Gooding, David: A Proud Tyrant Brought Down and the Suffering Servant Exalted

Now let us begin to read God's word, two passages from the prophecy of Isaiah, the first of which is found in chapter fourteen. The second of them will be found in chapter fifty two onwards. And as we read these rather long passages together, you, I'm sure, will be comparing and contrasting them in your mind. The first passage we shall find is the story of a proud tyrant brought down. The second is the familiar story of the suffering servant exalted. Isaiah fourteen, therefore, beginning in verse three: And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, that the Lord shall give that in that day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon and say, how hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased? The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger with a persecution that none restrained. The whole earth is at rest and is quiet. They break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, since thou art laid down, no felor is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth. It hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to hell, and the noise of thy vials. The worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which didst lay low the nations? And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the uttermost parts of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shall be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee. They shall consider thee saying, is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness and overthrew the cities thereof, that let not loose his prisoners to their home? All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulcher, like an abominable branch clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit. As a carcass trodden underfoot, thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people. The seed of evildoers shall not be named forever. Prepare ye slaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers, that they rise not up and possess the earth and fill the face of the world with cities. And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant and son and son's son, saith the Lord. And I will also make it a possession for the porcupine and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the Lord of hosts. And with these words that describe one who is to be cast out even from his grave, before whom the kings of the earth shall wander, and whose seed shall permanently be cut off, let us now contrast the verses from Isaiah fifty three— fifty two verse thirteen following. Let us read of this other personage before whom the kings of this earth shall shut their mouths at him. Isaiah fifty two thirteen, Behold, my servant shall deal wisely. He shall be exalted and lifted up, and it shall be very high. Like as many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they understand. Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself and opened not his mouth. And as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb, yea, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living? For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. God give us good understanding of his holy word. I have no need to remind you, my brothers and sisters, of the serious and grave situation that faces the world. No need to remind you of the serious consequences that could follow if Saddam Hussein were able to embroil Israel completely head over heels into the war. No need to remind you that even if that fails and Israel remains upon the sidelines, that all the United Nations are agreed now, as they never were before. Since the Cold War has come to an end and Russia stands more or less on the same side as America, no need to remind you how that all the United Nations, as never before, have agreed that when this war is finished, they must set about dealing with the problems of the Middle East and in particular with Israel. In this last year and a half, the world has moved on in a way that none of us could have anticipated that it should come about with such suddenness. Moved on a step nearer to that time that all the prophets with almost one voice proclaim, when all the nations of the world shall come against Jerusalem. They shall come, brought on the one side by the machinations of the devil, in his attempt to achieve his final victory and establish forever his satanic rule on our planet. Brought along at another level by God in his wisdom and judgment, that he might bring down the judgments of God upon this godless world, that it shall destroy the wicked and yet lead multitudes to repentance, to a time, as Isaiah reminds us, when even the land of Egypt will get converted and honor the Lord. To bring down the judgments of God not only upon this godless Gentile world, but also on his rebellious people, Israel. That sinners may be removed from Jerusalem. And his people be brought back in repentance to acknowledge their Messiah, so that Jerusalem shall once more function as the headquarters, the earthly headquarters of the king. I say I have no need to remind you of all that, and no