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Dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration
of Isaiah, the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The title of my sermon series is Gleanings in Isaiah.
We’re going to go through various passages in the book of Isaiah, and today we are in
Isaiah chapter 2.
I’m going to read, starting at verse 5, although the sermon text is verse 6 through 22, I’m
going to begin reading in verse 5, especially today on verses 6 through 11.
Isaiah chapter 2, beginning at verse 5 and reading to the end of the chapter, you’ll
find that reading beginning on page 674 in your pew Bible.
Dear friends, this is the word of God.
Hear it with reverence and awe.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
For you have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of things
from the east and of fortune tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with
the children of foreigners.
Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
Their land is filled with idols.
They bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.
So man is humbled, and each one is brought low.
Do not forgive them.
Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the
splendor of his majesty.
The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that
is lifted up, and it shall be brought low, against all the cedars of Lebanon lofty and
lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan, and against all the lofty mountains, and against
all the uplifted hills, against every high tower, and against every fortified wall, against
all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft.
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought
low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
And the idols shall utterly pass away, and people shall enter the caves of the rocks,
and the holes of the ground from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor
when he rises to terrify the earth.
In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which
they made for themselves to worship, to the moles, and to the bats, to enter the caverns
of the rocks, and the clefts of the cliffs from before the terror of the Lord, and from
the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth.
Up regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?
The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Once again let’s seek the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word.
Heavenly Father, we do thank you that you have raised up prophets and apostles to convey
your infallible word to us, and we thank you Lord for the prophet Isaiah.
We thank you for this portion of your holy word, and we ask that by your holy spirit
you would illuminate our minds and open our hearts to behold wondrous things from your
word this day.
Cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls, and by the supernatural power of
your spirit cause your word to bear spiritual fruit in our lives unto salvation and sanctification.
And be glorified this day Lord, Jesus be present in the proclamation of your word by your spirit
this day.
In your name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
You may be seated.
The title of my sermon today is Yahweh Exalted Mankind Humbled.
And that word Yahweh, that is the covenant name for God, in your English translations
when the translators use the word Lord, and it’s in all capital letters, that’s an indication
to the English reader that the translators are translating this Hebrew word Yahweh, sometimes
it’s transliterated as Jehovah, and that is the covenant name for God, and it refers to
God as our gracious covenant redeemer.
So again the title of my sermon is Yahweh Exalted Mankind Humbled, and if you’re following
along in your sermon outline you’ll notice the children, I’d like to point out to the
number of key words that you can be listening for in my sermon today.
Well dear ones, one of the biggest challenges for pastors and sessions when it comes to
their responsibility in spiritually shepherding God’s people is to discern when it is appropriate
to offer comfort and encouragement on the one hand, and when it becomes necessary to
confront and rebuke on the other hand.
Jesus himself, the good shepherd of God’s elect sheep, Jesus of course did this with
perfect wisdom and perfect discernment.
If you’re familiar with the Gospel accounts you will notice that Jesus does not address
everyone in exactly the same way.
Jesus rather tailors his words to his audience and to their spiritual needs as well as their
spiritual state.
And so for example, let me ask you, how did our Lord speak to that broken, humbled, sinful
woman who wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair?
How did Jesus address her?
Did he speak harsh words of rebuke to her?
Did he denounce her for her sins which were many?
The answer of course is no.
He spoke to her words of comfort and assurance because he saw not only her heart, he saw
in her behavior that she was broken and crushed and humbled over her sin.
So he spoke Gospel words to her, words of forgiveness and encouragement.
And likewise, think about the gracious and hopeful words that our Lord spoke to that
rich but repentant tax collector, Zacchaeus.
You remember little Zacchaeus who climbed the sycamore tree?
How did Jesus speak to Zacchaeus when Zacchaeus indicated not only that he was seeking to
see the Lord but that he was repentant and was willing to bear the fruits of repentance
in making restitution for those whom he had cheated?
Consider our Lord’s word to Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19 verses 8 through 10.
Let me just read that passage very quickly to you.
Luke 19 verses 8 through 10 says, And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord,
the half of my goods I give to the poor.
And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.
And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son
of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Oh, what precious Gospel words he speaks to repentant Zacchaeus.
But on the other hand, consider the sharp and confrontational language of judgment and
rebuke that our Lord spoke to the hypocritical, self-righteous religious leaders, those leaders
who opposed him and who rejected his messianic authority.
There are many examples of these words of confrontation and rebuke coming from the lips
of our Lord Jesus throughout the Gospel accounts.
