Beholding the Beautiful King in the Face of Adversity

Well, as you may have surmised, we will not be picking up in Revelation this
morning. We will be instead looking at Isaiah chapter 33, Isaiah chapter 33.
So go ahead, if you have your Bibles this morning, go ahead and start turning there
this morning. And if you're newer to Christianity or if you're newer to the Bible,
Isaiah is sort of centrally located in the Bible. It's right after the Psalms and
Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. It's a pretty big book. You shouldn't be able to
miss it. Yeah, you shouldn't be able to miss it. And at this point, you're probably
wondering, Cole, you had the entire Bible to choose from. Why choose Isaiah chapter
33 for a standalone sermon? Well, my reasons are threefold.
First of all, I'm going through the book of Isaiah with the students on our Sunday
afternoon student gathering. So if you're a student in the room and you wanna know
more about Isaiah and the glorious truth that's revealed in this book, we would love
to have you. We meet from four to six here at the church. Again, we would ask
that you come and hear more about the Lord and Isaiah.
But the second reason why I chose this text is because it has a lot of overlap
with the book of Revelation. Hopefully you'll see that at the end of this morning.
It'll surprise you just how many themes that are present in Isaiah 33 are also
present in the book of Revelation. Themes like God's justice and rendering judgment
and the new Jerusalem and the marriage supper of the Lamb are all present here in
Isaiah 33 that are picked up on in Revelation.
And finally, another reason why I chose this passage is because it has a very deep
personal and spiritual significance to me. Many of you who know Hannah, and by the
way, Hannah is home sick this morning. I was sick earlier this week. I inevitably
passed it on to her, so be praying for her. She woke up with a fever this
morning. But many who know Hannah and I know that we've been asking the Lord for
children for almost two years now. And obviously, and unfortunately,
we remain childless.
This season of infertility has been difficult to say the least. It has tested the
depths of our very beliefs and the very character of God.
And so you can imagine when I read this passage and got to verse 17 and was met
by a beautiful king who orders my life for his glory and my good I wept aloud and
knew that this passage had to comfort somebody else. I knew that it had to give
someone else other than me a hope for today and a bright future for tomorrow.
That's why I decided to preach it. And when I don't pretend to know what everybody
is going through, I do know that many of you are enduring great suffering. And I
hope that in seeing the king in his beauty this morning, you will leave with a
hope that is able to face unrelenting troubles.
In fact, that's the main point of this sermon. That's the main idea, that beholding
the beautiful king will provide you with a hope in the face of adversity.
Beholding the beautiful king will provide you with hope in the face of adversity.
So what does it look like? What does this look like to behold the beautiful king?
What does that mean? Well, Isaiah 33 tells us, Just like let's make one thing
absolutely abundantly clear, that whenever I'm speaking about the king, I am meaning
the Lord, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, right? And according to Isaiah 33,
beholding the beautiful king means that we see the beauty of God's deliverance.