intention to concentrate your attention particularly on the troubles that are now. Your minds are doubtless saturated by listening to the news, and it is some relief from those things that you seek tonight not to be further immersed in them. And certainly, in appealing to the ancient prophet Isaiah, I am not intending to identify this prophecy with that present day affair, or to fix you dates, as is the manner of some, or to deal in prophecy mongering of any kind, and certainly not to set dates for the coming of the Lord Jesus. But it seems to me a basic principle of understanding that in order to understand properly what shall happen yet to the great city of Jerusalem within human history, and in order that we might take a balanced view ourselves as Christians now, to the affairs that are going on in the Middle East, we ought first to go back, we should go first back to the time when Jerusalem fell for the first time ever. To ponder again what God said about Jerusalem at that time through the mouth of his holy prophets. To try and understand what was involved in that stupendous and shocking event when God allowed the city of David, Jerusalem, prototype of Messiah David, God's anointed king, when he allowed Jerusalem to fall and the Davidic monarchy, for the time being, to be removed. You will see at once the importance of that great event in history, if from no other source than from observing the space that God gives to it in his holy word. Isaiah writes sixty six chapters, and Jeremiah has fifty two, Ezekiel has forty eight, and they three are joined by the majority of the so-called minor prophets. And all of these, except the prophets of the return, concentrate for the most part on the run up to and the consequences of the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the removing of David's dynasty of Judean kings. They analyze for us what was at stake, and what were the implications, and why God did it, and why he will do it yet again. Or even Isaiah, let alone others, even Isaiah is clear in his prophecy that at the end time, when God gathers the nations against Jerusalem, the city shall fall. I shall speak out of the ground like somebody who's a ventriloquist, says Isaiah. So also says Zechariah, the city shall fall and a third part be taken, before the Lord at his coming removes the flood of eminence and restores his people. Why should we need to get a balanced view of these things? Why, because, my brothers, it seems to me that living here in the West, we could easily take a view without thinking that if we were missionaries in some parts of the world, would appear to those to whom we preach the gospel as grievously unfair. That mo- moves me to say, shall we not in these days remember our good brothers and sisters who are missionaries in countries that are filled with adherents of the Muslim faith? I remember quietly speaking to some of our Arab brethren in the assembly at Nazareth. They told me how that God had helped them to love the Jews, and therefore their testimony with the Jews was in good standing. They told me privately how unjust and iniquitous had been some of the behavior of the Israelis, and how difficult they found it when starry-eyed Christians came and told them how is the Israelis now back in their land were God's favored people and were doing nothing wrong. For the gospel's sake, for the truth of God and his character's sake, we do need to get a balanced view of what the prophets say is happening. The fall of Jerusalem then, in its significance, I need not trouble you long here, you know it better than I. There were, according to Matthew chapter one two great antecedents, two great forebears of the Messiah. The one was Abraham, the other was David. God did a unique thing when he called out Abraham. It wasn't that in calling out Abraham, God left the whole world lost and doomed to perish. What was happening is this, that in those days the Gentile world, the whole world, had slithered down the slippery slope into idolatry and were fast going down into the bondage and the immorality that accompanies such an idolatrous interpretation of the universe. That God in his mercy raised up a protest and drew Abraham out of the Gentile world and gave him a vision of the glory of the true God and set him up and his descendants as a witness on earth, one place on earth at least, where Gentiles might look to see the truth of the true God and be delivered from the bondage and the superstitions of an idolatrous interpretation of the universe. We, of course, need that message still. Our modern world in the West does not bow down before sticks and stones of idols. Our modern world is saturated with agnosticism, if not atheism. And atheism, as any schoolboy knows, reintroduces into men's thinking an idolatrous interpretation of the universe. It doesn't really matter whether you say the sun is a bit of stuff or it's a god. It doesn't matter whether you call the basic forces of the universe, weak atomic power, strong atomic power, gravity, electromagnetism, call it what you will. If you hold that there is no personal creator, then you are driven to the idolatrous