Isaiah: A Godly Man in a Nation in Crisis B

Mandan nations seem to go in the same endless cycles of repetition from glory to destruction, and somewhere along the line they fall in the sinfulness and end in destruction. That's the story of man in Eden and that's the story of every man in every nation.

Soon that like giving a cancer patient, a Band-Aid, it offers no cure for the real problem, but where sinful behavior and agendas can be controlled by legal means. Shouldn't Christians make a political stand or do we aim differently and devote ourselves only to evangelism or should we land somewhere in between. It's never been more important to answer those questions correctly.

John MacArthur gives a timely biblical perspective today on grace to you in his study called God's word to an ungodly society. Follow along. Now, as John begins his message the cynicism of the preacher and Ecclesiastes is somewhat justified when he said there is nothing new under the sun.

History becomes for him an endless cycle of repetition and so he says that which hath been, is now and that which is to be hath already been Mandan nations seem to go in the same endless cycles of repetition from glory to destruction their beginnings are usually bright and hopeful and filled with promise and somewhere along the line they fall into sinfulness and end in destruction. That's the story of man in Eden and that's the story of every man and every nation sent what is happened and how do we react to it.

I want us to look back in history for some answers.

I don't think that all of the answers are to be found in a nationalization of the present tense. I think the best lessons are to be found in a look at history because everything that we are experiencing is already been done.

If we look to the word of God will find out such similarities exist as maybe will shock us both in terms of problem and solution. First of all, look at chapter 5 and I want you to notice the parable of the Lord. For in this drama. The main character is the Lord himself.

This is a parable. In fact, it is an exquisite elegy is a parable in the form of a plaintive weeping song concerning what happened to that vineyard and what does it mean verse seven tells us for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah, his pleasant plant and he looked for justice, but behold, oppression for righteousness. But behold, a cry I want you to move with me then from the parable of the Lord, to the penetration of the Lord beginning in verse eight. Now here the Lord penetrates to the very core of the problem. I want you to see this six specific seasons have led to the ruin of the nation. A grasping materialism of drunken pleasure seeking a defiant sinfulness of moral perversion and arrogant conceit in the main thrust of it all just comes down from a corrected leadership so the parable in the penetration leads to the punishment of the Lord. Verse 24 of us can read it at the end it says because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts because they have despised the word of the holy one of Israel. Now there is people. There is the heart of the matter. When any people or any nation abandoned the word of God.

That's the touch stone that's the end that's the disaster you abandoned the absolute standard of the word of God and all hell breaks loose. Verse 25 therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people. He stretched forth his hand against them, and is smitten them for the hills to tremble and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. In other words, even when all that happens, God still reaches out and he will lift up an ensign to the nations. In other words, he's gonna stick up a standard in the air and it's going to be like it says come to judge the nation is calling for the nations to come, he will whistle under them and I wish I could do that. I let out a whistle God's gonna stick both fingers and the sides of his mouth and whistle. He says to Israel and the nations are going to con from the ends of the earth that I come swiftly. Verse 27 are knocking to be wary they're not gonna stumble or not go to sleep there not to lose their loins not to stop the tie their shoes, their feet are to be completely covered their arrows will be sharp.

Their bows will be bent, their horses, whose will be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind there in a roar like a lion. The gonna roar like young lions, yea, the ruler lay hold of the way and carried away safely and none shall deliver it. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea, and if one looked to the land, behold darkness and sorrow in the light is darkened and the heavens thereof.

Listen, just imagine that you're there that day in your with those people basking in the prosperity of Uzziah's reign and everything looks great and all of a sudden this weatherbeaten Wobegon angered profit stanza pronounces damnation of the whole society laughing when he says God's gonna whistle an immense Army, like they've never dreamed I was going to come with Jehovah as the commander-in-chief. It said can happen killing and carrying away the prey he was predicting the captivity. You see it happen. The Assyrian beach came and then the Chaldean lion later on the Roman Eagle flapped his wings, and all of them ran amok over the land that was added with us was I think just as much God is going to bring judgment on our land because were guilty of the same things. I honestly believe that if we don't call our land to repentance were to see the same thing happened you know than the first chapter.

Isaiah says another characteristic of your society is that your dishonest in your business dealings and you have rebellions in your families would not be true of our society course of we have played the harlot we've gone after the world even the church is a mockery in so many cases I thank God for here and there sure church, a remnant so the parable in the penetration of the punishment.

I believe with all my heart. People there's doom on our society no way out. Do there's always a great revival.

Church membership is going steadily down statistic steadily dip but the people calling themselves Christians but the people talk about Jesus. Lots of people talk about heaven and going there. I believe there's judgment impending. So what we do but try to get your fourth point, we see the parable of the Lord, the penetration of the Lord.

