In Peter Allison's sermon titled 'The Lord Appears in His Court,' he explores Isaiah chapter 3, where the Lord stands to plead and judge His people. The sermon begins with God's charges against the leaders and rulers who have exploited their positions, likened to consuming the vineyard of the nation, leaving the people oppressed. The sermon then shifts to address the pride and vanity of the daughters of Zion, illustrating how their desire for attention and beauty leads to their downfall and loss of dignity. Allison emphasizes the inherent dangers in conflating different sins and the logical fallacy of assuming the converse. The sermon connects these biblical themes to contemporary gender roles and societal expectations, highlighting that true contentment and happiness are found in obedience and service to God. The message concludes with a call to trust and obey the Lord, as earthly treasures and pride are fleeting, while heavenly treasures endure.

Please turn in your scriptures to Isaiah chapter 3. Beginning to read at verse 13. At verse 13. God continues to present his case against his against his people. Verse 13.

The Lord stands up to plead and stands to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and his princes, for you have eaten up the vineyard at the plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor, says the Lord, God of hosts. Moreover, the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk without stretch necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with the 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 crescents, the pendants, the bracelets and the veils, the headdresses, the leg ornaments and the headbands, the perfume boxes, the charms, and the rings, the nose jewels, and the festal apparel, and the mantles, the outer garments, the purses, and the mirrors, the fine linen, the turbans, and the robes. And so it shall 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, a girding of sackcloth and branding instead of beauty. Your men shall fall by the sword and your mighty men in war. Her gates shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate, shall 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 reproach. The word of God is forever settled in heaven. Almighty Heavenly Father, please seal to our hearts This word that we have read. Please grant us understanding of it, to be sensible or to your warnings, to heed them. Please sanctify my sinful lips as well.

Now from this vessel of clay, the riches of your grace and the truth of your word might be proclaimed to us this morning. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. We're commenting on the gender landscape in America today. One author noted, quote, As of 2022, women held 52% of professional management roles in the United States. Women earned more than 57% of the bachelor's degrees, 61% of the master's degrees, and 54% of the doctoral degrees.

And because they are overrepresented in professions such as human resource management, where they have 73% of the roles, and compliance officers, because they are represented in these roles that determine workplace behavioral norms, they have an outsized influence on professional culture, which itself has an outsized influence on American culture more generally. And Joy Pullman writing an article for the Federalist summarized it this way. The bureaucracy that controls Western life is feminized. The Longhouse argument goes, implying that women have won. But is that true?

Is it winning for women to wield power at the expense of their sexual counterparts, the other half of humanity, without which there is no humanity? Are women happier today ostensibly being in charge? It seems the answer to that is a resounding no. And I think Isaiah tells us why in the passage that we have read this morning. He begins in verse 13, the Lord stands up to plead.

Now that's not an ordinary word for stand. It means to take a position to fulfill a duty. To station yourself somewhere, like the judge entering the courtroom in his judicial robe and taking a seat at the bench. That's what that word means. The Lord is entering his courtroom and he's going to bring charges against his people.

That should be a terrifying thing to hear. When the creator of the universe, the one who creates life and takes it away, the one who stretches out the heavens and knows all the stars by name, The one who directs hurricanes and heals the sick. When he says he's entering the courtroom to press charges and render judgments, that ought not to be lightly dismissed. But this message is also a message of comfort that the Lord is standing up to plead. It's a message of comfort to the 7, 000 who have not bowed the knee to bail, who have been faithful to serve the Lord and who have looked around at the seeming prosperity and popularity of many who have not been faithful to serve Jehovah.

It's a message to all those saints who have suffered injustice and oppression while patiently waiting for the Lord's deliverance. It's a message of comfort to all those who have refrained from vengeance while watching the wicked get away with murder. People like the martyrs in Revelation six remember whose souls cry out from under the throne room in heaven how long, oh, Lord, until you avenge our deaths. So those who have endured long oppression or suffered gross injustice can take comfort and encouragement from this statement here that the Lord is standing up to plead and to enter judgment against the people. See, God has not forgotten his people.

