecclesiastes warns us, says, don't say why were the former days better than these. Says, for you do not inquire wisely concerning this.

So there was unbelief in that generation, just every bit as much as there was unbelief in our generation. The next thing that Isaiah lists is that God removes the judge and the prophet. The judge and the prophet. Judges were civil rulers who heard cases involving injuries and losses between people. Remember the prophet Samuel was a judge who went on a circuit through the land of Israel, hearing and deciding people's cases.

Prophets are those who bring the Word of God and teach God's law to the citizens. And so one of God's judgments on wicked nation is a famine of the knowledge of God's word and of his laws, precepts. At the start of Samuel's prophetic ministry as a young lad helping Eli in the temple, it begins with this very sobering assessment that the Word of God was rare in those days. There was no widespread revelation. When Samuel came to the temple, the priesthood was corrupt and the people were backslidden and spiritually dead.

Eli's sons were wicked. Horribly wicked. The description of their service in the temple it reads like a modern Hollywood account of fornication and and immorality that pervades American entertainment which means of course that the people who tolerated these wicked priests were just as lost and wicked as they were. The book of Judges, just prior to that, Closes with the statement that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. They didn't know God's law and they didn't follow His ways.

I mean the fact that Eli mistook the prayer of Samuel's mother for the mumbling of a drunk person is some indication of how widespread the spiritual compromise and malaise extended in that day, in Samuel's day. And so the word of God was rare. And that's what Isaiah is saying. God will take away the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, and the prophet. He also removes the diviner and the elder.

Now, usually divination refers to the practice of witchcraft or an attempt to gain knowledge through demonic or occult channels, something that God explicitly forbids us from doing. Our knowledge is to come from the means that God has given us, His Word. But in this case, I believe it has a positive connotation. And I say that for a couple of reasons. First in Proverbs 16, 10, it says divination or a divine sentence is on the lips of the king and his mouth must not transgress in judgment.

A divine sentence or divination, it's the noun form of the same word that Isaiah uses here. And it's clearly being used in a positive sense there in Proverbs. Divination is on the lips of the king, and his mouth must not. Therefore, his mouth must not transgress in judgment. See, judges are God's ministers.

And when judges render judgments, they are giving a divine statement. They are speaking as God's ministers in the civil realm. The Lord establishes his justice here on earth by the pronouncements of his ministers, the civil magistrate. And so the Bible says to resist their authority is to resist the very ordinance of God himself. And so this is speaking then of of judges, those who have a give a divine sentence, those who speak as God's civil ministers.

And secondly, every other person that's mentioned in this list of verses is exercising a lawful occupation. So I think this term is describing someone who has extraordinary insight and discernment. Somebody who can penetrate into the deep matters not by witchcraft but by the Spirit of God. This is describing somebody like Daniel. Remember in Daniel 1 17 it says that God gave Daniel and his friends understanding in all visions and dreams.

And when Nebuchadnezzar interviewed Daniel and his friends, he found them 10 times better than all the other magicians and astrologers who were in his realm. So this is a wise man like Daniel. They're removed. Daniel was removed from the land and taken to Babylon. Elders, the diviners and the elders, elders are older, seasoned men who are especially fit to govern because of their age and the wide experience that has given them discernment and prudence and a certain gravitas that makes them fit for ruling.

And so the losses of judges then and prophets and diviners and elders constitutes a loss of rulers with the wisdom to decide difficult matters of Law with with the loss of scriptural revelation It's not that the scriptures themselves are lost, but the people's access to them is lost. The access to the people who can explain them and teach them is lost. And so the culture becomes ignorant of God's Word and His ways, which of course only exacerbates the problems that they are facing because now they don't know how to return to the Lord. They don't know the solution to the problems they face. They don't know what his ways are.

And they don't know that the ways that they are currently going are wrong in bringing his judgment. And so, the ways of the Lord brings God's judgment, which leads to further ignorance and departure from God's Word. Isaiah says God will also take away the counselor and the artisan and the enchanter. Counselors are those who because of their prudence or expertise have some public office advising the king or advising the civil magistrate. These would be like the president's cabinet or corporate consultants in the business world.

There's also the loss of skilled craftsmen and artisans. The people who know how to do things and make things and operate the things that are essential. To living and that add beauty and functionality to our life and to our culture. These are the metal workers, the blacksmiths, the stonemasons, the carpenters and so forth. We experience this loss today as the offshoring of industry.

