Isaiah 31:1-9 (ESV)

Understanding the Nature of the War

1: Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!
2: And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
3: The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

Trusting in the God of Our Worship

4: For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.
5: Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”

Acknowledging the Nature of Our Relationship to the World and to the Lord

6: Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.
7: For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
8: “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
9: His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Zechariah 6:9-15 (ESV)

Sermon Notes

9: And the word of the LORD came to me:

10: “Take from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah.

11: Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

12: And say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.

13: It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” ‘

14: And the crown shall be in the temple of the LORD as a reminder to Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen the son of Zephaniah.

15: “And those who are far off shall come and help to build the temple of the LORD. And you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. And this shall come to pass, if you will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.”

Isaiah 30:1–7 (ESV)

Refuge verses Rebellion

1: “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; 2: who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

Shelter verses Shame

3: Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. 4: For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, 5: everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”

Treasure verses Trouble

6: An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. 7: Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”

Isaiah 29:9–16 (ESV)

Spiritual Blindness and Inability

9: Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!

10: For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).

11: And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

12: And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

A Dead Faith and Delusion

13: And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

14: therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

15: Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

16: You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

Isaiah 29:1-8 (ESV)

The Discipline of Judah…the Church

1: Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.

2: Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an altar hearth.

3: And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.

4: And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your words shall come humbly; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and your words shall whisper out of the dust.

The Futility of Hostility the Enemy

5: But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,

6: you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

7: And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

8: As when a hungry man dreams he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

Isaiah 28:14–29 (ESV)

A Covenant of Death, and the Cornerstone

14: Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem!
15: Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
16: therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
17: And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”
18: Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.
19: As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be nothing but terror to understand the message.
20: For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.
21: For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!
22: Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts against the whole land.

The Lord’s Field, and the Discipline of the Harvest

23: Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech.
24: Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
25: When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border?
26: For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.
27: Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.
28: Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.
29: This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

Isaiah 27:1-13 (ESV)

A Vineyard at Peace

1: In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2: In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
3: I, the LORD, am its keeper; every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day;
4: I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together.
5: Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.”
6: In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.

A Nation Atoned For

7: Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
8: Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
9: Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
10: For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf grazes, there it lies down and strips its branches.
11: When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.
12: In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel.
13: And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

Isaiah 26:1–21 (ESV)

His City

1: In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.”
2: Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
3: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
4: Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD God is an everlasting rock.

His Path

5: For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.
6: The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.
7: The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.
8: In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
9: My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10: If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
11: O LORD, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

His Hope

12: O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.
13: O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14: They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
15: But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16: O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.
17: Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD;
18: we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

His Triumph

19: Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
20: Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
21: For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

Rev. Andrew Shank

Revelation 13 (ESV)