But let me just read a brief passage, Matthew 23 verses 25 through 28 to give you a sampling
of these kinds of words that Jesus spoke to his contemporaries.
Matthew 23, 25 through 28, Jesus says this, Woe to you, that term woe is a term indicating
a curse, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and
cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.
These things you ought to have done without neglecting the others.
You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel, woe to you scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they
are full of greed and self-indulgence.
You get the picture, don’t you?
Friends like the church’s Lord, the churches under shepherds, the pastors and elders of
the church are to exercise wisdom and discernment in giving appropriate counsel and speaking
appropriate words that are tailored to the various circumstances of God’s people.
And so for example, it would be inappropriate for a pastor or a session to speak sharp words
of rebuke to a broken, repentant church member who confesses his struggles in overcoming
a besetting sin.
On the contrary, under such circumstances, the member in question would need gospel
comfort and encouragement.
But on the other hand, it would be equally inappropriate for a pastor or session to offer
words of comfort and assurance to church members who have proven themselves over time to be
spiritually insensitive, unteachable, arrogant, resistant to authority, contumacious and backslidden
or hardened in their sin, especially if such sin is of a publicly scandalous nature.
In such circumstances, confrontation and sharp rebuke will likely become necessary.
Now at this point, I’m sure you’re probably thinking, okay, Pastor Jeff, I get it.
But aren’t we here in Isaiah today?
What does that, what does all of this have to do with our passage for this Lord’s Day
morning from the book of the prophet Isaiah?
Well, the reason I bring this up is to connect us with the kind of, the kind of language
that we find throughout the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The reason I bring this up is because if you are a careful student of the book of Isaiah,
you’ll notice that Isaiah’s prophecies alternate between on the one hand, oracles of judgment
and doom, which involve the use of sharp and at times even harsh and shocking language.
But on the other hand, Isaiah’s prophecy also includes numerous oracles of hope and comfort
and restoration.
And it depends upon his audience.
It depends upon who he is speaking to, who the spirit is inspiring him to speak to.
And so for example, even in this very chapter, chapter two, we see that alternation taking
place in the previous passage, the text that immediately leads up to our passage for today
in the first five verses of Isaiah chapter two, we find a prophecy about the glories
of the new covenant messianic era and therefore a revelation from God that is intended to
bring great comfort and hope and assurance to the faithful and repentant among God’s
professed covenant people.
But friends, if you were listening carefully, you will notice that in our passage for this
Lord’s Day morning, starting at verse six and going through the end, not only through
the end of this chapter, but into the following chapters as well, you will notice that this
morning begins a lengthy judgment section of Isaiah, a judgment section in which Yahweh,
Israel’s faithful covenant-making, covenant-keeping God and sovereign Lord, Yahweh confronts the
proud idolaters and the unrepentant, worldly-minded hypocrites within the ranks of his professed
covenant people at that time.
And he confronts them with harsh words of doom and divine judgment.
Just as the Lord has spoken words of comfort and hope that were intended to be encouraging
to the humble, repentant, and believing among his people, so friends, in this passage he
assures the haughty and the arrogant among his professed people that there is coming
a day when Yahweh, the true and living God, when Yahweh alone will be exalted and when
wicked, idolatrous, proud, impenitent humanity, including the impenitent hypocrites among
God’s professed people, will be utterly abased, utterly humiliated, utterly humbled to the
dust.
This morning our special focus will be on verses six through 11.
And as we consider the first three verses of our passage for today, verses six through
eight, I want you to notice the Lord’s rejection of his people.
We learn here, shockingly and disturbingly, of the Lord’s rejection of his unfaithful
people.
It says this beginning in verse six.
Well let me just, let me again start at verse five.
Verse five ends the opening section of chapter two, which is a section filled with hope and
comfort pointing forward to the Messianic age.
And then Isaiah writes, O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
He addresses God’s professed people as the house of Jacob and he calls upon them to walk
in the light of the Lord.
In other words, to walk in true faith and the obedience that springs from that faith.
But then in the very next verse, the beginning of this judgment section, we read these words,
these shocking words.
For you have rejected your people.
Who are his people?
Well the same people that were addressed in verse five, the house of Jacob.
You have rejected your people.
Now for those of us who are reformed and Calvinistic in our understanding of salvation, passages
like this can be a little bit troubling.
Because we think to ourselves, how can we understand this passage?
God doesn’t reject his elect, does he?
I mean, how are we to understand this reference to God rejecting his people?
