Isaiah 33: The Sweet Promises of Grace

Take your Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 33.

Isaiah 33 · chapter mention

If you're new here recently, here we're going through the book of Isaiah together on Sunday mornings.

Started in chapter 1, we'll finish in chapter 66, lord willing, right in the middle, chapter 33.

Come with me some 2,700 years back, 701 BC, about 6,000 miles away from here, to a city of Jerusalem.

And if you were, you would be in Jerusalem and you would find the Assyrian Empire.

Ruthless King Sennacherib has crushed countless cities, leaving destruction in its wake.

Kingdoms have fallen, some of them have folded without even a fight, others have trembled under the awesome power of this empire.

To Jerusalem.

Left alone every fortified city, but it destroyed and the armies encamped around them mocking.

Left alone every fortified city, but it destroyed and the armies encamped around them mocking.

The crown jewel of the people of God is the only place standing.

The people of Jerusalem are looking over the wall and they see these forces surround them and they fear, like we all would.

They had looked for help from Egypt, hoped some alliance with some other nation would help them.

It's all fallen worthless.

Their strategies have failed, their strength has crumbled.

Their confidence is gone, it's evaporated.

And at this moment of desperation they cry out to God, isaiah lifts up his voice, perhaps to pray what they haven't yet prayed, or perhaps to echo what they are starting to pray what they haven't yet prayed.

Or perhaps to echo what they are starting to pray, but instead of calling on Egypt, they're now starting to achingly pray to God.

Why are we looking at the passage of Scripture, this text that's 2,700 years old, this text that's 2,700 years old, that's written to people 6,000 miles away from us, about people that are long gone and erased from the earth and the memories of most who have ever lived on it, about a small city that, in light of even the cities of that day, was insignificant.

Why?

Because we live in a world where uncertainty reigns.

We live in a world where leaders rise and fall, where economies shift, where wars rage and even our personal lives are seemingly controlled by unexpected events, and we're left in the consequence of those things rather than in control of them.

We have to ask ourselves where is our security?

Where is our safety?

Where is our deliverance?

Where is our peace?

Where's our deliverance?

Where's our peace?

This and these are the questions and the focus of Isaiah 33.

In the face of fear brought about by oppression and unrighteousness and war.

Isaiah is calling the people away from political alliances and trying to drum up their own strength to rely upon the living God, and he demonstrates an example of that.

This morning we're going to look at Isaiah 33.

We're going to look at it in three parts.

We look for a prayer for God's help and understand.

God rises to punish oppressors, but he also mercifully offers promises of protection and peace.

And in the midst of this whole chapter, the one who's in the forefront of it all is not us and our needs and how we can most capably get on with life, but rather the living God, the one who rises.

But rather the living God, the one who rises, because it's more than just some medicinal help for our days.

It is a revelation of God's supremacy over everything, whether it be nations or our problems or even ourselves.

It's a reminder to us that while human powers falter, god never does.

And when nations crumble, god and his kingdom are secure for eternity.

We don't have to lean on human strategies or solutions, but to lift our eyes, as Isaiah encourages us, to the God who reigns forever.

So as we walk through this chapter, in the middle of its situation, in its immediate context, we're going to see not just Jerusalem giving encouragement of rescue in the day, but they're going to be cast forward into a place of ultimate deliverance and hope, and we too will find ourselves swept up into that same promise, joining in them in the same hope, with the same degree of expectancy.

So let's go into this world.

The first thing we're going to find is a prayer for divine help, and it'll start in verse two.

We'll get back to verse one in just a moment.

Verse two Lord, be gracious to us.

We wait for you.

Be our strength every morning in our salvation.

In time of trouble, the peoples flee at the thunderous noise, the nations scatter.

When you rise in your majesty, your spoil will be gathered, as locusts are gathered, people will swarm over it, like the people in Jerusalem, these ruthless Assyrians on the move and now at their door, and fear has gripped their hearts.