We see the beauty of God's deliverance in verses one through two, and in verses
three through twelve, we see the beauty of God's self -exaltation, God's self
-exaltation, and then thirdly and finally we see the beauty of God's habitation with
the righteous in verses 13 through 24. But before we jump into the text,
I want to kind of first situate us in the book of Isaiah because we're picking it
up right in chapter 33. So I want to give us some context here right before we
jump into the text. So I think we have a timeline here. So according to Isaiah 1
-1, Isaiah was a prophet during the reigns of these kings of Judah. He was a
prophet to Uzziah, to Japhim, Ahas, and Hezekiah. All these are kings of Judah that
Isaiah prophesied to. And while many have been, while he may have been alive during
the reigns of these kings, his prophecies far outdate his own lifetime,
right? So his prophecies go far beyond 673 BC. And if we're looking at Isaiah as a
whole, here's an important hermeneutical principle to bear in mind. So as we look at
and interpret and read and study the book of Isaiah, we need to keep this in the
back of our minds. So Isaiah one through 39, where our text is located is primarily
concerned with the coming Assyrian threat. While the rest of the book is mainly
prophesying about other kingdoms that seek to uproot Israel and Judah, Isaiah 33,
again, is concerned with the coming Assyrian threat. Now, who are the Assyrians and
why are they important to Isaiah 33? Well, you can read about the Assyrian over of
Israel and Samaria and Judah and 2 Kings 17 through 19, but allow me to summarize
it here very quickly for you. So the Assyrians are looking to expand their empire,
and they're on the warpath to do it. Any historian of the ancient Near East will
tell you that the Assyrians were the preeminent superpower of that time period in
that region of the earth. They had grown accustomed to becoming brutal in warfare
and plundering any land that they laid their eyes on. They easily defeated and laid
waste to Israel, the northern kingdom. And, but when they were reaching the southern
kingdom of Judah, when he reached those borders, they were met with resistance and
rebellion by King Hezekiah. Now, eventually, and the key word there, eventually King
Hezekiah trusted Yahweh to deliver his people from the hands of the Assyrians. His
trust was bolstered by the fact that Isaiah prophesied against the Assyrians, saying
that they would be defeated by the forces of Judah and be sent back with their
tails between their legs. And this is what eventually would happen. "But when
Sennacherib, "King of the Assyrians had his armies were seeking to lay siege of
Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah. An angel of the Lord went down and struck 185
,000 Assyrians dead." Right? In the middle of the night. This is this is how the
Lord defeated the Assyrians ultimately. But that hasn't happened yet in our Texas
morning. All that we are to know is that the Assyrians are coming and they are
coming to either bring subjugation or violence. Subjugation or violence.
And here's another important interpretive principle as we look at Isaiah. Isaiah's
main focus in his prophetic ministry is not only to reveal what is going to happen
and why it's going to happen, but he also seeks to call the people of Judah back
to faithful worship to Yahweh. He simply wants for Judah to worship Yahweh again.
He wants them to abandon their foreign idols and bow down to the one true king of
Israel once more. In many ways, this objective is handicapped by the people's
unwillingness to hear him and respond in obedience to his calls to faithfulness.
This is evidenced by the fact that the wickedness Israel runs rampant through the
streets of Jerusalem and Judah as a whole. Nonetheless, Isaiah still preaches his
messages, prophesies his messages, hoping for a remnant to respond in faith and
obedience. So with that context and frame, with that said, let's go ahead and jump
into the text this morning. We're going to take this piece by piece, but here it
is, Isaiah 33,
"Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed. "You traitor,
whom none has betrayed. "When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed.
"And when you have finished betraying, "they will betray you. "O Lord,
be gracious to us. "We wait for you. "Be our arm every morning,
our salvation "in the time of trouble. At the tumultuous noise, people flee.
When you lift yourself up, nations are scattered. And your spoil is gathered as the
caterpillar gathers. As Locusts leap, it is leapt upon. The Lord is exalted,
for he dwells on high. He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness. He will be
the stability of your times, abundance of salvation wisdom and knowledge the fear of
the Lord is Zion's treasure behold their heroes cry in the streets the envoys of
peace weep bitterly the highways lie waste the traveler ceases covenants are broken
cities are despised there is no regard for man "The land mourns and languishes.
Lebanon is confounded and withers away. "Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and
Carmel shake off their leaves. "'Now I will arise,' says the Lord.
'Now I will lift myself up. "'Now I will be exalted. "'You conceive chaff,
you give birth to stubble. "'Your breath is a fire that will consume you. and the
peoples will be as if burned to line. They're like thorns cut down that are burned
in the fire. Here, you who are far off what I have done, and you who are near,
acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the
godless. Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings. He who walks up righteously and
speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands lest
they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from the hearing of bloodshed and shuts his
eyes from looking on evil. He will dwell on the heights. His place of defense will
be the fortresses of rocks. His bread will be given him. His water will be sure.
Your eyes will behold the king and his beauty. They will see a land that stretches
afar. Your heart will muse on the terror. Well, where is he who counted?