After all, doesn’t it say in passages like Romans 11 verse two, doesn’t that passage
say God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew?
Well friends, that might seem like a contradiction, but it’s not an actual contradiction.
You see, in passages like the one that we are considering this morning, where it tells
us that Yahweh has rejected his people, the house of Jacob, it’s important for us to
understand that there is a distinction between the people of God considered as a visible
community on the one hand, and the true people of God, meaning the elect who demonstrate
their election by exercising true faith in Christ and repentance unto life.
In other words, it’s important for us to understand that there is a distinction between
covenants, at least broadly considered, and election.
Now the two concepts and the two principles, these two truths are closely connected in
scripture, but they can be distinguished.
And so friends, in the Romans 11-2 passage, that passage is talking about God’s elect
people.
Those whom he foreknew in his everlasting, sovereign, predestinating love, whereas in
our passage for today, this passage is speaking of the visible covenant people of God.
When Isaiah says of the Lord, when he says to the Lord, for you have rejected your people,
this means not all of those who are identified as his people, for God has always preserved
for himself an elect remnant in sovereign grace.
And rather, he is speaking, he means the visible covenant community, the visible church
of that time.
It is speaking here of the people on the whole, for the people as a whole at that particular
point in redemptive history, they had refused to fear and trust the Lord.
They had refused to walk in the way of his covenant.
This was evidenced by their idolatry and syncretism, as well as their worldly-mindedness.
And so this passage and passages like it remind us that it is possible to be in the covenant
externally.
It is possible to be in the covenant externally, but not in the covenant in a saving sense.
People who possess true saving faith will indeed profess that faith, but not everyone
who professes faith in Christ actually possesses that faith.
And so it is from passages like this one that we derive the distinction between the invisible
church and the visible church.
The invisible church does not mean the church of the saints who have departed into heaven
or it is not the church of ghosts, it is rather referring to the church as God sees it, whereas
the visible church refers to the church as man sees it.
And so here, again, the Lord through Isaiah is addressing the visible church, the church
as man sees it.
And it says, you have rejected your people, the church in this sense.
Well, why has God rejected his people?
What is the basis for it?
Well, it is explained in this passage.
The Holy Spirit explains it in this passage.
You have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, why?
Because they are full of things from the east and of fortune tellers like the Philistines.
The Philistines were the coastal peoples.
They were the Gentiles who lived on the western coast by the Mediterranean.
And so basically what this is saying is that the people of God at that particular time,
instead of being a light to the nations around them, instead of shining the light of God’s
revelation, instead of spreading the knowledge of the true and living God to the Gentile
nations that surrounded them, instead of being a witness and light for the truth of God’s
word and the truth of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, instead of that, they had
adopted the practices of the nations around them.
Instead of leavening the nations around them with the leaven of God’s holy law and holy
truth, they were leavened with the leaven of wickedness, sin, and idolatry as adopted
from the nations.
This is basically getting at the fact that the people had been guilty of covenant breaking.
They had been guilty of covenant breaking through such things as occultism and participation
in pagan idolatry, basically syncretism.
Syncretism is when you combine the true faith, the revealed faith given to us in the word
of God with false religion and false theology and false worship.
God had been very clear to his people that they were not to do this.
They were not to consult fortune tellers, for example.
Consider with me if you would.
Let’s turn to Leviticus 19 verse 26, Leviticus chapter 19 verse 26.
We read these words in that passage.
It says, You shall not eat any flesh and blood in it.
That was one of the practices that set Israel apart from their pagan neighbors and pointed
them to the fact that they needed blood atonement for the blood belonged to the Lord.
Notice next what it says.
You shall not do what?
You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.
God makes it very clear.
You’re not to consult fortune tellers.
You’re not to be engaged in occultic activities.
This is brought out even more explicitly and clearly in Deuteronomy 18 verses 9 through
14.
Let me just read those verses to you, friends.
The Lord there says through Moses, When you come into the land that the Lord your God
has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.
That was a horrific, wicked practice of the Canaanites who lived in the land before the
Israelites were sent by God to conquer the promised land.
By the way, as an aside, the people who lived in Canaan at that time were a tremendously
wicked, immoral, idolatrous people.
So God used the Israelites to judge them, bring his holy judgment upon them.
But God is saying you’re not to do as they did.
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.
Anyone who does what?
Who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer
or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.
For whoever does these things is what?
Is an abomination to the Lord.
You want to give yourself over to pagan cultic idolatry, to give yourself over to occultic
practices, you make yourself an abomination unto the Lord.