It's where a company moves all their manufacturing plants to another country that has cheaper labor, resulting in the loss of corporate knowledge on how to make simple things, things that we used to know how to make, we don't know how to make anymore. I can give you many examples of that in my own experience, of companies that no longer have the ability, they no longer have the know-how, how to make things that they used to know how to make. You see, prosperity doesn't come from how much money is spent, but from how much is produced. And if a society or economy is unable to make many things, they won't be a prosperous economy much longer. When Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel in 2 Kings 24, it says he carried into captivity all Jerusalem, all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, 10, 000 captains, and all the craftsmen and smiths, the metal workers.

None remained except the poorest people of the land which were left there to tend to a few things. And then the enchanters, or the expert enchanters as the New King James has it, these are simply eloquent speakers. Literally it means skilled in muttering or in a subdued tone of speech. And some have understood this. Some commentators understand this to mean the practice of magic.

But other uses in the scripture of this same word, and there aren't that many, but a couple other places, speak about the charming of snakes so that they do not bite, for example, Ecclesiastes 10. A snake may bite when it is not charmed or enchanted. And that's not magic. That's a skill involving knowledge of snake behavior and handling techniques coupled with some showmanship to entertain. But it's not magic.

It's simply a certain ability. And so I think many rightly understand this to be referring to the eloquent, those who can speak eloquently, those who can speak persuasively. So each of these five areas that Isaiah has said God will remove from those cultures that do not follow his ways, each of these are necessary for the foundation of a prosperous and blessed civil society. Obviously a country needs to be able to feed itself. It needs to be able to produce sufficient food and water to support the life of its citizens.

And that includes medical care. According to Genesis 1, 29, God gave every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed to be food for us. And in Revelation 22, the leaves of the trees are given for the healing of the nations. So food, you have to have food. And secondly, you need military power.

Without the ability to defend itself, a country couldn't be prosperous and stable. And we talk about peace through strengths. Third, a prosperous country needs those who are skilled in administration and the work of governing. It also needs the prophetic office and wise counselors. Without These things, as Proverbs says, the people perish.

Hosea 4.6 speaks of that as well, that God's people perish for lack of knowledge. Fifthly, a country needs strong and capable industry that's able to produce things. And Calvin notes that God adorns nations which He intends to render safe and sound with each of these capabilities. God adorns a nation which He intends to render safe and sound with each of these capabilities. God adorns the nations which He intends to render safe and sound with each of these capabilities.

And He takes away from those nations what He intends to destroy. He takes these away from those nations that He intends to destroy. And verse 4 goes on to speak of the leaders that God will give. God's judgment is to take away the competent rulers and to give children in their place. And by children, of course, is meant not only those who are young in age, but also childish in their immature and undeveloped in their thinking and actions.

And Calvin also includes under the category of children, what he calls delicate and effeminate men, persons, people who are destitute of courage and cannot wield the sword entrusted to them. That's the kind of rulers that God gives countries that are under his judgment. Instead of elders with wisdom, discernment and experience, they have children with no wisdom, no discernment, no experience as rulers instead of wise and discerning judges who are able to render just sentences, who are able to discern truth from error and who's right and who's wrong. The rulings of these judges, Isaiah says, only produce oppression and injustice. Notice, though, that it is God himself who does this.

God says, I, I will give. I will give. Just like he takes away. He is the one who gives these rulers to these people. As Hosea 13 says something similar, I gave you a king in my anger and I took him away in my wrath.

All of these things we need to see not just as the results of some bad decisions that people made, although they are that, but we need to see them as the direct action and personal Providence of God in our lives and in the lives of our nation. We shouldn't ascribe all these things to simply chance or or something else. It's ultimately it's God himself that is doing this. It's also the favor of God when he preserves justice and stability in the social order by giving judges that are able to render wise and righteous judgments. That's God's blessing.

We should be thankful for that because we do have judges like that. There are judgments that are made like that and where we see those, we ought to thank the Lord for that. And where we don't have those, we can ask Him for that. There's also no honor. Instead of elders and eminent people being honored and heeded, this society that God is judging is characterized by the exaltation of base and worthless people over the honorable people.

The child will be insolent toward the elder and the base toward the honorable. Verses six and seven speak of the feminization of men. Instead of being protectors and providers for their families and societies, they become what I'll call incompetent milk-toast cowards who shamelessly abdicate their duty to protect and defend. A man takes hold of his brothers in the house of his father saying, you be our ruler, you provide clothing, you have it. Let these ruins be under your power.

Instead of being those who provide clothes for their family, those who provide leadership to organize the available resources, instead of being those who rebuild the ruins, they're looking for somebody else to do it for them. And of course, this way of thinking is also endemic in our culture all too often. Instead of looking to solve problems for ourselves, we want to call the state to come in and solve them for us. There are dogs running wild in the neighborhood. People want to call animal control to come fix their problem.

