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It Shall Be Well With the Righteous
A Study in Isaiah Chapter Three
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone, California, United States
Delivery: 2007-10-07 00:50Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2007-10-07 00:50Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-isaiah3.php
Today, we continue our study of the first chapters in Isaiah. In many ways, the third chapter, if read in isolation, is one of the gloomiest. After chapter one and the declaration of Israel’s rebellion, and two, closing with the admonition, “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils,” that is, do not put your trust in human people because they are unreliable and they die, we come to three.
Removal of Material Blessing and Social Structure People
Isaiah chapter three outlines God’s judgments and interventions concerning Jerusalem and Judah. Some of it might surprise. But let us pay close attention, for He is consistent in His dealing with His people—both in the time of the Hebrews, and now. Standby to discover hope in an unexpected place.
For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator (Isa 3:1-3).
God intervenes in the life of Israel. He removes all the food, all the water. More important (what could be more important than food and water!?), God removes also the staff—godly leaders. He removes material sustenance, and He removes intelligent, effectual leadership. The mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent, the ancient—all are taken away. The mighty man is the class of war heroes. The man of war is the basic soldier. The judge is the maintainer of justice and social order. The prophet, is the one who speaks for God. The prudent and the ancient are those known for wisdom and fairness, for the kind of long-term experience in leadership that is gained only through years of learning by doing. To remove such people is to overturn a society. These are the very people you need to run a healthy nation. God takes them away. In short time, He has removed the perpetuators of community. Life becomes a desperate scramble to gather the bare food for survival.
But He is not done. Not only does he remove the people who bring stability and structure to society, He replaces them with incompetents. He says, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them” (Isa 3:4). In place of the steady, the thoughtful, the mature person who has his eye not only on personal but communal interests, the inexperienced is given positions of authority. There is parallel here in verse 12 as well:
As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
Here, the inexperienced are shown again, children and women. This is not a strike against godly women exercising godly and appropriate leadership within their God-granted sphere. It is a recognition that in Israel in the time of Isaiah, women, like children, both lacked leadership experience in administrative social positions. I do not see the details of female psychological predisposition for leadership in view here as much as the divine intention to remove all wise leadership from Israel. The point here is that leadership is intentionally given over by God from the capable to the inexperienced. God is removing the stay and the staff.
The result of the replacement leadership God has provided is oppression. The nation gets what—they think—they want. But it is disaster. However, pay attention. It is not the new government that is doing the oppressing. Instead, under the new regime, the people oppress each other. Everything is turned upside down. The youth oppresses the aged, the wicked oppresses the righteous. Very soon, God has accomplished His purposes. The society has been torn down to a disordered mass.
What would the parallel be for God’s Church today? The experienced, the godly, the prophet, would be removed. A kind of leader would be brought in whose decisions would promote the dissolution of the church. Policies would be introduced that bring the immature and unequipped into leadership. The inexperienced would take the reigns. The new policies would eventually bring matters to a situation of mixed messages, unclarity about the mission of the people of God. With the prophet hidden, the lead would be taken by uninspired men. A sense of drift would come to dominate.
Breakdown
When this state is reached, we have come to verses 6-8. In verse six people are searching for someone, anyone, to take the reins of leadership. In keeping with their narcissistic orientation and the chaotic situation in society, they try turning to the richest among themselves. They search for someone with just a bit more wealth to ask if they will consent to be called leader. Verse seven shows the prospective leader denying any material wealth, refusing to take the reigns of leadership.
Verse eight is either the prospective leader’s comment or Isaiah’s; it is not clear. But what is clear is that at this point, God has ruined Jerusalem and Judah, and the reason for the development of this situation is because God’s people have provoked Him by their doings and their chattering. Here, there is a recognition of their rebellion and guilt. Everything is broken and they know that it is because of their sin that there is disarray. Although this moment looks the most hopeless, it is actually the most fraught with hope. Why? Because Heaven has accomplished its purpose. There is for them, at last, a mental linkage between the people’s behavior and God’s intervention that has brought His people to their knees. At last, God can work.
Reap What You Sow
Here are verses 9-11:
In spite of the recognition that God has intervened because they have persisted in sin, many are hardened in their rebellion. They are unrepentant. They reap the results of their rebellion. But the contrast is that the righteous, the one who does good, receives the fruit of his own doings. His goodness returns upon himself.
He is experiencing already the harmony of how God’s universe works. Unselfishness begets unselfishness, love begets love, right-doing begets right-doing. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you works out in others doing unto you as they would have done unto themselves. This is the way the universe is designed to work. We receive to give and in giving we soon receive. In loving and respecting others and treating them as godly people would treat them, we ourselves are blessed in the returning echo of goodness. None of this is possible on our own, but all of it is possible with God’s help.
Ancients Weighed
We already looked at verse 12, which forms a hinge here containing verses 5-11. But here we move to God’s judgement of the ancients, the previous leaders.
The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts (3:13-15).
It seems that God judges the unfaithful leaders, only to introduce even more unfaithful leaders. What gives? How can this be? The ancients and princes are judged for their materialism, their indifference to the poor, their unconcern for the nation. It is because they have refused God’s principles that the situation had become so corrupt that it was beyond repair. In order to bring change, God must hasten the collapse of that order. The poor replacement leaders that are introduced are sent to speed the collapse. The collapse is the outcome intended by God. He responds to man’s unfaithfulness by bringing him to a place where he can experience recognition of his need.
