Let's just lift our hearts briefly to the
Lord again.
Father, we look to you.
We do trust you, Lord, to be your
own interpreter of this wonderful book.
We put ourselves into your hands and we
ask you, Lord, to open our hearts and
teach us of yourself.
Amen.
What I was trying to do yesterday was
to give a kind of background to the
book of Isaiah.
And was just saying that Isaiah's prophecies took
place over a period of about fifty years.
So, they didn't all happen at once.
And during the reign of about four different
kings.
And outside the land of Judah, where Isaiah
lived, north of them was what had now
become a separate country of Israel.
And then beyond that, up in the northeast,
there was a kind of superpower called Assyria.
And over to the east, there was another
power which had been powerful in previous years,
had gone into a period of weakness, and
later on was going to be powerful again.
One of the things that happened right in
the middle of Isaiah's life as a prophet,
and this is an important date if you're
interested in dates, in 722 BC.
It's like an equivalent of 1066 for English
people.
In 722 BC, the armies of the king
of Assyria came into the northern half of
Israel.
And laid siege to the capital city of
Samaria, and conquered it.
And took the people from the northern part
of Israel captive into the land of Assyria.
There's a part in Kings, which if I
just read it, please do turn with me
to it.
It's 2 Kings chapter 18.
And this is one of
those useful places in the scripture where it
synchronizes the reigns of the northern kings of
Israel with the southern kings of Judah.
And it can help.
This is 2 Kings chapter 18 and verse
9.
Remember this happened about halfway through Isaiah's ministry.
Isaiah was in the south in the kingdom
of Judah, which was the smaller kingdom with
just a couple of tribes.
And the main part of Israel was in
the north.
The ten tribes were there.
And it came to pass in the fourth
year of Hezekiah, he was the king of
Judah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea,
he was the king of Israel, son of
Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of
Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it.
And at the end of three years they
took it.
Even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that
is the ninth year of Hoshea, Hoshea, king
of Israel, Samaria was taken.
And the king of Assyria carried away Israel
to Assyria and put them in Hala and
in Habor by the river of Gozan and
in the cities of the Medes.
Because they obeyed not the voice of the
Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant and
all that Moses, the servant of the Lord,
commended and would not hear them nor do
them.
Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah,
did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against
all the fenced cities of Judah, that's the
remaining southern kingdom, and took them.
And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the
king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have
offended.
Return from me that which thou puttest on
me will I bear.
And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah,
king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver
and thirty talents of gold.
And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that
was found in the house of the Lord
and in the treasures of the king's house.
At that time did Hezekiah cut off the
gold from the doors of the temple of
the Lord and from the pillars which Hezekiah,
king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it
to the king of Assyria.
I just wanted to read that so that
we can get a little bit of the
atmosphere of the days in which Hezekiah was
reigning and in which Isaiah was prophesying.
There were days of tremendous uncertainty.
Their sister kingdom to the north had been
taken captive.
They had been expatriated from the land and
settled in other countries and people from other
countries in their turn had been settled in
the land of Israel.
They became known as the Samaritans and the
true Jews always hated them because as far
as they were concerned they were foreigners living
in territory which wasn't theirs.
And the Samaritans became a kind of a
half and half people.
They became people who were not descended and
were not linked in covenant to the people
of God and yet at the same time
they were people who were trying to keep
the laws of the people of God because
they were frightened of the consequences.
And there's a very poignant statement in the
scriptures which says, so they feared the Lord
God of Israel and they served their own
gods.
Amazing statement.
Compromise, almost a definition of compromise.
That's what the Samaritans were.
Meanwhile in the kingdom south of that, in
Judah, you had all these uncertainties with superpowers
threatening and the kind of circumstances in which
Hezekiah, in order to pay the massive tribute
that was imposed upon him by the king
of Assyria, had to strip the gold from
the temple, had to plunder the treasury.
It was a time of tremendous uncertainty.
It was a time when the fortunes of
God's people really did seem to be victims
of circumstance.
They were hostage to the events that were
being played out in the lives of the
superpowers.
They were a tiny nation, insignificant, and it
did seem as though nothing that they did
in any way could affect their destiny or
their future.
They were just stuck with it.
The circumstances of life were as they were
and they were in the middle of it.
On one occasion, Hezekiah, trying to make friendship
with other empires, kind of gentle alliances in
order to strengthen his own position so that
he wouldn't be absolutely at the mercy of
the king of Assyria, invited one of the
kings of Babylon to come to Jerusalem to
see things.
And if we go now to Isaiah chapter
39, and we're going to leave part of
the history of things now and just try
to see what it means in this kind
of context.
We're at Isaiah 39.
At that time, Meredyck Baladin, the son of
Baladin, king of Babylon, sent letters and a
present to Hezekiah for he had heard that
he had been sick and was recovered.
The chapter previous to this is the one
that has the famous fig plaster in it.
Those who were at Rurah a couple of
years ago, I think, will remember the fig
plaster.
Chapter 39, Hezekiah had been sick and he'd
recovered.
Verse 2, And Hezekiah was glad of them
and showed them the house of his precious
things, the silver and the gold and the
spices and the precious ointment and all the
house of his armor and all that was
found in his treasures.
There was nothing in his house nor in
all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not.
Then came Isaiah the prophet to the king,
Hezekiah, and said to him, What said these
men?
And from whence came they unto thee?
And Hezekiah said, They are come from a
far country unto me, even from Babylon.
Then said Isaiah, What have they seen in
thine house?
And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine
house have they seen, and there is nothing
among my treasures that I have not showed
them.
Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word
of the Lord of hosts.
