Isaiah 13:1-14:23 - The Battle is The Lord's

Sacred Bible go to Isaiah, chapter 13,.

Isaiah 13 · chapter mention

Isaiah, chapter 13.

Isaiah 13 · chapter mention

Our introduction this morning is more a teaser of something we'll look at near the end of this message rather than an introduction to it.

So just keep that in mind.

Percy just wanted to emphasize that point.

So just keep that in mind.

Percy Just wanted to emphasize that point.

Percy Shelley was one of the most highly regarded and influential poets of the 19th century.

You probably know his poem if you don't know his name Ozymandias.

It describes a ruined statue about an ancient king in an empty desert.

It's a short poem, so I'll just read the whole of it.

I met a traveler from an ancient land who said Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.

Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command.

Tell that the sculptor.

Well, those passions read, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear my name is Ozymandias, king of kings.

Look on my works.

All ye, mighty and despair.

Nothing beside remains Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sand stretches far away.

It's quite a powerful little poem and in it Shelley uses the image of that shattered statue to highlight just how fleeting fame and vanity and pride really are.

Nothing lasts forever.

Glory, reputation, conquest, occupation, it all comes to nothing.

It lies, just as that statue did, in the middle of a barren landscape of time.

We'll learn a lot this morning about the vanity of men and the futility of fame and power and pride.

I want you to keep that in mind as we go through this passage.

But we need to work ourselves into it a little bit, because we're coming into a new section of the book of Isaiah.

It is a whole new entrance into a large chunk of chapters that we'll be looking at a lot faster than we've done some of the earlier chapters.

What we enter into is our first point, the pronouncement about the nations.

The pronouncement about the nations.

We've just finished a little section of chapter 7 to 12, which talked about King Ahaz and whether or not he would trust God rather than reaching out to the king of Assyria for assistance.

And when we get to the end of the first part of Isaiah, in chapters 36 to 39, we'll meet another king of Judah by the name of Hezekiah, who, this time, is concerned about the danger of Assyria and wondering if the king of Babylon might be able to help him out.

And again, a challenge of faith and trust in God, as opposed to looking for answers in others.

And in between those two sections of the kings Ahaz and Hezekiah is the section we're about to enter into right now as we go from chapters 13 through 35.

The pronouncement about the nations.

Up until this point in time, statements of divine judgment have largely fallen on Israel and Judah, with some talk about Aram and some talk about Assyria.

But now, in this section that we're about to enter into, all the nations, not just Israel, are called to an account for their behavior.

And as we go through all of these chapters, there'll be some familiar and some unfamiliar places to us.

We'll learn about judgments against Babylon and Assyria and Philistia and Moab, but we'll also find some names mentioned that are going to be difficult for us to know just who those people are.

And as these chapters unfold, one of the big questions we need to answer are are these pronouncements written for Israel's sake, or are these pronouncements that would have been brought to these various nations as oracles of judgment against them, were they written for Israel to learn a lesson, or were they written for those nations to realize that they were also accountable before a holy God?

Now, prophets in the Old Testament did bring their messages to other nations at times.

Jonah, of course, went to Nineveh, elisha went to Damascus to speak to the king there.

Jeremiah traveled to Egypt to deliver a message.

He also sent a messenger to Babylon with a prophetic oracle to speak publicly in the middle of that city.

And in Jeremiah, chapter 27, also, a message was given to the kings of Edom and Moab, and Ammon and Tyre and Sidon, as well as Judah, who had gathered together in a summit to ponder over the danger the coming king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 27 · chapter mention

We don't know if the nations actually received these oracles or not, but even if the pronouncements were sent to those nations there was definitely a lesson for Israel to learn were sent to those nations, there was definitely a lesson for Israel to learn.

There were three things they needed to learn, and there'll be three things that we can learn as we go through these chapters.

The first thing that Israel needed to learn was that they should not be afraid of the nations.

All of these nations are brought under judgment by Almighty God, are brought under judgment by Almighty God.

Israel, among all of these nations, was just a small player on the international scene.

They weren't very powerful at all.

Of course, our attention is brought to them because of their place in Scripture and God using those people to bring our Deliverer, jesus Christ.

