Betting on Losers

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter two.

And while our brother comes to read our scripture text

this morning, I would encourage you to keep your eyes

open as you read along. Keep your eyes open for

this what will be lifted up, what will be brought down?

And how should we live in light of that? What

will be lifted up, what will be brought down? How

should we live? Go ahead, brother, thanks all right?

Isaiah tu the word that Isaiah the son of Amos

saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass

in the later days that the mountain of the House

of the Lord shall be established as the highest of

the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills,

and all the nations shall flow to it. And many

people shall come and say, come, let us go up

to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of

the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways,

and that we may walk in his pass. For out

of Zion shall go forth the law and the word

of the Lord. From Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many peoples, and they shall

beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall

they learn war anymore, Oh, House of Jacob, Come, let

us walk in the light of the Lord. For you

have rejected your people, the House of Jacob, because they

are full of things from the east, and of fortune

tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the

children of foreigners. Their land is filled with silver and gold,

and there is no end to their treasures. Their land

is filled with horses, and there is no end to

their chariots. Their land is filled with idols. They bow

down to the work of their hands, to what their

own fingers have made. So man is humbled, and each

one is brought low. Do not forgive them enter into

the rock and hide in the dust. From before the

terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty,

the howdy look of man shall be brought low, and

the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, And the

Lord alone will be exalted in that day. For the

Lord of Hosts has a day against all that is

proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and

it shall be brought low against all the cedars of Lebanon,

lofty and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan,

against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills,

against every high tower, and against every fortified wall, against

all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft,

and the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the

lofty pride of men shall be brought low. And the

Lord alone will be ex alted in that day, and

the idols shall utterly pass away, and people shall enter

the caves and rocks and holes of the ground from

before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor

of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.

In that day, mankind will cast away their idols of

silver and their idols of gold, which they made for

themselves to worship to the moles and to the bats,

to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts

of the cliffs, from before the terror of the Lord,

and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises

to terrify the earth. Stop regarding man in whose nostrils

his breath, For of what account is he? This is

the word of the Lord.

Amen, Thank you, brother. We have begun our.

Series in Isaiah where we plan to go through the

whole book of Isaiah.

Started this two weeks.

Ago, and I've heard from more than one of you

how long is this gonna take? So I thought i'd

start by giving you some bit of the schedule.

My expectation.

You know, we'll plan our steps, we'll plan our path,

the Lord will order our steps. My schedule is that

we will go from for this semester and we'll probably

get through chapter thirty seven this semester, and then and

we'll have plenty of breaks throughout. We'll have different guest

preachers here and there, and then this summer we'll have

a break no Isaiah this summer, and the fall will

pick up kind of the next third have Isaiah, and

then in spring of twenty six finished the last third again,

with lots of breaks along the way. Most of our

messages will be one or two chapters. Two chapters is

a pretty normal chunk for us throughout this time. There

will be several times though, that we take like ten

chapters at a time to just look at a whole

broad message in different passages of Isaiah. And that's how

we'll get through sixty six chapters. Yeah, I'm so glad.

We're excited Isaiah, you may have already started to pick

up was a series of sermons preached and writings written

to a people in decline, that is, the people that

call themselves the people of God.

But we're in decline in a number of.

Different ways, but primarily was caused by their declining relationship

with a living God and their neglect act of all

that he had called them to. And in that way,

the message of the Book of Isaiah falls.

Pretty squarely on the contemporary church.

In fact, two weeks ago, as we looked at chapter one,

I laid out a host.

Of symptoms that we can observe in the church.

Calls itself God's People, but is quite in decline. And

the Book of Isaiah is both a diagnosis how did

we get here.

And a prescription.

How will we find ourselves back in thriving, flourishing relationship

with the living God as the people who call themselves

the people of the Living God.

Here in chapter.

Two, Isaiah makes an argument for how it is that

we are called to live and why it makes even

sense for us. And so we're going to look at

his argument. Three basic pieces to his argument in chapter two.

Here they are peace. Number one, the whole world will

look up to God.