Behold, the days come that all that is
in thine house and that which thy fathers
have laid up in store unto this day
shall be carried to Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.
And of thy sons that shall issue from
thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take
away, and they shall be eunuchs in the
palace of the king of Babylon.
Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the
word of the Lord which thou hast spoken.
He said, Moreover, for there shall be peace
and truth in my days.
That was submission on the part of Hezekiah
to the word of God that was coming
to him.
It's interesting, he says, Good is the word
which you have spoken.
I wonder whether you would have thought that
that was good, the word which the Lord
had spoken.
Very often, we've all done it, we all
use this kind of phrase and we say,
Oh, the Lord has really been good to
me.
And we really mean I approve of what
he's doing at this present time in my
experience.
If I had chosen for myself this is
exactly what he's chosen, the Lord is good.
Well, the Lord is good whether it suits
you or not.
And maybe you get a trace of Hezekiah's
faith here when he did recognize that what
God says is always good.
It might not be pleasant, it might not
be desirable, but it is always good.
It comes from the good God and can't
be other than good.
Well, here are these people.
They've now had this ominous prophecy that's been
given to them or given to Hezekiah that
in time it will be not the kingdom
of Assyria, which was the superpower in that
day, but it will be the kingdom of
Babylon who would come to Judah and this
time would take the people of Judah into
captivity and everything would be gone.
There's a quote, I've forgotten where it comes
from, but it's at the back of my
mind and it's a quote from a historian
who was talking about the time 150 years
almost after this time when the armies of
Nebuchadnezzar came from Babylon to Jerusalem and they
laid siege to Jerusalem and as you know
they conquered Jerusalem.
And this quote, this historian simply said, The
battering rams of Nebuchadnezzar's army breached the faith
of Judah.
That's an interesting statement.
The battering rams of Nebuchadnezzar's army breached the
faith.
For those of you whose first language isn't
English, battering rams are a kind of means
they used in ancient times to break down
a wall or a gate in order to
get access to that city.
But what this historian was saying was it
wasn't just the city that was broken down
by Nebuchadnezzar's attack against Jerusalem.
It was their whole expectation that was broken
down.
They lost everything.
You see, as far as they were concerned,
they had been told that there would always
be a descendant of David upon the throne.
And the descendant of David was taken away
captive to Babylon.
They had been told that God would always
dwell in his city, in Zion, in Jerusalem.
And Jerusalem was a smouldering heap.
They had been told that God's presence would
always remain in his house.
And God's house had been made derelict.
All the treasures had been taken out of
it.
The Ark of the Covenant stolen, taken away
into Babylonian captivity forever.
Lost forever.
Everything that they had regarded as fixed points,
absolute serpenters, went overnight.
Their royal family, gone.
Their priesthood, gone.
Their house of God, gone.
Their destiny, gone.
And Hezekiah would have realized part of this
with this word that came from Isaiah.
It was a terrible thing that God was
now saying to them.
And then there's something that happens often in
prophetic scripture, and that is the prophet suddenly
jumps.
He jumps a hundred years or more.
Remember, he is writing around about the time
that the northern kingdom had just gone into
captivity in Assyria.
They never returned.
They vanished into obscurity.
Ten tribes lost, vanished forever.
But the southern kingdom of Judah, later on,
about 590, 80, that kind of time, B
.C., they were taken into captivity by the
Babylonian Empire.
And now God begins to speak.
He begins to speak to a people who
have just heard this death sentence declared against
their nation.
That's really what it was, in effect.
They've just heard a death sentence declared against
their nation, and then God begins to speak.
And He begins to speak like this.
And we come into the second part of
Isaiah, which is really where I wanted to
get to from when we started.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.
Literally, speak to the heart.
When people are distressed, they don't really need
reasons.
They need that word of God which comes
to the heart.
When someone really gets distressed and agitated, it
doesn't matter how carefully you can assemble reasons,
it never settles anything.
But if that word can come, which is
the word of God to the heart, that
will settle things.
Even though it doesn't always bring explanations with
it, it's just this word that comes to
the heart.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God.
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry
to her that her warfare is accomplished, that
her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received
of the Lord's hand double for all her
sins.
In just a matter of a couple of
verses, the prophet has skipped over 70 years
of Babylonian captivity.
The Bible does this at times.
There are times sometimes when, in the Scriptures,
you're reading maybe several chapters, and they're only
relating to one or two days at a
time.
And then you'll have another part of the
Scripture where just a verse is the whole
era.
That is a verse, let me illustrate if
I may, from the book of Revelation.
There's a verse in Revelation chapter 12.
I think I'll need to read from the
beginning of verse chapter 12, but the verse
I really want to give a little bit
of attention to is verse 5.
This is chapter 12 and verse 1.
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven,
a woman clothed with the sun and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head
a crown of twelve stars.
And she, being with child, cried, travailing in
birth, and pained to be delivered.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and
behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his
heads.
And his tail drew the third part of
the stars of heaven, and did cast them
to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman, which
was ready to be delivered, for to devour
her child as soon as it was born.
And she brought forth a man-child, who
was to rule all nations with a rod
of iron.
And her child was caught up unto God,
and to his throne.
In that fifth verse, I'll read it again.
And she brought forth a man-child, who
was to rule all nations with a rod
of iron.
And her child was caught up unto God,
and to his throne.
In that one verse, you have the incarnation,
the thirty years of secret life of the
Lord Jesus, three years of public ministry, the
cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and his being
seated at the Father's right hand in supreme
power and authority.
It's all in the one verse.
There's an amazing sweep that takes place.