view of the universe that the ancient Gentile nations had. They called these forces, as far as they understood them, gods. We don't call them gods, but the atheist proclaims what the Gentiles, the old idolatry Gentiles believed, that these are the ultimate powers that control man, his birth, his life, his death, and eventual extinction. And they leave our modern world as they left the ancient world in the darkness of ultimate hopelessness. Slaves to the great physical forces of the universe that man cannot ultimately control, but will one day destroy him. It was a glorious gospel message that God preached to mankind when he led Abram out of that Gentile morass and showed him a sight of his own true glory as the living God creator, and set up a relationship between himself and Abraham that should be a pattern for all men everywhere. He taught Abraham not only the truth of God, but how to be right with God, thus delivering him from the slaveries of religion, teaching Abraham what he has taught millions since through Abraham, that man is justified by faith without works. There was another prong to God's strategy, not only to raise up Abraham, but eventually David. David, the anointed of the Lord, prototype of the coming Messiah. So that just as God promised to Abraham that in his seed should all the nations of the world one day be blessed, so now in raising up David, God guaranteed to David that his dynasty would prevail, and that one day of his dynasty, God would raise up his Messiah to displace all the kings, princes, and tyrants that have ever you- ruled, and substitute his own gracious son as king of kings and lord of lords. It was therefore a very significant point in history when King David, at last accepted by all Israel as God's anointed king, went to the tiny little village of Jebus, captured it, and turned it into Jerusalem City, city of David the king, city destined to play such a part in history, destined still one day to be the center of world trouble and world politics. Why then did God eventually allow that city to be destroyed? Why then, having made a covenant with David, that David should never lack a man to sit upon his throne? Why was it, having made a covenant with David, that he would not cut off his sons after him like he cut off Saul? But when his son should be born, then God himself would be a father to that, uh, son of David, and he should be to God as a son. Why then? God not only allowed Jerusalem city to fall, but the Davidic line to be brought low, and the monarchy ceased. The godly in Israel found it a very s- a very painful problem. Read Psalm eighty nine and listen to the psalmist saying to God, God, where are your promises to David? You made a covenant with David. Hey, what has happened to your covenant? For all our holy places are destroyed, and David's throne is no more. And the unbeliever said, there's no problem. The whole story was a myth anyway. It was just the old Hebrews, Jews, with their national pride and jingoism, imagining that they were God's blue-eyed spirit boys, inventing a lot of so-called promises from their God that their king one day should rule the world, thus justifying all their slaughter and oppression of the surrounding nations. And now the fall of Jerusalem has proved there was never anything in it at all. The The problem problem. still vexes many Israelis, doesn't it? Those who would believe. How shall they square the promises given to King David of old with the facts that stare them in the face? And still to this present, amongst the vast majority of the world, the question is still at stake. What about this Jerusalem? And all that it stood for in the past. Was it true? Is it so that the transcendent Lord and God of the universe set up Jerusalem as the royal seat of his divinely anointed Messiah David as a prototype and placeholder for the coming royal Messiah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Or must we surrender it all as a myth that the stern realities of modern life have blown to pieces? Jesus. As we ask ourselves those questions, one answer comes immediately back. Why did God let Jerusalem fall? Because of his people's sin. Sin. God had put him to the day to present himself in the temple at Jerusalem. The people of Israel claimed to know God as no other nation on earth knew him. But while they professed to know him, their behavior became so sickeningly evil that their rituals in the temple at Jerusalem disgusted God. I cannot away with it, he said, I cannot bear it. Your solemn feasts on the one hand and your shady business deals on the other. Cannot put up with your so-called fasts. When you go out from your religious observances and oppress the poor, just like any old unprincipled Gentile businessman. I'll not put up with it. Alas, says God, as he breaks his heart to and through the, uh, great prophet Isaiah. Why, he said, an old ox, poor old beast, it hasn't got all that much sense in its head, has it? The poor old beast, it knows its owner's stall, and a donkey knows its master's crib. They know their master by instinct, but Israel, my people. They don't know me. They know my name, but they