Where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers? You will
see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot
comprehend. Stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. Behold Zion,
the city of our appointed feast. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled
habitation in a movable tent whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of
its cords be broken. But there the Lord and majesty will be for us a place of
broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can
pass, for the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King,
He will save us. Your cords hang loose, they cannot hold the mass firm in its
place, or keep the sail spread out, then pray and spoil and abundance will be
divided, even the lame will take the prey, and no inhabitant will say,
"I am sick." The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.
This is the word of the Lord.
And so let's jump right in. Verses one through two, we see the beauty of God's
deliverance, the beauty of God's deliverance. So the first questions we should be
asking ourselves is this, who is this destroyer? Who is this betrayer? And why are
they being destroyed? And why are they being betrayed? Right? Well, remember that a
coming Assyrian threat, these guys were ruthless. They were ruthless. They were
unprincipled in how they conquered surrounding territories. When you read the annals
or the stories of the Assyrian kings, they were notorious for striking fear into the
hearts of their enemies. Fear and intimidation through fierce military tactics were
all par for the course when it came to their expansion efforts. Listen to this
inscription found on a tablet that details the events of Sargon II, king of Assyria,
this guy who kind of initially launched a military campaign against Judah. Listen to
what he has to say, "In the course of my campaign, I approached Judah and received
tribute from kings. With the powerful assistance of my divine patron, Asher,
I ravaged the land of Hezekiah of Judah like a hurricane. I laid siege to Ezekiah
between my land and the land of Judah. I attacked the city with ramps, battering
rams and infantry. At the side of my Calvary, at the roar of my troops, their
hearts failed them. I took this fortress and carried off its spoil.
I utterly destroyed it with fire." By their own admission,
these guys were not to be trifled with, right? They would burn the countryside and
all of the arable land so that food supplies would be cut off, and that every
person living in the countryside would be forced to move into the cities. This is
how ancient siege warfare worked. Those were the tactics that they used. And not
only should they not be trifled with, they shouldn't be trusted. They have no
problem with betraying trust. They are traitors. Jim Hamilton says this,
that the argument not to trust in Assyria is based on the fact that Yahweh is
using Assyria to bring judgment on those who do not trust Him.
So this ominous threat of an Assyrian invasion looms in the background of Isaiah's
prophecy. The Assyrian armies are on their way to Jerusalem, planning their next
siege, licking their chops. So what is Isaiah saying here that the destroyer and
trader of Assyria will themselves be destroyed and betrayed. In other words,
Judah would eventually be delivered from the hands of these foreign invaders, but
they still faced an unparalleled crisis that they had never experienced before.
And while this adversity is something that they had never faced before, Isaiah knows
that that there's a pattern of deliverance woven in the very story of Israel.
In fact, Isaiah knows that God to be a God of deliverance. This is why he prays
what he prays in verse 2. Isaiah knows God to be a God of deliverance. He knows
that that deliverance from the hands of the enemy is not guaranteed, but only
happens by God's grace. He recognizes that it'll take an act of God's undeserved
favor, His grace, to save Judah from the Assyrians. Remember,
by and large, Judah was not walking with the Lord. There was a faithful remnant,
yes, but the vast majority did not have a singular desire to worship Yahweh.
Faith in Yahweh was merely theoretical or even, I mean, perhaps even cultural,
right? They would worship Yahweh when it suited them, but when they,
they would also worship foreign divinities and foreign idols as well. Judah had
corporately broken the Mosaic Covenant. They failed in keeping the Ten Commandments.
Yahweh was no longer their God.
And for this very reason, God was under no obligation to save Judah from the
Assyrians. God could have left them in the hands of these bloodthirsty Assyrians and
been perfectly just to do so. But it would take an act of God's grace to save
them. The remarkable thing is that God would eventually save them from the Assyrians.
The beautiful king extended his omnipotent arm and saved them. He crushed the
Assyrians, right, in a single blow on that fateful night and brought deliverance to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So God clearly delivered on this request to be gracious
and save.