It just goes from the moment of his
entrance into the world, straight up to the
throne of God.
And there's no mention of what to us
are crucial details.
But this isn't the purpose in this particular
verse, to mention all the details.
It's this wonderful spread of history, and the
ability to see the sweep of history that
is part of what prophets do when they
speak from an eternal perspective.
You see, if you speak from the perspective
of the few years that you have lived
upon the earth, there are things which dominate
us, there are things which have affected all
our thinkings.
Most of us here, one of the dominant
things that has affected the whole of our
lives has been the communist empire.
Now maybe, if the Lord tarries in two
or three generations, historians will look back, and
maybe just almost as a footnote of history
they will say, well, for seventy years, or
something like this, most of Europe and part
of Asia was under this powerful political system
called communism.
But for we who lived in the centre
of it, as it was all happening, we
are very, very conscious of it.
But get someone who stands outside it, and
they'll be able to see things in a
different kind of perspective, a different kind of
sweep.
What you've got here is someone from the
eternal perspective seeing this sweep from the birth
of the man-child to the moment of
his accession to the throne.
And it's all in a verse.
Just in a moment.
Remember that when you're reading the prophets.
It happens like that sometimes.
Sometimes you're going through verse by verse in
a sequence.
Sometimes there's a sudden sweep.
The old Bible teachers, when they were trying
to illustrate this truth, used to speak about
mountain-peak perspectives.
Some of you will be old enough to
kind of remember this illustration.
If you look at a terrain, at some
kind of territory where there are lots of
mountains and mountain peaks, as you look at
them, you will see the foothills, and then
the lower peaks, and then the higher peaks,
and then the highest peak.
And from your point of view, the perspective
of it will just be one panoramic sweep.
You'll see from here to there just in
a moment.
But if you're walking it, it'll take you
more than a moment.
Because in between all those peaks there are
valleys and wide expanses, and sometimes the Bible
is like that.
Sometimes the prophet sees the mountain peaks.
He sees this peak, that peak, that peak,
and there's no mention of the valleys.
No mention of the great passages of time
in between.
And so we need this eternal perspective.
We need it.
Otherwise we shall get bogged down with the
nitty-gritty, or what some people call the
nitty-grotty.
All the bits and pieces of life.
If we don't have a heavenly perspective, we
will never be able to live a heavenly
life upon the earth.
We'll be tied down all the time with
the mundane, the ordinary, the managing of this,
the measuring of that, the eking out of
this, and this, and this.
We need this eternal perspective.
One of the wonderful things about this book
as we read it is that it keeps
on giving us a heavenly orientation.
We live here on the earth, we have
to.
Most of us have to earn our livings
here.
We live ordinary kind of lives with ordinary
kind of responsibilities, but we need a heavenly
orientation.
You know what I mean by heavenly orientation?
It's a funny word, orientation, because it's kind
of changed its meaning.
In ancient times, when they made maps, they
put the east at the top.
So when you put a map the right
way round, you orientated it to get the
east at the top.
Now, of course, you've got maps with north
at the top, so now when you orientate
it, you put the north at the top,
even though orienting really means putting the east
at the top.
Have you understood that?
It just means getting the thing the right
way round, seeing it in its right way.
One of the wonderful things about this book,
if we keep on reading it with an
open heart, is that it will keep on
orientating us heavenwards.
We'll keep on remembering the eternal perspective.
If you do not live in the light
of the eternal perspective, everything will crush you.
Everything will be too much.
How can you live another day?
Well, in the light of a different kind
of orientation, a different kind of perspective, because
you're seeing things in the way that people
upon the earth can't see them.
It's one of your birthrights as a child
of God.
The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, you can't
see the kingdom of God unless you're born
again.
But if you are born again, you can
see what other people can't see.
You can see what other people can't see.
You can see the hand of God.
You can see the rule of God.
You can see the kingdom of God in
a way that other people can't see it.
And it's only by seeing what other people
can't see that you will endure.
That's what it says of Moses.
He endured because he saw the one who
is invisible.
If you see invisible things, you will endure.
If you can have this heavenly perspective, if
you allow the Spirit of God, as you
read this, to keep on giving you that
heavenly, eternal perspective and orientation, it will transform
the way you look at everything.
These people of Judah, the remnant, at this
time, what faced them in the natural was
disaster.
What faced them was the loss of everything
that they thought was so dependable.
And maybe if they had looked just on
the earthly level of things, they looked behind
them to the north and they saw an
empty land, bereft of the people who really
ought to have been living there.
If they looked to the northeast, they saw
all the ominous brooding power of Assyria.
If they looked to the east proper, they
saw this threat that God had spoken of
Babylon.
It seemed as though wherever you looked, the
situation was hopeless.
And if you only look in two dimensions,
it is hopeless.
And one of the things that God has
to say to these people is, lift up
your eyes.
There is another dimension.
Lift up your eyes.
Not just this dimension.
Not just what you can see on the
horizon.
There is another dimension of things.
Speak comfort to my people.
Tell them that there is another dimension of
things.
It may seem at this moment that all
the superpowers are having things their own way.
It may seem that you are just the
victim of circumstances and you have no way
at all of controlling any of the events
that are going to take place.
But there is another perspective.
This is what it goes on to say.
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.
Cry to her that her warfare is accomplished
and that her iniquity is pardoned for she
has received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins.
The voice of him that cries in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of Jehovah.
Make straight in the desert a highway for
our God.
Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain
and hill shall be made low and the
crooked shall be made straight and the rough
places plain.
About a third of the Old Testament is
poetry.
About a third of it.
