The “Valley of Vision” at Last!

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

It's our hope that these sermons will draw you

more into the life of following God, Father,

Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and

joining with us each Sunday morning at 10am in

the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find

us online at SecondCityChurch .org and on Facebook,

Instagram and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this

sermon. God Bless. I love the vision of Isaiah,

the son of Amos. Isn't it a wonderful book to

read? I hope you enjoy reading that. In the year

that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated

upon his throne. Isn't that wonderful? So glorious.

Then that's chapter six, chapter seven. The virgin

shall conceive and bear a son and shall call

his name Emmanuel. And then chapter eight, Assyria

is going to invade, chapter nine, for unto us

a child is born, unto us a son is given. We have

a pattern here. We have a pattern of judgment

and salvation and judgment and salvation. And

it goes back and forth. Our text today is Isaiah

Isaiah 22 · chapter mention

chapter 22, 1 through 14, is from a group of

four oracles of coming judgment. Chapter 21 tells

of the judgment of the wilderness of the sea,

Babylon. The judgment on Edom, which is called

Duma, deep, utter silence. One Hebrew scholar

translates Duma, the silence of death. Then the

judgment on Arabia and now the oracle concerning

Jerusalem the valley of vision I'm going to read

just a couple verses From this I'm not going

to read the whole section again But I hope that

you have your Bibles and can follow along Isaiah

Isaiah 22 · chapter mention

chapter 22 I'm going to read from one and two

and then verse five from the English Standard

Version The oracle concerning the valley of vision.

What do you mean that you have gone up? All of

you to the housetops who are full of shoutings

tumultuous city exultant town and verse 5 For

the Lord of hosts has a day of tumult of trampling

and confusion in the valley of vision a battering

down of walls and a shouting to the mountains

Let's pray Blessed Father, thank you for your

word. Thank you for your prophets. Think of Isaiah

and Ezekiel and the words we've heard from them

this morning and the way that you have pointed

to Christ through them and the way you are revealing

him to us today, even through their words, we

pray now, Holy Spirit, that you will come and

be present here in this place among us in the

preaching of your word, that you will work through

my feeble words and work good things in our hearts

pertaining to life and salvation in Jesus name.

Amen. So I became a member of Susquehanna Valley

Presbytery in February. They had the meeting

February 21st at Proclamation down in Mount Joy.

And when I came into membership of Susquehanna

Valley Presbytery, I also was added to the session

of Valley Presbyterian Church, which is a church

plant of our Presbytery. up the river in Sealance

Grove and it's a very young church plant and

they have a borrowed session at this point and

they needed another teaching elder on their session

and so I'm able to serve in that role. Shelly

and I have only been able to attend services

up there a couple times. We're hoping to get

up there, continue to go up as we're able, but

last Sunday I was able to preach at up at Valley,

and I was thinking about preaching up there,

I thought of their name, and I asked Tom Hartman,

who has been here worshiping with us, he's one

of the founding elders. has anybody preached

about the name Valley?" And he said, no, nobody

says. So it's like, okay, great. And it's like,

all right, so we got the Valley of Dry Bones

in Ezekiel. We've got the Valley of the Shadow

of Death in Psalm 23. They're pretty much famous

Valley texts, but I wanted to bless them with

something. uplifting about their name and so

it's all the Valley of Vision. So that was the

text I used for them at that sermon. And then

Peter, while I was just about finishing up that

sermon, Peter said, can you preach on the 24th

at Second City? And I said, only if I can preach

the same sermon. because it takes me a long,

believe it or not, it takes me a long time to

prepare a sermon. And he said, well, it is Pentecost.

And I thought, well, this will be an unusual

Pentecost text. But I think it might tie in.

Let's see if it ties in by the time we're done

here. Why does the Lord call Jerusalem the valley

of vision? You know, it's like. Babylon's the

desert of the sea, and Jerusalem's the valley

of vision. Well, why is it called a valley? I

mean, you think Jerusalem's up on a mountain,

right? It's up on a hill. Well, the Mount of

Olives is 300 feet higher to the east of Jerusalem,

and Mount Zion is to the south. It's higher than

the city of Jerusalem proper. So Jerusalem can

appear to be a valley. And Isaiah's own home

is said, Josephus says that Isaiah's home was

in the valley between the two main hills of Jerusalem.

So the prophet's home was in the valley. So it's

like, well, this is the valley of vision because

the prophet sees the vision in Jerusalem, in

his home, in the valley. But I don't think the

Lord is mostly talking about geography when he's

Names Israel the valley of vision a valley is

a deep shut -in place a solitary place in the

depths of our valleys The Lord shows us the heights

of his glory in the valley We find a paradox

the way down is the way up the repentant soul

has the victory I Think we tend to undervalue

our valleys even to waste our valleys to miss

what the Lord is doing in our lives in this world.