If they need housing, they look to the government to provide it. They need medical care. They look for the government to provide it. You see, and the government is able to get its foot in the door in each of these situations because no one else is willing to do it. Because the honorable people aren't interested in babysitting a nation of people who don't want to care for themselves.

They have no interest in holding civil office. And so that leaves the door open for the base and the worthless to fill these offices. It's the Lord's favor. It's the Lord's favor When there are honorable and righteous men willing to step into civil office and to serve, it's not an easy job. It's in many ways, it's a thankless job.

You think about when was the last time you thanked a legislature or judge for doing a good job. Maybe you haven't seen that, but it happens. It happens occasionally. But how often do we write them a letter to complain about what's not right? We need to thank the Lord when He gives us wise and judicious rulings and judges and legislatures.

It is His favor. There's also a VM refusal to help. Basically says, I cannot cure your ills. It's like a doctor saying, there's nothing more I can do for you. Your disease is incurable." Well, Isaiah now gives us the cause.

He's given us all the characteristics of a nation under God's judgment because they have forsaken his ways and don't walk in the light of his word. But now he gives the cause. It's because what they say and what they do are against the Lord. Their words and their actions are contrary to God's commandments. Instead of glorifying Him, their words and their actions provoke God.

Notice the look on their face even witnesses against them, because the face reveals what's in the heart and the mind. So to provoke the eyes of God's glory is to say they have intentionally resolved to insult God. There's no effort to conceal their sin. They openly and shamelessly flaunt their sin and transgression of God's law. This is speaking of people who have no reverence for the glory and the majesty of God.

Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory, the look on their countenance, the look on their face witnesses against them and they declare their sin as Sodom. See, they're like the inhabitants of Sodom who shamelessly tried to assault the angels that were present in Lot's house. You remember, the angels had come as a mercy of God to warn the righteous to flee the city. And these very men were shamelessly assaulted, or The men of the city tried to, tried to. There was no shame.

There's no need for a witness. They testify against themselves. But God closes, Isaiah closes this section with a small comfort that God does preserve the righteous even in times of judgment. God does preserve the righteous. Even in times of his judgment and chastening in it's in these times of public calamity.

When judgments come upon the rebellious and the wicked cultures, they also fall to some extent upon the righteous in that society. And it may cause them to doubt if God is fair or if God has forgotten us. So Isaiah reminds us that God does not judge unjustly. He does remember the righteous. And they are treated differently even in times of judgment.

See, what is God's judgment on the wicked is God's chastening to his people so that they are restored and renewed and strengthened. So God's restoration comes through these judgments. His restoration and renewing of His people comes through the chastening. And the vindication of His justice and the upholding of His moral order also comes through his judgment. And I like to close with just two two reminders of these promises of God's favor toward the righteous.

Say to the righteous, it will be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. But woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them, for the reward of his hands shall be given to him. Psalm 5 says, But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you, let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those who love your name be joyful in you. For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous with favor.

You will surround him as with a shield." And the Lord does that. Even in the midst of a culture that He is judging. Psalm 91 gives us another more extensive promise. That he who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I will trust.

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday." In other words, The culture can be collapsing around under God's righteous judgment for their wickedness. But God says He will take care and be a refuge for His people.

The righteous, it will be well with them. They will eat the fruit of their doings. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. The Lord is saying He is our protector, He is our refuge, even in these times. Only with your eyes you shall look and see the reward of the wicked, because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the most high, your dwelling place.

No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For He will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. The Lord is our deliverer. He will deliver us through these refining judgments. Sometimes He may even deliver us through death.

But remember that for us to die is gain. For us to die is gain. It's to be with Christ. It's to lay down for the last time this body of sin. And so as we contemplate all these judgments, as we see around us these judgments falling on our land we need to also remember that God says to the righteous it will be well with you and you will eat the fruit of your doings because Christ is our shield and buckler.

He is our protector and he is given his angels charge to protect us in all our ways. Heavenly Father, We thank you that you are a just judge and that you bring your wrath on all of those who do wickedly. And we know, Lord, that You chase in all those whom you love Every son that you receive and if we do not receive that then we are not true sons Father May you give us a humble hearts to look upon your chastening in our land and to acknowledge our sin before you. To humble ourselves and confess and repent. To ask of you where we can, where our ways are not pleasing in your sight, to call you to search us and to try us if there is any wicked way in us.

But also Lord may you give us faith to lay hold of these great and precious promises that you are a shield and buckler to us that you surround us with your favor as with a shield and that you give your angels charge over us to bear us up as we dash our foot against a stone. And so we thank you, Lord, that in life and in death, we belong to you, our faithful lord and savior, and we entrust our souls to you today. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.