The punishment of the Lord. How about the presence of the Lord. Verse one of chapter 60 this is great in the year that King Uzziah died, stop right know what year that was about 740 BC after grain 52 years old.

In many ways was a good king. He was a good king in many ways he subdued the enemies of Israel.

He fortified Jerusalem. He developed agriculture he developed commerce under him.

Judah prospered re-second Chronicles 26 he did many good things but you know what happened. Chapter 26 verse 16.

A second Chronicles says it all went to his head but when he was strong. His heart was to his destruction for transgressed against the Lord is God and went into the temple to burn incense on the altar, usurped the place of a priest and God. At that very moment reached out and touched him with a divine hand of judgment and he became a leper until the day he died. He crawled away from society and he spent the rest of his life crying unclean unclean was in the year that King Uzziah died, Israel reached the apex of its disaster. He had died. The tragic leper was it was in the saddest hour of Israel's history that Isaiah had his greatest vision of God with the rest of the verse in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord a great state.

Listen people, that's the presence of the Lord is always a faithful prophet there's always a remnant. If ever there was a vision of God needed. It was then not believe that today in a decadent diluted society where religion is watered-down emasculated. If ever there is a reason to set aside the meaningless trappings of an external religion and really have a vision of God.

It is now you know where he saw God I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up in his train filled the temple and above it stood the seraphim, each one of six wings which we covered his face.

That's humility with two he covered his feet.

That's reverence with Julie did fly that's availability to serve, and one cried unto another, and said, holy, holy, holy, great Trinitarian cry is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory and the posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried in the house was filled with smoke and Oris on a storm in the temple the same temple where humanists tells us read writing in the antiquities of Josephus, how some soldiers had gone in there and desecrated the very altar of God. That same place where Pompey entered into the court of the Gentiles passed through to the court of Israel proceeded through entered the court of the priests stood before the very door of the sanctuary and Pompey that Roman general came, eager to enter the holy place and then the holy of holies and the Jewish people in 70 A.D., fell on their feet when the temple was to be desecrated again and pleaded that it not be so. That same temple which was desecrated again and again. Nuts, not only by Pompey not only by tightest this passing not only by the Roman soldiers, but by Antiochus epiphanies that same temple was desecrated by Uzziah when he went in and tried to play the role of the priest. That's the very place he saw God same temple, of whom Ezekiel writes all the walls were pictures of idols and there were snakes and creeping things and men worshiping the sun, but it ever and always remain the place of God. For those who saw him there so does Isaiah see God. Beloved, we need a fresh vision of God in a corrupt society how to I get so upset in my life when I see the superficiality and the smallness the stupidity of our Christian gimmicks in our ad man and our methods. John White has written the Jesus pencil bumper sticker T-shirt thing belongs to a different order of spiritual obscenity is a desecration of a Fowler kind.

It has to do with the greed that fills one's wallet from the fears, the joys and the tenderness that brings God and man together is the desecration that's pretty strong stuff. I want to make you blot, throw away your T-shirt had so much of pictures of Jesus and gimmicks and Jesus rock in entertainment and commercialism and nobody seems to really know what it is to be in the presence of God. The presence of the Lord resulted in 1/5 principle here, the purification of the Lord. Verse five then said I will always be for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. Not only is Uzziah unclean, but I am unclean, say, Isaiah your God's man your God's prophet word you get that idea will I have seen the Lord. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

Why am I not seen the king the Lord of hosts. Listen we taste when you really see God you will come out advertising yourself as a new Christian celebrity when you really see God you will come out patting yourself on the back and tell everybody what a great boon you will be to the cause. All of these to keep having visions of God instead of wanting to go on the road with their act would be found in a corner somewhere with a broken heart full of humility, contrition, conviction and unworthiness that would shake this nation into a true revival if they really seen God, and I tell you with all of the superficiality of Christianity and all of the quasi-religion that names the name of Christ. There are few people know what it is to walk out of the presence of God and touch this world and when they do they say will always be and when they say that then flew one of the seraphim under me having alive: his hand which he had taken with the tongs from the already later on my mouth and said hello. This is touch thy lips and on.

Iniquity is taken away and I send birds when you really see God. Your heart is filled with conviction in the moment of conviction. God comes with this cleansing so I say the presence of the Lord is inevitably followed by the purification of the Lord.

Any true vision of the Lord. Does this smug semi committed self-satisfied content. Christians have never been face-to-face with God. Habakkuk that very dear and special prophet said when I heard my belly trembled, my lips quivered rottenness entered my bones and I trembled in my cell. When God spoke, I fell apart. Daniel the same chapter 10 verse six. His body was like the barrel, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like lamps of fire his arms in his feet in color like polished bronze.