But if you were looking at political powers of the day, you wouldn't be picking Israel as one of them, or Judah, and so, of course, being small and insignificant on that stage, they were, of course, concerned about the powers of Egypt and Assyria and Babylon, of Egypt and Assyria and Babylon.

Those peoples, if they turned against them, could wipe them out very, very easily.

And so here they're learning that those people, as impressive as they were, as mighty as they were, as large as their armies were, as desirous as they were to take over land and peoples, they were under the authority of God and they could do no more than what God would allow.

And therefore, as God's people, they didn't need to be afraid.

God was in control of those nations.

They didn't have to be afraid.

God was in control of those nations.

They didn't have to try to summon up the strength to meet them.

We too live in a world where we're not a powerful people.

We're a scattered people out of every kindred, tribe and tongue of this world.

We don't carry military might or muscle.

We are, as God says, chosen, often as fools to confound the wise.

We don't carry sway in this world like other peoples and powers do, and oftentimes those peoples and powers can turn against us.

My son mentioned to me this morning that a place where his church in London goes every Christmas and sings carols was told that they're no longer welcome because they believe certain things about the scriptures.

And there, in just a small way, that church in London has to walk away from an opportunity because of the claims of Christ upon their soul.

We are not a powerful people, but that doesn't mean we have to be afraid, because God is God of everything.

Every power, every principality, every throne, seen and unseen, are held in his hand.

The second thing the Israelites needed to learn here is not to trust these nations, and this was a big problem with Ahaz.

He was looking to Assyria to be the big bully who would take care of Aram and Israel and sort of help him out, and he sells his soul and that of the whole nation in order to gain that kind of allegiance.

Another thing that the people needed to learn was that God was the God of the whole world and he wasn't just some local deity like all.

The other nations had Baal, and the name goes on.

All of these things were nothing but local deities, and sometimes even seasonal deities, lords of the harvest and lords of the rain and all sorts of other things.

But Yahweh, he's the Lord of everybody, and they needed to realize that God was a God of people even the Israelites didn't know about in their own day, and so when we read in the oracles of Isaiah, in these chapters that we'll look at a little deeper, we'll see peoples and places that really had nothing to do with Israel and Judah at all, and yet God speaks about them because he is their Lord as much as he's Judas' Lord.

You see, his judgments are universal, and that doesn't end.

The scriptures tell us in the book of Romans that all the world is seen as guilty before God and liable to judgment.

There's none righteous?

No, not one.

So here we find an entrance into this, but I want you to notice, at the outset of these oracles to the nations that we'll be looking at through the next several chapters, who starts us off?

Take a look at verse 1, chapter 13.

The place of Babylon.

In the pronouncement about the nations, we have this prominence given to Babylon, which is actually a very strange beginning In Isaiah's day.

We would have expected the first one to be talked about would have been Assyria, or maybe, closer to home, we would have talked about Damascus or Aram or Israel, the northern tribes, who are enemies now, at this time against Judah.

But it's not even that, nor is it even some of the meddlesome tribes on the other side of the Jordan, eden and Ammon and Moab.

Those aren't the first ones either.

The prophecies about Babylon come up first, and this is a very, very odd thing in Isaiah's day, because in Isaiah's day Babylon is not a major power.

They could look back a thousand years to the time of Hammurabi, and that was their glory days.

Or they could look back even to the revival under Nebuchadnezzar I, which was 400 years before Isaiah, but right in this moment they're not any of that.

It's not until 200 years after Isaiah's day that Nebuchadnezzar that we know of in the book, or the books of the Old Testament, comes up and Nebuchadnezzar, his predecessor, 200 years before Babylon, climbs to an ascendancy of being a problem for the people of Judah.

But here they are.

Here they are at the very head of these pronouncements about the nations, and it begs us to ask the question why?

Why is Babylon first here?

Why not Assyria, the big gorilla of the day?

Why not Egypt?

Why these people?

Well, it's because, yes, in the future Babylon is going to be a big player, as it relates to Judah, of course.

But there's something else here.

It's because Babylon stands as a symbol for the rest of the nations, and their problem is the central problem of the rest of the nations and the central problem of humanity, to be honest.

And the origin of that symbolism begins in our first understanding of what Babylon is.

After the flood, the people gathered as one, with one language and with one desire to build a monument for themselves that would reach into the heavens and they would be able to stand still as equal or in opposition to God.

And so God looks upon the acts of men, as unified as they are in their own resources, and says we will scatter them.

And in Genesis 11, the Lord scattered them throughout the earth and they stopped building the city, and therefore it's called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth.

And there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth.

And from that point forward, babylon, the city, becomes Babylon, the symbol that tells us about man's desire for prominence over against God himself.

And it's seen in reality in Daniel, chapter 4, when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon arises.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

He's walking on the roof of his palace in Daniel 4, 28.

Walking on the roof of his palace in Daniel 4, 28.

And he exclaims is this not Babylon the great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my glory?

Babylon becomes a symbol of that kind of self-exalting pride.

Peter draws on this Old Testament tradition when he mentions very briefly in his first epistle in chapter 5, she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, send you greetings, as does Mark, my son.

Babylon wasn't around in those days, but the symbol was the symbol of a city set against God.

And Babylon again is seen as the symbol of a nation set against God throughout the book of Revelation, revelation 16, just as an example.

The great city split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell.

Babylon the great was remembered in God's presence and he gave her the cup filled with the wine of his fierce anger.

And every island fled and the mountains disappeared.

The symbol of human pride in a city.

You see Babylon's fall here in chapters 13 and 14, yes, they mark out the fall of historic Babylon 200 years from Isaiah's day.

But it's not just historical Babylon in view here.

It's not just Israel's conqueror that's going to be conquered, it's everything Babylon represents that's going to be conquered.

It's everything Babylon represents that's going to be destroyed.

And Babylon is biblical code language for society constructed in its human defiance against God, as we push and shove our way through human history, trying to live our lives and gain civilization apart from our creator.

It began at the Tower of Babel and it will be dethroned completely and utterly when God reshapes this world and makes the new heaven and the new earth.

Let's take a little closer look at this Babylon and see what its primary sin is and that's our third point the pronouncement of the nations, the place of Babylon and the primary sin, and it's the sin of pride.

Take a look in chapters 13 and verses 13 and 14.

And there this self-seeking one makes four boasts about what he's going to do.

He's going to rule above the stars, he's going to sit on the highest mountaintop, he's going to ascend into the highest heavens and he's going to become equal to God.

Listen to this pompous statement.

I will ascend to the heavens.

I will set to the heavens.

I will set up my throne above the stars of God.

I will sit on the mount of the God's assembly in the remotest part of the north.

I will ascend above the highest clouds.

I will make myself like the most high.

Here, babylon is speaking as better than the pagan gods themselves.

This king of Babylon is really just a composite of all these proud, despotic kings who have exalted themselves while they've gained rule on earth Creaturely.

Pride at its pinnacle.

Pride at its pinnacle.

Isaiah is telling us something here when we make ourselves to be the most important thing in the world, we are trying to push God off of his throne and to put ourselves there.

What does pride want to do?

I will ascend to the place of the most high.

That's what pride does.

Pride is the desire to be first, to be the one in charge to do what I would want to do, and its influences are so subtle and sneaky and seem so reasonable that the roots of pride work their way into our heart and we don't even recognize it.

But the devil does?

He said to Eve well, god knows.

God knows that when you eat of this fruit, that your eyes are going to be open and you're going to be like God, you're going to know things that he's trying to keep away from you, you're going to be able to have the power to say what's good and right for yourself, rather than having to submit yourself to this creator who's told you what's good and right for you.

And he whispers that same temptation into our ears and we begin to listen and the language of pride begins to fill our heart.

I don't deserve that.

I need some me time.

And it just works its way ever so slightly to where entitlement starts to become more and more the language that we speak.

We say wouldn't it be wonderful if I was the boss of this office Boy?

How smooth things would run if I was in charge.

Wouldn't it be great if everybody in the church recognized my gifts?

Now that I've got enough money, I'm going to do what I want.

Nobody's going to tell me what to do, or just simply telling the idiot in front of you to get it out of the way so you can have a nice, like pleasant drive on the road.

It shows up everywhere, doesn't drive on the road.

It shows up everywhere.

And once pride enters into our hearts, the roots of it strike so deeply it's hard to extract, and I've been at the place where, even at the end of life, a person has worked pride so deeply into their heart they'd rather die than bow.