Poets don't see things in straight lines.
They don't need to see things in straight
lines.
They see another dimension of things.
They see another depth of things.
They express things in different ways.
In the times in which Isaiah was prophesying,
these kings of the earth really were absolute
despots.
They were absolute monarchs.
What they wanted to do, they did it.
They didn't have to fear the wrath in
inverted commas of the United Nations passing some
resolution or disapproving of what they've done.
It didn't make any difference.
If they wanted to do it, they did
it.
They were gods upon the earth.
Almost the equivalent of that.
And when they had conquered a place and
they were coming to view their conquests and
they wanted the conquered people to get the
right idea of what they were, they would
have one of these magnificent processions and the
conquering king would come to the land that
he had conquered.
And so that everyone could get a good
view of the splendor of this coming conquering
king, they would literally level everything.
They would straighten all the crooked paths.
They would fill in the valleys.
They would shave the tops off the hills
so that you had something that was straight
in both dimensions so that everyone could see
the approaching splendor and the glory of this
conquering king.
Now listen to what Isaiah says.
Verse 3.
The voice of him that cries in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of Jehovah.
It may seem that it is the superpowers
that are calling all the tunes and making
all the decisions, but there is something else
happening.
The voice of him that cries in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for
our God.
Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain
and hill shall be made low and the
crooked shall be made straight and the rough
places plain and the glory of Jehovah shall
be revealed.
And all flesh shall see it together, for
the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
The voice said, Cry.
And he said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness
thereof is the flower of the field.
It all passes.
There's a story told, I suppose, it's just
a legend, but there's a story told of
an ancient oriental monarch who wanted to give
the appearance that he was very wise and
understood things that other people didn't understand.
So he gathered together a council of his
best advisors, his wisest men, and he said
to them, I want you to think up
a single sentence that I can use in
any possible circumstance which will give the impression
of wisdom so that no matter who is
there, whoever the king is, whatever the situation,
I want to be able to say something
which sounds profound and wise and will make
people understand exactly who I am and my
great sweeping wisdom.
And his counselors and advisors went into a
huddle and they came up with this phrase,
And this also shall pass away.
Good phrase, isn't it?
That is always relevant.
And this also shall pass away.
All these splendors, all the frightening power of
Assyria and Babylon, the grass withers, the flower
fades, because the Spirit of the Lord blows
upon it.
Surely the people is grass.
This also shall pass away.
I remember hearing a story, I don't know
whether this is a legend as well, of
an old lady who was once asked which
was her favorite Bible verse and she said,
that one where it says it shall come
to pass.
Because things don't come to stay, she said,
they just come to pass.
And if you know they haven't come to
stay, you can survive because you know they've
come to pass.
It's a kind of an interesting exposition.
But God speaks in a strange way to
his people.
These things shall pass away.
All these mighty empires, they'll all pass away.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the
word of our God shall stand forever.
Oh Zion, or as it says in the
Morgian, Oh thou that tellest good tidings to
Zion, get thee up into the high mountain.
Oh thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem,
lift up thy voice with strength.
Lift it up.
Be not afraid.
Say unto the cities of Judah, what are
you looking at?
Are you looking at Assyria?
Are you looking at Babylonia?
Are you looking at the recession?
Are you looking at the mortgage rates?
What are you looking at?
Behold your God.
What are you looking at?
What you are looking at will determine the
way you understand things.
It will determine your perspective.
It will determine your reaction to everything.
Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your
God.
Verse 10, Behold the Lord Jehovah will come.
That's really very simple to say, isn't it?
But that is a wonderful statement.
I think it was when we opened out
in the first meeting or something like that
and someone made reference to the fact that
our expectation for this Bible week, our hope,
our longing and our expectation is that God
will come.
Nothing else matters.
Everything else is peripheral.
Everything else is on the edges.
The only thing that matters is that God
will come.
And this is His promise.
This is His promise when circumstances are beyond
your control.
This is always His promise.
Behold your God will come with a strong
hand and His arm shall rule for Him.
Behold His reward is with Him and His
work before Him.
He shall feed His flock like a shepherd.
He shall gather the land with His arm
and carry them in His bosom and shall
gently lead those that are with young.
And then, this man, this prophet in poetry
begins to describe what God is like.
This is what he says of Him.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow
of His hand.
That's just in the hollow of one hand.
I've got a kind of a scientific leaning.
I'm not a scientist, but I'm curious and
I do like to experiment and find out
what things are like.
And I can recall some time ago thinking
now, how much can you hold in the
hollow of your hand?
When you go back to where you're staying
today, I just recommend that you stand with
a tap for a moment and see how
much you can hold in the hollow of
your hand and then put it into something.
You probably need nothing more than an egg
cup to put it into.
He holds the waters.
He measures them in the hollow of His
hand.
He measured out heaven with a span.
Amazing, isn't it?
Amazing power of this language.
The astronomers are always kind of arguing and
recalculating what the curvature of space is.
And as far as they're concerned and the
literal truth is that this earth is just
one tiny planet of several that's spinning around
one star which is one of several in
this spiral arm of a galaxy that we
call the Milky Way.
And this galaxy is one of billions of
galaxies and it is beyond any possibility to
imagine the curvature of the universe.
And Isaiah says, I know how big it
is.
It's just a handful for God.
That's how big it is.
It's just a span.
He measures the whole thing in a span.
If we get this perspective, you know, it
alters things.
It alters the way you think about the
Assyrians and the Babylonians.
Well, it goes on to say this.
It goes on for His measuring.
He comprehended the dust of the earth in
a measure and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in balance.
Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord
or being His counselor has taught Him?