don't know me. And later, in later centuries, John addressed the same warning to us, did he not? He that saith he knows God and keeps not his commandments, the same as a liar. And the truth is not in him. So did Israel abuse their temple, and it is not Christian anti-Semitism that says so, it's their loyal great prophet Isaiah himself. Not only did the Jews of the time abuse their temple, but their kings descendant of David, misbehaved themselves and acted just like the old Gentile kings did, many of them, favoring the rich and oppressing the poor, living in sin and corruption. And God would not stick it. And to remove the temple. And to remove the line of David. And allowed the city to be destroyed. If that be the ca- the case, it seems to me we have here one very big piece of evidence. Now this ancient claim made by Israel that they were the chosen nation of the earth is indeed true. Listen to what God said through Isaiah to the, to Amos, to these same people. You only have I known, said he, from all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will visit upon you your iniquities. This claim in the Old Testament that Israel are God's special people, ladies and gentlemen, is no jingoism. It is not that Israel got the idea that they were God's blue-eyed boys and could do no wrong. They were always God's favorites. He would always be on their side, whatever they did. Or if they did think that, then God took steps in history to prove them wrong and disabuse them of the idea. God certainly had known them, chosen them, unique among the nations of the earth, and the evidence of that is its consequence. God would deal more severely with their sins than he had dealt with any other nation. One pauses to reflect. We haven't much room to speak, have we, as Christian people? How often we have lived substandard Christian lives, professing one thing at the spiritual level and doing another in our daily living. If God had dealt with us with the severity he has used in dealing with his ancient people, where should we be? Here on the face of history, in the fall of Jerusalem in these long centuries ago, and in the history that followed, is one big piece of evidence that the story of God's choice of Israel is true. And how it would break your heart, wouldn't it? If half of these prophecies are true, what yet shall come upon that loved and longed for nation as they continue in their hardness of heart against God and his Messiah. It seems to me that the importance of noticing this, therefore, is not that we pride ourselves as believers or join or foster anti- any anti-Semitism. And it seems to me that we do well to guard our speech as we speak to the world at large. For instance, God promised the land, didn't he, to Abraham and to his seed, so he did. That doesn't mean that every physical descendant of Abraham will inherit that land, does it? Paul explains in Galatians chapter three that the seed meant by God in that ancient covenant was none other than the Messiah himself. And I remind you tonight, my brothers and sisters, that the title deeds to the land of Israel are vested in the Messiah. And none can spit in the face of the Messiah and say, because of Genesis fifteen but nevertheless I have a right to the land of Israel. The land is covenanted to Abraham and his seed, I repeat. That seed, says Holy Scripture, is Christ. And an Israel that rejects their Messiah has no claim on the fulfillment of that covenant. It would be a monstrous thought and a thing to say, wouldn't it? To say that Israelis who would spit in the face of their God-given Messiah nonetheless have a right to live in the land promised to Abraham and his seed. Let us remind ourselves of the facts. In the first part of Isaiah, we read how that in the end, under God's judgments, God brought the Assyrians up and turned the ten tribes out of their land. Through I- Hosea the prophet, God had said, they are not my people. One day they will be reinstated. I've never read anywhere else in scripture how subsequent to Hosea's prophecy, they have yet been reinstated, have you? If God meant what he said in Hosea chapter one, um the ten tribes were set aside, lo ammi, not my people. What isn't that God has cast away the people he foreknew? Listen to Paul in Romans eleven. Has God cast away his people whom he foreknew? Certainly not, he hasn't. There is also still a remnant, says Paul, and for that matter, I'm one of them. And all along the long centuries, God has left a remnant of his people. Isaiah was saying it in chapter one, except the Lord left us a remnant, we should be like southern Gamarra, but he has left us a remnant. And to this very present time, there is a remnant. One day, the nation as a whole shall be restored. But we need to guard our language and our thinking when we think about their present state. So let us take one or two lessons from this ancient prophecy. Now, I don't know how you find the prophecy of Isaiah. It's sixty six long chapters often make it difficult for the likes of me to get my fingers around it somehow. I don't know about you. I have my favorite verses in it. Sometimes the verses extend to