They've tried diplomacy, they tried allegiances, they tried military strategies, and none of it has worked.

None of it, nothing.

And now, now, at the last moment, finally, there's a cry to God.

They finally turned their faces toward the Lord and Isaiah lifts up the voice in verse 2.

Now there's some question here about whether Isaiah is saying you need to be praying like this, or you're starting to pray like this.

I think probably the latter.

There is some evidence and you'll find out in a couple weeks just who prays like this.

But it's a cry.

Now, finally, these people have been warned of their disobedience and of their abandonment of God, where now they're finally coming to him and they're finally praying, and they're looking now to the one who's enthroned above the chaos and they look for rescue.

They acknowledge their inability, but do they even understand what God's going to do when he answers?

I don't think they do.

What's going to do when he answers?

I don't think they do.

And there are times in our life when we get into moments of complete, absolute desperation.

We're nothing, nowhere, anything's going to work whatsoever, we're completely out of any resource that seems to be of any benefit whatsoever, and all we want is to have that trouble over.

But God wants to do more than just get our troubles over, as we'll see, because he's going to do something here that's beyond that.

Look at how God responds to this cry that.

Look at how God responds to this cry, verse five and six the Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high.

He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

There will be times of security for you, a storehouse of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.

Well, that's probably a whole lot more than what people were praying for.

They just wanted the Assyrians out of there.

I just want my trouble over, I just like want these enemies gone.

And God says, oh yeah, well, I'm concerned with more than just saving you from your enemies.

I'm concerned with more than just taking away your problem.

And here he's telling them that he is going to form them and shape them and mark them by a people of righteousness and stability and wisdom, because it's more about transformation in them than it is simply about taking away the trouble.

And this is how the Lord works in us.

The scriptures tell us all things work together for good to those who love god and are called according to his purpose.

You see, trouble comes in this fallen world.

It is going to come.

Mark it down, it is certain.

And god is not just operating in a transactional way of saying trouble comes, I pray he acts, it goes away.

Trouble comes, I pray he acts, it goes away.

He is doing something different in this world of woe than that Trouble comes, I pray, he acts, I'm different, I'm different, I'm different.

And you'll find in your days and years ahead, as you walk with the Lord, that when trouble comes, I pray, he acts, I'm different is more important than the trouble going away.

Did you hear that You're going to find out and you're going to welcome this one day?

If you aren't already, if you're a new believer, it's easy to get into.

The trouble comes, I pray, he acts, trouble goes away.

Frame of mind and then kind of grind when the trouble doesn't go away and you're wondering why is it still there?

I thought god would hear me.

But then you grow in grace and you realize trouble comes, I pray, he acts, I'm different is a far better reward and joy of your heart than having your your troubles disappear Wonderfully, immersively they often do and God moves you past those things and, as time would have it, you'll enter into another difficulty.

But you'll understand that there's something going on with God that's better and bigger than just getting rid of the trouble.

And so the people here are learning something even in the midst of their prayer for help.

That help comes from the Lord, but that help is bigger than the parameters of what I dictate to him in my prayer.

He's doing something larger and bigger and greater and more eternal than just simply making the Assyrian army go away.

I was talking to a beloved brother in Christ who serves as a missionary, and he's crying out, still wondering what's going on with his life.

And I said, brother, god is allowing things happen to you so he can do things in you, so he can work better through you.

Right, that's what this is.

This is not just an ancient prayer.

There's something for us all to hear here.

Now let's move to the second point, because God does hear them, god does respond.

And the first point is this prayer, prayer for God's help.

And the second point is this punishment of the oppressors, these Assyrian people.

They were a mighty force in their day and nobody at that time was stronger than they were, and so, of course, they thought themselves untouchable.

They plundered, they deceived, they crushed everything that was weak, and everything was weak in comparison to them, and they believed that their reign of terror would not come to an end.

They were a haughty and a proud people, but Isaiah here tells them their downfall is inevitable.

Look at verse 1.