With whom took He counsel and who instructed
Him and taught Him in the path of
judgment and taught Him knowledge and showed to
Him the way of understanding?
Behold, the nations are as the drop of
a bucket.
You know, these are very rural situations.
Can you imagine someone coming from the well
with a bucket full of water?
And it's inevitable.
As you walk and you swing it or
as you put the pot on your head,
there's bound to be one or two drops
that go astray.
You don't worry about them usually, do you?
Just the drops and the bucket.
You don't get into a big fuss about
that.
You don't kind of go, I've got to
go back to the well and get another
two drops because I'm two drops short from
what we started.
They're hardly to be considered.
The nations, Assyria, Babylonia, they're just like the
drop of a bucket.
And they're counted as the small dust of
a balance.
Behold, He takes up the isles as a
very little thing.
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor
the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
All nations before Him are as nothing, and
they are counted to Him less than nothing
and vanity.
To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
And then He begins to speak about the
gods of the nations.
The workman melts a graven image and the
goldsmith spreads over it with gold and casts
silver chains.
And then with irony, He says, he that
is so impoverished that he has no ablation
chooses a tree that will not rot.
He seeks to him a cunning workman to
prepare a graven image that shall not be
moved.
Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the
beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of
the earth?
It is He who sits upon the circle
of the earth.
We had reference to this verse earlier on
this morning.
It's God who sits upon the circuit of
the earth.
There's another dimension.
Often in the Bible we're encouraged, even in
the natural, even in the physical, to consider
the other dimension.
Consider the heavens and the works of His
hand.
Just get your eyes off this earthbound level
of things.
The next time that circumstances seem to be
conspiring and coming together to lay siege to
you and threaten all your petty security, I
recommend you do something.
I recommend you go outside on a dark
night and just look up and think a
minute and say, He holds all this.
It's a span.
It's just one handful for Him.
He sits on the circle, the circuit of
the earth.
People who lived much more out of their
homes were very conscious of the night sky,
conscious of the way that they moved around
in a big circuit.
Who does this?
On the earth, things happen very quickly.
Very, very quickly.
But in the heavens, where the stars are,
things are much more predictable.
If you went back to the place where
you were born, I did this just a
little time ago.
You go back to the place where you
were born and it's very, very different.
Very, very different.
I made a kind of a strange allusion
yesterday to the kind of situation.
I come from a place called Burslem in
Stoke-on-Trent, which is the potteries.
In the days when I was born there,
they used to call it Smoke-on-Stench.
It spent all its life under a kind
of a yellowy haze.
We used to go on excursions.
My mum would take me to see the
trees.
Other parents would take their children to see
the ducks and we would go to see
the trees.
Because the nearest tree to my house was
a mile away in a park.
But if you go back there today, they've
landscaped it.
They've made it into the Rio, which was
all shraft tips.
If you come from the potteries, that's what
all the rubbish goes to.
That's all the bits of broken cups and
saucers and those are my hills that I
played on as a lad.
We didn't have gutters to play on.
We just had to play with broken cups
and plaster of Paris moulds and things.
But if you go there today, they've landscaped
it.
They've shaped it.
They've put grass on it.
They've made golf courses.
There are trees.
It's magnificent.
In just half a century.
You see, things on the earth change very,
very quickly.
But if I go back to Burslem and
stand on the same spot and look upwards,
nothing's changed.
It's the same as it was 50 years
ago.
There's nothing changed.
There's a circuit here.
There's another perspective.
There's another time scale.
There's something quite different.
And the prophet says, don't you understand?
He isn't like one of these gods that
people have to make when there's an emergency
arises.
When things go wrong, when you say, oh
quick, we need a god quickly.
Let's commission the goldsmith.
If we haven't got the money to commission
the goldsmith, let's get a piece of a
tree.
We'll do the best we can.
We'll get a tree that doesn't rot.
We'll make a god.
We need some help quickly.
We're in trouble.
He says, come on.
Haven't you known?
Haven't you heard?
Hasn't it been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of
the earth?
He is the one who sits upon the
circuit of the earth.
Does it make you feel a bit safer?
He's the one who sits upon the circuit
of the earth.
He doesn't need emergency plans.
He doesn't have to make quick and instant
alterations of course.
He sits upon the circuit of the earth.
The inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens as a curtain
and spreads them as a tent to dwell
in.
He brings princes to nothing and makes the
judges of the earth as vanity.
Yea, they shall not be planted.
They shall not be sown.
Yea, their stock shall not take root in
the earth and shall also blow upon them
and they shall wither and the whirlwind shall
take them away as stubble.
To whom then will you lighten me?
Or shall I be equal?
Says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and behold
who has created these things.
That brings out the host.
That's the story host.
By number.
He calls them all by names.
By the greatness of his power because he
is strong in power.
Not one fails.
There's a wonderful picture here.
He's just spoken of God being like the
shepherd.
You know, one of the things Jesus said
about the shepherd is that he knows his
sheep by name.
He calls them.
Let's have a quick look in John chapter
10 just to identify a verse.
John chapter 10.
I'll read just the first two or three
verses.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that
enters not by the door into the sheepfold
but climbs up some other way, the same
as a thief and a robber.
But he that enters in by the door
is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep
hear his voice.
He calls his own sheep by name and
leads them out.
Now go back to Isaiah.
And verse 26.
Lift up your eyes on high and behold
who has created these things that brings out
their host by number.
He calls them all by names by the
greatness of his power because he is strong
in power.
Not one fails.
Do you know what that means?
In this powerful imagery of the prophet speaking
in the power of poetry, he says the
whole starry sky is just his flock.