nearly full chapters, but somehow getting hold of the whole is a trifle difficult, is it not? And so I look for ways to try and find it, uh, make it a little bit easier to look at. And it is quite easy, isn't it? There are three parts to this great prophecy. There are the first 35 chapters. They are all about, uh, for the most part, statements that Isaiah made, inspired of God, prophecies about his nation and the nations around him. Prophecy in that sense, the first thirty five chapters. Then there come some chapters of history, chapter thirty six and thirty seven, thirty eight and thirty nine. Chapters of history, straightforward history about, uh, Hezekiah, one of the kings of Judah. And after that, from chapter uh forty onwards, there comes the last piece of the book, once more all about prophecy. Yes. We might put it this way, then, in those three parts. The first section of prophecy, chapters one to thirty five, is about Israel in the days when the great Gentile power was Assyria, not Syria, Assyria. Assyria that was the biggest empire that the world had seen up to that time. In those first thirty five chapters, therefore, you will see Judah quaking in its shoes under the ever-growing shadow of this vast military machine that was the imperial army of the Assyrians. Assyrians set upon world conquest if they could possibly achieve it. In the first third of the book, therefore, Israel is shown us, and particularly the kings of Judah, up against the background of the Assyrians. Then comes the middle section of history. In the last third of the book, from chapter forty um onwards, the Assyrians have long since lapsed out of sight. Now it's a question of the Babylonians, for they were the empire, Neo-Babylonia, that followed Assyria. The Assyrians never destroyed Jerusalem, never destroyed its temple, never destroyed its kings. They made the kings of Judah to vassal kings, but they never destroyed it, never took it. What the Assyrians didn't do, the Babylonians did under Nebuchadnezzar the Great, and Jerusalem was destroyed. At the last third of the prophet Isaiah prophesies the wonderful days when Israel should be restored and delivered from the Babylonians and brought back into her land, and the land should be restored, and the Messiah would come and introduce the great millennial reign of God. Three parts of the book. It's helpful, therefore, to remember. First bit is about the Assyrians, last bit's about the Babylonians, and the middle bit is about Hezekiah. Sometimes I think it's a good part to s- place to start to think about the middle bit of history, for it preaches us certain tactical lessons at its start, and then it forms a prototype of coming things. Eventually, in the days of Hezekiah, when the kings of Judah that had preceded him had compromised with a great emperor of the Assyrians. Eventually the emperor of the Assyrians brought up his vast military machine. It was a multinational force, for that was the way of the Assyrians. They caught the very best of all the nations and forced them into their armies. It was a multinational war machine, and they came through the land of Israel, swallowing up all the little nations around, like God had said they would through Isaiah the prophet. God had prophesied a day when this great Gentile imperial machine would be like a river raging over its banks. They'll overflow thy land, oh Emmanuel, and come right up to the neck. And so they did. I wonder, can you picture it? What happened in those far off days? There was little Jerusalem stuck up on its mountain ridge, like Jerusalem is to this day. And here were the vast armies of the Syrians coming in like a flood all around the land. They took not merely the other little nations, but they took the cities of Judea, they took Lachish, and they took Arad, and they took all those southern cities, eh, in the Negev, and the northern cities as well. They had long since taken the ten tribes away. Now they came around Jerusalem. The emperor himself was down at Lachish, sacking Lachish and the monument to his great effort is to be found to this day still in the British Museum, is it not? Busy himself with Lachish and intending to move after that to take Jerusalem, he came out to Jeru- or at least he sent his Rab Sheikah, his second in command, to speak to Jerusalem. And as he stood with his diplomats by his side, shouting over the walls of Jerusalem deliberately in the language the people could understand. That shaker in the name of the king of Assyria mocks Israel, mocks their God. Come on out, he said to Hezekiah. Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria. He wasn't over bashful, the king of Assyria. In his own documents, he had himself called the king of the universe. Ah, says the great king, the king of Assyria. I've gobbled up all the other nations. You'll be no exception. Don't you think to say that your god Jehovah is someone special? I've taken gods galore. All these nations around had their gods. I dismantled them. I shall do the same thing to your, what do you call your god, Jehovah or something? I shall do the same to him. There's nothing in it. You can teach the people to rely upon their god. I'll show you what is the ultimate determinate- determinant in human affairs? The ultimate determinant is sheer military might. That's what rules it. Now don't let Hezekiah deceive you, he said to the common people, rise up against your stupid monarch. Give up all this nonsense about the reality of Jehovah and Jehovah being different and come out! And Hezekiah, who hitherto had compromised and become a vassal to the great Assyrian, now strengthened by the prophecies of Isaiah the prophet, perched out there in his little Jerusalem, like a shed in a cucumber field, with the vast might of the Assyrians around him, dared to defy this tyrant. And God vindicated him, and God did a miracle, and the Assyrian army crept away with its tail between its legs. Now, what a story. It's one of the very early prototypes of what yet shall be, is it not? Or in the course of the centuries, there have from time to time appeared on the face of this world God-defying monarchs. The Pharaoh of the oppression was one of them. Who is Jehovah, said he? And God had to demonstrate who Jehovah was to let his people go. The Assyrian was. Antiochus Epiphanes was a third. The great self-deifying Roman emperors were yet others. Be warned, says Scripture, this will repeat itself at the end. The question whether what Jerusalem ultimately stands for is nothing less than this. This Old Testament story that there is a God, transcendent Lord Creator, who not only made our world, but he actually chose Israel to be his people. Chose David as his anointed forerunner of Messiah. Is that story true? And Jerusalem shall be the place on earth where the God-defying forces shall at last gather to imagine that they're going to blot out the name and claim of God from the face of the earth. And God shall there deal with them and demonstrate his reality at the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord. Isaiah is full of the promise that what God did for Hezekiah, God will one do, one day do on a bigger scale. When the nations come, they shall succeed so far that part of the city of the Jerusalem shall fall, and then the Lord will come. He shall destroy the evil one of that end time by the brightness of his appearing. Hezekiah, after that, fell ill. And then God listening to his prayers, the man recovered. And God promised him that there should be not only recovery for him, but recovery for his people. He gave him an eloquent sign that the sun's shadow should go back ten degrees on the sundial of Ahaz. Well, it needed to, didn't it, because Ahaz had got the nations in a terrible mess. And God gave the nation a reprieve. And there rose up one more great, uh, reformer by the name of Josiah, to add a little more years of life to the Davidic monarchy. The third story about Hezekiah is a very interesting one. After he got better, there came the envoys from the king of Babylon. Well, that's what he called himself. His name in Hebrew is, is given as Merodach-Baladan. Now I better explain to you who that gentleman was. He was king of Babylon in this sense, that at that time the Assyrians ruled Babylon. The Assyrians' capital was Nineveh, not Babylon, but the Assyrian, the great political power, had conquered Babylon. Conquered Babylon and her great city, her great temples, her religion, and her commerce. Well, the temple in the ancient world was not only a seat of religion, it was a seat of commerce. The great Esagila temple in, in, in Babylon was exceedingly wealthy. Its priests acted like bankers, and thereby controlled by their loans the agriculture and the industry of a whole area. The Assyrians had conquered Babylon, and their want was to put in Babylon a puppet king who should rule for them. But so often, as soon as the back of the Assyrian was turned, the kings of Babylon conspired, their rulers conspired, they were always working against the Assyrians, well, the Babylonians, to try and get confederacies of nations, Egypt or the Hebrews or the Syrians or the Moabites or somebody, trying to work up a confederacy of nations to oust the Ninevites. And on this occasion, Merodach Babylon- Ba- Baladan, the old rascal he was, so-called king of Babylon, plotting against his lord and master, the Assyrians, sent envoys to Hezekiah to congratulate him on his recovery, truly. And Hezekiah, foolish man, showed him all his treasures. And Isaiah warned Hezekiah the day will come when the Babylonians will come up and they'll strip you of every treasure you have. Lesson number one. In the history now, uh, repeats, shows you an example of what the prophet is so constantly saying. That Israel had a fatal tendency, instead of looking to God, the living Lord, to protect them, to rely upon the military might of the Gentile neighbors. Now it would be Egypt. Now it would be Babylon. And the prophets thundered at them for their folly. Why could they not stand and dare to trust God? Why must they reduce their whole testimony to God to a mere military struggle? Just like the Gentile nations did it. That is still the issue, isn't it? There are God-fearing sections of, of Judaism, particularly the Hasidic Jews