The only thing was that the remnant of Yahweh's faithful in Judah had to wait on
Him, right? To trust in outside sources of deliverance would be to show that God is
untrustworthy. To rely on something other than the strong arm of the Lord would be
to communicate that God is not omnipotent.
The people had to wait for God's deliverance and not seek to cut short the Lord's
timing in all of this, make no mistake Judah and their kings did not have the best
track record when it came to waiting for deliverance. I mentioned it earlier,
King Hezekiah eventually trusted Yahweh, but he did not initially do so. King
Hezekiah sought out Egyptian military aid to help him fight off the Assyrians.
Rather than initially trusting in way, he looked for strength and protection
elsewhere.
He looked for deliverance elsewhere, and while Hezekiah would eventually find his
trust in the Lord, he even tried to pay off Sennacherib and the Assyrians with gold
stripped from the temple.
So with these rash and foolish decisions, Hezekiah demonstrated his inability to wait
on the Lord for deliverance.
And this must have clearly affected his subjects, right? They saw a king not trust
the king.
And so this is why Isaiah prays this. He knows the Assyrians will eventually be
routed and overpowered by the mighty arm of the Lord. He knows that the rising and
falling of kingdoms has been ordered by God. He is the one true king who sits on
the throne, not the Assyrians, not Hezekiah, but God, the King, and throne above the
nations, He will deliver His people as He pleases.
We need only weight on Him in the face of adversity. I know it's cliche, but
weighting is the hard part, am I right? In an age of two -day,
one -day deliveries, it can It's easy to believe that God delivers us from our
suffering in the same way,
instantaneously,
or that we can somehow expedite the very plans and purposes of God.
Oh, dear friends, don't despise the waiting. Don't despise the waiting, especially
when we have so many clear promises in Scripture that God will be with us in the
midst of our waiting.
We sang it last week. Fear not, I am with you. O be not dismayed,
for I am your God and will still give you aid. I will strengthen you, help you,
and cause you to stand upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. When through the
deep waters I call you to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow, for I will
be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.
Don't try to rush to deliverance from your suffering. Trust God in the midst of
your waiting. There is great value in waiting on the Lord to deliver. I'm convinced
that waiting helps someone gain a fern grasp on what is actually promised in
Scripture.
God does not necessarily grant us to be delivered from our trials in our own
timing. What is clearly promised is the very presence of God in the midst of our
waiting.
And more than that, God's presence is always sufficient. How do I know this? "When
through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy
supply."
You see, the weighting sanctifies us in that it helps us gain a better understanding
of what is actually promised.
It also helps us gain a better understanding of what deliverance will actually look
like.
Deliverance at the beginning of a trial may look differently from when you reach the
end of it.
In the same way, Hezekiah thought that deliverance would come by the hands of the
Egyptians or the tribute of the temple's gold. We oftentimes think that deliverance
will come by what we can control or what we can influence. But verse 2 makes it
clear that the Lord Himself will be our deliverance. He is our salvation in the
time of trouble. He is the arm that sustains us every morning. Maybe that's what
you need to make your prayer. Lord, be our arm every morning.
You may not be staring down, bloodthirsty Assyrians, but many of you are facing
adversity. That's just as bad. This passage invites us to recognize the beautiful
deliverance that comes from a beautiful king.
You will also stare into the eyes of this beautiful king and know that he offers
such gracious deliverance. So we see the beauty of God's deliverance.
We also see the beauty of God's self exaltation, the beauty of God's self exaltation
in verses 3 through 12.
God's exaltation of himself is beautiful. Make no mistake, because when God exalts
himself over those who oppose him, he shows himself to be all the more glorious.
As Andrew Abernathy writes, Isaiah 33 crystallizes Zion's hope in the exaltation and
reign of Yahweh as king. Yahweh's reign implies dreadful judgment, but the positive
aspects of His reign for the faithful are also in view. And just to give you sort
of a framework of verses 3 through 12, Isaiah has given us two different lenses
into which to see the Lord's self -exaltation. verses three through six is more of a
zoomed -out lens, getting the bigger picture of what this looks like. But verses
seven through 12 is a more zoomed -in lens as to what we should see when we see
the Lord exalting Himself. So again, both of these lenses are there to aid us in
beholding the beautiful King.