Woe you destroyer.

Never destroyed, you, traitor, never betrayed.

When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed.

You, traitor, never betrayed.

When you have finished betraying, they will betray you.

You fought with the sword.

You're going to die by the sword.

The moment you turn weak, you're going to be crushed.

Assyria, the oppressors who thought they could manipulate and dominate and control are now on the receiving end.

And before we get to how the Lord will operate that which he'll unfold in the next few chapters, we need to understand just how horrible this oppression was to live under.

And Isaiah paints a pretty bleak picture of what happens when wickedness runs rampant.

Take a look at verse 7, all the way to verse 9.

Listen, their warriors cried loudly in the streets and messengers of peace weep bitterly.

The highways are deserted, travel has ceased and agreement has been broken, cities despised, human life disregarded.

The land mourns and withers.

Lebanon is ashamed and wilted, sharon is like a desert, bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

All of society has been affected by this war.

There's no safety, there's no help anywhere.

The warriors that are crying loudly in the street have decimated everything, and those streets that were once bustling with life and commerce are just empty now, because it's a fearful place to be when the army's on those streets and even nature itself is groaning under the weight of all of this.

You see, oppression and war don't just break people, they break nations, they break territory when once thriving streets are now ghost towns, where there was once strong and there's nothing but weakness, where even creation bears the scars of human warfare.

Just go to Europe, you'll see it.

I lived in London for several years and would walk around and there'd be old building, old building, old building, ugly, post-war building.

Old building, old building, old building, ugly, post-war building.

And you're thinking, well, this is kind of weird.

What's happening here?

And being an American, what's your first thought?

Buy it, tear it down, build it different, right?

They don't do that in England, not a lot.

Some.

They're starting to become more American, poor people.

What would they do?

Well, one year, royal and I were headed over to London and we flew out of Boston.

We stopped at the Harvard bookstore right across from Harvard University, a great bookstore, not directly affiliated with the university, but in it was a book.

I didn't buy it because it was too expensive, but I've got a camera on my phone so I took some pictures and there were maps of all of London that put on the map every place some bomb or ordinance had exploded and I went to the streets that I knew and I went.

There's my answer Old building, old building, old building bomb.

Old building, old building, old building, bomb, bomb, bomb, old building bomb.

And all of those post-war rebuilds that's where the devastation was.

I was literally living in the middle of a war zone that had started to recover and I would walk I would often take friends for walks to Clapham Common, not very far walk, and as we walked we'd pass Spurgeon's house, tip our hat to him.

We would walk past where Wilberforce lived and then we'd walk onto the common and we'd talk about Spurgeon preaching to 20,000 people on the common in order to raise money to help a family whose father had died, been killed by lightning on that common.

And we'd walk to Holy Trinity Church there and talk about the Clapham sect, about this band of evangelical brothers and sisters who were influential in moving missions forward and were influential in the demolishing of the slave trade.

And as I would talk about the building, I'd bring them to one side of it and there was pockmarks all over the side of the building where bombs had landed close to it and had gouged out pieces of the material Destruction.

Warriors in the streets weeping emptiness, ghost towns mourning A community once flourishing, now rewriting its story in grief.

London rebuilt, it endured.

Jerusalem is surrounded by enemies and Jerusalem's not strong enough to win.

Now take a look at verse 10.

Now, take a look at verse 10.

Now I will rise up, says the Lord.

Now I will lift myself up.

Now I will be exalted.

You will conceive chaff and you'll give birth.

To stubble your breath is fire that will consume you.

The peoples will be burned to ashes like thorns, cut down and burned in a fire.

You who are far off, hear what I've done.

You who are near, know my strength.

The oppressors thought they were unstoppable, but they never factored God into their equation.

They thought they were the final word.

No, god's word was the final word.

And when he stood up to defend the people, there was no army on earth going to stop him.

And they would run.

They would run and they would fall and they would flee.

They would run and they would fall and they would flee.