of New York, that will have no truck whatever with the modern state of Israel. It's not that the Hasidic Jews of New York don't believe that Old Testament, they believe it, every word of it. But they've read deeply in it. And to the modern state of Israel, they quote their Old Testament, uh, prophet Isaiah. Only Messiah, say they, can save and restore Israel. Modern Israeli state, dependent upon the great Gentile powers for its salvation. That, say the Hasidic Jews of New York, is going down to Egypt for help. And if it came to an argument between the Hasidic Jews of New York and the state of Israel, on which side would you have me come down? Shades of things to come. One day the great political power shall arise, the beast, and on his back will be Babylon. And Babylon will argue in the name of religion that because we're all fighting the same atheist threat, we all ought to be together. And part of Israel will be deceived and seek by those means to protect his testimony for goddom, and shall be brought to disaster. What ought Israel to be standing for? I can only take one lesson. I want to take one lesson from the first third of the book, and one lesson from the second, and I want to compare and contrast them. It will take me, I should think, about six minutes to do it. What ought Israel to be standing for now, at this present, among the nations? What ought she to be standing for? Come back with me, Isaiah chapter seven following, to the time when Ahaz was reigning on the throne of Judah. He heard say that the ten tribes up the road were now confederate with the Syrians, and the ten tribes and the Syrians had a plan. They were going to come down to Jerusalem with their armies, depose Ahaz, the kings of David's line, and put another king in their place. And when little Ahaz heard that, he quailed like a feather in the wind. What should he do to preserve the great house of David from the attacks of the apostate ten tribes, Confederate now with the Syrians in Damascus? What should he do? Ahab, using his little head, decided that the thing to do at this stage was to call in the great imperial Assyrians and get the Assyrians to support him so that they should crush the ten tribes and Syria. Isaiah met him in the road one day and pleaded with the man not to call in the Assyrians. You fool, Ahaz. Well, even I, with my tiny little brain, can see how foolish it was. Fancy calling in the Assyrians to support you against the ten tribes and against Syria? Well, couldn't he see what Assyria would do? You invited Syria in. He wouldn't come and deliver you and say, well, now goodbye. He'd come and take over. Look, look, Ahaz, old chap, he said, why can't you trust God? Isn't that what you stand for, old boy? I tell you what, said Isaiah to Ahaz, I tell you what, um, ask a sign, ask a sign of God that God will be with you and God will deliver you. Now ask a sign. Ahaz was such a politician and used to real hard-headed affairs. He said he wouldn't travel, he wouldn't be liking to tempt the Lord God, wouldn't ask for a sign. Went on with his power politics. Then says God, I'll give you a sign. A virgin shall conceive and bear a baby. And Ahaz shook his worldly wise head and said, did you ever hear such drivel? So man has the trouble with these clerics. They live in their ivory towers, don't they? Here's the mass night of the ten tribes and Assyria coming against us, and he talks about a virgin, if you please, and a baby. Now, now make sense of that if you can. How do you suppose I'm going to survive in this world of power politics, knowing about virgins and babies? Ought he to have put his faith in it. Ah, you know, this is what Israel should still be standing for, isn't it? The virgin and a baby. His name, Immanuel, God with us. Ahaz is long since gone. One day the virgin brought forth the child, and he's called God with us. Pray see it, my brothers and sisters. God's answer to the power politics of this world is the babe of Bethlehem. You say it won't work. Israel were later on faced with the very babe of Bethlehem, weren't they, grown up? And he stood before Pilate, and Pilate said, young man, don't you know I've got the power to deliver you? I have the power to crucify you, young man. Ah, this world is obsessed with power, isn't it? Last they preached the greatness of their kings. They're obsessed with power. The mere power will solve nothing ultimately, will it? What should Israel have been witnessing to? The true God. His true king. The answer to the tyrannies of this earth. The little babe. God. Incarnate. I like that vision given to us in the book of the Revelation. Chapter twelve. The chapter comes as an introduction before the prophecies of the time when our world will see the ultimate dictator prancing around on earth with all his embattled might. He shall sit in the very temple of God, giving himself off that he is God. Satan's great masterpiece. The Satan who first put the lie into man's heart in the Garden of Eden. Take the tree and you shall be as God. The ultimate end of Gentile power politics, when under the influence of Satan, the great dictator shall try to be God, raising