God is not powerless to deal with widespread systemic injustice or oppression. God not only can act, not only able to do so, but He does act and He is acting here. And we know this I think in a theoretical sense, but Sometimes we doubt that God will actually do something about this problem. That we face. And so this this versus right here is an important one to keep in our mind when we are interpreting the newspaper headlines.

You see, when what we see appears different from what we are reading, this is when God's people live by faith. We know God's word is true. We know it will endure even if it is contrary to what every single living person is currently saying. And so anytime justice is delayed, anytime oppression and the wicked seem to flourish and prosper, it's natural to ask how long, oh Lord, how long? This is also this delay can also be a provocation to anger for some Just just look at The angry memes that proliferate on on social media Injustice double standards hypocrisy economic oppression all the things that have been described in the earlier part of this chapter fuel a lot of anger in our culture today.

And all too sadly, it's by people who identify as Christians, although their conduct leads us to wonder. And so this is when we need to remember the exhortation in in Psalm 37 to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Don't fret because of him who is prospering in his wickedness, in his way. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Don't fret, it only causes harm.

So we when we believe God's word here that He does stand up to plead, He will enter into judgment, then we are freed from the consuming anger that breaks into violence and aggression. And we're free from fear as well from fear of what's going to happen We know what will happen So on taking his place in the courtroom the Lord brings charges against the leaders first The elders and the princes the elders are the representatives of the people, the heads of families and tribes and so forth. And the princes are the military officers, the generals, the governors, the heads of state and so forth. And together, these are the people that are responsible for the protection and the well-being of the nation. But instead, They have harmed the people.

Isaiah says they have eaten the vineyard. Not the vineyard. The nation here is being likened to a vineyard. It's a foreshadowing actually of Chapter five. If you look ahead where God develops that figure more fully there, God says of his vineyard for the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel.

And the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold oppression for righteousness, but behold a cry for help. And so to to eat up the vineyard means that the productive output of this nation has been harmed. It's been reduced. It's been polluted.

It's been consumed. It's been misappropriated. It's been destroyed in some way. It's been destroyed so that it does not benefit those who have cultivated it, those who are rightfully entitled to the fruit of their labor, to their produce. Or even worse, the rulers are reaping the benefit while the owners bear the cost.

The people have done the work. The goods that should have been in the homes of the laborers who produced it is being enjoyed by these rulers and these princes. And of course, that's theft. Exodus 22 says, If a man causes a field or vineyard to be grazed and lets loose his animal, and it feeds another man's field. He didn't go in and bring his harvester in and eat it himself, but his animals have eaten it.

And God says if that happens, then he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard. So God requires restitution when a vineyard is grazed. And He's established the civil magistrate to accomplish or enforce that restitution. But when the very people that God is appointed to be as ministers of justice are themselves the thieves That need to be brought to justice Then God says he'll be the one To bring justice and make restitution. Verse 15 is an exclamation of outrage in the form of a rhetorical question.

What do you mean? What do you mean? This is how parents might be inclined to respond when one of their beloved offspring has created a catastrophe in some part of the house. What have you done? What do you mean?

I've been doing this. Now, in English, our letters don't convey the meaning of the words that they spell. Our letters don't convey the meaning of the words that they spell. Our letters don't convey the meaning of the words they spell, like the letter B-A-T for a baseball bat doesn't really say much. The letters don't say a lot about what it is, but in Hebrew sometimes they do.

Often they do. The pictographs, those are the picture drawings that originally represented the letters of Hebrew, much like the Chinese characters today. The pictographs of the Hebrew root from which this word crush comes, right? What do you mean by crushing my people? The pictographs for that root word are a door, which is something that goes back and forth and an upturned cup of a palm like a cup.

So you have something going back and forth in this cup thing. It's basically a picture of something being crushed or ground in a mortar and pestle. The Lord says these rulers are crushing his people, grinding the faces of the poor like meat in a meat grinder. Now. A school board sitting in a formal boardroom following the legal protocols as they take a vote to raise everyone's property taxes is far removed from the mess of a butcher shop feeding the remnants of a steer into a meat grinder.

But God puts these two together to make a rather shocking graphic metaphor of what's happening. The self-serving actions of these rulers is like it's akin to people grinding up people like hamburger and a meat grinder. That's God's image here. That's God's view of what's happening. They're grinding the faces of the poor.