And he calls each one by name.
The reason that Deneb and Sirius and Canopus,
these individual stars, the reasons that they're in
the right place is because he's calling them
that.
He does it every day.
This is his flock.
Millions and millions, billions upon billions, beyond anything
that we can imagine.
He knows every one by name.
And the reason it's in that place where
it was 50 years ago is because he
calls it forth every day.
He sustains it.
He hasn't just created the universe like a
machine and then wound it and left it
to go.
Moment by moment, he sustains it.
Every part of it.
Every particle of it.
Every star.
Every blade of grass has all of his
attention.
We are very limited.
Because we are limited and finite, we have
to withdraw our attention from one thing in
order to give all our attention to another
thing.
But God doesn't.
God can give all his attention to one
thing and without withdrawing any of it, can
give all his attention to the next thing.
And without withdrawing any of his attention, can
give all his attention.
See what Wesley says.
He says, all the attributes divine are now
at work for me.
If this is the way he deals with
the stars, calling each one by name, like
a shepherd with his sheep, knowing each one,
putting it in its right place.
I know it's poetry.
Don't let it stumble you.
Let it speak.
Let it speak in a way that scientific
measurements could never speak to you.
This is his great flock.
Next time you're out and you look up,
just look.
This is his great flock.
It's not an accident that that's there.
It's not just in the language of what
we're being taught now.
It's not just that some rules of physics
are operating and gravity is having its effect.
It's more than that.
Behind all that, there is a shepherd who
is calling them out one by one, putting
them in their places.
Oh, I feel very, very safe.
This is what he says.
Verse 26.
Lift up your eyes on high and behold
who has created these things that brings out
their host by number.
He calls them all by name by the
greatness of his might because that he is
strong in power.
Not one fails.
Why do you say, oh Jacob, and speak,
oh Israel, my way is hid from God
and my judgment is passed over from God?
Can you see what he's saying?
They were saying God's forgotten us.
God doesn't know what's happening to us.
Our way is hid from God.
We are entering into parts of our life
that are uncharted.
They're out of control.
And the prophet says, lift up your eyes.
Just look at the control.
Every star in its right place.
What do you mean your way is hid
from God?
He knows every part of it.
It's all under his care.
This was a tragedy that was about to
come upon Israel because God had had a
great destiny for them.
He was going to show them that he
had other ways of implementing his purposes, but
that didn't mean that he was withdrawing from
them at this time his destiny for them.
They had failed him.
That hadn't taken him by surprise.
He knew that it was going to happen.
I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
he said.
I knew this would happen.
Some years ago, I used to play with
a chess board.
I won't call it play chess, but play
with a chess board.
And I used to enjoy trying to do
these puzzles that you get in certain newspapers
and you'd set out the chess board and
it would say White to mate in eight
moves against any defense or something like this.
And then you'd sort of try and work
out all these things.
Well, this is God to mate in a
million moves against any defense.
It doesn't make any difference.
It's all in his hands.
He knows every eventuality.
He knows every possibility.
He knows what you'll do.
He knows when you might have done this
and didn't do it and chose that.
He knows.
All gloriously provided for.
I'm not preaching determinism.
I'm not a Muslim.
I'm not preaching any of those things.
There are consequences if we do not do
the things that God has given us to
do.
But the amazing thing is that no matter
what a muddle we get ourselves into and
whatever situation we produce or others produce we
can always lift up our eyes.
And there's always you'll always hear this promise
in the Spirit if your heart is open
Behold, your God will come.
He never, never, never says they got themselves
into that mess they can get themselves out
of it.
Never, never your God will come.
But I got myself into this mess yes,
He'll still come.
Men do measure things in certain ways.
They try to measure responsibilities.
That's what the theologians do and they say
well how much of the responsibility really is
Adam's responsibility because of his sin and how
much of the responsibility is my responsibility because
I haven't responded.
And God says I'll take the responsibility.
That's what the cross is all about.
I'll take the responsibility.
It's my responsibility.
I'll take the responsibility.
Not that it's His fault.
That's not what I'm saying.
But He says I'll take the responsibility.
These people when you get yourself into a
situation where there are so many possible powers
that come from different directions with their different
consequences it's possible for a kind of paralysis
to settle upon you.
You get so tired.
One of the signs very often of depression.
I'm not a doctor but I know it's
tiredness.
And it's very often because people can no
longer control their circumstances.
They don't know what to do and there's
this terrible weariness that comes upon people.
Well there was a weariness upon the people
of Israel and Judah at this time.
A terrible weariness.
Could they ever be what God had wanted
them to be?
What had God wanted them to be?
What had been His original purpose and intention
for this people?
Well let's go back to the time when
He made the nation His nation.
Go back to the book of Exodus.
I want to just say a word or
two.
I won't explain this fully.
Maybe there will be some little glimpses of
why I'm saying what I'm saying a little
bit later on.
But I just want to say this now
to begin with.
It is important when you read the scriptures
that you make a distinction between what God
determined to do with the blood descendant of
Abraham, the one that we call the seed.
It's important to distinguish between that and what
God was determined to do with the nation
of Israel.
What God was going to do through the
family line of Abraham was fixed.
It was without conditions.
God had determined to do it and if
you go through the first chapter of Matthew
you will read a terrible pedigree of people.
All kinds of people who did all kinds
of wicked things at different kinds of points.
Let me just go to Matthew for a
moment.
Keep your finger in Exodus chapter 4.
We'll see if you believe me and keep
it there.
Matthew chapter 1.
Here's a list.
This is the root of the royal seed.