And even their walls of commemoration of their past fame left gaping holes that give us all whispers of just how humiliated they were as an army.

Pharaoh, when the people came out of Egypt lifted himself up in pride until the grinding onslaught of the plagues began to show him that he couldn't match God's activity.

And yet his heart grew harder and harder and harder.

He lost his own children and people of his own.

People cried out for the death of the firstborn, and yet he thought, if he just simply get enough horses and enough chariots and enough men, he could pull those people back when they left, until he got in the middle of the Red Sea and found that God controlled the wind and the waves.

But there's something here more than just deliverance the taking down of the oppressors that are on the outside of the walls.

Take a look at verse 14.

The sinners in Zion are afraid Trembling seizes, the ungodly.

Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire?

Who among us can dwell with an ever-burning flame?

It's easy to point fingers at the external enemy of Syria, but Isaiah is saying you know who else is an enemy?

We are.

We are God's people are just as dangerous as the ones outside the wall.

And Isaiah 33 is a wake-up call to all people who sin.

And it's not about pointing the finger at the one that you think is the problem, it's finding out that the finger needs to be turned here.

It's not my mama, it's not my papa, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

My biggest enemy isn't them, or him or her, it's me.

Is there hope?

And it just grinds more deeply.

The one who lives righteously and speaks rightly, who refuses profit from extortion, whose hands have never taken a bribe, who stops his ears from listening to murderous plots and shuts his eyes against evil schemes, he'll dwell on the heights.

Oh boy.

We all like a little juicy bit of gossip.

We all like to take a little bit of revenge.

We all like to sort of twist things to our profit.

If it means even the weakness of somebody else, uh-oh.

There's none of us, none of us, who are safe from that furnace, that consuming fire.

Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire?

Who among us can dwell with ever-burning flames?

None of us, none of us.

There's only one who came into this world who was able to say, with a straight face and with honesty and he wasn't deranged which one of you can convince me of sin?

Only one, and that's the Lord, jesus Christ.

This chapter moves from this plea for help and the realization that God's going to do more than just take care of our problem.

He also helps us realize we are the problem.

But he doesn't stop there.

He does not stop there Because he now moves into promises of provision and protection that exceed expectation and even imagination.

Such a chapter, as many of these chapters, are, of contrasts that are so, so striking and strong.

Judgment for the wicked, but security to those who hope in the Lord.

And this Lord who says in verse 10, now I will rise, and we should all fear that.

Now says I will arise, and we should all welcome that, how do we as humans live in the complex of that, that sense of dread and yet delight from the same being, god?

This is the turning point.

You see, god offers to the people of Israel more than just survival.

He, people of Israel, more than just survival.

He's offering them more than just a little more peace in the rest of their days until they kind of retire and start tapping into their 401ks.

He's got more for them than that.

He's got more for us than that.

He's got more for them than that.

He's got more for us than that.

Take a look at verse 17.

Your eyes will see the king and his beauty and you'll see a vast land.

Your mind will meditate on the past terror.

Where is the accountant?

Where is the tribute collector?

Where is the one who spied out our defenses?

You'll no longer see the barbarians, the people whose speech is difficult to comprehend, whose stammer in a language not understood.

Look at Zion, the city of our festival times.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander.

Its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor any of its cords loosened For the majestic one, our Lord, will be there, a place of rivers and broad streams, where ships that erode will not go and majestic vessels will not pass.

For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king.

He will save us.

This is not just survival, this is not just please make the Assyrians go away.

This is protection, this is security, this is provision, this is peace, and he lifts them to a high place.

Take a look at verse 17 again.

Your eyes will see the king and his beauty.

You will see a vast land.

This is more than just Hezekiah.

This is bigger than any of the earthly kings who happen to turn their hearts to the Lord, for their reign and desire to bring righteousness back into the land.

This is a foreshadowing of the new creation.

These are whispers of the true king, jesus christ.