How tragic.

Have you ever resented someone overlooking you?

You ever wondered if they really only knew how great a person I actually am?

Have you ever thought I just can't be happy until things are done the way I'd like them done?

I certainly have, and I'm sure all of us have.

What is Isaiah telling us here?

This is not just some city's problem, some city's self-exaltation.

This is our problem.

This is the spirit of the world.

There was an essay that went out in the UK and it was to answer the question what is wrong with the world?

And GK Chesterton wrote back with just two words I am, I am and we are.

We are the problem of the world.

Arnold Tombi studied civilizations across the sweep of history and this was his conclusion Self-worship is the religion of mankind.

Refusing to humble ourselves before a holy God is our problem, and it spawns all of our misguided, destructive activities in our attempt to bring ourselves to some better place, or to expect to be so.

And this is what God sees in the heart of the king of Babylon and it's what he sees in all of our hearts I, I, I, I the language of pride.

But take a look at what happens to this ruler.

This ruler here is going to be brought down, verse 13.

I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will shake from its foundations at the wrath of the Lord of armies on the day of his burning anger.

It's dreadful.

Take a look at chapter 14.

Go to verse 13.

There you said to yourself I will send to the heavens, I will set up my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the Mount of the gods assemblies in the remotest part of the North.

I will ascend to the height, the highest clouds, I'll make myself like the most high, but you will be brought down to Sheol, down to the deepest parts of the earth.

His pride got him nowhere.

You see, as we survey the world, we think that the world is controlled through the exercise of human power.

But the reality is is that the world is controlled by the exercise of one sovereign power and that is God Almighty In verses 16 to 18 of this passage.

And verses 16 to 18 of this passage show people staring at the mangled corpse of this tyrant lying in a heap of other corpses in a pit.

It's the scene of a battlefield death.

Instead of receiving some dignified death of a conquering king placed at the end of his days in a mausoleum of magnificence of marble, he's nothing but an abandoned corpse in a field.

This is final, complete, utter humiliation.

And it gets even worse in verse 20 and 21.

You will not join them in burial because you destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people.

The offspring of evildoers will never be mentioned again.

Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons because of the iniquity of their ancestors.

Not only will this king die a humiliating death, he will have no progeny by which his name will be carried forward into the future.

It's completely and utterly laid to nothing, and what seemed to be the appearance of human glory is actually nothing but emptiness.

And this passage exposes pride for what it is and what it deserves complete and utter failure from God.

Against God, there'll be no mighty blows, only limp hands and melted hearts.

Against God, there will be no arrogant looks, but only the red faces of shame and disgrace for those who continue their rebellion against him, that Nebuchadnezzar mercifully learned a lesson in life that some say actually carried him into eternal life in God's presence.

He was humbled mercifully by God and at the end of his humbling Daniel 4, he said At the end of the days, I, nebuchadnezzar, looked up into heaven and my sanity returned to me.

Then I praised the Most High and honored and glorified Him, who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom is from generation to generation and all the inhabitants of the earth, including me, are counted as nothing and he does what he wants with the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth.

There's no one who can block his hand or say to him what have you done?

At that time, my sanity returned to me and my majesty and splendor returned to me and the glory of my kingdom.

My advisors, my nobles, sought me out and I was reestablished over my kingdom and even more greatness came to me.

But is he going to take it back to himself again?

Never, because this is what he says.

Because this is what he says Now, I, nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and glorify the King of the heavens, because all his works are true and his ways are just.

He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

He humbled me.

What a wonderful testimony.

That is right.

Instead of walking in defiance into the corridors of eternity, god mercifully crushed this man so that he might be able to walk into eternity, saying I will exalt the one, the only one, who deserves to be held in highest esteem, the God of the heavens.

And this leads us to our last point.

We've got the pronouncement against the nations, the place of Babylon at the head of all of this, the problem of Babylon with its pride.

And now we have mingled in these oracles about Babylon what I'm calling the prophetic picture, the prophetic picture.

We've kind of alluded to it a little bit, with Babylon being a symbol for human pride and self-exaltation.

But I want you to look a little earlier in chapter 13 with me, because we're going to be reintroduced to a familiar word and it's easy to overlook it.

We've heard it several times already.

This prophecy about Babylon speaks once more about the day of Yahweh.

Yahweh's day.

A day here, of destruction, but not just destruction.

A day of Yahweh's day A day here, of destruction, but not just destruction.

A day of Yahweh's angry burning, but not just his angry burning.

And Isaiah here invokes that word again and wraps it up in a phrase that he's not used before the day of the Lord.

Take a look at verse 6 and also verse 9.

Wail for the day of the Lord.

Take a look at verse 6 and also verse 9.

Wail for the day of the Lord is near.

It will come as destruction from the Almighty, verse 9.

Look, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel and with fury and burning anger.

Isaiah has already talked about that day 18 times in Isaiah, but this is the first time he's put it in this way the day of the Lord.

As we've looked at that day, as in the other chapters of Isaiah, we've noticed that sometimes it's talking about a day of destruction or a day of deliverance actually of destruction, or a day of deliverance actually.

And until now, judah has always been in view and in some ways Judah still is in view here.

But the day of the Lord lands upon the people of Babylon.

Now, all of this is a picture, a prophetic picture of God's activity of judgment upon a real people who lived in real time and places the nation of Babylon.

And in verse 17, we learn what happens to them Look, I'm stirring up the meads against them who cannot be bought off with silver and who have no desire for gold.

Their bows will cut young men to pieces and they'll have no compassion on offspring.

And in 539 BC, the Medes walked into Babylon as conquerors, walked into Babylon as conquerors.

So what Isaiah is doing is he's using this day of the Lord language and he is talking about God confronting human civilization, god confronting people inside of history.

So the day of the Lord can speak about events, monumental events that are happening.

But I want to add another layer to that, because, as this battle commences, in which Babylon is brought to nothing because of the Medes, he uses some language here that might surprise you.

Take a look at verse 10.

As this battle ensues, the effect of this battle becomes cosmic.

The stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light.

The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shine.

As this battle continues, in which the Medes are taking over the Babylonians, there's a cosmic drama that entails the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars are darkened.

The earth is shaken in its place.

All creation is crumbling.

So drastic is this battle.

We have the language here of creation crumbling, of it being de-created, the unraveling of the universe.

That's about as hyperbolic as you can get.

I think we use that kind of language sometimes.

My world has just come to an end.

What happened?

Somebody hit my car, you know.

But we use that hyperbolic language and that hyperbolic pattern as we go through the rest of the Old Testament and even in many, many places of the New Testament.

Let me just give you a flavor of it.

Time doesn't allow us to do this, and if you got quick hands or you got rewind on your YouTube, if you want to go back and watch this, you can capture these passages.

But in Isaiah, chapter 34, in verse four, the judgment against Edom, the stars in the sky will dissolve, the sky will roll up like a scroll and the stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine.

Isaiah 34 · chapter mention

Same language, jeremiah 4, 23 to 28,.

The judgment against Judah by Babylon.

I looked at the mountains and they were quaking.

All the hills shook, Ezekiel 32,.

When Babylon was defeated, or defeated Egypt, ezekiel 32,.

I will cover the heavens and darken their stars.

I will cover the sun with a cloud and the moon will not give its light.

I will darken all the shining lights of the heavens over you and bring darkness on your land.

The same language what is this?

This is prophetic pictures that become a prophetic pattern, and I'll mention what that is in just a second.

Amos, chapter 5, israel's defeat by Assyria.

Amos 5 · chapter mention

In that day, I will darken the land in the daytime.

Joel, chapter 2, the earth quakes before them, the sky shakes, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars cease their shining.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

We could go on.

There's loads of them in the Old Testament, these images of creation crumbling.

What is it?

It's a prophetic pattern.

It's a prophetic pattern of God's intervention in significant moments of political change and upheaval, in which God interacts his acts of judgment or redemption in a significant way.

It speaks as if the end of the universe is happening.

But you can only end the universe once.

But these images show up again and again and again and again when this king and that nation and these peoples are brought into judgment.

What is it?

It's a prophetic picture.

Judgment what is it?

It's a prophetic picture.

It's the climax of when God acts in human history in a way that speaks about the day when he will bring the heavens and the earth into nothing and recreates everything in a new heaven and a new earth.

These are foreshadowing patterns that will culminate in that ultimate day of the Lord.

Every shock of human history is a day of the Lord that looks toward the day of the Lord, because every act of God in history whispers the ultimacy of his climatic act of closing down history.

But God has more than mine, than just destruction here.

Take a look at chapter 14.

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will choose Israel again.

He will settle them on their own land.

The resident alien will join them and be united with the house of Jacob.

You see, the day of the Lord is not just a day of destruction, it's also a day of deliverance.

It's also a day of deliverance.

And here we see this prophetic picture developing a pattern of judgment and mercy, of salvation and destruction, of life and death.

And so here, babylon.

This is not the final judgment, but it is a whisper of the final judgment, as pride is put down and the oppressed people are delivered.

Now I just want to carry us into the New Testament and I'm going to ask you to sort of turn your ears on with me, because I'm going to take many to sort of turn your ears on with me, because I'm going to take many of you places you may never have been before and help you to understand how this prophetic pattern picture brings itself into the life of Christ and into the work of the gospel.

In Luke, chapter 10, jesus sent out 72 of his disciples to go preach the message of repentance into the cities, and they came back it says in Luke, chapter 10 and verse 17, returning with joy.

Luke 10 · chapter mention Luke 10 · chapter mention

Why?

Well, they tell us, why, lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.

They went out and they saw things seen and unseen bowing before the proclamation of the kingdom of God.

Now notice how Jesus replies to them.

I watched Satan fall from heaven to earth.

Huh, what is that?

That is prophetic language of the one who is proud, being humbled, exactly like Isaiah.

13 and 14 talk about that.

The message of the kingdom of God is a message that's pulling down unseen strongholds, and he uses it in this cosmic arena.

Okay, it in this cosmic arena.

Okay, look, I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over the power of the enemy.

Nothing at all will harm you.

I love where Jesus puts us, though not in the swelling uptake of power over demons and even the devil himself.

He said don't rejoice that the Spirit submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Don't think that God is on your side.

Make sure you're on his side.

At the end of his life, right before he went into the arrest and the trial and the crucifixion, jesus spoke his last words to his disciples.

The discourse of the upper room, and go from chapters 13, all the way to chapter six, 17.

And in chapter 14, he says this and these are just nuances, but mind you, we'll pull it together.

He said I've told you that I'm going away and I'll be coming to you.

If you love me, you'd rejoice that I'm going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

And I've told you now, before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe I will not talk to you much longer.

Now listen to what he says here, because the ruler of the world is coming, but he has no power over me.

But he has no power over me.

Two chapters later, jesus picks up the same thing.

Nevertheless, I'm telling you the truth.

It is for your benefit that I could go away, because if I don't go away, the counselor will not come to you and if I go, I'll send him to you.

And when he comes this is what the Holy Spirit right when he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness and judgment.

About sin because they do not believe on me.

About righteousness, because I'm going to the Father and you will no longer see me.

And about judgment why?

Because the ruler of this world has been judged.

A lot of talk here about this ruler of the world and his judgment.

Remember the picture of cosmic collapse, of the universe being destroyed, of creation crumbling, as an evidence of God's direct intervention into the lives of humanity in order to bring about a complete change of direction, be it in the life of a man or the life of a nation or the lives of people.

Here we find Christ acting in the same cosmic arena as brought into play, and the scriptures tell us that when Jesus was on the cross, there was darkness for the space of three hours.

What was that all about?

It is the fulfillment of the cosmic collapse of the prophetic pictures of the Old Testament.

This is God acting in human history, and he is giving everybody who knew what to look for the sign that it was happening when it got dark for three hours in Jerusalem.

There's not a single Jewish person there who couldn't have understood it if they read their scriptures.

God is bringing the creation to a collapse in order to do something different.

A little bit later, we read about the earthquake splitting the curtain in the Holy of Holies from the top to the bottom.

Again, the heavens and the earth are shaking because God is doing something.

How did Jesus conquer?

He died.

That's how he conquered.

It was in his death that the heavens were darkened.

It was in his death that the earth was shaken.

And this is why in Colossians, chapter two, paul says that he erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away, nailing it to his cross.

He's disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly.

He has triumphed over them as a dead man.

The apostles would have understood this imagery.