This is the seed that was promised in
Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.
It's going to come obviously from a descendant
of Eve but later on God becomes more
detailed in what He expresses of it and
it's going to come down through Abraham.
It's going to come down through a part
of Abraham's descendants.
It's going to come through Isaac.
Not just going to come through Isaac, it's
going to come through part of Isaac's descendants.
It's going to come through Jacob.
Not just going to come through all of
Jacob's descendants, it's going to come down through
Judah's.
And it keeps on like this.
And when you get to Matthew chapter 1,
here's the list.
The book of the generations of Jesus Christ
or generation of Jesus Christ.
The son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and
Jacob begat Judas and his brethren and Judas
begat Phares and Zarah of Tamar.
Do you know that story?
It's not a pleasant story.
Tamar was Phares' daughter-in-law and he
thought she was a harlot and used her
as a harlot and from that union came
the next generation.
This is not a pretty story but this
is the seed.
It's coming down.
Irrespective of conditions.
Irrespective of what the devil will do or
attempt to do.
It's coming down.
And Phares begat Esron and Esron begat Aram
and Aram begat Amminadab and Amminadab begat Nashon.
Nashon was one of those who came out
of Egypt and never entered into the promised
land.
One of those who did not believe.
He was the prince of Judah.
And Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab.
There's only one Rahab really in the Bible.
This is Jericho Rahab.
And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth.
Now Ruth was a Moabitess.
And Obed begat Jesse and Jesse begat David
the king and David the king begat Solomon
of her that had been the wife of
Uriah.
This is not a pretty story.
But the seed is coming down.
God is continuing with his purpose to do
what he will.
And Solomon begat Roboam and Roboam begat Abiah
and Abiah begat Asa and Asa begat Josaphat
and Josaphat begat Joram and Joram begat Ozias
and Ozias begat Jotham and Jotham begat Achaz
and Achaz begat Ezechias and Ezechias begat Manasseh?
Do you remember this man?
We talked about him yesterday.
The most wicked king that they ever had.
The man who sacrificed his own children in
fire to heathen gods.
The man who produced the situation in Judah
which was worse than what it was like
in the days when Jericho was first taken
and God came in to cleanse the land
of its pollutions.
Manasseh.
It's the seed.
A forebearer of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, this isn't a conditional promise.
This is just a clear thing.
God is going to bring this seed into
the world.
Traces it all the way down.
We needn't go any farther.
But in the book of Galatians, when Paul
writes to the Galatians, he speaks concerning these
things and he says he speaks of the
seed and he says the seed is Christ.
One of the wonderful things about having the
New Testament is that it gives us definitive
explanations concerning some parts of the Old Testament.
This isn't a question of your opinion.
It doesn't matter what your opinion is as
regards who the seed is or who the
seed might not be.
This is the Spirit of God speaking in
Paul the seed is Christ.
The seed to whom the promises were made
is Christ.
He is the terminus of that line of
prophecy.
He is the one who should come, who
shall declare his generations.
There are no generations of Jesus in the
natural sense.
Although it says in Psalm 22 a seed
shall serve him.
We'll come back to that at another time.
So you've got this line of prophecy that
culminates, terminates in the seed which is Christ.
And like we've heard also this morning, when
God brought in the disposition of the law
it was only ever intended to be for
a period of time.
It was only until the seed should come.
That's Galatians.
It was never intended to be permanent.
It was an accommodation, like we heard this
morning.
You hear Jesus saying when they questioned him
about the law that Moses had given to
them and he said, it wasn't like this
from the beginning but because of the hardness
of your hearts, Moses permitted you to put
away your wives.
That is an accommodation.
That's God saying this is not what I
would have chosen.
This is not but I accommodate to this
setting, this situation because of the hardness of
men's hearts.
In many ways the law was a kind
of damage limitation exercise.
That's what the law was.
It was a damage limitation exercise.
It was restraining the wickedness of men, holding
it in so that not too many people
would get hurt by not too many things.
It was never intended to be a means
of salvation.
It was intended to make it plain to
every man who was under it what he
himself was like.
Like again we've heard earlier, I don't know
if it was this morning or yesterday, that
the Old Testament gives us, if we read
it and the Spirit of God is allowed
to teach us, it gives us an amazing
concept of the holiness of God.
But more than that, it gives us an
amazing concept of the sinfulness of man.
It was given so that man might become
exceeding sinful.
That he might know exactly what he was
like.
That he would no longer live under any
illusions that basically I'm really a nice person
and given different circumstances I would have done
different things.
The law was given to them so that
they would know exactly what they were like.
They would be without excuse.
They would know the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
The law was given not to the seed
of Abraham in the sense of it being
the promise of the coming Messiah but it
was given to a group of people who
were the descendants of Abraham and others who
were added to them.
Now I'll just let that settle in because
for some people this is a new idea.
Although it's very plainly spoken of in the
scriptures, if you look at these things, you'll
see that others were part of that group
who came out of Egypt with what were
known as the children of Israel.
You'll know that others were baptized into Moses
in the clouds and in the sea.
It was some of those others who first
began complaining, which you read about in 1
Corinthians chapter 10.
But they were all joined together in an
amalgamation to become the covenant people of God
for a specific purpose.
God gave to them a conditional covenant.
If you have any dealings at all with
computers, and if you haven't I don't think
this will stumble you too much, but if
you do a little bit of programming of
any of the most basic languages with computers,
there's a thing called an if-then statement.
Yes?
Some folks of you will know.
It really means if...
it's a line of instruction to a machine
which really says, if these are the circumstances,
go to this place in the program.