But the rulers are not the only class of people that God charges. He also brings charges against the women of the land. Now, while the leaders receive and rulers receive a stricter judgment because they are teachers and in a position of responsibility, the people also bear responsibility for what they have done. The general office is also responsible. They can't blame their rulers for their sins, claiming ignorance or that their rulers didn't instruct them properly, which all may be true, but that doesn't excuse their sin.

They as people are guilty, too. And the Lord uses equally blunt and very graphic language to describe the conduct of women. His first overarching charge in verse 16 is pride. He says the women are haughty. And everything else he says about these women flows from this pride.

Now pride we know can manifest itself in many different ways. But it has really only two faces, as it were. One face looks up, that's the person that thinks too highly of themselves, self promoting and aggrandizing. But the other face looks down. That's the person that thinks too meanly of themselves, always putting themselves down.

Both are thinking of themselves too much. And so these women, God says, walk with outstretched necks, heads held high, or as the saying used to be, with an upturned nose. In the ancient Syriac language, for example, to stretch out the neck meant to be haughty. So there's a phrase for being haughty. And so this pride, this haughtiness is expressing itself in how these women walk.

They walk with wanton eyes. Those are what we call untrained or undisciplined eyes that are unchaste or lewd or seductive. Those are eyes that are seeking to catch the improper attention of men. Isaiah says they walk with a mincing step. That means to walk in an affected manner.

An affected walk is a walk that is artificial or pretentious or an insecure way or insincere way of walking. They are making extra motions with their feet more than what is needed to simply walk. And the intent of this kind of walk is to draw attention to themselves, to make other people notice them, to make heads turn and stare at them. If it was a man, it might be called strutting. And as the next phrase there explains, the purpose of this affected motion of their feet as they walk is to enhance the sound that comes from the bracelets that they have on their ankles.

They walk with bells and bracelets around their ankles to create a sound as they pass that will draw attention to themselves. So they walk without stretch neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet. This detailed description of their manner of walking is illustrating what we could call a lust to be lusted after, a desire to be desired by men who are not their husbands. Lusting after a woman is the sin men have primarily have to mortify. But the lust to be lusted after is a sin that women primarily have to mortify.

You can easily see how these two sins feed each other. But neither sin is an excuse for its counterpart. These are two separate sins that are sometimes confusingly conflated together. For example, with men in our culture. Ensnared in pornography and epidemic proportions, the plea is often heard both from men and women that women ought to dress so as not to cause a brother And that often prompts a moral outrage from some women who wonder why they have to be responsible for someone else's sin.

But see that that whole dynamic exchange obscures the point that's being made in this passage by conflating two different sins. Women should dress and walk modestly because the desire to put their bodies on display and feel good and empowered about it is a lust to be lusted after And the lust to be lusted after is just as much a sin as the sin of the men that are lusting after them. But the sin of the men is entirely their sin. And so the sin of women in this is entirely their own as well. But the Lord makes.

The Lord Himself. Makes a very shocking connection. Between this lust to be lusted after that he's described in verse 16 with the consequences. Notice Jehovah says because the daughters of Zion have a lust to be lusted after and walk with mincing outstretched necks and seductive eyes. Therefore...

Notice that because in verse 16, because they walk this way, therefore the Lord in verse 17 will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will uncover their secret parts. The women, God says, who desire to put their beauty on display and to walk in such a way as to be the object of men's desire will lose the very beauty that they are so proud of displaying. And instead of beautiful skin and luxurious hair, God says He'll give them blemished ugly skin a scab. And notice that it's a scab on the crown of the head. They're going to lose their hair probably.

And to the women who so proudly display their bodies to make them the object of men's desire, God's in effect says, OK, you want to display your body. They now uncover your secret parts and make you naked. God's saying here that he will give women who lust to be lusted after to be violated and abused by wicked men. One of the greatest possible disgraces that a woman could endure. Now, the fact that God uses wicked men to bring this doesn't diminish the vileness and the wickedness of the wicked men, but neither does it diminish the sin that God is judging.

And this isn't the only place this connection is made. In Jeremiah 13, another prophet attaches the same judgment to Judah's pride. Jeremiah 13, God says, What will you say when he punishes you? For you have taught them to be chieftains, to be head over you, will not pangs seize you like a woman in labor. And if you say in your heart, why have these things come upon me?