himself to the level of God, and with divine humor, God paints the background to it all, and there's, ah, there in heaven is a woman, and she's with child. Huh? With what child? Oh, wonder of wonders. When man on earth is trying to ape God, what's God doing? God is becoming man. Which governor would you like to be under? Which king? God is omnipotent. God has declared, as I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. When God demands that all bow down and confess, it shall not be the command of a tyrant, will it? It will be in the name of Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped at to be equal with God, but humbled himself and became a servant. Being found in a fashion as man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death. What a marvelous story. Thank God the ultimate history rests with him. Not a question of who has the biggest power. God Almighty has the biggest power by definition. The question is, what kind of a ruler shall he be, who shall have ultimate dominion? And I know which one you've chosen, who sit here tonight, obedient subjects of the Lord Christ. And what subdued you? Tell me, was it the fear of his forked lightning? Was it his divine bombs directed at your heart with his laser beams? No, you say, no, no. My rebel heart would have withstood all the threatenings of God's almighty power and hell combined. Then what subdued you? You say, I discovered what God is like, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who being in the form of God, for my sakes, humbled himself, became a man, and became obedient until death, and at the death of the cross. Marvelous story. That's what Israel should be standing for. But they have missed their way. One final contrast. We come back to the two chapters that we read. Once more, you may take your pick. For in chapter fourteen thirteen, God begins to talk not just to Israel, but to the nations. The godless nations, warning them where their time will end up. Here in chapter fourteen is the story of the king of Babylon. It is the name that the kings of Assyria from sometimes took. He is an Assyrian, really, though he's technically the king of Babylon. It's the story of that kind of king who exalted himself above all that is called God. A great luminous tyrant fell, and as he fell, all the kings of the earth came out of their graves and had a look. Are you the great tyrant that caused the whole earth to tremble? Just look at you, poor. And you come down to the grave. Well, you won't even have a decent grave, they say, for all the kings of the earth are in their graves, be it in the cathedral or elsewhere, but they're all nicely tucked away in their coffins, and you? Thrown on the land like manure. Your seed shall perish. Ah, yes, there's coming a day when man's vainglory shall meet its proper end. Who now claps at the remembrance of Alexander the Great, I wonder? Or Antiochus Epiphanes? Or Nero Caesar? Who worships the memory of Adolf Hitler? Or Stalin. And one day the great Satan-inspired dictator would be brought to the ashes, his name cast out forever, and his seed no more. Look what destruction he made in the earth. Can you count the millions? How many millions did Hitler do away with, or Stalin, or Alexander the Great, or Napoleon? And what for? To what end, to what good? What a cursed world it's been. And what should Israel be standing for? Trying to match dictators like that? No, no. As yet they will not have it, will they? One day the Messiah will come, and with almighty power he will destroy the wicked. There you are, you say he, he, he, he's going to use power one day, isn't he, and obliterate the wicked. What's the difference between him and them? I can tell you the difference. Listen to Messiah, as now he calls on the Gentiles. The Lord has anointed me not only to bring Israel back, to bring you Gentiles home to God. How? Oh, listen to the story again. For kings shall shut their mouths at him. For he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. It is true that before this world can be put right, it will have to be deluged with judgment. But Mark who it is that will do it, and mark his qualifications to do it. Who is worthy to take the book, to unloose its seals, that shall deluge our world with judgment, remove the wicked, and set up the paradise of God? Who is worthy? And the answer is the lion of the tribe of Judah, for he was slain and has redeemed us to God by his blood out of every kindred, people, tongue, tribe, and nation. All my brothers, my sisters. How sad is Israel? They should have been witnessing to that Messiah. But for the most part, their eyes are blinded. They're calling on the Assyrians and goodness knows who else to help them maintain their vision of a restored state of Israel, and it will not do. The only answer is the Messiah they've rejected. But one day, God be praised, will they be reconciled to him. God give us wisdom in all our Christian testimony to remember what God's answer is, and not allow ourselves or our message to become compromised with other messages that are not the true gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord.