Isaiah 2: Be Humble or Be Humbled

I encourage you to take your Bible and turn with me over to Isaiah chapter 2.

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the pew there in front of you.

And by turning to page 601, 601, we'll get to Isaiah chapter 2.

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

Have you ever desired to be part of something that's beyond and outside your normal experience?

Of course.

All of us do.

We find glimpses of things outside and beyond our normal day, and some of the things that are common to our experiences now.

Our team perhaps winning the Super Bowl, or the rush of a standing ovation at the end of a concert, or even the shared experience of a natural disaster brings us together with our neighbors like we never have had before.

All of this speaks about something about us that all of us long for transcendence.

We long for something that's above and beyond the ordinary.

That woven inside each of us is a desire for something more, a crave to be part of something bigger, something greater, something more profound than our regular every day.

We also strive for significance, a recognition that our lives, whether it's widely known or little known, actually carry a weight, that they our lives mean something, that we matter, that we count, that we're making a difference somewhere.

And we also long for community, to have a shared experience with others in a context of love and acceptance.

Friday night, sorry, Yankees fans, but Friday night the LA Dodger fans got to experience a little bit of that transcendence and significance and community.

And they did so when Freddie Freeman smacked a piece of wood against a leather ball traveling at him at 93 miles an hour.

With the crack of his bat, Freeman made a game-winning hit.

But it was more than that.

It was more than that.

Freddie Freeman's hit in the bottom of the 10th inning with two outs, the Dodgers down by a run, was Major League Baseball's first ever walk-off grand slim in World Series history.

Never in the previous 693 games of the 119 World Series matchups had that ever happened.

That's transcendence in sport.

The LA Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said that swing might be the greatest baseball moment I've ever witnessed.

And I've witnessed some great ones.

There's also significance in this moment.

Freddie Freeman in a live televised conference that I saw after the game said this.

He said, those are the kind of things when you're five years old with your two older brothers and you're playing wiffle ball in the backyard.

The scenario of scenarios you kind of dream about.

Bases loaded, two outs in a World Series game.

And for it to actually happen, to hit a home run and walk it off and give us a one-nothing lead.

That's as good as it gets right there.

The significance of that moment he shared with his father, who he said was always there with him, always playing with him.

And then there's the community.

In Dodgers Stadium Friday night, all those Los Angeles Dodgers fans were screaming, and there was a palpable sense of us and we in the shared excitement and celebration.

Even New Yorkers had to acknowledge it.

New York Times sports writer Jason Stark put it this way: history is an amazing thing to make, and it's a breathtaking thing to watch.

A stadium rattles until it awakens every Richter scale in Southern California.

A walk-off hero jumps on home plate and disappears into a sea of hugs and laughs and tears of joy.

A baseball game, transcendence, significance, community.

We were made for those things, literally made for those things.

When God made Adam and Eve, he made them as image bearers in the likeness of himself.

God formed Adam and had all the animals pass in front of him and tasked him with naming each of them.

And that moment Adam exercised his image of God dominion over the other created things.

But he also discovered something there.

He discovered he was more than just the pinnacle of the animal kingdom.

He was unique, he was different, he was above all of those things.

There was nothing in the animal kingdom that could match him or be a companion for him.

Adam was made in the image of God like nothing else.

And only someone else, also bearing the likeness of God, could be his companion.

And so God crafted Eve and gave them to one another.

We were born for transcendence, but we were also born for significance.

These two were put into the garden not so they could just simply get along and survive or be satisfied with the things that they were there to enjoy.

They were given a responsibility, a vision, and a commission that would take them beyond the borders of their own lives and beyond the borders of their own needs and concerns.

They were given wonderful capacities to do things that no other creature could do.

I say this to my dogs all the time.

I've got a thumb, you don't.

I've got abilities, you don't.

My dog just says, Would you just shut up and feed me?

But also community, community.

All of that existence as image bearers and all the responsibilities of increasing the garden around the world that was made was all to be done within the context of love and acceptance, in a harmonious relationship with God and humanity, of man and wife, of person to person as it increased, of all of us with the created things, transcendence, significance, community.

These are all central to our original design as humanity.

But in Isaiah chapter two, we see something very, very different.

It seems for Israel in Isaiah's day, all those things are gone and perhaps gone forever.

Oh, they could never be forgotten.

Those elements reside within all of our souls.

But this profound sense of perfect uniqueness and purpose and togetherness before a holy God, that was gone.

And in its place, people tried to fill the void with poor substitutes.

The very things that, if perpetuated, would not only leave them empty and ruinous and rob them of the grandeur of godliness, but would also lead to their eternal destruction.

Take a look at some of these verses.

They sought to find significance in money in Isaiah 2, 7a.

There's no limit to their treasures.

They sought to find meaning in being powerful.

7b, their land is full of horses, and there's no limit to their chariots.

They were looking for things outside their normal experience.

Verse 6, they're full of divination from the East and fortune tellers like the Philistines.

They wanted to be in touch with the other world.

And they welcomed community by forming alliances with other nations.

In verse 6, they're in league with foreigners.

And as an example of just how far down they've gone, Isaiah portrays Judah in this deep state of blind humiliation, forming gods by the craft of their own hands, and bowing down to them as if the stone and the wood that they had carved carried more significance than they did.

Verse 8 and 9, their lands full of worthless idols.

They worship the work of their hands, what their fingers have made.

So humanity is brought low, and each person is humbled.

What is God going to do with this massive humanity?

That not only has lost the grandeur of godliness, lost all of our transcendence and our significance, lost our union and communion with the holy God, but have now chased after things that are nothing but empty, worthless, and even rebellious.

Isaiah tells us.

He tells us that there's coming a day when God will rip down this poorly constructed facade of significance and power that humanity has struck constructed in their prideful rebellion against the Creator.

Verse 11.

The pride of mankind will be humbled, and human loftiness will be brought low.

The Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

A day belonging to the Lord of armies is coming against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up.

It will be humbled.

Verse 17.

The pride of mankind will be brought low, and human loftiness will be humbled.

The Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

Verse 20.

On that day people will throw their worthless idols of silver and gold, which they made to worship to the moles and to the bats.

What a disturbing day that is.

A disturbing day of the destruction of disobedient rebels.

And so worthy are they of this rejection that Isaiah interjects with a demanding request of God in verse nine, which, when you read it, should shake us to the core.

Humanity is brought low, and each person is humbled, and he interjects, do not forgive them.

There appears to be no hope.

There appears to be no hope for Judah.

That is, unless, unless God has plans and a future beyond this terrible current situation.

Hear this just like you've never heard it before, is what Isaiah is saying here.

And in profound contrast to the portrayal of Jerusalem in chapter one, here we see what the Lord wants to do with Judah and Jerusalem.

And to our shock and to our surprise, God has intentions of mercy and grace to these people who have chased after wealth, who've chased after power, who've chased after divination, who've chased after foreign alliances, and who have bound themselves down to idols made from their own hands.

His intention is to treat these people and all nations with honor and privilege.

Take a look at verses two to five.

In the last days the mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills.

All nations will stream to it, and many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us about his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

For instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will settle disputes among the nations and provide arbitration for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives.

Nation will not take up sword against nation, and they will never again train for war.

This morning I want us to examine this remarkable passage and see its importance, its importance for us today, and how it speaks of God's intentions to restore humanity to our original design and to bring us into the experiences that we lost in our sinful rebellion, to bring us back to transcendence, to bring us back to significance, and to bring us into a community that we've all longed to be a part of.

Before we go deeper into this passage, there are a couple things that I need to note here for our understanding.

The first of all is this introductory phrase that we find in verse 2.

In the last days.

In the last days.

This expression is not projecting us necessarily to what's going to happen at the very end of human history as we know it.

This is an expression that is often simply pointing to a future time.

And its built-in imprecision is purposeful to tell us about a time when things will not be as they presently are.

And it can refer simply to things that are just going to happen later.

For example, in Genesis 49 and verse 1, Jacob uses this phrase in his pronouncements about his sons and their lineage in the future.

And some of that future moves to the time of the judges, some of it moves to the time of David, some of it moves to the time of Christ himself.

In the last days could be any one of those seasons.

Deuteronomy 31 and 20, verse 29, Moses uses that phrase to speak of the apostasy that would come after his death.

And in the New Testament, in the last days is a phrase that has reference to the time in which we live now between the resurrection and the return of Christ.

The last days.

And that God himself will arbitrate all of the issues of humankind.

And that in this transformation, people will take their weaponry of war and turn it into implements of agricultural harvesting.

And that war itself will be brought to an end.

And people will no longer go to basic military training.

They will no longer train for war.

When we come into prophetic literature, like the book of Isaiah, we come into a place where poetry reigns, where poetry reigns.

And poetry gives us, as we know, images that provoke strong emotions and describe things beyond the range of our typical normal language.

If I said to someone, I care a lot about you, I would be saying a true statement.

If I said to them, you're one in a million, I would be using figurative language.

But if I said among the endless grains of sand, you're the gem that glitters, the one the tide could not sweep away, you think, well, he's obviously not just asking for directions.