God is very clear and very explicit.
Whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.
And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
You shall be blameless before the Lord your God.
For these nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners.
But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.
Occultic activities involves seeking after secret knowledge, knowledge that isn’t accessible
to your senses or accessible from the word of God.
And it shows a lack of reverence for and trust in the Lord.
When you consult astrology, when you consult Ouija boards, when you consult fortune tellers
and so forth, when you engage in those practices, you’re basically saying, God your word isn’t
enough, I need more knowledge, I need to know the future, I need to read my poems or tell
my future.
It’s not a joke, it’s an abomination to God, my friends.
And the people of God, those who claim to belong to Yahweh the Lord, those who claim
to be his worshippers in the days of Isaiah were consulting fortune tellers.
They were adopting the superstitions and the pagan practices of their pagan neighbors.
It goes on to say they strike hands with the children of foreigners.
We’re not exactly sure what this striking of the hands refers to, but it probably refers
to some kind of pagan ritual or pagan practice.
So friends, covenant breaking was the reason, the ultimate reason for their rejection by
the Lord.
And then it goes on to say in verse seven, their land is filled with silver and gold
and there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is filled with horses and there is no end to their chariots.
Is God saying that it’s wrong to have riches or wealth?
Is God saying it’s wrong to have military strength as represented by horses and chariots?
That doesn’t seem to be what the problem was.
The problem was that they were apparently trusting in these things.
Instead of trusting in the Lord, they were trusting in their riches.
They were trusting in their military might.
Instead of trusting in Yahweh, their faithful God.
They had wealth.
They had silver and gold.
They had prosperity, as we see in the reference to their treasures.
They also had military strength, horses and chariots.
Today’s equivalence, of course, would be things like military resources such as guns
and bazookas and missiles and bombs and drones and tanks and so forth.
It’s not saying that it’s wrong in and of itself to have those things, but to multiply
them and to trust in them.
The Lord had made it very clear to His people they were not to do so.
But not only did they have these things, verse eight goes on to say, their land is filled
with what?
Their land is filled with idols.
Idolatry is supremely blasphemous and offensive to God in whatever form that idolatry takes.
And their land was filled at that time.
Their land was filled with idols.
He says, they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.
They were guilty of idolatry and of trusting in the works of their own hands.
I want to point out here in verse eight, the Holy Spirit through Isaiah says their land
is filled with idols.
What land is that referring to?
That’s referring to the promised land, the holy land, the land that God in His grace
had given to them as a gift.
God remember, God had redeemed the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt and
He brought them through the Red Sea on dry land.
He brought them through the wilderness, having given them His holy law, His Torah, His covenant
instruction from Mount Sinai.
And they went into the promised land and He gave them the land as a gift.
And that land was intended to be a type, a picture, a foreshadowing of the ultimate promised
land, the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells.
But that very land, that land that belonged to the Lord, Yahweh, in a special way, that
land that was consecrated to the Lord and whose people were to be consecrated to the
Lord, that land that was to be a picture of heaven had become darkened and saturated with
pagan idolatry and with the works of their own hands.
There’s many lessons that we can learn from this opening passage here, but just a couple
points of application before we move on.
I’ve talked about how this passage addresses the visible church, the state of the visible
church at that particular time in redemptive history, and that the Lord had rejected His
people on the whole for their covenant breaking, their unfaithfulness.
And this may tempt us to think that, well, if that’s the case, the visible church doesn’t
really matter that much.
I mean, as long as you belong to the Lord, you don’t really need to belong to the church.
As long as we’re in the invisible church, then the visible church is not that important.
But friends, that’s not the conclusion that we should derive from a passage like this.
It is truly a great privilege to belong in membership to the visible church of Jesus
Christ.
There are great spiritual advantages in being a member of the visible, organized church.
The scriptures indicate that to be the case.
Indeed, friends, Christ has entrusted His means of grace, especially the Word and the
sacraments, to His visible church.
Christ has not entrusted the means of grace to parachurch organizations.
There are many fine Christian parachurch organizations.
We prayed for the Roabahs this morning.
They worked for Wycliffe Bible translators, and that wonderful organization helps to support
the work of the church in translating and disseminating the Word of God to the nations.
That’s a good thing.
But Christ has entrusted the preaching of His Word and the administration of the sacraments
to His visible church.
But friends, it is possible to be a member of the visible church without being a member
of Christ.
Only by the sovereign grace of God and through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and
by personal faith, personal trust in Christ as your very own Lord and Savior can you belong
to Christ.
