Isaiah_33-34

Isaiah 33:1-5 (ESV)  – The message to TRUST God:
¹  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.
Isaiah 33:1 (NLT)
¹  What sorrow awaits you Assyrians, who have destroyed others but have never been destroyed yourselves. You betray others, but you have never been betrayed. When you are done destroying, you will be destroyed. When you are done betraying, you will be betrayed.

³  At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
⁴  and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
⁵  The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,

Isaiah 33:7-12  – Brokenness
⁷  Behold, their brave men cry in the streets, The ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
⁸  The highways are desolate, the traveler has ceased, He has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities, He has no regard for man.
⁹  The land mourns and pines away, Lebanon is shamed and withers; Sharon is like a desert plain, And Bashan and Carmel lose their foliage.
¹⁰  “Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “Now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up.
¹¹  “You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble; My breath will consume you like a fire.
¹²  “The peoples will be burned to lime, Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.

V.7&8 – Brokenness….   Termed:  Desolation and despair   –  Self-salvation makes a lot a lot of sense until you try it.  WHEN we are defeated, downcast, broken and so disappointed with ourselves and what we’ve done with our lives that is the time when God enters it. 

V.8 – One would think we’ve learned our lesson by viewing the past, however, we have not.

V.10 “NOW”   is the time that God wants to mark our lives when we’ve sunk to our lowest.

We really don’t ever outgrow the position of feeling with humility of brokenness before God.

Isaiah 33:13-16 – Renewal

Isaiah 33:13-16 (NASB)
¹³  “You who are far away, hear what I have done; And you who are near, acknowledge My might.”
¹⁴  Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. “Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?”
¹⁵  He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, He who rejects unjust gain And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil;
¹⁶  He will dwell on the heights, His refuge will be the impregnable rock; His bread will be given him, His water will be sure.

V.13 – two groups of people are discussed here!  

The Gentiles are the “Ye that are far off”

The people o Israel are the “Ye that are near”

V.14 – Renewal –  “Sinners in Zion”  =  godless Israelites   –   Renew from our illusion of our own self-sufficiency Isaiah points out the vision of peace, freedom, and joy of belong to Christ.

God is holy and a fire that will burn forever.  Sometime we fear the wrong thing(s) as for their fearing the Assyrians when they should be fearing God’s wrath.  Failure to remember that God promises to take care of His people.  However, what did they do and we sometime do the same?

Jesus identifies what is needed:

Matthew 5:6 (ESV)
⁶  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Matthew 5:8 (ESV)
⁸  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

1. 15 – The difference is “He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity.”

Isaiah 33:17-24 – Eyes Opened – a Deliverance

Isaiah 33:17-24 (NASB)
¹⁷  Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; They will behold a far-distant land.
¹⁸  Your heart will meditate on terror: “Where is he who counts? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?”
¹⁹  You will no longer see a fierce people, A people of unintelligible speech which no one comprehends, Of a stammering tongue which no one understands.
²⁰  Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an undisturbed habitation, A tent which will not be folded; Its stakes will never be pulled up, Nor any of its cords be torn apart.
²¹  But there the majestic One, the LORD, will be for us A place of rivers and wide canals On which no boat with oars will go, And on which no mighty ship will pass—
²²  For the LORD is our judge, The LORD is our lawgiver, The LORD is our king; He will save us—
²³  Your tackle hangs slack; It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly, Nor spread out the sail. Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided; The lame will take the plunder.
²⁴  And no resident will say, “I am sick”; The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

V.17-18 – “Your eyes will see the King in His beauty…” —Before all Judah could see was the Assyrians encamped around them.  NOW their eyes are going to be opened. 

V.20-21 – Praise God for final deliverance.    We are at peace because we are at peace with God.

A spiritual application of: 

V.21+   But there the majestic Lord will be for us A place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will sail, Nor majestic ships pass by…

Isaiah 33:21 (NLT)
²¹  The LORD will be our Mighty One. He will be like a wide river of protection that no enemy can cross, that no enemy ship can sail upon.