They were helped to understand it as God spoke to them, as Jesus laid out for them that God was doing something huge when he made the heavens dark and when he made the earth shake at the time of the crucifixion.

They understood that the arrival of the Holy Spirit was going to be a sign, an absolute sign that the ruler of the earth was brought to nothing, that God was reigning over all things seen and unseen.

And they waited.

And they waited until that day, on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit came to them and they went out, full of the Holy Spirit, to speak the mighty acts of God.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Big hint there.

And the people gathered wondering what they were looking at, because they said, we hear every one of them speaking the mighty acts of God in our own language.

Tell us people what's happening.

And Peter stands up in the midst of them.

And what does he do up in the midst of them?

And what does he do?

He said we're not drunk with wine, as you might think.

It's because of this.

And where does he go to explain all of this?

He goes to Joel and he said this is what is spoken through the prophet Joel.

Now listen to the prophetic picture showing up right here.

It will be in the last days, says God.

I will pour out my spirit on all people and your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.

I will even pour out my spirit on my servant in those days, both men and women, my spirit on my servant in those days, both men and women, and they will prophesy Okay.

So that's that Now.

He doesn't stop there, though, does he?

He keeps reading, and you can read it in the book of Acts, in chapter 2.

I will display wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood.

Before that great and glorious day of the Lord comes.

What is Peter saying?

He's not talking about some future day.

He's talking about that day, the day of the gospel proclamation to the people of Israel, because he quotes the next verse then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

What is Peter doing?

He's pulling the prophetic pictures out of the Old Testament, those signs of the day of the Lord, where God is making big changes in human history, and he's saying this day is not just a day of Pentecost, this day is the day of ultimate change of human history, because this day is the day the King of heaven Jesus day is the day the King of heaven Jesus has sent the message to us to proclaim to all that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

You see, the gospel is not a please give Jesus a chance.

Wouldn't you just try him once, 90 day guarantee, you know, if he doesn't do something better with your life, you can give him back?

No, he's the king of heaven and he's saying this is a message of life.

Bow your knee now, or bow your knee later, when the day of the Lord is not going to be deliverance but destruction.

You see, peter is saying that these images pull into the New Testament and they pull into the gospel proclamation and they pull into the day of the new creation.

If anyone is in Christ, the old is gone, the new has come, this time in which the last days are here, a new era in which a new force is holding sway over humanity, and that new force is King Jesus himself, because he has conquered sin and death and the grave and judgment for all who believe.

This is the day of Christ Today, and salvation comes to all who believe, but, like Babylon, judgment will come to all who believe themselves, who hold their primacy above the will and way and person of God, and there will be a day of the Lord for that too.

This is why, at the end of the sermon in Acts 2, peter said the promise is for you, but flee from this generation of destruction.

You have to make a choice.

You have to bow to King Jesus or fall broken at the feet of King Jesus.

What will you do today?

Today, today, these judgments are not just pronouncements that we kind of go.

Well, my history curiosity has been satiated a little bit.

No, these are statements about us and these are laying out patterns that affect us, and they are things that speak to us about the future of all of us.

And that day beckons us to quote probably one of the best quotes Abraham Lincoln ever said.

When he replied to someone, he said Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side.

My greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

Let's side, for God is always right.

Let's pray, father.

As we've entered into this, our hearts have been struck with a sad, broken resonance, with the pride that's brought into the light of judgment here, the pride that's brought into the light of judgment here.

It's not a single one of us who haven't sought to exalt ourselves in some fashion or thought ourselves better than we should, or demanded things from others that we expected.

Lord, our middle name could be entitlement too often.

Lord, we thank you for showing us exactly where that gets us.

It gets us nowhere, it gets us to nothing.

And, lord, we understand that the day will come when all human endeavors set up in defiance against you will be brought down.

And, lord, that causes us to flee from that wrath to come.

We thank you that, in the midst of this oracle of judgment about Babylon and its self-exalting pride, you gave us a statement of deliverance that you would free the oppressed from bondage.

And, lord, we pray that we might be those humbled by our sin, calling out to you with nothing to bring except our desperate need, and that you might deliver us from ourselves and deliver us from the judgment that's going to come.

And, lord, make us one of yours so that we might gladly own you as our King, and we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.