God’s High and Low Plans: Isaiah 2 — A Christian Growth Message

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Transcript

While we’re standing, let’s bow our heads for a moment, going to pray the prayer of John Calvin:

Lord and heavenly Father, in whom is the fullness of light and wisdom. Enlighten our minds by your Holy Spirit and give us grace to receive your Word with reverence and humility, without which no-one can understand your truth, for Jesus Christ’s sake, amen, amen.

Please have a seat everybody.

We are continuing a little series in the book of Isaiah, and this is week number 2. some of you will know the words in the New Testament that God is working all things for good. These are very comforting words, of course, for every believer, because God can take the frustration of the past week, or the success, or the joy, or the failure, or the interruption – and work it all with his toolkit for our good.

I however want to help God in the process of doing this and it works like this in my brain and maybe for you as well. uh my suggestion to God goes like this, please do control all my circumstances, that would be wonderful. Please do remove all the frustrating and painful parts. That would be a great help, and please concentrate on all the easy and fun stuff. And then of course that’s what I will call working for my good.

Don’t know if you ever think like that, but that’s a little bit of the way I think every now and again. Oh God, thank you for controlling everything, thank you that you’re loving. Please make my life go really well, really easily. And of course, when I think like that or in if I dared to pray like that, it would be like a child saying to the parent – please spoil me rotten and I will turn out to be delightful.

Or a professional athlete saying to the coach no training for me, it’s too tiring.

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Or the patient saying to the doctor, I know I have a broken leg, but I just want a Panadol.

So we, I think, imagine that the road that we should be on should be an easy road. And God of course knows that the road that we should be on, that we need to be on, is a life-changing road.

In our passage from Isaiah chapter 2 today, which comes to us from God.

Isaiah speaks of the plan that God has for his people, and it is an unspeakably beautiful plan. I, I think if we were to collect 1000 great writers and poets, they could not match Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 to 5. The words in Isaiah chapter 2:1 to 5 are unspeakably beautiful.

But we also read in chapter two of the road to the goal, and it’s not the road that we would probably choose. In other words, we like the goal.

Well we’re not so keen on the path to the goal, but it’s the path which will work to the goal, and God knows that.

So we began last week, friends, to look at the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. It’s Isaiah maybe the greatest prophet in the whole of the Old Testament, and he spoke to God’s people in the 8th century BC.

And for those of you who know a little bit about the ancient world, Isaiah was preaching to the bottom half of Israel. Because the top half had been obliterated.

And Isaiah was preaching in the 8th century BC to the bottom half of Israel.

We saw last week that God raised Isaiah up because God’s people were sick. They were sick with heart disease. That is they had hearts that were not particularly drawn to God at all. And they were certainly not interested in doing his Word, and so God and his Word meant very little to them. Their hearts were sick, and God raised up a prophet called Isaiah to come and speak to them and get them back to their health.

So were the people that Isaiah was speaking to, were they a religious people, they were very religious. Were they churchgoing? Yes, they were regular churchgoers in the temple in Jerusalem. But God could see through, this is what we saw last week, he could see through their religion, that actually behind the religion, was a refusal to do his will.

Now I wonder whether there’s somebody here this morning and you have recently asked God for help in something and you got what you wanted. But then you just said to yourself, well that’s great. God has been my ambulance, he’s solved my problem and I will just move on and run my life myself.

And so much of the people of God in in Isaiah’s day were basically seeing God as useful to their purposes, but were that God was not to interfere in their lives. And we saw last week in God’s goodness that he called on his people to turn back to him and get washed. And of course we know that washing ultimately comes by turning to Christ, who died for us, and also God called on his people to walk the new path with him.

Well, chapter 2 is where God explains the goal that he has and also the path to the goal. You may remember that Jesus also talked like this when he was doing his ministry on earth. He said to the disciples on one occasion, the path that you’re going to have to walk is a very difficult path. You’ll be carrying your cross of discipleship.

But he said the end is going to be completely worthwhile.

And he took some of them up the Mount of Transfiguration and he showed them his splendour. So it’s a little bit like getting a glimpse of the future to keep you going on the path of difficulty. So I want to look at this Isaiah chapter 2 under two headings this morning. The first is the goal that God is moving to, this is chapter 2:1 to 5, and the second is the path that God is moving on. This is verses 6 to 22.

The goal God is moving to

So think, let’s think for a minute about the goal that God is moving to. Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 to 5, we read in Isaiah chapter 2 verse 2, God puts his telescope out and he says, this is where I’m taking my people. Verse 2:

The mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains of the world, and all nations will stream to it.

In other words, says God, I have a goal and I’m going to reach my goal, and the goal is that my throne will be seen to be the throne and the people of the world will be drawn to me. In other words, I’m going to fix things.

Every now and again I walk past Central Station. And the students of the colleges and the university are recently setting up their tables outside and they’re trying to get the passersby to sign up to and support a great Marxist future. I don’t know if you’ve seen these tables, and I do feel like a bit of an old bloke walking past, but I do want to say to these students you must be under 25 to be doing this.

I mean, is there anybody over 25 who knows a little a modicum about history? Who still thinks that Marxist ideology is a good way to go. I mean, have you read anything about the 20th century? Do you know where Marxist ideology has led the world? And yet here are these young people saying this is the way, this is the way.

Now the Bible tells us that God has divided the world since the Tower of Babel, and he’s done it deliberately.

So there are divisions in the world that can never be humanly solved.

And God has done this deliberately because he does not want the world getting together in its atheism opposition to him. In other words, he keeps us humble as a world.

And the Bible also tells us that God, as we read this morning, brings in the leaders and then he brings out the leaders.

And we welcome the new leader, the new prime minister and we say you’re going to solve all our problems, remember you promised and you will, and after a few years we say it just didn’t happen, and out they go.

But you see God who made the world, he knows how to solve the world. And God tells us that he’s going to bring in a brand new world.

So Isaiah chapter 2 verse 2 is a beautiful promise of the future where God will be established and he will do what he’s planned.

And he’ll be seen to be supreme.

And he’ll be seen to be the only hope of the world.

And he’ll gather his people, chapter 2, verse 2. Jerusalem incidentally, only sat on a fairly low hill, so when the Bible talks about Jerusalem and the temple being seen as the highest mountain in the world, it’s a picture that God’s throne, God’s greatness, God Himself will be seen as the highest goal, and he’ll also be seen as the only place to go for safety.

It’s the exclusive gift of God to belong to God. But you’ll see that all the nations will stream to it, in other words, it’s an open invitation. Exclusive, there’s only God, inclusive, anybody can come to him.

It’s a little bit like what we read in the New Testament that where we were told that Jesus who humbled himself, has been exalted by God and has been given the highest place and one day every knee will bow and confess Jesus is Lord.

Now notice the enthusiasm in chapter 2 verse 3. The people are going to become enthusiastic, yes, they will. And it’s a work of God to create this enthusiasm. Look at chapter 2 verse 3, the people say as they’re heading up to to God Himself, let’s go, let’s go up. And then they say, let’s learn because he’s going to teach us, and then they say, let’s do what he teaches us.

So it’s a fantastic mindset that comes over the people. It’s a beautiful mindset, they say, let’s go, everything else can wait. Let’s learn, we’re hungry to know what God is like and what God wants, let’s do it, let’s not just sit and listen.

Let’s do it.

This is the sort of thing that happens in revivals, when God revives a town or a city or a country and the revival comes in great power, suddenly everybody just puts aside all the other stuff of their life. And they say I must deal with God, I must do business with God, I must find out what he says, I must do what he says.

This is a transformation which God alone can work on friends, I look at the lethargy in my own heart at the moment. The sleepiness that comes over me. The desire in my heart to just escape all obligations. And just indulge myself. And there are so many ads, of course, that are telling me escape from all obligations, go travelling, go on a Viking tour. Enjoy yourself.

But when God is at work, there’s a new spiritual enthusiasm that enters in, we must pray for that.

Sometimes friends, we need external markers to make us realise that we’re not quite the spiritual temperature that we think we are. It’s a little bit like having your blood pressure taken, you know, you’re sitting there feeling perfectly fine and then take your blood pressure and find that your blood pressure is actually quite elevated, or you’re quite anxious and you take your blood pressure and actually discover your blood pressure is fine.

When I went to my first church in the western suburbs, I was 31 years old.

And after I’d been there a few weeks, I was told one of the rules of the church. It was a very close-knit church, in many ways it was a very healthy church, and one of the rules of the church went like this, when the house party was to be organised, you, Mr. Minister, were to give us as a church 4 weeks’ notice.

So we knew when the forms were coming out. So that we would know that we could apply. Because on the day the forms came out the house party would be filled.

So the Sunday that the forms for the house party came out, it was absolutely filled, there was a waiting list after that and you had to hope and pray that somebody pulled out, otherwise you would just not go to the house party. And the house party was away and it was expensive. But it was unmissable.

Now think about us at All Saints, and perhaps we’re similar to many other churches.

We say – We’ve got a home house party coming. And we’ve made it all very simple, you don’t have to travel. And it’s very inexpensive and it’ll be a very, very valuable 24 hours. And about 4 weeks later, you bump into people and they say home house party, I know nothing about it. Really? When is it? What is it? Why is it?

It’s a very different enthusiasm, isn’t it?

And all I’m saying, and you know I love you, you know I love you, all I’m saying is that sometimes we don’t realise what lethargy we’ve dropped into, but God is able to create not only the place where there is salvation to be found, but he’s also able to create the people. And he’s able to create the zeal.

If you look at chapter 2, verse 4, you’ll see the third detail of the goal of God. It’s famous, magnificent. It says:

That disputes are going to be settled in the great plan of God, swords will become ploughing items, spears will become gathering items. In other words, a beautiful picture of the putting away of the weapons of war and the taking up of all the things that have to do with harvest and plenty.

And the same God you see who has created peace between us and Him, and has created peace in the fellowship of the church and has created peace in the heart of the believers, is one day going to make sure that peace dominates the new world.

Weapons and war will be a thing of the past.

And you can see even in this verse, verse 4, the weapons are no more, the anger has gone. And the training for war has gone as well, there is no need, it’s a thing of the past. Now for us, of course, this sounds impossible, ridiculous, but for the God of the Bible, it’s exactly where he’s moving.

And the God who keeps all his promises will take us. So this is the goal, this is the first thing, the thing that we’re moving to, and we might encourage one another by learning Isaiah 2:5.

Which simply says, come. Let’s walk in the light of the Lord. Come let’s walk in the light of the Lord, come let’s walk in the light of the Lord, come let’s walk in the light of the Lord.

Because the path that the Lord is taking us on to his goal, is the path to walk in the light of the Lord. But it’s a difficult path, and this is our second brief point this morning in verses 6 to 22.

The path that God is moving on

And there are two parts in verses 6 to 22. 1st of all, there’s the path for God’s people. God’s people are going to go through a very humbling time. The Church of Isaiah’s day is going to go through a very refining process, but then verses 12 to 22, the world is also going to be humbled.

Now why are God’s people gonna have to walk a very humbling, refining path?

And the answer is because they’d become very reckless and disobedient.

And just look at what Isaiah was facing. I mean, we may think things are bad for the church today, but just look at what Isaiah was facing in verse 6.

He says, Lord, you’ve abandoned them, you seem to have given them up. They’ve just become crazy. Verse 6, they’re now superstitious, they’re like mystics. They’re not interested in what you say, they’re interested in how they feel and almost every superstition.

And then verse 6, they practise divination, in other words, they consult spirits, and they consult the underworld. This is what God’s people were like in Isaiah’s day, and verse 6, they embrace pagan customs, they’re taking their cue from the world, not from God Himself. And so the first thing that God says of his people, I want you to know that my people have given up on me, says God.

What’s the mark of the healthy, joyful people, verse 3, let’s go to the Lord. Let’s learn from him, let’s do His will. What’s the mark of the unhealthy, disobedient people, verse 6, let’s go anywhere else but God.

Now my friends, I know that the world will say to us on a regular basis, your view of God is your business, you know, make-up the God that suits you and the most important thing is not God, but how you treat people in this world, but God says your view of God is going to dictate everything about you.

Because in the end you’re going to become like the thing you worship.

And if the thing you worship is small and unworthy, that’s what you will become.

But if you take God seriously, you’ll find yourself worshipping somebody very, very worthwhile.

Jesus, of course, talked a little bit like this when he warned his disciples of the future, he said, you know, there will come a day where there will be wars and trouble for Jerusalem, but the first thing he said is watch out for the deceivers. Watch out for the people who come and deceive you about the truth of God.

Well, verse 6 again in Isaiah, what happens when the people turn from God and turn to idols? Verse 7, in come the false gods, verse 7. The first of them is money, you see, silver and gold, the classic idol of money, and then verse 7, there’s the horses and the chariots, the classic idol of power. And then verse 7, there are the false gods that people are bowing to because they’re giving their whole heart, mind, soul and strength to something which is going to perish.

There’s nothing wrong of course with money, as long as it doesn’t become your master. There’s nothing wrong with power as long as it doesn’t become your god. And lots of the idols that are in the western world and in this suburb itself, idols like health and family and comfort and pleasure, they’re fine, fine things, unless they become god.

And then suddenly God is dishonoured and we begin to be destroyed.

Interestingly, the word for idols in the Hebrew is the word elilim. And the word or one of the words for God in the Bible is Elohim.

And I don’t think it’s an accident that the idol Eli Lim and God Elohim, sounds so similar because idols are so crafty.

They just look so persuasive and so good and so right. But they’re not God.

So, what’s God going to do with his people who turned from him to idols, verse 9, they’re going to have to be brought low.

And God will be exalted, not because God has got a big ego and just needs to be praised all the time, but because people need to see who he is and what truth is like and what justice is like.

And so the people of God in Isaiah’s day are about to be taken out of the promised land into Babylon for 70 years. And that’s where people like Ezekiel would go.

And that’s where Daniel would be in the lion’s den, lifted out of the promised land for 70 years to learn that God is God, idols are not, and to come back to their faith and their faithfulness. And also we’re told in verses 12 to 22 that God’s world itself will be brought low because there’s a day coming, where pride will be brought down. And God will be honoured.

And I can’t imagine what this will look like for so many people who have lived in this world, as if God is nobody and nothing.

And suddenly discover Isaiah chapter 2 verse 19, that he is terrifying.

And people who’ve lived in the West and in this world, chapter 2, verse 21, 20. And they have had their idols, their family, their home, their job, their money, whatever it is, and they suddenly realise that the idol, is something to be thrown away as far as possible. Like a snake that’s attached to you. Because it’s just done so much damage.

And therefore the final verse in chapter 2 is verse 22, which is a call to the world, wake up, don’t put your confidence in people, people will fail you.

I hope you’ve learned this dear friends, don’t put your confidence in the church members here, love them, thank God for them, but don’t trust any of them to solve your soul. Don’t put your confidence in the pastors here, pray for them and love them, but don’t put your confidence in them because we cannot solve your soul.

But put your trust in the living God.

And verse 5 of Isaiah 2 is exactly the right response, come let’s walk in the light of the Lord. God, you see, is going to take his people through a hard path, which we need, to a wonderful goal.

Which will be more wonderful than we could possibly imagine, and the reason that he’ll do it is because he’s given his Word.

Now I’ll finish by reminding you, you may have read the story of Ernest Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton was the man who led the great expedition to the South Pole, and when he went to the South Pole in 1915, his boat, The Endurance ran aground and was hugely damaged and could move no further. And so in the middle of this tremendous icy world, Shackleton took 3 of the lifeboats and put all of the men into the lifeboats, and they sailed 100 miles, so they rowed 100 miles to another place where they could stand. When they got there, there was absolutely no hope, no future and no rescue.

And so they were there they were on solid ice, but completely cut-off from everything that would be safe and worthwhile. And so Shackleton turned one of the rowing boats into a sailing boat, and with 4 men, he sailed 800 miles to South Georgia, South America, promising the men who were stranded on the ice that he would come back for them and he would take them to safety.

And he sailed with these 4 men 800 miles to South Georgia. He then borrowed a Chilean naval tugboat and went back for the men and collected all 22 of them and took the whole party to safety.

Because he’d promised.

Now if Ernest Shackleton can keep a promise to take his people to safety through a difficult path, you can absolutely be sure that the living God can do what he’s promised.

Jesus said, in my father’s house are many rooms. I’m going to take you. You will be with me. I’ve made the way. Trust me.

Let’s Pray

Heavenly Father, we thank you for reminding us in this portion of your Word that you have a goal for your people and a goal for your world, and a very beautiful and wonderful goal.

We thank you that you have the wisdom to take us on the path that is needed, and as you work all things for good, we pray that you would help us to trust you, to obey you, and we pray that you would give to us a zeal, like the people in Isaiah chapter 2, to say, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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