Isaiah 33:24 (NLT)
²⁴  The people of Israel will no longer say, “We are sick and helpless,” for the LORD will forgive their sins.

Won’t be sick as God bears away our sins…..

Isaiah 34 – Trusting God to Ruin the Nations and Transform Zion

This chapter is one that reading the material will generate the idea without a lot of discussion.  Take note to the outline below:

Compare chapters 34–35 to see how they are drawn them together as a unit:

(a)  God’s vengeance will save Zion (34:8 and 35:4b).

(b)  The jackals will live in the desolate places (34:13), but the jackals will have no place in the fertile land (35:7).

(c)  The streams will be polluted (34:9), but the streams will gush with pure water (35:6–7).

(d) No one will pass through the land (34:10), but a highway will be there for many people to walk on (35:8).

(e)  The judgment (chap. 34) creates a desert place, while the blessings (chap. 35) will cause the desert to change into a fertile field.

This outline shows the strong verbal connections between Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 34:

(a) preparation for war          13:2–4                     34:1

(b) killing of the nations        13:5–9, 14–16         34:2–3

(c) cosmic upheaval               13:10–13                 34:4–5a

(d) capture of the city            13:17–19                 34:5b–8

(e) land becomes a desert      13:20                       34:9–10

(f) wild animals live there     13:21–22                 34:11–15

Isaiah 34:1-17 (ESV)
¹  Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.
²  For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.
³  Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.
⁴  All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.
⁵  For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
⁶  The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷  Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
⁸  For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
⁹  And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰  Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.
¹¹  But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.
¹²  Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.
¹³  Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.
¹⁴  And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.
¹⁵  There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.

1. 16-17 – The Authenticity of God’s Promise
   ¹⁶ Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
   ¹⁷ He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

Quote Roy Ortlund, who provides and reason for the study of Chapter 37:

Isaiah leads us now to the point of personal decision. He has been showing us God and ourselves with new clarity. What has Isaiah told us about God? God is our most loyal ally in the struggle of life. He has made promises to us. He has proven himself already. He deserves to be trusted. What has Isaiah told us about ourselves? We barely trust God. God is faithful, but we are guarded. We need to make up our minds. Are we going to live by faith in God or by faith in ourselves? Will God save us, or do we have to save ourselves?

God defends us against our ultimate enemy, our own moral guilt. He rescues us from condemnation by justifying us on the basis of what Christ deserves, not on the basis of what we deserve. God treats us in a way that has nothing to do with what we deserve. But do we allow ourselves to enjoy our acceptance before a holy God? Or are we constantly on edge, wondering how he might punish us next? Martin Luther wrote:

Let it not be tedious to you if we repeat these things that at other times we teach, preach, sing and set forth in writing. For if we lose the doctrine of justification, we lose everything.… It cannot be beaten into our ears too much. Yes, though we learn it and understand it well, still no one takes hold of it perfectly or believes it with all his heart, so frail a thing is our flesh and disobedient to the Spirit.

The default setting in our hearts is to treat God as a shaky person, while we trot off to other saviors for reassurance. We don’t think of it that way, because we don’t see that the category of “salvation” is the key to everything. Salvation is what we are always looking for, even in the wrong places. But true salvation is simply God entering into our lives with his grace in Christ to meet all our needs. And Isaiah has been urging us to treat God as a faithful Savior, so that we look like people who have actually been saved from something. Then our faith will be convincing.