But then what if I said, you're not just part of the world's vastness, you're the sparkle that turns it into magic.

That's only something Royal gets to hear.

Why?

It's poetry, right?

It's poetry.

It speaks emotionally, and it goes into us deeper.

We find that kind of imagery all over scripture.

Some of it we understand, some of it we don't.

I mean, none of us really understand why Solomon would tell a woman, you've got hair like a flock of goats, you know.

Or that your teeth are like sheep that have just been shorn.

Well, unless you're a New Zealander, maybe that would be okay.

Or that your neck is like the Tower of David.

And she's looking up, going, I've always been a little, well, a little embarrassed by my neck, but you've just really made it a problem.

When we read these things, we understand they evoke emotion, that they're poetic.

Isaiah's prophecies do that.

In Isaiah 52, we don't expect a literal fulfillment of this.

He says, You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided.

The mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

We're not going to be walking down a pathway accompanied by the forest.

But there's something there that's rich and that's deep.

And so the Old Testament prophets describe a glorious future, and Isaiah here describes a glorious future that's both familiar and yet unknown to the people in Judah and Jerusalem of his day.

Something they could understand, but yet beyond their comprehension.

Something veiled that they couldn't quite grasp.

So God speaks to them within this framework, this world of language, poetry, to build their faith and to raise their expectations.

He takes these familiar institutions and he idealizes them in this imagery and speaks of the reality beyond their present day that's going to be more glorious than they can imagine.

I want us to break down this section in verses two to five in two little clusters.

The first cluster will look at the aspects of the imagery of the place, and then the second cluster will be the imagery of the people.

And in this first cluster, speaking about the place, we find the focus is in Jerusalem, and particularly the Temple Mount and the Temple itself.

And the first thing that we notice in verse 2 is the elevation of the Temple Mount.

That the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is not the highest place around.

It's tall, it reaches a peak of about 2,400 and some change feet above sea level, but it isn't the highest peak.

The Mount of Olives, right next to it, is about 250 feet higher than it, and Mount Scopus, which lies to the north, is nearly 300 feet higher than it in elevation.

And even the Mount of Corruption to the south is higher.

So in its immediate vicinity, the Temple Mount is not higher than all the hills around.

It just isn't.

And when we read Isaiah chapter 2, we're not reading here some sort of tectonic upheaval in which the Temple Mount is physically lifted up above the rest of the hills around it.

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

No, this is poetry.

This is poetry.

We're discovering something far more significant than the fact that we just have to change the figures on our on our maps.

When we read the Old Testament, we discover that the high places were places of worship.

Israel had one place where they were to worship centrally, a place that was chosen by God.

But despite all of that, Israel tended to worship in a lot of other places, a lot of other high places, inconsistent with what God told them to do, but also leading them to the temptation of joining into the worship of other gods on the high places where other people worshiped.

And here in this passage of scripture, God is promising to raise his mountain above all the other mountains.

In other words, to make it such that his worship is the supreme worship above all for all people.

In that image.

And then there is the exaltation of the temple.

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills.

There is this exaltation of the temple itself.

Now the temple is for us the meeting place between God and humanity.

And here we see the exaltation of the temple being figuring the presence of God Himself, where people will meet with Him.

And this temple in Jerusalem is an earthly representation of God's house, the place where he dwells, where he is enthroned as the real king of the universe.

And then another aspect of this first cluster that talks about the place begins to move us toward the people that we'll look at in the second cluster.

Many peoples will come and say, Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.

There is this focus on this area, not only by the people of Israel, the people of Judah and Jerusalem, but the nations and the peoples themselves.

That this transformation of Jerusalem is not just an end of itself and not just for the people of that city or of that area, but a place in which will be flowing all of the nations.

The centrality of this place is in view, and it is the eye of every people.

Isaiah speaks of this.

And I will bring all of your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord on horses and chariots and litters and on mules and camels to my holy mountain, Jerusalem.

This cluster of the place poetically shows us something is going on that's going to bring an exaltation of the Temple Mount.

It's going to show us an exaltation of the temple itself where God dwells.

It's going to show us all the people focused on that one place.

What is this high place?

What is this God's presence in the temple?

What is this place of worship, this focus of the people?

Well, the New Testament tells us exactly what it is.

Because the New Testament takes up this imagery that Isaiah speaks about here and in so many other places, and so many of the other prophets talk about and brings it into focus on Christ and the gospel and God's people who have come to Jesus Christ.

The writer of Hebrews in chapter 12 says to them, You have come to Mount Zion, to the city.

Of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to a judge who is the God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better things than the blood of Abel.

Where have the New Testament believers come to?

They've come to the highest of high places, to the heavenly Jerusalem, not just sitting on top of earthly hills, but sitting above all things on earth, to the very abode of God, to the place where the blood of Christ will free you of all guilt.

Galatians 4, to the Gentiles of Galatia.

Paul the apostle writes to them, and he says, Jerusalem above is free and is our mother.

That very exalted place where God dwells, which is above us all, is the very center of our existence.

Revelation chapter three and verse twelve.

God's people wrapped up in the imagery of Jerusalem and a high place and a temple where they will bring themselves gladly and remain happily forever.

Revelation twenty-one, two.

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, the high place, the high city, the high temple, the high presence of God.

These ideas of temple and mountain are all wrapped around the idea of Jesus Christ and the gospel and the people of God being a part of it.

When we looked at chapter one, we said that all of chapter one was yearning for a future day when the Messiah would come, yearning for that day when our sins, which are as scarlet, would become proclaimed as white as wool.

And we said that we find that fulfillment in Jesus' death.

This forgiveness that Isaiah is grasping to understand and longing to see, materialized and realized, is found in these pictures of crimson and scarlet being turned into wool and snow.

We know this is Christ who has come to free us.

And because Christ has come to free us, there's no more Sabbaths, there's no more sacrifices, there's no more priesthood, there's none of those things needed any longer, for the one perfect sacrifice has come and he's come to deliver.

And so now here in Isaiah chapter 2, this vision of a glorious Zion that sits in the center of the world with all eyes on it speaks about again our Savior, the light of Jesus, who is very God of gods, who is the express image of God, who said on this earth, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again, who says to his people, you are living stones built on the cornerstone, who is Jesus Christ, and you are formed together as a habitation for God to sing out the praises and the excellencies of him who saved us.

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

And so while Isaiah talks about a future of an elevated mountain, the gospels tell us very clearly about the need for the elevation of Jesus Christ.

The book of Acts gives us a picture of the nations being assembled in Jerusalem and hearing a message about one Jesus who sits at the right hand of God, who is issuing forth an edict from there of deliverance.

The vision of Isaiah 2 is becoming a reality in human existence.

This picture of gloriousness, of welcome, this picture of this place is found right in Jesus Christ Himself.

That leads us to cluster two.

The first cluster talks about the place.

The second cluster focuses more on the people.

All nations will stream to it, and many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us about his way so that we may walk in his paths.

For instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Isaiah sees here that Jew and Gentile alike will stream toward God's holy mountain.

Why?

What's compelling them to go there?

They go there because they want to know something about God.

God will teach them, He will show them how to walk in His path.

His instructions will come from that place.

The word of the Lord will be sourced there.

This is where they find the truth.

And these people, both Jew and Gentile, need instruction and they desire direction in junctures of life, both mundane and crucial.

And these people are tired of the false instructions and the faulty directions that they've been given from the culture around them.

They want the truth.

They want God's truth.

And so they set their gaze on the temple of Yahweh.

They look to the highest mountain around.

And together, as Jew and Gentile, they become a pilgrim people, moving toward the presence of God Himself.

And they want to hear, not just with their ears, but also with their hearts.

And they want God to speak as He is the all-welcoming God who will do things for them that they need.

And they recognize that God's law is not just the exclusive claim of the people of Israel, but it is for all peoples.

This idea of the people being gathered for instruction is something the New Testament centers on Christ.

And Jeremiah speaking about the new covenant.

One of the promises of the new covenant is this they will not say one to their neighbor, Know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

In the new covenant, there's a knowledge of God that comes.

Jesus in John 6 said, It is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God.

Everyone who's listened to and learned from the Father comes to me, Jesus said.

Why?

Because he's the source of the truth.

John chapter 3, John the Baptist said, The one who speaks of the heavenly things is the one who's come from the heavenly place.

John 3 · chapter mention

He reveals him.

1 Corinthians 2, Paul said, We speak these things, not words taught by human wisdom, but those things taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.

To the Thessalonians, Paul wrote about brotherly love, you don't need for me to write to you, because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 20, now that you've come to know Christ, assuming that you've heard about him, and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, Isaiah in action, in Jesus Christ, in informing his people about the ways of God, about understanding what love really means, about what taking off the former way of life really means, about finding Christ, the revelation of the invisible God.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

But he goes on in this second cluster, not only to talk about our education of God, but also the establishment of peace, will come there to this very place where he will settle disputes among the nations and provide arbitration for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will never again train for war.

Now these war, these words have significance for us who live in New York.

They're right outside the United Nations building where a blacksmith is beating swords into plowshares, right?

But the path to peace that the United Nations is talking about is not this.

Rather than disarmament bringing peace, this passage says peace brings disarmament.

The peace comes first.

And God is portrayed here as the direct agent of that peace, bringing judgment, settling disputes at the beginning of verse four, talking about the cessation of war within the hearts of his people, the power of the gospel to break down barriers and to establish peace.

Where there is strife, there is now the source for peace.

Where there was once avarance, now there's the place for forgiveness.

Where there was once prejudice, now there's the place for acceptance in Jesus Christ.

The people who are taught by God are the people who are taught by God to bring about a realm of peace like this world has never been able to do, and without Christ, we'll never be able to do.

Just take a look at us.

Look at all of us.

We're about as different as we can get.

We're as mixed in every possible demographic that we could even list out.

But here we are gathered together because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The world longs for this and they can't achieve it.

To receive divine instruction is to share in this vision of a coming realm of peace.

And it's already inaugurated now.

Having been justified by faith, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Right?

And may the peace of God settle your hearts and fix your minds.

And so, brothers and sisters, have peace with one another.

It is because our hearts are already made at peace with the Holy God that we can begin to have peace with sinful people.

It's wondrous.

Yes, when we come to know Jesus, peace follows.

And it could be in the smallest of ways, in seemingly uncertain days, the most feeble of efforts.

But there is within all of God's people, those who redeemed through Jesus Christ, a blossoming of love, a growing of forgiveness that turns squabbles and factions into harmonious communities, in families and in churches, and even as we become peacemakers in this world.

This is why Jesus described his children: Blessed are the peacemakers.

Isaiah's vision leaves room for hope.

These days have begun, but they're not finished yet.

And there'll be more and more of our putting away of hypocrisy and putting away of injustice, when our peace will be more than just patchy and small, that he will continue to work until the day comes when war will be no more and peace will flow like a river.

Isaiah holds that vision up as true.

He takes us to a mountain.

He shows us there what our hearts are really longing for.

He shows us that God is there.

He shows us that God's initiative is there.

And he shows us that God intends to bring his people into an experience that they've yet to ever know.

An experience of equity and of community and of justice and of love and of peace.

In that place that he has established that is higher than all the other places around.

And that place is Christ who broke into the third heaven and sits at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Isaiah speaks of that time when we'll once again know transcendence and significance and community.

That we'll quit in that day getting by with the scraps and remembrances of special experiences.

That day when God's presence will be perfectly manifest, when his house will be eternally established, when we will always have the instruction of God, and peace will reign.

Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

That's where we look, that's where we stream, and that's where we find our transcendence and our significance and our community.

This picture of unity, this picture of justice, this picture of openness and oneness in the divine way of peace.

It speaks to our deepest hopes and all of our longings.

Hear the exhortation in verse five.

House of Jacob, come.

Let's walk in the Lord's light.

This chapter is filled with two seemingly irreconcilable futures.

On that day will be a day when human pride is crushed, and in the last days will come an elevated place of acceptance.

And where your destiny lies is brought to bear in this exhortation.

Come.

And then look at the last verse of the chapter.

Put no more trust in a mere human who only has only the breath in his nostrils.

What is he really worth?

To begin to walk in the ways of the light of the Lord that verse 5 talks about means quit, first of all, quit trusting yourself.

Because you are just a mere mortal.

That's what we are.

And whatever constructs of transcendence and significance and community that we think we can obtain by way of our prideful, arrogant rebellion against God, to invest it in money, to invest it in spiritual activity, to invest it in weaponry of power, to invest it in alliances with others.

We're really doing nothing more but constructing wood and stone idols, things that we've made with our own hands and saying they're what gives us significance.

Turn away from those things and turn to the living God who can bring you into a realm like you've never known before, where words fail us to even begin to describe.

Let's pray.

Do not forgive them.

You've got bigger plans than that.

You've got plans that cause all of us to stop our voices and to stand in awe, in wonder and puzzlement, that you, the holy God, who have been offended by our actions, would be so kind and so gracious and so full of love that you would open up a place into your presence to the very people that have dishonored you.

Lord, we need to hear that message.

And I pray for each and every one of us in this room that we would not pass it by without acknowledging our need of it and without ensuring our participation in it.

That we would come to that place, Jesus Christ, who is high and exalted above all, and find in him everything that we need.

And Lord, I pray that we might continue to be those who help others stream to that holy mountain.

Come, come with us.

Let us walk in the light of the Lord.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.