Welcome to the Word for Today.
The Word for Today is a continuous study
of the Bible, taught by Pastor Chuck Smith
of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.
Pastor Chuck is currently teaching from the Old
Testament.
And if you're following along in your Bible,
we'll be continuing today in Isaiah chapter 33,
beginning with verse 1, as we continue with
an in-depth message entitled, The Spoiler of
Jerusalem.
1.
One thing is needful, O my Father, 1.
One thing is needful, O my God, 2.
That I sit at your feet, and pour
out my mouth, 3.
This thing is needful, O my God.
And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck.
So let's turn to Isaiah chapter 33 and
continue our journey through the Bible.
The 33rd chapter of Isaiah is directed toward
Assyria.
And it is written about the
time that Assyria was defeated by God in
her attempt to conquer Jerusalem.
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had come to
Jerusalem and had demanded tribute from King Hezekiah,
which he paid.
It was sort of an extortion kind of
thing.
Either you pay us or we're going to
destroy you.
And so Hezekiah took money out of the
treasury and he paid off King Sennacherib.
But having received then the payment, he turned
as if to go away, but then he
returned and set up the siege against the
city.
And thus he broke the covenant that he
had made.
And he set his siege against Jerusalem.
Now, Isaiah pronounces the judgment that is going
to come against Assyria in the first part
of this chapter.
During the time that the chapter was written,
that judgment came.
The Assyrians, as he began this, were again
arrayed in battle.
They had broken this covenant, or this treaty.
They had dealt treacherously with Israel, or with
Judah, and King Hezekiah.
And so he pronounces the judgment, and then
the judgment came.
And he then pronounces the subsequent reaction of
those Jews who were in the city of
Jerusalem when they saw the effect of God's
judgment against the Assyrians.
So he begins the chapter with, "'Woe unto
you, Assyria, that spoils, and you were not
spoiled.
You dealt treacherously, but they did not deal
treacherously with you.
When you shall cease to spoil, you will
be spoiled.
And when you shall make an end to
deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with you.'"
And then his prayer, "'O Lord, be gracious
unto us, for we have waited for thee.
Be thou their arm,' that is the strength
for Jerusalem and for Judah, "'every morning be
thou their strength, our salvation also in the
time of trouble.'" So his pronouncing of the
woe against Assyria.
They had dealt treacherously.
They had been spoiling all of the nations.
They had not been spoiled.
They had not been defeated.
And so Isaiah announces, "'Lord, we have waited
upon you.'" Now that was the command of
God, to just wait upon the Lord, and
trust in the Lord for their deliverance.
That is what Isaiah had been encouraging the
King Hezekiah to do, to let God be
their defense, that God would defend Jerusalem from
the Assyrians.
And so, having seen the treachery of Assyria,
he is now saying, "'Lord, we've waited on
you.
Be thou their arm every morning.'" That is
the strength to them each morning, and be
their salvation in the time of trouble.
And now he is describing what took place.
"'At the noise of the tumult, the people
fled.
At the lifting up of thyself, the nations
were scattered.
Lord, when you came on the scene, they
were scattered.'" The noise of the tumult.
"'And your spoils shall be gathered like the
gathering of the caterpillar.
As the running to and fro of locusts
shall he run upon them.'" And so, when
the Assyrians left in great haste, those that
were left, as you know the story from
the Bible, the angel of the Lord went
out into the camp of the Assyrians, and
in one evening, he killed a hundred and
eighty-five thousand of their elite troops.
So that in the morning, when the children
of Israel awoke and looked out on the
battlefield, they saw all of these Assyrian corpses
lying there on the field, dead.
And those that did survive were fleeing.
And no doubt they left tremendous spoil, as
the prophet said, "'You will be spoiled.'" And
they no doubt left tremendous spoil there.
All of the things that they had brought
in preparation for battle was left there on
the battlefield, and all of these dead bodies
that were there.
And so, the people came out from Jerusalem,
and they are described like locusts hopping around,
just in pouncing upon all of the booty
and spoil that was there.
"'For the Lord is exalted, for He dwells
on high, and He has filled Zion with
judgment and righteousness.'" So, God is being praised.
The people recognize that the Lord reigns, and
the Lord rules, and the Lord is exalted
because of this tremendous victory that He gave
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem over the Assyrians.
"'He has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness,
and wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability
of thy times and strength of salvation.
The fear of the Lord is His treasure.'"
The Bible speaks about those treasures that God
has.
And God treasures those who fear Him.
Malachi tells us that they who love the
Lord spoke often one to another about Him.
And God listened in.
Whenever you get together with people and you
just start talking about the Lord and the
goodness of God, God eavesdrops.
He loves to hear you talking about Him.
And He said, "'And the Lord shall account
them as His jewels in that day when
He makes up His treasure.'" And so, they
that fear the Lord are His treasure.
They that speak often one to another of
God, He treasures that.
In Ephesians chapter 1, as Paul is offering
his prayer for the Ephesians, he prays that
they might know what is the exceeding richness
of His inheritance in the saints.
One of the petitions.
That you might know just how much God
treasures you.
If you only knew how much God loves
you, how much God treasures you.
What a different concept this is of God
than is often painted to us even in
the pulpit.
I'm afraid that many times the ministry is
guilty of misrepresenting God to the people.
For you see, as I stand in this
pulpit, I stand here as a representative of
God to bring you God's Word.
And I represent God.
And that's an awesome responsibility.
And I wonder how many times God has
been misrepresented, even as Moses who represented God
as being angry with the people.
You rebels, he cried, must I strike this
rock to give you water again?
How long are you going to rebel against
God?
And he was mad.
He was angry.
And he smoked the rock.
Water came out because God is gracious.
But God said, Moses, come here son.
Bad scene.
And it's going to have consequences, Moses.
You're not going to be able to lead
my people into the promised land.
I've got to teach them a lesson of
representation.
And you misrepresented me.
And so we read later on that Moses
was not able to lead the people into
the land because he misrepresented God at the
waters of Meribah.
I wonder how many times that we represent
God as being disgusted.
Because we're disgusted.
You failed again.
Oh, come on.
Forget it.
Get out of here, you know.
And we represent God as being totally upset
and disgusted and ready to give up.
That isn't true.
His mercy endureth forever.
And God treasures you.
And Paul prayed that you might know the
Ephesian church, that they might know just what
was his exceeding richness of his inheritance in
the saints.
How much God treasures you.
You remember Jesus gave the parable, a series
on the kingdom of heaven, as likened to
a man going through a field and discovering
a treasure.
And who for the joy thereof goes out
and sells everything he has so he might
buy the field so he can obtain the
treasure.
And as we seek to unravel the mysteries
of that parable, realizing that the field is
the world, we must ask who gave everything
to redeem the world or to purchase the
world.
And the answer is Jesus.
And then what is the purpose that he
might have the treasure?
And then who is the treasure?
As Peter said, you are his peculiar treasure.
But God treasures you peculiar as you are.
And so they that fear the Lord are
his treasure.
God loves us to reverence him.
He loves us to talk about him.
He loves us to worship him.
And you become his treasure.
He puts such great value that Jesus gave
himself, sold everything, that he might purchase the
field in order that he could have the
treasure.
Now, Isaiah is describing at this point the
scene that was going on in Jerusalem just
before God intervened.
The ambassadors had gone out.
They had paid the extortion that was demanded
by the king.
They thought that they were off the hook.
And yet, Shennekerib came back and began to
make further demands, which they were not able
to keep.
And so he said, Behold, the valiant ones
shall cry in the streets, in the open.
These men, these leaders were out there weeping.
Because they knew that the city could not
really stand against the Assyrian siege.
The ambassadors of peace, those that went out
to make peace, shall weep bitterly.
At that point, the highways were occupied by
the Assyrians.
They were shut in the city.
And thus the wayfaring man ceased.
There weren't any travelers on the highways.
They were being occupied by the enemy.
He has broken the covenant.
He had made a covenant.
It was paid by Hezekiah.
But Shennekerib broke the covenant.
He has despised the cities.
He's overrun all of the cities.
And he doesn't regard any man.
He did not regard God either, as was
evidenced by his letter to Hezekiah.
The earth mourneth and languisheth because of the
destruction of the Assyrians.
They had conquered all these other peoples and
nations.
Lebanon had been conquered.
It is ashamed and it has been cut
down.
Sharon, that beautiful plain, is like a wilderness.
And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.
These fruitful areas of Israel have been made
bare.
And so we get now God's response.
It's desperate.
The valiant men, the ambassadors are weeping openly.
They see no hope.
They see only a destruction and being carried
away into captivity.
But the Lord declares, now will I rise,
saith the Lord.
Now will I be exalted.
Now will I lift up myself.
It is interesting to me that God often
waits until we have exhausted every human means
of deliverance.
He lets time run its course and He
lets us attempt every endeavor that we can
think of to deliver ourselves.
He watches us as we go through these
machinations of attempting to find the solution, to
solve the problem.
And He waits until we have exhausted our
own resources, mentally, physically, emotionally.
When we're beat.
When we are like those valiant men and
ambassadors who are just weeping because I just
can't see any way out.
I've done all I know to do.
There's nothing left.
I've tried everything.
And God often waits for us to get
into that place of despairing completely of self.
And then He works.
God says, all right, you've had it.
You know, you're there weeping in the streets.
You've had it.
Now I will exalt myself.
Now I'll show you what I can do.
You've done everything and it hasn't worked.
You're facing the slaughter and you're recognizing now
your total ineptness and your helplessness to do
anything about the situation.
Man's extremities are God's opportunities.
Now don't look for that scripture.
You won't find it.
That's one of those that should have been
written because it is a truth so often
demonstrated in our lives.
It is not until we've come to our
extremity that God then steps in and works.
And I can, looking back over my life,
I can look at time after time after
time after time where God brought me to
the extreme.
Where I came to the end, where there
was nothing left.
Where I had exhausted everything I knew.
And I figured this is it.
You just sort of wait in the corner
for the guillotine to fall, you know.
And then God at that time exalts himself.
So that there is then that complete recognition
and exalting of God.
Because you know that you had done everything
you possibly could and nothing had worked.
And now that it is just working out,
you say, well, Lord, you're so good.
You don't say, well, I knew I could.
I just, you know, I had the right
attitude towards it and positive.
No, no, you're not taking credit.
You can't take credit.
All you can do is give glory to
God.
He came through again.
All right, you're great.
And that recognition that God rules.
So they had come to this place.
I mean, the Assyrians are there.
The valiant, the soldiers are weeping in the
streets.
And those ambassadors, they're weeping bitterly.
It's all over.
Folks, this is it.
We've had it.
Now will I rise, saith the Lord.
Now will I be exalted.
Now will I lift up myself.
Remember Gideon.
God trimmed it down to 300 men.
Why?
Because he knew the hearts of the people.
He knew that if he delivered the Midianites
to the 10,000, they would have been
boasting what they did.
So he brings them down to 300.
Makes it absurd.
In order that only God can get glory
from what happens.
Pastor Chuck Smith will return with a few
closing comments.
But first, I'd like to remind you that
today's message is available in its unedited form
on cassette or CD.
Simply write or call and ask for ordering
details on tape or CD number C-3257.
Again, that's tape or CD number C-3257.
Well, Christmas time is soon approaching and it's
easy to get caught up in the hustle
and bustle of the season.
Buying presents, decorating, cooking.
The list grows longer every day.
Without realizing it, we can easily forget the
true meaning of why we celebrate our Lord's
birth.
For this reason, the word for today would
like to present a booklet by Pastor Chuck
Smith entitled, How can a man be born
again?
And also an audio CD entitled, Why by
Pastor Chuck that would be the perfect compliment
for Christmas cards and gifts this year.
Both resources share the gospel of Jesus Christ
and explain the true meaning of Christmas and
why a man born 2000 years ago can
still affect the world today.
And best of all, they contain a message
leading people to accept Jesus Christ as their
personal Lord and Savior.
And remember the word for today would like
to assist you this Christmas in spreading the
gospel of Jesus to your family, friends and
coworkers.
Please call our customer service department to help
you in finding that perfect gift that will
reflect the true meaning of Christmas.
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So call the word for today at 1
-800-272-WORD or write to us at
P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628.
Once again, that number to call is 1
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And for those of you that would like
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Well, coming up next time on the word
for today, Pastor Chuck will be continuing his
fascinating study through the book of Isaiah.
That's coming up next time on the word
for today.
And now with a few closing comments, here
is Pastor Chuck.
So that desolation that will follow the great
battle of Armageddon when God destroys the armies
of man.
As I say, go ahead and read on.
You're allowed to do that, you know.
And come out into the light of chapter
35.
35 is a very special chapter to me.
God has used this chapter to minister to
my own soul in an hour of great
need, in an hour of great sorrow.
God ministered to me through the 35th chapter.
It's become one of my favorite chapters because
of the way the Spirit of God used
it to minister to my heart at a
time of great need in my own life
personally.
And thus the 35th chapter is one that
I cherish.
I just am waiting for God to fulfill
this.
And He shall.
He said it, He'll do it.
This program is sponsored by the word for
today.
The radio ministry of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa,
California.