Do you belong to Christ?
Is He your Lord and Savior?
Have you trusted Him?
Christ, the Son of God incarnate, came to this earth to pay the penalty for sin.
He died on the cross for sinners.
We’re told in Romans 5 verse 8 that God demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we were
yet sinners, rebels against God, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He paid the penalty for sin.
And He rose from the dead three days later, proving that the Father has accepted His sacrifice.
And we’re told in passages like John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His
one and only Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Trust in Him and Him alone for your salvation.
And then you can be assured that not only do you have membership in the visible people
You are a member of Christ, clothed in His righteousness, forgiven through His blood,
renewed by His Spirit, and sealed by that Spirit unto the day of eternity for life everlasting.
So this is something that I would encourage us to consider.
The visible church is important, but make sure that you’re trusting in Christ by the
grace of God.
We also learn in this passage that idolatry is supremely offensive to God.
And idolatry can take many forms.
Of course, in the ancient world that Isaiah is addressing, idolatry was typically in the
form of crass idolatry.
People bowing down to statues of gold, blocks of wood, literally the works of men’s hands.
But today, though we are in a very secular society, we are equally, if not more so, idolatrous
in comparison to the ancient Israelites.
It’s just that our idolatry is much more subtle.
You see, whatever is the most important thing to you, that is in practice your actual God.
You may claim to be a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true and
living God, but as John Calvin rightly put it, the human heart, our sinful fallen human
heart is a factory of idolatry.
Our hearts are always cranking out new idols to bow down to.
And that idolatry can take many forms.
It might take the form of your career.
If your career is the most important thing to you, that in practice is your actual God.
Relationships, even good relationships, if they become more important to you than your
relationship to Christ, that is an idol.
And today, it seems to me today, the biggest idol of all is the idol of self, self-identity,
creating your own reality.
There’s this idea out there that, hey, you’re your own person.
You can create your own reality.
Do your own thing.
This idolatry especially comes out when it comes to the area of sexual ethics.
If you’re consenting, it’s fine.
No problem.
That’s not what the word of God says.
If it is not within the context of marriage, it is forbidden.
God knows what he’s saying.
He knows what is right.
There are many, many idols.
What are the idols of your heart?
I have idols that I wrestle with in my heart, and so do you.
By the grace of God, let us flee idolatry and let us plant ourselves at the foot of
the cross and look to Christ and Christ alone for our salvation from all sin, including
the sin of the idols of our hearts.
We also learn in this passage that we must not mess with the occult.
Let us not seek the forbidden knowledge that the occult promises.
Let us instead search the scriptures.
Let us know the word of God.
We’ve considered that the Lord has rejected his people, but next let us consider briefly
the abasement of proud humanity.
How is the Lord manifesting this rejection of his proud, impenitent people who refuse
to repent?
Well, he promises to humble them, to abase them.
Look at verse 8.
It says, the land is filled with idols.
They bow down to the work of their hands.
Now let’s pause there.
Do you see how irrational, really, how stupid this is?
Idolatry is both irrational and it is dehumanizing and degrading.
Idolatry leads an otherwise rational man, an image bearer of God, the creator, to bow
down to the work of his own hands.
How irrational to bow down before something that you yourself have made and to trust in
that thing that you have made or to bow down to something that has been made by the imagination
and skill of sinful man.
And how degrading for an image bearer of God to bow down in worship before and to trust
in not the true and living God who created him, but before an idol that has been created
for him by either himself or another human being.
It’s degrading.
It’s irrational.
And then verse 9, it goes on to say, so man is humbled and each one is brought low, do
not forgive them.
Now the New King James Version and translations like it read, people bow down and each man
humbles himself.
What’s this referring to?
In the context of this passage, it’s possible here in verse 9 that the humbling or being
brought low would seem to be referring to the way that idolaters grovel and humble themselves
before the objects of their worship, namely the dead idols that they reverence.
But this could simply also be referring to the effects of idolatry.
Idolaters in their pride, they humble themselves, they bow down before worthless dead idols,
so God will humble them and bow them down, in other words.
But however we are to understand what this is saying, again, this seems to highlight
the degrading and dehumanizing effects of idolatry.
As they persist unrepentant in degrading and humbling themselves before their idols,
Isaiah cries out, do not forgive them.
Now this may seem harsh.
Isaiah is not saying here, the Holy Spirit is not saying through Isaiah that there’s
no forgiveness for the repentant idolater.
Not at all.