In the Valley of Vision, we see first the judgment

of God, not in the order of verses, but I think

in the thrust of the passage. As Jason read it,

it's like, this is a passage about judgment.

It's like, yeah, it kind of is a passage about

judgment. God removed the defense of His people

and He brought their enemies to them. Elam and

Kerr are coming, verse 6. These are just two

of the many nations that composed the Assyrian

army. Jeremiah 49 tells us that the warriors

of Elam were greatly dreaded as bowmen. You know,

these are scary enemies coming against Israel.

People of God in Jerusalem attempted to escape,

but but destruction was coming and was assured.

They attempted to escape. How did they attempt

to escape? What do we see in our passage? They

attempted to escape by frantic self -salvation.

They were making every preparation. Verse eight

says that, in that day, you look to the weapons

of the house of the forest. What's the house

of the forest? We've heard of that before. Many

of us have read about that. The house of the

forest. Solomon built the house of the forest.

It was an armory of Jerusalem. He used cedars

from Lebanon and he made four rows of cedar columns

so that when you walked in, it looked like you're

walking into a forest. It gave the image of a

forest. You saw the breaches of the city of David

were many, and you counted the houses in Jerusalem.

Which of these houses can we spare? How many

can we spare? And you broke down the houses to

fortify the walls. You collected the waters of

the lower pool. You made a reservoir between

the walls for the water of the old pool. You

did all that you could to prepare. That isn't

bad in and of itself. That's a good thing. They

also attempted escape by mindless escapism by

partying. It's kind of like singing and dancing

while the ship was sinking, the Lord asked, why

have you gone up on the housetops? And I thought,

you know, gone on the housetops. Well, why did

they go on the housetops? You think, well, maybe

so they can see if the Assyrians are here yet.

But I think that would be on the wall. You go

to the wall and you see better. As I was reading

different commentaries, it's like, well, they

went up on the houses to celebrate. That's where

they had parties on their housetops. The Lord

of hosts of the armies of heaven called for weeping

over sin. He called for mourning and they responded

with killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, steak

and lamb chops for everybody. Let's eat, drink

and be merry for tomorrow we die. Eventually

they tried to escape by fleeing Verse 3 all your

leaders have fled together without the bow They

were captured all of you who were found were

captured though. They had fled far away Isaiah

saw this vision and he said in verse 4 therefore

look away from me that I may weep bitter tears.

Do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction

of the daughter of my people." Such a terrible

thing to see the destruction coming because the

destruction was assured. The fate of Jerusalem

was fashioned long ago. Verse 14 the Lord of

hosts has revealed himself in my ears. Surely

this iniquity will not be atoned for until you

die Says the Lord of hosts Brothers and sisters

we live among a people who do not believe in

the coming judgment of God in General people

are not worried about that and they're not thinking

about that. I have a friend in Wilmington that

I go out to eat with once in a while or every

once a month or so. He's Jewish by ethnicity,

which he comments upon almost every time we're

together, but not by religion. And I've been

preparing this sermon for a long time. And as

I was thinking about it and talking with him,

I said, you don't believe in judgment coming,

do you? And he said, I don't believe in God.

You know, he said, but I'm still a moral person.

It doesn't mean I'm immoral. It's like, OK. And

they want morality, but they don't believe that

there's anyone ever going to judge whether this

morality was adequate or not or anything like

that. Which to me is so sad, because if you don't

have a view of God's judgment, how do you have

a view of Christ's salvation? Because the salvation

comes Judgment is the first word in the story

of salvation. There's an elephant in the room

here for you biblical scholars. The Assyrians

did not end up destroying Jerusalem, did they?

It's like Isaiah talks all about this and Assyria

was coming, but they didn't end up destroying

them. I believe the prophetic view captures the.

the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon centuries

later as well. In fact, I think it goes on to

even include the destruction of Jerusalem by

the Romans after the time of Christ. Jesus foretells

this in Matthew 23. chicks under her wings, and

you were not willing. See your houses left to

you desolate. Not one stone of the temple was

going to be left upon another." In our text,

we see a real irony, great attention given to

military readiness, but a complete disregard

to the sovereign God who controls the situation.

Begs the question, is there such a thing as taking

prudent measures without looking to God? Is that

even a thing? Valleys can be very difficult places

in our lives, and I know that there are many

valleys of just talking with a sister on the

way in about some of the struggles going on just

this week. I've been in a fairly dark valley

in my work situation since February, which to

me is a long time. I applied for a different

position at work. It would have been a promotion.

