Translation and sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, 15 Oct 2006. Short scripture quotes are from the English Standard Version.
For Jehovah will have compassion on Jacob
and will again choose Israel,
and will settle them on their own ground,
and sojourners will be joined to them
and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
(2) And the peoples will take them
and bring them to their place,
and the house of Israel will possess themselves upon the ground of Jehovah
as male and female slaves.
They will take captive those who were their captors,
and rule over those who oppressed them.
(3) And in the day Jehovah causes you to settle down
from your pain and from your turmoil
and from the hard service which you were served,
(4) you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon and say:
"How the oppressor has ceased, the exactress ceased!
(5) Jehovah has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers,
(6) He struck peoples in wrath unceasing blows,
ruling the nations in anger – persecution without restraining.
(7) All the earth is at rest and quiet;
they break forth into singing.
(8) The cypresses also rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon,
saying, 'Since you have lain down, the cutter will not come up against us.'
(9) Sheol beneath is excited concerning you to greet your coming;
it stirs up the shades concerning you, all the chiefs of earth;
it raises from their thrones all the kings of nations.
(10) All of them will answer and say to you:
'You too! You have become as weak like us! You have become like us!' (11) Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps;
maggots are spead beneath you, and worms are your covers.
(12) "How you are fallen from the heavens, Day-Star, son of Dawn!
How you are felled to the earth, prostrator of nations!
(13) You! You said in your heart,
'I will ascend to the heavens; above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; (14) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.'
(15) However, you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.
(16) Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you:
'Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
(17) who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities,
whose prisoners he did not let loose homewards?'
(18) All the kings of the nations – all of them – lie in glory,
each in his own house;
(19) But you? You are cast out, away from your grave,
like a loathed branch,
clothing of the slain, those pierced by a sword,
they go down to the stones of the pit,
like a trampled corpse.
(20) You yourself will not be joined with them in the grave,
because you have ruined your land,
you have slain your people.”
“May the seed of evildoers nevermore be named!
(21) Prepare slaughter for his sons in the iniquity of their fathers,
They must not rise
and possess the earth,
and fill the face of the world with cities."
(22) "I will rise up against them," declares Jehovah of hosts,
"and will cut off from Babylon
reputation and remnant,
progeny and posterity," declares Jehovah.
(23) "And I will make her into
a possession of the hedgehog,
and pools of water,
and I will sweep her with a broom of destruction," declares Jehovah of hosts.
(24) Jehovah of hosts has sworn:
"Just as I have thought, thus it will be,
and just as I have purposed, it will stand firm,
(25) to shatter Assyria in my land,
and on my mountains I will trample him;
and his yoke will depart from over them,
and his burden from upon their shoulder will depart."
(26) This is the purpose that is purposed over all the earth,
and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
(27) For Jehovah of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it?
And His hand is stretched out, so who will turn it back?
(28) In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle: (726 BC)
(29) Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken,
for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder,
and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.
(30) And the firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy lie down in safety;
but I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay.
(31) Wail, O gate; cry out, O city; melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you!
For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.
(32) What will one answer the messengers of the nation?
That Jehovah has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of His people find refuge.
This chapter is the story of the clash of two wills, the ambition of the pagan king of Babylon and the ambition of the Lord of Hosts. Two different sets of intentions and plans, and only one would prevail.
In our home, we run into a titanic clash of willpower every time a toddler gets between one and two years old. That seems to be the time when those little tykes decide to exercise a will of their own. And it is amazing what that two-foot tyrant can come up with when she has nothing to do all day except to relentlessly exercise that little will! But that will has to be brought under God’s authority or else that child will grow up to pitch his human will against God’s will and be destroyed. We have to challenge the will of our children so that they will learn that God is bigger than them and that they must either ride with God on the steamroller of His mighty will in the direction He is going or else be smashed flat as a pancake when He runs over them with that steamroller.
So we have our one-year-old daughter, Hope, seated in the high chair at dinner next to my chair. When she is done eating, she has one goal, and that goal is to empty her high chair tray so that there is no food left on it. She also has it in her head that the way to clean that tray is to sweep the food off and down to the floor. She becomes consumed with this one ambition, to sweep everything on that tray off and let it fall to the floor where she can’t see it anymore.
However, there is another will at work; and that is my will. I have a different purpose. My purpose is to see Hope become a Godly lady – Godly in that she can submit herself to God’s lordship, and ladylike in upholding what is most excellent in this life. I have determined that Hope’s current agenda of dropping food on the floor does not contribute to my agenda of her ladyhood because ladies don’t throw food or litter the floor, they uphold behaviour that is most excellent. I also determine that this is worth crossing wills over because a godly lady must know how to submit to God’s authority and I decide this is a great opportunity to teach her this godly submission.
So the battle of the wills begins. I tell her, “Hope, when you’re done eating, put the leftover food on the side of your plate; don’t shove it onto the floor.”