Many of God’s people, no doubt, had heard the message of Isaiah and by the grace of
God had repented and received pardon.
But Isaiah here has in mind those who are hardened and settled in their sins, those
who have dug in their heels, if you will, in pursuing their idolatrous ways.
And he says, do not forgive them.
We’re told in scripture that while our Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love and covenant faithfulness, nevertheless, God says of himself that he will by no means
clear the guilty.
So this is a warning here.
And what will be the result?
Well, look at verse 10.
Enter into the rock and hide in the dust.
The terrain of that area of the world boasts many caves, many rocks that you could seek
to take refuge in.
And the picture here is that the terror of the Lord, the wrath and majesty of the Lord
is coming to enter into judgment with sinful mankind.
And it is such a distressing event that people seek to escape the majestic presence of God.
And they seek to hide from the Lord.
They enter into the rock.
They seek to hide themselves in the dust.
This too speaks to the abasement and terror of the divine judgment.
But it also tells us that there will be no escape for those who persist in their proud
rebellion against the Lord.
Well, what are we to do with all of this?
Well, friends, in James chapter 4 verse 6, where James is quoting from Proverbs 3 verse
34, it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
The humble being those who by sovereign grace have come to recognize their sin, to feel
their depravity and their need for a savior.
God opposes the proud, the self-righteous.
Those who rest in themselves or their own works, their own accomplishments for salvation.
He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
How then should we respond to this prophecy of judgment against the proud?
Well, by the grace of God, may we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord.
Let me read what James writes in James chapter 4, 7 through 10.
Says this, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from
you.
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be wretched and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord and here’s the promise, and he will exalt you.
By the grace of God, may we humble ourselves before the Lord, trusting that he in Christ
will exalt us.
And that brings me to my final brief point based on verse 11.
We see here in this passage the exaltation of Yahweh on the day of the Lord.
Those who humble themselves will be exalted and we will be exalted in the Lord because
the Lord himself and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day of the Lord.
Look at verse 11, God says the haughty looks of man shall be brought low.
The haughty, proud looks of man will be brought low.
And the lofty pride of men shall be humbled.
And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
What is that day?
Well ultimately as we will see as we continue to work our way through this passage in future,
this is referring to that final eschatological day of the Lord, the final judgment day at
the end of history when the Lord will pour out his consummate wrath upon the wicked reprobate
but will bring his saved ones to the final consummation and blessing of their eternal
salvation.
On that final day, the first shall indeed be last and the last shall be first.
All wrongs will be brought to rights.
The pride of wicked idolatrous men will be ultimately abased and humbled.
The redeemed children of God will be openly acknowledged and vindicated.
And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
Soli Deo Gloria to God alone be the glory.
Now friends throughout redemptive history there were many lesser days of the Lord.
There were many historical judgment events that were predicted by the prophets and which
pointed forward to that final day of judgment.
Events such as the fall and exile of Israel to the Assyrians and the fall and exile of
Judah to the Babylonians and so forth.
These historical judgment events can be regarded as proximate and initial fulfillments of
prophecies like this one.
But they all pointed forward to that greater ultimate day of the Lord.
There is a final day of the Lord coming and that is the day when Jesus the Messiah the
Son of God will return in glory.
Dear listeners may God in his sovereign grace grant that we may be ready to welcome that
day.
May we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord resting in Christ and Christ’s righteousness
alone for only in him will we stand on that day.
And he alone will be exalted on that day and the proud will be abased.
But in the meantime may the Lord see fit to be glorified in our lives and in his church
and may we all seek to fulfill our chief end and what is our chief end brothers and sisters?
Our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
May God make it so amen.
Gracious Heavenly Father we thank you and that you are holy that you are just that you
are righteous.
We know Lord that you will indeed abase the proud among mankind.
But we thank you Lord that you give grace to the humble.
We ask that we might be humbled by your grace that we may know your forgiveness and exaltation.
Grant us the grace to trust in Christ and Christ alone and to walk in union with him
in our day to day lives.
And we pray Heavenly Father that we would walk in the confidence of knowing that as
you’ve promised in your word that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus and that you have sealed us in Christ by your spirit unto the day of
redemption.
We ask Lord that we would live day by day in covenant union and communion with our
Savior and in great confidence knowing that we need not fear that final day but that we
may welcome it because we will be welcomed at that time to our final home.
In Jesus name we pray and all of us amen.
Let’s respond to what we’ve heard by rising and we’ll sing as our closing hymn number
387 day of judgment day of wonders 387.