Humbled or Humiliated? A Sermon from Isaiah 2:1-11

The book of Isaiah is a tremendous book in our Bible. Its theme describes the heart of God.

God’s desire is not to destroy but to use judgment to refine and make us a people of purpose.

This is what God was doing with His people in this Scripture. God was working in their life to help them fulfill their purpose as a nation.

I’m glad today that we are a people of purpose. 

Ephesians 1:11 ‘In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will”

Ephesians 3:11 “According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord”

We are not in this world to just survive or exist, but God has given to us a defined purpose. To live for Him and reflect His glory to a world that is confused and backward.

In the book of Isaiah, God teaches us this truth.

Note: In the first five chapters of the book of Isaiah, we constantly see these flashes between their present condition and where God wants them to be.

Note: Remember that God isn’t interested in destruction but construction.

Illustration: When my son was younger, we would get something that needed to be put together, and He would always say - Here! He would tell me (handing me the paper from the box) that these are the destructions (not instructions).

Note: GOD desires that we live for His will, follow His will, and do what is right because that is where HIS blessing is found.

Note: God’s purpose is to build our lives, not tear them down.

Let’s consider the condition of Israel for a moment.

We are going to go back to chapter one as our introduction to my message this morning and consider these people that the Lord is speaking to:

Introduction 

A. The Condition Of Israel

Notice their sinful condition.

They are called a rebellious people (Verse 2).

Note: They didn’t care about what God wanted for them, His instruction, or purpose for their life. They were more concerned about what they wanted to do.

Illustration: David was a man after God’s heart because David was interested in the purpose of God for his life and God’s work among the Nation of Israel. Saul was busy trying to push forward His own agenda.

Note: (Verse 3) An OX and a Donkey know where their crib is; the children of Israel didn’t know where to find protection and nourishment.

Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in him, and I am helped: Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”

Note: They went backward. Anytime we follow our will and not God’s, it’s a backward step (Jonah went away from God and followed his own will)

Note: (Verse 8) Like a lean-to in the cucumber field and a small shelter in a vineyard - Israel had left the Glory of the Great God and all His HELP and provisions for their life to a small shelter that wouldn’t help them in the storms of life.

Note: The cities are desolate and destroyed.

B. The Cure According To Israel

Israel had been so influenced by the pagan world around them that they started to treat the God of Heaven like an earthly idol.

Note: They brought God down to their level.

What did they do?

Note: (Verse 11-15) - They started to offer more sacrifices to God in hopes that they could manipulate Him

Illustration: That’s what the pagans did. When they wanted their gods to act, they would offer sacrifices to their false gods so they would give in and let them have their way. They would try to appease them with their service.

Important: It’s human nature to try to control God in our lives. We will sometimes serve the Lord and give in hopes that God will do our WILL. This is sinful.

How does God respond?

Isaiah 1:10–11 “Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; Give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.”

Note: The purpose of all these sacrifices was to reveal the heart condition of humanity, but Israel did not have a proper heart.

Note: David understood this in Psalm 51. When Nathan the prophet revealed to David His sinful heart, he says in verse 16 that God didn’t delight in burnt offerings, or that is what David would give. God wanted a broken spirit, a crushed will before God.

C. The Cure According To God

What solves this problem?

Note: He says let’s reason together. Though your sin is red, it can be white as snow. God has provided a solution for our sin.

Note: Make clean; this is prophetically speaking of the work of Jesus: to have faith in God’s redemptive work, which would take place one day.

Note: The answer to Israel’s success is given: a heart of service out of love and devotion to God, a proper perspective of sin.

Note: If we do well, God will bless us, and we can eat of the blessings of God. If we refuse (and follow our own will), We will be destroyed.

Now, we come to the second chapter.

We find this interposed truth. We separate from the present, and we’re presented with a future picture.

This future event reveals for us the heart of God. 

The purpose of God is for these SERVANT people.

Isaiah 2:1-11 “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, That the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of his ways, And we will walk in his paths: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  And he shall judge among the nations, And shall rebuke many people: And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruninghooks: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye, And let us walk in the light of the Lord. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, Because they be replenished from the east, And are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they please themselves in the children of strangers. Their land also is full of silver and gold, Neither is there any end of their treasures; Their land is also full of horses, Neither is there any end of their chariots: Their land also is full of idols; They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, And the great man humbleth himself: Therefore forgive them not. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, And upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, And upon all the oaks of Bashan, And upon all the high mountains, And upon all the hills that are lifted up, And upon every high tower, And upon every fenced wall, And upon all the ships of Tarshish, And upon all pleasant pictures. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, And the haughtiness of men shall be made low: And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, And into the caves of the earth, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, Which they made each one for himself to worship, To the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, And into the tops of the ragged rocks, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: For wherein is he to be accounted of?”