The answer, Jeremiah says, is for the greatness of your iniquity, your skirts have been uncovered and your heels made bare. And Ezekiel 16, verse thirty six, God is speaking of the nation there, but he says, thus says the Lord, because your filthiness was poured out in your nakedness, uncovered in your harlotry with your lovers and with all your abominable idols and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them, surely therefore I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. And I will gather them from all around you and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness and I will judge you as a women, as women who break wedlock or shed blood are judged. So this is a connection that God is very clearly making. But I would be very quick here, very quick, to warn against assuming that the converse is true.

And that's done all too frequently. That's a logical fallacy. It's a formal logical fallacy, and it's a very bad logical fallacy. And in this case, it has harmful and tragic consequences. Now, so there's no misunderstanding here.

What is assuming the converse? Well, the easiest way to explain it is to illustrate it. Suppose you have two apples in your grocery bag, then you have an even number of apples in your grocery bag, then you have two apples. And we all know that. So, we say, if you have two apples in your grocery bag, then you have an even number of apples.

So, we say, if you have two apples in your grocery bag, that's the assumption or the premise. Then you have an even number. That statement's always true. If you have two apples, you always have an even number. The converse would be to say that if you have an even number of apples in your grocery bag, then you have two apples.

And we all know that's not generally true. It's only true anytime you have more than two apples. It's not true, I should say. Anytime you have more than two apples in that bag. That's the converse.

So just because a statement is true, doesn't mean you can assume the converse is also true. We could give another example. Let's assume it's a true statement that if all the lights in this room were broken, the room would be dark. Let's just assume that's true. But then it wouldn't be valid to assume that if the room was dark, all the lights were broken.

Could be dark for any number of other reasons, such as the lights are turned off or there's no power in the building and so forth. So when God says that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between a woman's lust to be lusted after, and they're having their secret parts uncovered, that doesn't mean that the converse is true. That if a woman is violated, she must have been lusting to be lusted after. That is a logical error. It's categorically false.

And it's cruelly wrong in that it adds a massive wound to a horrific tragedy. And so it also needs to be clearly stated that the women in verse 17 are not any way irresponsible for any sins that are committed against them. Their sin and lusting to be lusted after doesn't make them responsible, therefore, for someone else's sins against them. And neither is that lust to be lusted after. Neither does that make the sin against them any less heinous or vile.

It doesn't make the perpetrator any less vile or culpable or subject to judgment. And so that needs to also be clearly stated because all too often those are conflated And the converse is assumed and that's wrong. Isaiah goes on to list a number of specific items that God will remove from these women. And exactly what each of these items in this list, beginning in verse 18, are is not exactly known because some of these items are only mentioned here in the Bible. But they all relate to jewels and ornaments worn by the women of the day that were part of the fashion of the times.

And the fact that these items are not all familiar items is itself a testament to the insignificance and irrelevance of fashion itself. One day's fashion is another day's rags. What's hip and stylish one day is tacky and gaudy in the next. Just think of all the clothes in the 70s. Just think of the colors that people painted their houses, that today are regarded as less than desirable.

Jingling, anklets, scarves, and crescents. Crescents were probably metallic ornaments in the shape of a moon. In Judges, we read that Gideon arose and slew Zeba and Zamuna and took away the ornaments or the crescents which were on the camel's necks. And the weight of the gold earrings was 7, 000 shekels of gold, besides ornaments, the crescents, and the collars, and the purple raiment on the kings. Pendants there are probably a pearl or drop shape earring that hung from the ears.

The headdress of verse 20 is probably referring to diadems or circlets of gold and silver that adorned their heads. The leg ornaments were most likely ankle chains designed to make steps short, fashionable. Remember lots of, We can look in the past and see lots of things that we would call stupid being done in the name of fashion. Just remember that might apply to the day as well. And the headbands, the perfume boxes, the charms, the rings, the nose jewels, the festal apparel, the mantles, the outer garments, the purses, the mirrors, the fine linen, the turbans, and the robes.

All God's going to take them all away. That doesn't mean that these things are wrong in themselves. This list of things here, some of them probably are fine. It's not the ornaments themselves, it's the heart with which they were worn and displayed. And all these fashionable items are going to be replaced with very crude, semi-functional items.

Instead of a sweet smell, there will be a stench, unwashed bodies, untreated wounds. Instead of a sash, a rope. I mean, having worn a rope for a belt, I can tell you, it works, but it's not nearly as functional. Instead of well-set hair, baldness, with a scab on the crown. Instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth and branding, scarring instead of beauty.

The marking of the body in ugly ways. But the judgment here doesn't end with the loss of fashionable finery. It extends much deeper. There is a loss of young men. Now, this is a judgment on the men themselves, as we saw earlier in the chapter.

But in this context, it's a judgment on the women. The young men with their strengths is what provides and protects women, or it should. And just as men are blessed by the virtues and beauty of godly and godly women. Women are blessed by the strength of mighty men that can defend their hearth in the home and the village and the shore. That's a blessing.

But these are the very men that God is taking away. Your young men shall fall by the sword and your mighty in war. And that results in a loss of eligible men for marriage. Psalm 78 63, which speaks of the same situation in recounting God's providential dealings with his people that Psalm 78 remember is a recounting of all God's of the history of God's dealings with them. It says fire consumed their young men and their maidens were not given in marriage.

And so the result is seven men, seven women taking hold of one man and making him an offer that he could not refuse. These seven women come saying, we'll support ourselves. We'll provide our own food. In other words, we're not gonna be a burden on you. We're not going to ask anything from you.

Just let us be your wife. Just let us be called by your name and take away this reproach, this desolation. Now remember, these women had the rule. But they weren't happy. Remember the first part of this chapter describes a nation under judgment, a nation where there's been a catastrophic loss of men.

Men never maturing, never aspiring to leadership in anything, never acquiring the skills of making things, or maybe because they simply died in battle. But it left the people in a sad condition. The women have assumed the rule, the rule. They have the finery. But that does not notice it doesn't bring them satisfaction or contentment.

They are desolate and sit on the ground. You see, because contentment and satisfaction is found in obedience to the Lord. It's found in service. It's found in the service of the life of the Proverbs 31 woman. It's found in dedicated service to the Lord as a single.

It's found in dedicated service to the Lord as a wife and a mother. Even the non-Christian world recognizes this. They're beginning to. One striking example is found in Quebec. Quebec opened a universal birth to school government daycare program a generation ago.

Universal birth to school government daycare program a generation ago universal birth to school government daycare program. So from the moment a child is born they are put in the free government program and taken care of so that the mother can enter the workforce and be fulfilled and fill up the corporate boardrooms and do all the same things that her husband does. But researchers found that as adults, these children who attended this program are significantly more anxious and depressed and less self-controlled and happy than the children who didn't. And many other studies have found similar results. See, this is intimately connected with the happiness of so many women today.

It's both a cause of that unhappiness and it's an effect of that unhappiness. See, mothers that used daycare in the youth are mothers that are detached from their families at a young age. Damages that bond between that's that's critical for robust emotional development of children. And that detachment replicates itself in their own children. Who is the blessed and content woman?

It's a woman who serves her husband and family. Proverbs 31 describes her, she watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. That's service. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.

Charm is deceitful. All the charm that these women had is deceitful. Beauty is passing. They lost it all. All their finery was gone.

But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and that her own works praise her in the gates. That's service to the Lord, enjoying the Lord and his calling is the only way to be content and to be happy. Remember as that Psalm said, we sang it last last week, trust and obey. But there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

May the Lord enable us to to walk in obedience to his calls. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the plain truth of your word. We thank you for it. It's the boldness of your word to address head on the lies of our culture in our day that so easily ensnare us and so easily find residence in our hearts, in our minds. And become that root of bitterness.

Welling up within us. The root of discontentment. And dissatisfaction. Lord, you have said that in your that at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the things that are of the world are passing away in the lust of them.

But that which is in heaven, The treasure that is in heaven, you've said, does not, cannot be stolen, is not corrupted, and does not pass away. Father, give to us a hunger for your righteousness. And may our treasure be that which is in heaven and not things upon this earth that are passing away we ask this in Jesus name amen