And it seems as though we have a rehashing of Babel here, the Tower of Babel here
in verses three through four, the nations that think that they can dethrone the Lord
or usurp His reign are sent into a frenzy. They're scattered. When the Lord exalts
Himself and displays His power, the nations disperse into the victor go the spoils.
When God defeats the Assyrians and takes their plunder, He shows that He is the one
worth exalting. These spoils are gathered as the caterpillar gathers,
as the locusts leap upon crops, this spoil will be left upon. In other words, this
treasure is right for the taking. It's not hard for the Lord to take what is
rightfully His,
but Judah will reap, we'll see this later on, Judah will reap the rewards of the
Lord's
But what's more important is that he has lifted himself up against the nations. Zion
can fully anticipate for God to exalt himself there too. There he will establish his
reign with justice and righteousness, no more kings who are unjust and unrighteous.
In fact, there's only been one other king in Israel's history prior to this point
who is said to have ruled with justice and righteousness, that exact phrasing. Second
Samuel 8 .15 says that David reigned over all Israel, and David administered justice
and equity to all his people.
The rest of the Israelite monarchy failed to uphold this standard. Even their best
kings fell short. And so, because of that, Zion, Judah, is looking for another
Davidic king, one who would come after David to establish justice and righteousness.
But it's the Lord who's doing this. Do you see that? The Lord will fill Zion with
justice and righteousness. And because of that, his reign will be marked by a few
different things. I hope you notice this. His reign will be marked by stability. His
reign will be marked by stability, though the nations rage and chaos abounds, God
will usher in an age of peace, of shalom. When many world leaders are characterized
as being fickle and unstable, the Lord will be the steady and faithful king who
leads his people to an unprecedented time of shalom, of peace,
of stability, no more wars, no more plague, no more famine. This is what the people
of God can anticipate from the God who exalts Himself.
They can confidently rest in the stability that the beautiful King provides.
His reign will also be marked by an abundance of salvation. And I think what Isaiah
has in mind here is not just deliverance from the Assyrians, he is talking about an
abundance of salvation, a salvation that is much more greater and much more profound
than escape from the hands of foreign enemies. The beautiful king will be exalted
for the salvation that he brings for his people. Christians reading this with new
testament glasses will see see the salvation that is offered at the cross here.
Finally, his reign will be marked by wisdom and knowledge. And from a kingly
perspective, knowledge is the ability to see a situation for what it truly is.
There have been very few rulers in human history that have been gifted with this
ability, in my opinion. I mean, I think of Winston Churchill at the start of World
War II, his refusal to play ball with Hitler and showing that he knew the dictator
for who he truly was. Now apply this to the all -knowing,
almighty Yahweh who not only knows all things but exercises control over all things.
God, the beautiful King who knows at all times how to act and when to act.
But he possesses more than just mere knowledge, he has wisdom, the application of
knowledge. Again, from a kingly perspective, wisdom is the manner by which the Lord
rules over the heavens and the earth. Everything that comes to pass,
everything that is decreed by God is ordered and directed by his wisdom.
And while the wealth of the nations looks only to be material in verse 4, here in
verse 6, the treasure of Zion is the fear of the Lord.
So it's deeper. It's much more profound than the material wealth that the nations
possess. It is spiritual. The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.
What the self -exalted king values most is not material gain, but the hearts and
loyalty of his subjects.
Now let us look at the beauty of God's self -exaltation in verse 7 through 12 in a
more zoomed -in perspective. God does not just exalt himself over against the
Assyrians. He also shows himself to be supreme in Judah. And what did the people of
Judah do when they heard the Assyrian threat was knocking at their door? They
despaired. They despaired. Their great heroes of war could find no way to defeat the
Assyrians, hence the crying in the streets. And their emissaries who were sent to
broker for peace, they are finding out the hard way, that you can't reason with a
tiger when your head is in its mouth, throughout another Churchill reference there
for you guys. But in all seriousness, these people could only seem doom,
and so they despaired. And this isn't just the people, it's the land as well.