Peace.

Number two, you are being brought down by the world.

And number three, the things of the world will be brought.

Down by God.

Those are the three main main The whole world will

look up to God. You're being brought down by the world,

and the things of the world will be brought down

by God.

So we'll look at those.

Try to make clearer to you how these pieces connect

and the conclusion they draw us to. I hope to

do that this morning. Let's look at the first piece.

The whole world will look up to God. The whole

world will look up to God in his rule and

his ways. Let's start with his rule. What I mean

by that, the whole world one day will look up

to God's rule. Well, the Bible says there will come

a time, well the world looks quite different than it

does right now, that there will come a time where

God's reign over all people will not just be spiritual

and heavenly and providential, but it will be complete and undisputed.

He will be the obvious ultimate winner. Everyone will live

in joyful allegiance to him. There will be peace, and

there will be plenty because he will be undisputedly in charge.

Verse four puts it this way. He shall judge between

the nations, and shall decide disputes from many peoples. And

they will beat their swords into plowshares. They won't need

weapons anymore, and their spears into pruning hooks, just use

them for agriculture. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they.

Learn war anymore.

Peace and plenty. God as the undisputed ruler of mankind.

And that is a picture that we actually see painted

for us throughout the pages of scripture consistently, not just

here in Isaiah. And in fact, if that sounds good

to you, and it should sound good to you, just

know that this is the kind of thing that the

people of God have been looking forward to for all

of redemptive history. God in charge. No one disputing that.

In fact, these verses one through four were probably a

song that people sang at this time, or a poem

that they recited. Because the prophet Micah, who was also

prophesying it during the same time as a contemporary with Isaiah,

he uses that same song or that same poem. He

picks it up and he puts it down in his

prophecies as well. So Isaiah is kind of saying something

like this, like, Okay, you sing this song, you love

this idea, this picture of God as the undisputed ruler

of mankind and all of us living under his rule

in peace and plenty, just like this song that everybody

likes to sing.

And he's gonna make a point. And the point is.

His use of the picture of the future is to

make a point in the presence, in the present that

sounds like this. You say you're looking forward to win

all people live in joyful allegiance to God, Then how

about you, people of all people, live in joyful allegiance

to God right now?

And that's exactly what he says in verse five.

Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Go all in now.

With the one who will be the ultimate and undisputed winder.

He's the winner. One day all people will live in

joyful allegiance to him. There will be no more scarcity,

no more hunger, no more war, no more fear. And

you who sing songs about that about God ruling over everyone,

how about you, who call yourself His people, start.

Living with God ruling over you. Now.

The point is one day, the whole world will look

up to God's rule.

Let his people do that today.

But Isaiah makes that point in a slightly different way. Also,

you could say the whole world will look up to

God's ways as well. What I mean is that this world,

this world, which is so often opposed to God's ways,

when the people of this world see things clearly, they

actually seek him, They seek his ways, they look to learn.

Of God. Isaiah was it this way in verse two.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that

the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be

established as the highest of the mountains, that nations will

flew to it, that all peoples will come and say,

let's go, let's learn.

That we walk in His ways.

In other words, there will be widespread acknowledgment that the

Living God has ways for us to live in their

superior ways, that He is the ultimate winner, and that

actually elicits a genuine following from people who have always

been on the outside of knowing about the Living God.

He's saying, God's teaching and God's word will go out

to all kinds of people. Now, that naturally raises a

couple of questions. One, what future is he talking about.

And two why is he talking about it? Well?

First, what future is Isaiah talking about? I mean, because

he uses this language of it shall come to pass

in the latter days. Lots of times when people read

latter days makes them think not just of latter days,

but of the latterest day, and when Christ will come again,

the kind of day that he builds to in verse four,

in God's undisputed reign, and all of these things, all

of these things will be true in an absolute and

completed sense in the end. But the term latter days

isn't even usually used that way in the Bible. The

term latter days often means just in times after this,

in times after this. I think the best way to

think about this pronouncement that the world will look up

to God's ways is that this is a recurring pattern

that will culminate in completion in the end. But God

actually causes it in patterns throughout all of redemptive history.

I'll give you a few examples.

Matthew the Gospel writer frames up the birth of Christ

this way.

There were wise men from the East.

Who traveled over five hundred miles, and they came to Jerusalem,

and they said.

Where is he?

Where is the one who's been born, the real king.

We've come to worship him, we've come to honor him.

And now that the outsiders have traveled five hundred miles,

the insiders are there and they're the experts, and then

they're like, well, the prophet Micah says he's supposed to

be born in Bethlehem. It's a five mile walk, and

the magi they go. The outsiders they go to him.

But the insiders, who could be there and back in

a one.

Day hike, they don't go.

Not actually surprising, because you know what Micah has to say,

just a couple of stanzas before this part that the experts,

the insiders quote he would be born in Bethlehem, the

promised ruler. Just a few stanzas before that. You know

what Mike has to say. It shall come to pass

in the latter days that the mountain of the House

of the Lord shall be established as the highest mountain.

He quotes this whole thing.

He picks up the same song that Isaiah's picking up

and putting down right here, and he says the nations

will flow to it, and many peoples will come and say,

let us learn, Let him teach us that we may

walk in His ways. In other words, the flow of

the nations has already started with the trickle of the Magi.

But the insiders, they don't go. Give you another example, Luke,

as he writes the Book of Acts and he frames

up the birth of the Church. Those who have been

following Jesus are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy

Spirit falls on them in such a way as to

give them the miraculous ability to speak languages of many nations.

Because there are people from many nations who are visiting

Jerusalem at this time, and they hear in their own

languages the wondrous works of God through Jesus Christ, and

they they're astonished that God has begun this work through

Christ and the rulers of Jerusalem. The insiders, the ones

who call themselves the people of God, the unquestioned people

of God. I know God's on my side. They won't listen,

they won't move, they won't change.

But the flow of nations has come, has begun.

And in fact, throughout the whole New Testament, the same

pattern recurs. As the Gospel goes out, Those who call

themselves insiders hold tight to their stubborn pride, and the

outsiders in humility, they drop everything and they say, could

this be for me? Could I learn the ways of

the Living God. Let me just say, if you're here

this morning and you think church is weird, if you're

an outsider, I'll tell you, based on the authority of

a pretty established biblical principle, that you may be one

who is most ready to.

Receive this word.

If you would just drop your pride, humble yourself in repentance,

and go to Him, ready to learn of him and walk.

In his ways.

You can talk to God about it right now in

your heart and mind. You can approach Him by the

blood of Christ, right where you're sitting. And after you've

finished talking to God during this worship service, let's talk

after What future is Isaiah talking about? Well, he's talking

about times after this, many times after this, and one

day it will be complete complete.

Why is he talking about it? Though? That was the

other question we brought up.

Not only when is he talking about but why is

he talking about it? Well, he's talking about it to

make the same point he made regarding God's rule. In

other words, he painted a picture of a future in

order to make a point and He's also making this

pronouncement about God's rule in order to make the same point. Come,

people who call yourselves the people of God, Come, let

us actually walk in the light of the Lord. In

other words, if those who know very little about the

living God can just drop their pride and come to

him and learn of him, then how is it that

you who call yourselves by his name.

Won't do the same.

It's God and his ways that will be the ultimate winner.

So go all in and with him right now. It's

God and his ways to the moon. Go all in.

That would make sense. That would make sense.

But what instead are the people who call themselves God's people?

What are they all in on.

At the moment, Well, at least for Isaiah's audience, they're

bought in on some pretty losing positions. And that is

his second point. That's our second heading, not just that

the whole world will look up to God.

But also that you are being brought down by the world.

Specifically, you're being brought down by what the world by

trusting what the world trusts, and by bowing down to

what the world bows down to.

You know what I mean.

I mean throughout throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Genuine faith in God includes trusting God for wisdom and security,

actually trusting him, which is why in Deuteronomy he makes

a covenant with the people who take his name.

He makes a covenant with them.

He says, I don't want you to practice or tolerate

the practice of divination or fortune telling to to get

your wisdom the way the rest of the world gets wisdom.

I want you to get your wisdom from me and

from my word. And the people say, we promise, And

I don't want you to form alliances with the nations

around you. I want you to trust me for your

protection and not lean on the militaries of the other

people that you view as powerful.

I want you to trust me for security.

And the people say, we promise, And I don't want

you to amass enormous amounts of silver and gold. I

don't want you to trust in your wealth for security

and for provision. I want you to trust in me

for provision. And the people say, we promise, And I

don't want you to amass enormous amounts of horses or

enormous amounts of chariots military strength. I don't want you

to rely on those things for your protection. I want

you to rely fundamentally in your heart of hearts. I

want you to rely on me. And the people say,

we promise, And so Isaiah shows up here as the

watchdog of broken promises, and he says.

They're full of things from the ear. They're full of

fortune tellers.

They strike hands with children if they form alliances.

The land is filled with silver and gold.

The land is filled with horses, The land is filled

with chariots. The people who call themselves God's people, who

say they trust in the Living God, have abandoned their

fundamental trust in God for wisdom and for security, and

instead they have come to trust in the exact same

things the world trusts for wisdom and for security. And

the question that this passage confronts us with is how

true is that of us, the people who call themselves

God's people today? To what extent in our heart of

hearts do we truly look to God and his word?

Or do we truly look to the same things the

world looks? To To what extent in our heart of

hearts do we truly look to God and his word

for wisdom, for wisdom, for living instead of a fundamental

trust in whatever the world says is wisdom.

Today, because I promise it'll be different, like.

When it comes to worldly wisdom about how to live,

how to parent, how to have relationships, how our minds work.

I promise you it's here today, gone later today. To

what extent in our heart of hearts do we truly

look to God and his word for security for our

protection instead of an alliance with a political coalition that

I promise you will twist on you as soon as

the wind shifts.

To what extent in.

Our heart of hearts do we truly look to God

and his word for provision instead of to our skills

and our careers and our investments.

That could vanish in one.

Quick car crash or company crash or market crash. Nothing

wrong with skills and investments, But are any of these

any of these what your heart views as its ticket?

This is my ticket, you know what I mean? Like,

I've never gone and bet on horse racing, never done it.

Kind of looks like fun, but never done it.

I've seen it in the movies, and the guy who's

holding the ticket.

And is watching the horse go around the track.

By the time he realizes that he's bet on a

loser at least in the movies. They don't even make

it to the trash can. They're just like, let me

just drop it. It was my ticket. If you get

real honest about where your trust is, and it's actually

in any of those things, you're betting on a loser.

That's what Isaiah is saying, and that you're actually being

brought down by.

Trusting what the world trusts.

And what's more, you might even be bowing down to

what the world bows down to.

And Judah was.

In verse eight, he says, their land is filled with idols.

They bow down to the work of their hands. Each

one is then brought low. You see the play on

words that Isaiah's making. He's saying, like, they bow down

to these idols, and in doing so they display their degradation.

They're in the dirt. It's kind of.

Where they belong. And he says, don't forgive them, which

what he means is like, don't let him get away

with that. Don't overlook this. He's not saying, don't forgive

them as they if they make a full return, if

they come to you in humility and repentance. He's already

said in chapter one, your sins will be with though

they be like scarlet, they'll be made white like snow.

But God, don't just look over this. Your name is

too precious, and you may be thinking over there. At

least we don't have idle worship amongst us. Some of

you already know. Idle worship is actually a very broad category,

and Paul even picks it up in Coloutions. He says

in Colaussions, chapter three, he says, put.

To death all of these things.

Put to death, for instance, covetousness, which is idolatry. What

covetousness is idolatry? Yeah, it's a very broad spiritual category.

If you want to know, like do I have idolatry

in my heart? You can really just ask yourself this question,

is there anything that I am willing to sin to get?

Or is there anything willing that I'm willing to sin

to keep? You may find with that question that you're

bowing down to a lot that the world bows down to.

For some.

The idol they would bow down to is the way

people think about them. They want to portray a certain

image of themselves, and so they're willing to lie to others,

They're willing to sin to get it.

Or keep it.

For many, it's sexual gratification. And you'd be willing to

humiliate yourself like these folks and get that low, calling

yourself God's people, but degrading yourself in front of lies.

And Isaiah wants the people.

Who are bowing down to what the world bows down

to and trusting what the world trusts, He wants them

to know it's all going to come crashing down. You're

betting on a loser, and the Lord alone will be

exalted in that day.

That's actually his last point.

And our last point, our third and final point, that

the things of the world will be brought down.

By God right now.

No sense in holding onto that ticket, no sense in

continuing to go in on a loser, go all in

on God. Because the things of this world God will

bring down. The things were so impressed by will, they

will be shown to be nothing compared to God. He

says it in verse twelve, for the Lord of Hosts

has a day against all that is proud and lofty,

and he goes on. He's bringing down the cedars of

Lebanon and the oaks of batiin, all the lofty mountains,

all the high towers fortified walls, all the tall ships

that look so beautiful, all the haughtiness of man, everything

you could trust in and bow down to, it will

all come crashing.

Down, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

Again the timing on the pattern of this truth. This

will certainly culminate and complete when Christ returns, But it

has been showing itself true throughout all the redemptive history.

The thing of man will not stand. And even in

your own life, when you come to the end of

it as an individual, anything of this world, all the

things of man will fail you, and the Lord alone will.

Stand in that day.

So stop betting on losers, stop regarding man in whose

nostrils is breath, for what account is he? Instead, let

us walk in the light of the Lord. In fact,

Isaiah says, there's going to come a day when all

the people in the world, everyone will throw away the

things that they bow down to. Now when they see

the majesty of God, when he rises and brings terror

on the earth, everyone will literally throw away the things

they used to bow down to. They will throw their

treasured things into holes, and they will try to crawl

into holes themselves. In other words, they're gonna get as

low as they can in that day Verse twenty. In

that day, mankind will cast away their idols into to

the moles and the bats, to enter caverns of the

rocks before the terror of the Lord.

Here's the point Isaiah is making.

If the destiny of man and the things of man,

and the things man trusts and the things man bows

down to is to be brought this low, and the

destiny of the Lord is to be exalted, why are

you regarding man and his things?

Now?

Stop regarding man, start walking in the light of the Lord.

That's Isaiah's point. And you should know.

That this vision of the Lord rising to terrify the earth,

it's not just an Old Testament vision. This pronouncement is

in the New Testament too. It's almost the exact same picture,

with the same language that's used in Revelation. And there

it is made more clear that what people are terrified

of is a lamb, specifically the lamb that was slain

Jesus Christ crucified. And you might wonder, like, what would

be terrifying about a lamb? What will be terrifying about

hearing from the slain lamb on that day? Won't just

be his splendor and his majesty. It will be that

there are those who trampled his blood. That's the way

Hebrews ten puts it, trampled his blood. That the Lamb

was slain, so that by his blood you would turn

and walk in the light of the Lord. To cling

to worldly ways is to trample the blood of Christ.

That the Lamb was slain so that you would turn

and throw down those things that the world bows down to.

To keep bowing down to them is to trample the

blood of Christ. The Lamb was slain so that you

would turn, and your sins would be made like snow.

But if instead.

Of turning because of Christ's blood, you continue on, you

trample Christ's blood. For anyone like this, to hear from

the Lamb on that day will be terrifying. But today,

if you hear his voice today, if you hear his

voice in this word, you can humble yourself in repentance

instead of terror. Today his word is an invitation. Come,

let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Today.

His invitation is gentle and winsome. It comes from a

friend of sinners, who bids sinners to go and sin

no more. It's an invitation to his ways and his rule,

and his mercy and his grace and sins made like

snow before it all comes crashing down, and it will

all come crashing down. Stop regarding man. Let's walk in

the light of the Lord.