You know what happens; I have more than one agenda that I’m trying to accomplish; I’m also trying to eat my own food and interact with the rest of my family, and as soon as Hope sees that I have my attention focused on these other things, SWEEP – PLOP, a piece of chicken falls to the floor.
“No, no!” I say. “You must just leave the food you don’t want on the side of your tray like this, Hope.” And I demonstrate by shoveling a bit of food to the side of her high chair tray and leaving it there.
Well the very thought of all that food sitting on the edge of that tray is just too much for her. She looks at me and shoves the food right over the edge. “No,” I say, flicking her hand then picking the gooey stuff off the floor and putting it back on the side of the tray. “We leave our food on the side of our plate like this; don’t drop it on the floor!”
She’s thinking of the abhorrent, gooey mess that just landed on the side of her tray and wondering how she can get rid of it now. She shoves the slop out a little further towards the edge of her tray as if to say, “Like this, Papa?” I beam at her, “Yes, like that; just leave it on the side.” This time she is a little more subtle. Her hand rests on the edge of her tray while she looks off across the kitchen, just waiting for me to lose interest. Then, ever so casually, FLICK – SPLAT. The potato lands on the floor.
But I won’t put up with that, and eventually Hope learns that Papa’s will to make her a godly lady is bigger than her will to throw her food on the floor, and after a while, she begins leaving the loathsome leftovers on the side of her tray. I knows she is submitting to my will when one of her brothers comes by, with the helpful offer of removing the vile pile from her tray, and as he lifts it off the tray, she looks at her brother and points to me with a grunt that means, “You better not drop that on the floor or Papa will kill you!”
In our passage in Isaiah today, we have the clash of wills between God’s ambition for world history and the ambition of the kings of the nations. God is being that has a will. Purpose, planning, doing things for a specific reason are part of the character of God. Can you imagine what it would be like to believe that history is pointless and is not going anywhere but is rather whipped around by whatever tyrant wants to take the bull by the horns? Praise God that we live in a world that has a history governed by a consistent purpose. All that is to say that Philistia’s five-year plan was not the same as God’s five-year plan. Assyria’s ten-year plan was not the same as God’s ten-year plan. Babylon’s vision for the Eighth Century had nothing to do with God’s vision for it, and so God prophecies an upset in their plans in order to accomplish His divine plan.
So what is God’s plan? God begins the chapter by stating His plan in verse 1.
One of my first sermons when I moved here this past May was on God’s purpose for world history. I showed how Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis when they stated God’s intentions for world history and His commissioning orders for His people. Note how closely verse one compares to God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12:
1. God chose Abraham out of all the seventy family-nations He had formed at the tower of Babel in the previous chapter and promised to bless Abraham and his family.
2. God enumerates those blessings – I will give you a land, a nation, and a name,
3. then God promises that through Abraham and his descendents all the family-nations of the earth would be blessed.
Can you see God’s purpose has not changed? Here He is again in Isaiah over a thousand years later saying the same thing: choosing to bless a certain people, naming them, giving them a land and a nation, and spreading His kingdom through them to all the nations. God’s purpose is the same! Those who walk in step with God’s agenda are fabulously blessed, but those who go against God get run over by the steamroller.
i. Recognize that God is the only source of our blessing – see answer in v. 32
ii. Praise God! (The taunt song in v. 5-20 was a way of doing that.)
i. V.20 evildoer’s name cut off, but seed of God’s people name remains forever Isa 66:22
ii. V.21 Slaughter of the sons of Babylon so they will not rise, but Righteous will rise (51:17; 60:1).
iii. V.21 Slaughter of the sons of Babylon so they will not posess the earth, but righteous will possess the earth (57:13; 60:21).
iv. V.21 Slaughter of the sons of Babylon so they will not fill the face of the earth with cities, but Righteous will fill the face of the earth (27:6), and build cities (61:4; 58:12).
i. Don’t be afraid of bullies!
1. Comment on vs. 11-19 using handwritten commentary
2. Don’t fall into anxiety over Kim Jong Il’s latest nuclear weapons program or over the Democrats gaining control of the house. Trust that God is in control and will fulfill His purposes!
3. v.25 God brought the Assyrian king down to reassure His people that His word indeed stands and can be trusted for what is yet to be fulfilled. So today we can look back and see that Babylon fell and trust God for the rest that He promises.
ii. Look forward to your heavenly rest!
1. This whole chapter is filled with words contrasting rest with unrest.
2. Mat 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (30) For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
3. Heb 4:9-11 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, (10) for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (11) Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
4. Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!"
5. Mat 25:21 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'
i. Isa 60:10 Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.
ii. Rom 11:25 Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
iii. Act 2:39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
iv. In fact, v.32 is directed at Philistines, telling them where to find blessing! “Jehovah has founded Zion; in her the afflicted will find refuge.”