They gave the job to my coworker who was my partner.

We were both managers in one program and he got

that job and I was left doing both of our jobs

which was more than challenging for me. And then

As he entered into his new position, his second

day on the job, they brought in security. They

walked him out the door. He was fired. They changed

the locks. He could not come back in. It's like,

oh my goodness. It's like, what in the world?

So it's been a difficult time, which I am finally

recovering from. I felt a level of comfort, I

guess it was about two weeks ago, that I hadn't

had for a long time. And I was sitting there

thinking back and I thought, you know, it was

kind of like being dropped off for the first

day of kindergarten. Don't know if you remember

being dropped off for the first day of kindergarten.

I don't think I do but I can bet I have a feeling

from that I think I still remember the feeling

it's like this is terrible. This is never going

to work but Yeah, it ends up being okay I've

been working in Wilmington since my heart condition

came to light a little over three years ago three

years ago this month Shelly and I were walking

through my small apartment in Wilmington in one

of the oldest apartment buildings in Wilmington

and Shelly said this was going to be a good place

for me and I thought no This is not going to

be good But yeah, it has been it has turned out.

It is a good place. It's a good place for me

We tend to hate our valleys, don't we? We tend

to hate these valleys. Brothers and sisters,

let's not waste the valleys in our life that

the Lord is leading us through. In the Valley

of Vision, we see the judgment of God and we

see the Lord Himself. The Lord is a warrior.

The Lord has taken away the covering of Judah.

For the Lord God of hosts has a day of tumult

and trampling and confusion in the valley of

vision, a battering down of walls. Instead of

the tumultuous shouts of partying in verse two,

there's going to be the tumult of war coming.

Exodus 15 the song of Moses Moses says it very

clearly the Lord is a warrior the Lord is his

name Pharaoh's chariots and his host have been

cast into the sea and his chosen officers were

sunk in the Red Sea as a warrior the Lord is

fighting Against his people is he fighting against

is that what we're seeing in Isaiah 22 So we

think of the parable of the minas or the talents

going through at the end of that parable. He

says, ask for my enemy who didn't want me to

roll over him, bring him here and slaughter him.

The Lord is fighting against his enemies. and

against our enemies. And John 8, Jesus was talking

to the Jews who had believed in him. And they

said, we are offspring of Abraham. We have never

been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say

you will become free? We're free now. But Jesus

says, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who

practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does

not remain in the house forever. The son remains

forever. So if the son sets you free, you will

be free indeed. The Lord is fighting against

the sin in our lives. He's fighting against his

enemies and our enemies. We see the Lord Himself,

the warrior and the shepherd. Shelly and I were

blessed to attend the Quaker Town Conference

on Reformed Theology last November in Quaker

Town, Pennsylvania. And it's a wonderful conference

every year. Maybe we can get a, maybe we'll put

a flyer up this year and some more of you can

come. But Philip Rankin was there and... He was

talking about his trip to Africa. One of his

former students was a Maasai warrior. It's like,

well, how cool is that? You have a student that's,

I was just talking with Jed about his students

in the end of the year and doing the same thing.

One of your student is a Maasai warrior. So he

went to Africa with him, with this young man

and he was staying in a tent and it was dark.

and there were lions about. He could hear the

lions and he could not see the lions because

it was dark. And there was a certain, now I'm

doing this all from memory so details might not

be exactly right if you can find it written somewhere,

but I couldn't find it written anywhere. In any

event, he was in the tent and he had to get to

the main tent at night and he thought, I do not

want to leave my tent and he ended up of a necessity,

leaving his tent. When he got to the opening

of his tent, a messiah warrior met him and escorted

him the whole way to the main tent. That's what

we need. We need a warrior shepherd, a shepherd

who is strong, who is a warrior. The Lord shepherded

his people not to destruction, he shepherded

them to deliverance. At that time, with the Syrian

invasion, they didn't come. The Lord led good

King Hezekiah to repent. He tore his clothes,

he went to the house of the Lord, he humbled

himself and he prayed, and the Lord fought the

battle for his people. The Lord spoke through

Isaiah. In chapter 37, she despises you. She

scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. Whom

have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have

you raised your voice? Against the Holy One of

Israel. The Lord is shepherding his people through

the valley of the shadow of death. David wrote

in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. He makes

me lie down. He leads me. He restores my soul.

He guides me in righteousness. Even though I

walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil for who's with me? Is it

he is with me? No, it doesn't say, he does this,

he does that. It doesn't say, he is with me.

It says, you are with me. It turns to the personal,

the second person pronoun, not the third person,

not someone out there is with me. You are with

me. You are with me. My good shepherd, you prepare

a table for me. You anoint my head with oil.

In the valley of vision, we see the Lord. Whatever

we do in this world, brothers and sisters, we

have to do it with an eye to the Lord. In the

valley of vision, we see judgment, we see the

Lord, and we see a glimpse of the future. And

this is not the same thing that I preached up

in Valley Presbyterian, because we see a glimpse

of Pentecost. It's like I was thinking after

Peter talk to me. It's like, well, you know,

what's the Valley of Vision all about? The Valley

of Vision is the Lord spoke to his prophets in

the Valley of Vision, which he called Jerusalem.

And what happened at Pentecost? The first Christians

were told, remain in... the valley of vision

until you receive power from the Holy Spirit.

So they were gathered, they had remained in Jerusalem

until the Holy Spirit came. Brothers and sisters,

the new covenant is better in every way than

the old covenant. The new covenant in Christ's

blood is better. You know, the wages of sin is

death. We know this. People all over the world

know this. There are sacrifices in all kinds

of religions because they know that sin must

be atoned for. Judgment is coming and they need

to be separated from your sins somehow. The good

news starts with this. In the Old Testament,

there were bloody sacrifices made all the time.

Bloody sacraments, bloody sacraments were observed,

circumcision, and it's been replaced as a sign

of seal in the church. The bloody sacrament of

circumcision replaced with baptism and the bloody

sacrament of The Passover has been replaced with

the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Think of

the sacrifices throughout history. You think

of the thousands and thousands of sheep and bulls

and rams that were sacrificed, tens of thousands,

millions, and the New Covenant has said no more.

We don't need any more of shedding of the blood

because, praise God, the blood of Jesus. The

blood of the sheep and the rams never satisfied

the wrath of God. It was just pointing forward,

just tutoring us, helping us to see we need a

covering for our sin. We need a substitute for

our sin. And praise God, in the new covenant,

Jesus Christ has come as the real sacrifice,

the one who takes away the sins of the world.

everyone who had faith in the Lord from the beginning

of time, from Adam and Eve on. In the Old Testament,

just a couple other ways, the New Covenant is

better than the Old. In the Old Covenant, it

talked about the meek inheriting the land. In

the New Covenant, it says the meek will inherit

the whole earth. Jerusalem was the center of

the earth and people came to Jerusalem to see

the laws and to see the worship and come to to

understand God. But now the Valley of Vision

is taken out everywhere because the Holy Spirit

is poured out on all of the people of God. And

the Valley of Vision, it was out into the whole

world. So I was thinking about Sears and Roebuck

this week. Sears and Roebuck really changed America

the Sears and Roebuck catalog you could be sitting

in your house in Nebraska and see something in

that catalog and you could order it and pay for

it and It would be delivered to they'd put it

on the train and bring it to your post office

What an amazing thing Don't even get me started

on the Amazon I Talk about that too much, but

God the Father loves the story of Jesus Christ.

God loves the character and the story of Jesus

Christ. He loves that Jesus humbled himself.

He left the throne. Isaiah saw him there on the

throne. He saw the Lord surrounded by the burning

ones, the seraphim crying, holy, holy, holy.

He loves the character of Jesus of Nazareth.

And Jesus left that and he came and he was born

of a poor virgin girl. He grew up in the valley

of this world. God the father made a plan for

salvation. to save the world through Jesus Christ,

God the Son. God the Son produced the salvation

by His perfect obedience, His perfect character

and His sacrificial death on our behalf. But

we can believe this. How does this get applied

to you and me? We're still sitting in our house

in Nebraska. We saw the thing in the catalog.

We ordered the thing. How does it get to me?

to us. It gets to us by the Holy Spirit. The

Holy Spirit is the delivery. It's the train bringing

it to the post office, bringing it towards the

Amazon driver coming to your front porch. That's

the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to bring

us to life, to apply Jesus Christ and all of

His benefits to you and me. I love the quote

from Calvin in the bulletin about The fact that

they aren't private gifts for Jesus. They're

gifts that God gave Jesus for us. And they're

applied to us by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit

who is the giver and is himself the gift. We

receive the Holy Spirit himself, the Spirit of

Jesus. Friday morning, I was busily trying to

get everything done so that I could go home.

one of our schedulers came in and sat down in

my office and I think he was trying to figure

out if I'm really a Christian or not because

he is a believer and I'm glad he came in and

we were talking and he told me his story a little

bit. I believe he said it was 30 years that he

was an alcoholic and a drug addict and he came

to a crisis point in his life. And he said, I'm

done with this. And he said, I got to go to church

somewhere. And he ended up in an apostolic church,

an apostolic church. And he said, I want to be

baptized in Jesus' name. And they said, we'll

do it. And they baptized him in Jesus' name.

And he ended up, I don't understand, I didn't

understand all the details. He ended up in the

back seat of a car of people that he had just

met. taking him to Baltimore from Wilmington,

and they wanted him to be baptized in the Holy

Spirit. So they took him to Baltimore and the

matriarch there determined that he was ready

to receive the Holy Spirit. And so he was baptized

in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. And

he continues that way today. And I thought, you

know, I don't really want to go there, but the

Holy Spirit orchestrates all of our lives, believe

it or not. And it's like, this is the first time

anyone has walked into my office and told me

that they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and

were speaking in tongues. The first time anyone

has told me that. And it's like, the two days

before I'm preaching on Pentecost, how the Holy

Spirit wants me to tell you that. And I'm not

saying that you should go to Baltimore or anything

like that. I am going to say the Holy Spirit

moves as He will, and we do not control the Holy

Spirit. We, by the grace of God, Lord willing,

are controlled by the Holy Spirit. And the more

we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, the happier

we are and the better our lives are. The Holy

Spirit works as He will and praise God, miracles

still happen, especially when you go into third

world countries and you see where they are believing

in demon activity and demons are cast out regularly

and things like that. But the Holy Spirit does

what He will. As we, I was reading through, a

Jeremiah Burroughs sermon. It's like, how do

you get a Jeremiah? Well, we get the, what's

that called, Shelly, that booklet that we get?

Free Grace, the Free Grace Broadcast. booklet

and it has a lot of Puritan things in it. Jeremiah

Burroughs died in 1647 and I don't read a whole

lot of Puritans but I do read summaries of what

they said and this is from the Saints happiness.

The soul of man is capable of an immediate joining

with God. You will say God is infinite and I

am finite. His human soul was finite. Jesus'

human soul was a finite, created thing. I'm missing

up my reading here. Yet the infinite and finite

may be joined together. Who was the God man?

His human soul was finite, a created thing. Now

don't confuse finite with... Mortal we have immortal

souls. We have our souls that are immortal, but

they're not infinite and Jesus in his humanity

had an immortal soul that was finite a Created

thing and yet what a conjunction Christ's soul

had with his divine nature The fitness of the

soul the finiteness of the soul of man does not

hinder the immediate touch of the infinite God

Himself. We can be touched by the infinite God

Himself. Our souls can be changed by our union

with God Himself through the power of the Holy

Spirit. It's capable of more immediate revelation

of God, one that we will fully experience when

we are with Him in heaven. In the present, we

see it already. We see a union with Christ that

because of the Holy Spirit, we have union with

Christ. We can say, Jesus is in my heart. We

can call out to the Father, Abba Father, just

like Jesus called out Abba Father. But we have

hope for so much more. when we are in His presence

and see Him as He is, we will change to be as

He is and we will know a union with Him that

we can't even imagine right now. Praise God.

What a thing to hope for. What a thing to look

forward to. So judgment is coming on the world

for the believer in Christ. It has already been

born by Jesus Christ. The valley of vision is

the church. It is the Holy Spirit people. We're

in the valley of vision, as it were, because

of the Holy Spirit in us. In this life we're

living, we see Jesus made a little lower than

the angels, but now crowned with glory. We see

him coming again so that we might be where he

is. One thing I thought, I know there are I'm

going to end with this. There are souls that

struggle and say, I'm not sure. Do I have the

Holy Spirit myself? And I have three sisters

and one of my sisters had that struggle herself

when she was younger. How do I know if the Holy

Spirit's in me? Well, brothers and sisters, do

you love the character and story of Jesus Christ?

If you love the character and story of Jesus

Christ, that's a gift of the Holy Spirit, because

the world does not. They do not love the character

of Jesus Christ. They do not love the story of

Jesus Christ. Take heart, brothers and sisters.

Embrace the Holy Spirit and His work. Do the

things He leads you to do. Do the work that He

brings you to do. Let's pray. Blessed Lord, thank

you for these texts. Isaiah, the second chapter

of Acts. Psalm 23, so many texts that all tie

together and that your whole word fits together

and points us to Jesus Christ, our good shepherd,

our warrior that we need to fight our sins and

our enemies and your enemies. Thank you for bringing

this, bringing us together under your word today.

We pray that we will take it home with us and

that we will be people who do love the story

of Jesus Christ, love the of Jesus Christ and

are being changed by your Holy Spirit more and

more into the character of Christ. In whose name

we pray. Amen.