This is a movement of of life as they knew it into a life they could never even imagine, of a transformed world that ends in verse 24.

Take a look at verse 24.

And none there will say I am sick.

The people who dwell there will be forgiven their inequities.

No enemy, no thorns, peaceful pasture, the presence of God, no sickness, which means no sin, no suffering, nothing but peace and healing and righteousness, without oppression or enemy.

And the king is there.

This is the future.

This is the future for all those who are in Christ, for all those who trust the living God, because he wants to do more than just take away your Assyrian.

He wants to do more than just change your day.

He wants to bring you into a new age of eternal glory, and you'll be with him in it and glad of it.

We had glimpses of this when our Savior came into the world.

Some men got into a boat with him and thought, well, it'd be just a fun little boat ride to go on until it wasn't.

And then the wind and the waves kicked up, as they sometimes do, and desperation filled their hearts.

And Jesus sat in the boat, seemingly uninterested in it all, until they started to cry.

And it was.

And they looked with astonishment at one another and said who is this man that even the wind and the waves obey him?

Well, isaiah in chapter 33 is kicking us well beyond the wind and the waves.

He's kicking us into the reaches of the universe, beyond any telescope that we or satellite have.

And he's saying those things will obey him when he speaks and when he says that the elements will melt with a fervent heat and a new heaven and a new earth will be dawned where holiness makes its home.

All things were made by him and for him.

And this is it.

And he's saying to those who trust him, who cry out save us, save me, are going to enter into Not because you're righteous enough to be there, but because you recognize you aren't righteous enough to be there.

And you plead to the living God, who is that consuming fire, that ever-burning flame, and you plead his mercy and grace, and he will flood you with mercy and grace beyond your ability to even take it in.

You will burn your brain cells trying to even imagine how glorious it is.

Look, revelation 21,.

God is dwelling with humanity and they will live with him.

They will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and will be their God, and he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Grief, crying and pain will be no more.

You see, this isn't just a promise of a timely, 2,700-year-old moment.

In some people who lived a long way away from here, this is a preview of the new heavens and the new earth where Christ reigns, where sin is gone and peace is eternal.

When the pandemic raged in our hearts more than it maybe did in the world, all of us, stricken with questions of how desperate it would all become, grateful for the medical advances that mitigated those things.

We wondered would this world ever return to normal?

And one song kept my heart, and it is that song, is he Worthy?

Written by Andrew Peterson, and we even played it together in our prayer times during that season, and it just resonated so deeply within all of us, resonated so deeply within all of us.

I'd like for us to do a little antiphonal not singing, because if I have to sing it you're going to run away, but antiphonal repetition there's a question or a statement put out and it's replied in the affirmative.

So the first ones will be we do and it is, and then he is.

So can we say this together, all right?

Do you feel the world is broken?

We do.

Do you feel the shadows deepen?

We do.

You guys can say this.

There's two single syllable words.

We can do this.

Let's start over A little stronger, okay.

I don't want to be a choir director.

I had choir directors and I'm being a lot kinder than they were right at the moment.

Do you feel the world is broken?

We do there you go.

Do you feel the shadows deepen?

We do there you go.

Do you feel the shadows deepen?

We do.

But do you know that the dark won't stop the light from getting through?

We do.

Do you wish you could see all things made new?

We do.

Is all creation groaning?

It is.

Is a new creation coming?

It is.

Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst?

It is.

Is it good to remind ourselves of this?

It is.

Is anyone worthy?

Is anyone whole?

Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?

He is the Lion of Judah who conquered the grave.

He was David's root and the lamb who died to ransom the slave.

Is he worthy?

Is he worthy of all blessing and honor and glory?

Is he worthy of this he is?

Let's pray, father.

What glorious truths in your word.

Thank you for our Savior, jesus Christ.

May we worship him, may we depend upon Him, and may we look to Him for the restoration of all things and find that all things that we might consider reward are found only in Him and from Him, so that glory might be all to Him.

And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.