Isaiah now moves us toward closure. Assyria fades from view, and the prophet addresses the whole world (34:1). The one nation he does mention is, surprisingly, Edom (34:5, 6, 9). Why? Because Edom typifies the whole world. When the infant nation of Israel was journeying toward the Promised Land, they requested passage through Edom (Numbers 20:14–21). They even offered to pay for the water they would drink along the way. And why shouldn’t Edom be open to Israel? They were related. Jacob and Esau, the forefathers of these two nations, were brothers (Genesis 25:21–26). But Edom held a grudge against Israel (Genesis 27), and they refused to let them through. Edom tried to block the salvation that God was bringing into the world. Edom, then, is the antithesis to God’s pilgrim people. That is why Isaiah singles out Edom. The ethos of the Edomite culture is the spirit of the whole world, a spirit that finds its salvation in the resources of this temporal, physical order. We have to get past Edom to be saved by God. And Isaiah is saying to us now, “I want you to listen in to what God has to say to this world about the great and final day of judgment. Is that what you want to be a part of? Or will you set your heart on a salvation from outside this world, coming only from God?” Chapter 34 shows us what will become of everyone who buys into this world, and chapter 35 shows us what will become of everyone who banks everything on the promised salvation of God.

In these two chapters Isaiah leads us by the hand all the way out to the brink of future history, where time merges into eternity. He shows us the seamless connection between what we embrace now and what we will have then. He lifts his eyes from his own times in the eighth century b.c. to see how things will finally end up “forever and ever” (34:10). He sees this world order deconstructed (34:11, 12), human existence renewed (35:1, 2), God’s people no longer enfeebled by sin (35:5, 6), all tears wiped away from their eyes (35:10). His point is this: The salvation you prefer now, whether earthly or heavenly, is shaping who you are and which direction you will go forever.

You need to understand that Hell or Heaven will be, in one sense, the eternal extension of the deepest, truest you that you become in this life. So here is the most important question of your existence: What are you becoming? Whatever you are becoming reveals where you are going. If you are savoring by faith a salvation and fullness from God, you are already on your way to what Isaiah calls Zion in chapter 35. But if you choose not to live by faith in this world, Isaiah 34 is showing you your future.

What if God does leave you to yourself? What if God doesn’t intervene to save you from yourself and Isaiah 34 writes your final chapter? What if that itching envy in your heart, that bitterness eating away inside you, that anger raging inside you, your ungrateful self for whom nothing is ever good enough, the you lurking in the fantasy twilight of lust, the you buried alive in the coffin of greed, the you that’s too sophisticated for childlike delight in God—what if God does not save you? The you that you are becoming now is what you will be forever. Unless God saves you, you will eventually find that you cannot stop anymore. And the grumbling and blaming and all the rest will take over and churn on forever like a machine, and you won’t be able to stop and rest. That hell is when you become the photographic negative of what you were meant to be when God made you. God says, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).

And God can save you. He wants you to be a part of the Isaiah 35 scenario. If you will turn to him, he will make the difference, all by himself. Salvation is God liberating the soul from the habits of self-focus. Salvation is God clearing away this tangled undergrowth of self-absorption forever. Salvation is God replacing all this dark complication with something new and simple and beautiful, flooding the human soul with a sense of his glory. That is how we obtain gladness and joy. That is how sorrow and sighing flee away. So, let God save you. Your heavenly joy will begin even now (1 Peter 1:8, 9).

Isaiah structures his text to make the alternatives unmistakably clear. We need it that way.

1. Judgment: God, not this world, is the one to fear (34:1–17)

A¹ Listen to what God has planned! (34:1)

B¹ The resources of the Lord (34:2–10)

B² The unmaking of this world (34:11–15)

A² Read what God has determined! (34:16, 17)

2. Salvation: God, not this world, is the one to hope in (35:1–10)

A¹ The desert blossoms with joyful song (35:1, 2)

B¹ Encourage one another with this hope! (35:3, 4)

C    God’s people will sing for joy (35:5, 6a)

B² God can do the impossible! (35:6b, 7)

A² The way home leads to joyful song (35:8–10)

It’s clear. There is judgment (chapter 34), there is salvation (chapter 35), and you must choose God’s salvation to avoid God’s judgment.^[1]

^[1] Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (p. 197). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.