The land is mourning, it's languishing, highways and roadways lie in waste.
Travel becomes dangerous.
Any hopes of a covenant with Assyria are dashed. Remember, they're traders who do
not keep their word. They are bad covenant partners and should not be trusted.
Cities become a disaster. Crime runs rampant since there is no regard for man.
Murder and theft have just infiltrated the city. The fertile and arable lands like
Lebanon and Charan and Bashan and Carmel are dried up into wastelands.
The land that is known for its rich resources turn to desert.
And all in all, while the people of God are experiencing instability and tumult,
they can still trust in way to be the stability of their times. Why? Because he
has exalted himself.
He in his exaltation is the shalom in a chaotic world.
But what does the Lord decide to do in the midst of all this? He again decides to
take action. He decides to do what he has always done. He exalts himself in the
way he exercises judgment against the Assyrians. Do we see this? In verses 10
through 12,
notice his judgment can only be seen through the flames that are designed to
consume.
These flames are intended to wipe out his enemies, the people of God's enemies.
The Assyrians do not stand a chance when God sets out to judge and protect His
people. So, in one sense, these flames of God's judgment are bent on consuming the
enemy, but in another sense, they're there to protect God's people.
When God says through the prophet Isaiah that these thorny and fruitless Assyrians
are going to burn by my hands, Judah can find great hope in that promise."
So the question is, do we take hope in the fact that God renders judgment against
the wicked?
It's a deep question.
We should, to some extent, right? I mean, because it shows that we serve a just
and holy God who cannot let sin go unpunished, we can also take great hope in the
fact that when God exalts himself in judgment, he is seeking to make all things
right.
It can become very tiring, exhausting to see people we know that are not walking
with the Lord become successful.
Get that promotion. We're able to have children. That's exhausting.
It doesn't square with our sense of justice. It doesn't make sense. Doesn't God
reward the righteous and punish the wicked? Isn't that what makes him beautiful?
Why does it seem like it's the other way around? That God punishes the righteous
and rewards the wicked?
Rest assured friends God will make all things right He will be exalted when he does
so
in a world where the wicked prosper with Impunity it can be easy to become
discouraged But trust me when I say this their day is coming They do not realize
that God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance,
the beautiful king will make all things right.
His beauty is not diminished by the prosperity of the wicked. God does not lose his
luster because judgment has not yet been rendered.
Even in a world of so many unknowns, we can count on this one saying that God
will be exalted, that sin will be punished and that the righteous will dwell with
Him. God has not changed from Isaiah 6 to Isaiah 33 and He has not changed since
then. He is still the one who sits upon the throne and is high and lifted up.
He is still the thrice holy God who fills the earth with His glory. He is still
the King, the Lord of hosts.
And if that does not cause you to be undone like it did Isaiah, when he saw the
King,
just think about how there's no such thing as an Assyrian empire anymore.
If you're not walking with the Lord, let me ask you a question. Why not? The book
of Hebrews says this, It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God.
And I would add, if I can add to Scripture, it is a fearful thing to fall in the
hands of a beautiful God who takes no issue with exalting himself and the judgment
of the wicked.
Giardus Vos writes this, "Beauty, irreligiously esteemed,
infringes upon the glory of Jehovah.
Do you see His beauty in the way He exalts Himself?
Do you see the beauty of His deliverance?
If not, you're infringing upon the very glory of Yahweh. Do you see the beauty of
God in His self -exaltation?
You see, what we start to notice in our text is that even the sinners and Zion
seeing the God exalt himself in judgment over the Assyrians also begins to,
they begin to envision themselves receiving judgment from God, hence the trembling.
So in light of this, we must behold the beautiful King and also how we see the
beauty of God's habitation with the righteous in verses 13 through 24,
the beauty of God's habitation with the righteous. So in the closing point in my
sermon, I would like to unpack the way in which God dwells with the righteous.
First of all, it comes in a context that the unrighteous cannot dwell in the
presence of God, the consuming fire. What do I mean when I say that God is a
consuming fire? Well, there's some Old Testament background to this. If we look back
at Deuteronomy 4 where Israel is about to enter the promised land, God has clearly
spoken and visibly made it known that He is a jealous God.
Jealousy in God is a lot different than jealousy in us. Why? Because when it comes
to God's jealousy, it's his desire to not want his people to worship other idols.
Jealousy comes in the context of idolatry when it comes to God. God is jealous for
the worship of the Israelites because more fundamentally God is jealous for the
worship of his own glory.
And when God sees idolatry or the worship of something other than himself,
his righteous and jealous anger is kindled.
He desires to burn away the idols of our hearts so that he alone can be worshiped.
That's what it means that he is a consuming fire.
So the question is asked in verse 14, who can dwell with the consuming fire.
Who can dwell with the consuming fire? And Bob would have you know that a similar
question is asked at the end of Revelation 6, where the wrath of the Lamb is
revealed. Who can stand before the wrath?
And Isaiah would not have us answer this question with mere speculation. No, he
answers it immediately in verse 15.
So who can dwell? He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly.
Right? Evidently, it's the one who walks righteously. The one who lives a righteous
life, a holy life, one in which every dimension of his life is lived righteously.
Right, Orlan Jr. And commenting on verse 15 says this, "That the righteous person
shares God's delight and grief and will refuse to listen to plans to commit violence
and to look approvingly on any evil doing. While the godless person is captivated by
graphic descriptions of violence and moral perversion, The righteous person is grieved
and offended to read about or look at such things. Are you grieved by what grieves
God?
Do you delight in what He delights in? Is anybody else convicted at this point?
Can anybody after hearing this description say, "Yeah, I would consider myself to be
a righteous person"?
We are far too easily captivated by evil
Like a bug discovering the Porsche light we are drawn in by will what will
eventually kill us If
the righteous are the only ones who can stand before the Lord how then do we
become righteous?
Perhaps a better question is, how can we be declared righteous?
I believe Romans 1, 16 through 17, and Luther's commentary of that passage answers
this question perfectly.
Romans 1, 16 through 17 says this, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel. "It is
the power of God for salvation "to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith
as it is written the righteous shall live by faith and so Luther comments what does
this mean that there's this righteousness that is by faith and from faith and to
faith what does it mean that the righteous shall live by faith. You mean here Paul
is not talking about the righteousness by which God himself is righteous, but a
righteousness that God gives freely by His grace to people who do not have
righteousness of their own? Whoa, you mean the righteousness by which I will be
saved is not mine? When I discovered that I was born again of the Holy ghost,
and the doors of paradise swung open, and I walked through. With this theological
breakthrough, Martin Luther launched what is known as the Protestant Reformation.
Perhaps this is a breakthrough for you as well. He made the distinction between the
punitive righteousness of God that God uses to punish wickedness and the saving
righteousness of God that he imparts or he imputes to those who exercise faith in
Christ.
He also makes the distinction of a sinner's inherent righteousness or the lack
thereof and the believer's alien righteousness, a righteousness that comes from someone
else.
I believe the salvific alien righteousness is what's being talked about here in
Isaiah. That someone with this righteousness can Stand before a just and holy God.
Someone with this righteousness can dwell with the Lord on high and take His daily
bread from Him.
More importantly, someone with this righteousness can see the King in His beauty.
This righteousness will have someone receive the daily provision from the Lord. His
water will be sure, His bread will be in Him.
And this is chiefly seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the
beautiful King we are to behold. Gaze into His glorious eyes. Jesus in all His
beauty and glory is the very pinnacle of hope for the believer. No matter what
circumstances they're facing, no matter what troubles they've gotten themselves into,
Jesus is the pinnacle of hope for the believer.
We can dwell with Him because He has dwelt with us. And what's more is that He
died for us.
He died so that we can live and see the land that stretches afar. You see Isaiah
is not just envisioning life after the Assyrian threat. He's not just prophesying
what will be like, what life will be like after the Assyrians have been defeated.
If you keep reading Isaiah you'll learn that there'll be other nations that threaten
the existence of God's people. The deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrians is not
the extent of Isaiah's prophecy here in verse 13 through 24. We have to see that.
I believe that Isaiah is describing what life will be like in the new heavens, the
new earth, and the new Jerusalem. He is using language and themes that other New
Testament writers like John use in the book of Revelation to describe the second
coming of Christ and the kingdom that he ushers in.
Yes, Judah will enjoy a time of relative peace. They will not have to endure those
insolent Assyrians who spoke a language they could not understand. Yes,
they will remember and muse over the terror and rejoice over the fact that they
don't have to count out tribute payments anymore or count out how many siege towers
they have. They will eat, drink and be married for a season, but guess what? The
Babylonians are coming, and if you thought the Assyrians were bad, you got a whole
other thing coming.
Isaiah is describing something here that is much deeper, much more profound, something
that will last for eternity. Something that the people of God can anticipate and
expect with great joy.
This Zion, this city of our appointed feasts. It will be a place of great shelter.
It will be a place of great shelter, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent. It
will be a place of great security, security, a place of broad rivers where enemy
ships cannot hassle with the people of God. The Lord's majesty is too great for any
majestic ship by human hands to pass. And it will be a place of great stability.
There's that word again. Why? Because the Lord himself will act as judge,
law giver, and king.
The proper law and order will be enforced and decided by God, thus creating Shalom
for His people.
All in all, it will be a beautiful city for a beautiful king.
And yet, the people who dwell on it are by no means perfect.
They are not ship -shaped. Their cords hang loose. They're unable to hold out a
sail.
Instead, they are like a ship that the people who dwell there are like a ship that
has been at sea for quite some time, beaten and battered by the winds and waves of
life. But we are assured here to safely reach the harbor of heaven.
And while they may not be perfect, they are forgiven and receive the spoils of
God's great victory.
This is how it will be in the immovable Zion, the New Jerusalem, the city of our
appointed feasts.
"Beholding the beautiful King" means that we will dwell with Him forever. It means
that when our sins are forgiven, we gain citizenship into heaven. And while we don't
have any righteousness of our own, it is Christ who provides us with His
righteousness.
We're only able to dwell with God when we possess His righteousness.
And the Bible clearly teaches that we can possess His righteousness by faith. Trust
Christ.
Put your faith in Him.
And again, I don't know what you may be facing today, but I hope that by seeing
the King in His beauty this morning, you are able to confidently stand and face
adversity.
The very character of God gives us hope. The beauty and radiance and majesty of His
character gives us peace and hope in the face of any kind of adversity.
Whether it's childlessness, cancer, or whatever it may be, God is beautiful.
He is trustworthy. He has designed all things to happen for His glory,
and you're good.
Remember the beauty of God's deliverance, the beauty of His self -exaltation, and the
beauty of His habitation with the righteous as you undergo various trials.
Direct your unflinching attention to His glory. The next time you're going through
something where you don't know what to do, right? You know what to do. Behold the
beautiful King.
Engage all of your senses to His Majesty, the beauty of God,
your Creator, your sustainer, and your Savior.
Let's pray.
Father, we come before You, beholding Your beauty, beholding Your radiance as the
glorious God, the glorious King who orders all things, controls all things for Your
glory and our good.
Lord, we cannot wait to dwell with You forever. In Zion, the city appointed for our
feast,
Lord, we trust You in the face of adversity because we know that You are beautiful.
Your character is good and
Your wisdom provides stability.
You want to help us to see the beauty of Your deliverance, to see the beauty of
your self -exaltation and the beauty of your desire to dwell with the righteous.
Lord, thank you for all that you do. In Jesus' name, amen.