If this, then this.
And by application, if not this, then go
somewhere else and do something else.
That's really what happens.
What you've got in the story of the
Exodus is one of these if-then statements.
If you turn, please, to Exodus chapter 19,
we've just got a few more minutes left
so that we can see how this thing
begins to come about.
Exodus chapter 19.
In the third month when the children of
Israel were gone forth out of the land
of Egypt, the same day came they into
the wilderness of Sinai.
For they were departed from Rephidim, and were
come to the desert of Sinai, and had
pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel camped
before the mount.
And Moses went up to God, and the
Lord called unto him out of the mountain
saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house
of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel,
You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles'
wings.
Remember the eagles' wings, in case we get
back to Isaiah.
You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles'
wings, and brought you to myself.
Now therefore, if – here it is –
now therefore if you will obey my voice
indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall
become a peculiar treasure to me above all
people, for all the earth is mine.
And you shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests, and an holy nation.
These are the words that you shall speak
to the children of Israel.
God opens before these people the prospect of
a unique relationship between him and the nation.
They will become his nation.
If words mean anything at all, if you
say to somebody, if you do this and
this, you will become my nation.
If words mean anything at all, it can
only mean that they weren't his nation when
he was saying it to them.
That's straight-line thinking, I know, but it's
not too late in the day for us
to kind of think about that.
If he says, if you do this, then
you will become my people, it can only
mean that at that point, in some sense,
they were not his people.
They were going to become his people in
a unique sense.
All the world is mine, he says.
It's all mine.
But if you do this, and if you
do this, then you will become mine in
a unique sense, in an exclusive sense.
You will be my people.
You will be my nation.
I have a work for you to do.
I have a purpose for you to do.
You shall be to me a kingdom of
priests.
What were priests?
They were the servants of a God.
That's what the priests were.
They were the servants of a God.
Have you still got your finger in Exodus
chapter 4?
Oh, you unbelieving people, you didn't think I'd
go back, did you?
Um, Exodus chapter 4.
Yes, well, there was a good chance that
I wouldn't have done.
Exodus chapter 4.
I don't have the best sense of direction
in the world, as some people who know
me will tell you.
Just to make you feel really as though
you're in safe hands, I'm related to the
captain of the Titanic.
This is Exodus chapter 4.
Exodus chapter 4.
Verse 22.
These are the words, or this is what
Moses is to say to Pharaoh.
Verse 22.
And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith
Jehovah, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.
And I say unto thee, let my son
go, that he may serve me.
Let my son go, that he may serve
me.
The word that God brought to Pharaoh through
Moses had two very definite parts to it.
The first part we're very, very familiar with.
Let my people go.
The second part is absolutely vital that we
understand that they may serve me.
No man can serve two masters.
At this time, the nation of Israel was
serving Pharaoh.
They were under another king, under another set
of law.
They could not be free.
Because they weren't free, they could never be
God's servants.
So, the process begins.
Let my people go.
And the reason is, I want them as
my servants.
They are to be my servants.
Let my people go.
Israel is my son, my firstborn.
It was the special role of firstborn sons
to act as priests to the family.
Israel is my son, my firstborn.
God doesn't ignore all the other nations.
He has a great heart for them.
There was always a Gentile dimension in the
promises that God gave to Abraham.
But this people who came from Abraham, who
were to be God's people, were to have
a unique role.
They were to be a kingdom of priests.
They were to be a mediatory people.
They were to be an in-between people.
They were to be the eldest son who
was to serve God in a unique way
and act as priests for the whole world.
That's what they were to be.
They were to serve him.
And now Isaiah speaks to them when they're
under the threat of these superpowers.
And it seems as though forces over which
they have no control is moving them round
the board, and they have no say in
the matter, and how can they do anything
at all except just give way to an
intolerable weariness of spirit?
Go back, please, to Isaiah.
Verse 27 was where we left.
We're coming to an end now.
Verse 27 Why sayest thou O Jacob, and
speakest O Israel my way is hid from
the Lord and my judgment is passed over
from God And then it goes on Hast
thou not known Sorry, I'll wait for you.
Isaiah 40 verse 28 now.
It's good for you to see this as
I'm reading it.
Hast thou not known Hast thou not heard
that the everlasting God the Lord the creator
of the ends of the earth faints not
neither is weary There's no searching of his
understanding.
He gives power to the faint and to
them that have no might he increases strength
even the youths shall faint and be weary
and the young men shall utterly fail but
they that serve the Lord they who wait
upon the Lord these are the priests they
who wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength they shall mount up with wings as
eagles.
That's how they began.
God brought them on eagles' wings to himself
to make them his people over the years
they've grown so weary, so beaten and broken
by all the circumstances, many of them their
own fault but God hasn't given them up
he hasn't given up with you either doesn't
matter how weary you have become, doesn't matter
how broken, doesn't matter how much you feel
yourself to be the victim of circumstances those
who wait upon the Lord they shall renew
their strength they shall mount up with wings
like eagles hallelujah, let's pray Lord
if life has broken you and discouraged you
and you felt at times your way was
hid from God listen Israel of God you
new nation you kingdom of priests those who
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
into another dimension above it all where none
of the earthly things dictate to their lives
you seen eagles they're almost out of sight
oh Father, oh Lord, I don't bless you,
Lord, that you have chosen to reveal yourself
to us we could know nothing we'd be
like worms in the earth, we wouldn't even
know if it was day or night but
Lord you've revealed yourself to us Lord oh
God Lord, lift up our eyes and teach
us to lift them up Lord, let's just
love him let's just love him for a
minute or two