The voice of his words like the voice of a multitude and I Daniel alone saw the vision therefore I was left alone saw this great vision and the remainder will strengthen me for my comeliness was turned in me and the corruption I retained no strength. I felt rotten. He said Peter said, depart from me oh Lord from a sinful man Job said I've heard of the with the hearing of my near but now I see the face-to-face I behold the and I abhor myself in dust and ashes. When Manoah was visited by an angel to tell them of the birth of his son, Samson that Angel appeared in a blaze of glory, and Manoah cried. We shall surely die for. We seen God's seed to see God is to have a sense of unworthiness that's overwhelming. It's at that point that when you gaze and the glory of God that he touches you with the purification and waste purified you. You stand apart from that vile society and that's where Isaiah was now God could use them.

And so we come to the proclamation of the Lord are six point only one more to be done.

The proclamation of the Lord. I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us then said I hear I send leave and he said go and tell this people listen when you come from the presence of the Lord, and you been purified by the Lord. Then the Lord uses your proclaiming and what was to be his message.

A message of judgment you cause them to hear but not understand to see but not perceive make their heart fat, their ears heavy, their eyes shut hollow Lord, how long do I do that until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man of the land be utterly desolate in the Lord of removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. He says listen Isaiah you preach judgment until it's all over with one or some people. I believe that's what God's calling us to preach today. I believe God is asking us to confront people. I believe it's time to equip the padded stuff. The sacrament watered down. Jesus is him. It avoids the reality of sin and judgment help. It's time to forget the polished, glamorized vagaries of soft mouth preachers who tickle people's ears. It's time to speak God's judgment say will be the reaction most will believe will be shocked. The reason we evangelize is not because people believe, but because God commanded right say will anybody believe that anybody believe Isaiah yes verse 13 and I want to just tell you what the verse is a written a new international because it's very square clear as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they're cut down so the holy seed will be the stump in the land. In other words, God says when I hit that land would judgment all wiped out. But just like an oak tree leaves a stump. There will be a stump of a remnant now that remnant will grow a new tree. Some people would believe, but narrow is the gate and narrow is the way lead at the life everlasting and what few there be that find ref to preach judgment to our world to our nation as we preach the gospel, which includes judgment W. Remnant believes the stump of the holy seed are the hope for the future. That's the final point, the promise of the Lord, the promise of the Lord still genres it in chapter 7 verse 14 just this verse therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name said Emmanuel.

That's the promise in the midst of the judgment. There is a manual and Emmanuel means God with us. Listen people, our nation's do not know, but there's a stump there and why we preach judgment. They'll be some who believe in those son will believe will be redeemed in the hope of a manual.

That's the message of a godly man in a nation in crisis was what is Isaiah saying to us, saying there was a great beginning, but all went bad for the land is corrupt the religion is apostates. We are people facing severe punishment in the midst of it all, the righteous can have an audience with God, and out of that audience can tell the purification that leads to a proclamation.

The proclamation that includes doing but yes, that includes hope. Hope in a manual, listen were not fatalist brought as many people out there and I don't care how rotten America gets, to preach the message because I want that holy seed to hear.

I close with this an unknown Christian Road building temples in his name of mortar and brick and stone with windows of glass most beautifully stained with steeple Inspiron dome one we of the byways care for structure in line and trim out in the dust of the lonely road will only ask for him you rolled your choirs and train them well improper and intricate song you've bought fine organs to edify unlawful the weary throng, but what we care for your well ruled choir all your organs deep man we want you to walk beside us here in point is the way to you or the roads of the world are a crooked maze and we are woefully lost the road to him in the paths of men is faint and hidden and crossed what we care for the trappings of art when our hearts, hi, hope is dim. We seek the touch of his healing hand all show us the way to hear it's pretty and father. That's really the issue is the midst of the chaos of this nation.

There's a remnant out there and we have come into your presence whose lips of been touched with the coal off the altar been purified in the blood of Christ, who been given the ministry of proclamation where to preach not only judgment on the lost, but the good word of the promise of a manual to those who believe God save us from thinking the testimony of brick-and-mortar is all that's needed. May we be ever busy coming out of your presence purified to proclaim the message that shows people the way to him.

Christ, that's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary here on grace to you showing you from the life of Isaiah how to live righteously in today's anti-God culture. John calls to study God's word to an ungodly society know if you have been challenged by what you've heard in today's lesson. Or maybe John's recent studies on spiritual self-examination dealing with sin or genuine worship. If those things struck a chord. If you're benefiting from these daily broadcasts.

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