The ancients and princes are judged for their unfaithfulness. They knew better. They put ease ahead of faithful dealing. Responsibility for the need for social collapse and reestablishment is theirs. A later generation experiences the consequences, harder elements of existence, because of the unfaithfulness of the previous. And so, when it becomes necessary for God to turn and overturn, He holds those accountable who have neglected their duties and brought unnecessary sorrow upon His children. Truly the responsibility of the God-fearing leader is awesome. It cannot be avoided by asking for a lower position. Our very capacities for good condemn us when we choose positions of ease. While it is perilous to serve, it is perilous to willfully elect not to serve when called.
Narcissism Condemned
Isaiah 3:16-24 is a rather long stretch devoted to the materialism and narcissism of the children of the ancients and princes. This is all about personal display. The ladies are walking about decked in every kind of attention-getting ornamentation. Scarves, chains, bracelets, you name it. We are not sure what all these articles of adornment were. We don’t need to be. These were daughters of the nation, and as the people were sinking away from God’s ideal, they were caught up in parading about while clicking, rustling, and swishing. Their behavior was emblematic of the problems of God’s people. They are described in some detail, as is the divine reaction.
He will bring their pride down. They parade their flesh, He will expose it for their shame. They will be brought low. And today how many of our people are self-absorbed while their mission in the world goes unfulfilled? God has some serious things on His agenda, like the end of sin, like the development of a righteous, holy people. Meanwhile many who claim to belong to Him spend their energies preening themselves for immorality. I can sin now and repent later, they say.
And Finally, Judgment
The chapter ends with these somber words:
Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground (Isa 3:25, 26).
So there it is. Israel’s sins become so great that God judges her leaders, and replaces them with those whose work will more rapidly bring collapse and thus recognition of need for repentance. At last, he permits the nation to be invaded, the city sacked. A grim ending indeed.
We cannot ignore God and His will with impunity. God is not mocked. This is always the place where false religion goes. It becomes a comparison of externals versus externals. The heart and the spiritual concerns are, at last, left behind. Then will come, as sure as the sunrise, the judgments of God.
Why? Is this His wrath showing itself? Or is it because He loves us and views us as under His discipline? Some texts:
Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee (Deut 8:5).
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Heb 12:7).
Israel is identified by God as being His son. A son is under the training of the parent. That means not only positive dealings but setting and maintaining boundaries as well. Not out of a power-trip, but because one loves another too much to spoil him. And God loves His people too much to spoil them. Our happiness is riding on how He addresses—or fails to address—our behavior when we have intentionally departed from His will.
The universality of parental discipline is noted in the Hebrews quote. Every father who is serious about being a father disciplines his child. By this I do not mean spanking, but I mean the more general discipline. And just here is some good news.
If God had given up on Israel, what then? Would He spend time and energy and effort to teach them anything at all, or would He simply permit their destruction and move on with things? You know that is what it would be. But that is not what He did. Israel had a very long period of guiding and disciplining. God still loved His people, His son, Israel. Today, God still loves His people, His bride, His church.
Here is the parallel for us then: If we are God’s people, and if He loves us, and if we go astray, and if we have not passed the point of no return, then He will intervene according to the riches of His wisdom and seek a way to lead us back home. Which raises the question, How closely does the church parallel Israel today?
In too many ways we seem to be repeating the history of Israel. We could offer several quotations attesting to that idea. And yet, there is something different that we anticipate will happen for us. For as Israel was granted many opportunities and finally failed, we understand that in the last remnant of time, the last remnant of God’s church will succeed. We have what we call the shaking. We alluded to it, in fact, in the Isaiah chapter two sermon. God kept bringing truth to bear on Israel, and finally, as a nation she failed and went completely off the tracks. God is working with us now. What is the story on that then?
I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen, and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people (Early Writings, p. 270).
Jesus, via the gift of the Spirit of Prophecy, fills His role as True Witness. He faithfully presents the church with counsel fitted to their situation. Some receive it and reform, others hear it and resist. The result is a tumultuous disagreement within the church. In the end, one group leaves, while the reformers prevail. The church is purified and successfully completes her mission of living and giving the Third Angel’s Message.
“The Shaking” of this church is not the main topic of this message. We have in Isaiah three looked at one the occasions of failure in the history of Israel. The nation becomes so rebellious, that in order to go forward Heaven must intervene and move the nation into a situation where it can be reconstituted. It is a strong measure, but for the good of His people, He took it. The warning for His church today then, is, cooperate with Heaven, do not resist what God is trying to do. We want no more generational delays. Our business is to herald the return of Christ in the Second Coming and to live lives that testify to the reality of the power of God; our business is the hasten, speed up, accelerate, facilitate, the Second Coming.
Some Personal Application
Which brings us at last to a personal application. We have looked at the history of Israel and how God intervened at Isaiah chapter three. We have considered briefly at least application to the church today. But what of your heart and mine? What lessons may we draw from Isaiah three?
We belong to God individually, have committed our lives to Him, and therefore we have invited His intervention in our lives. When the leaders of Israel settled into a convenient pattern and began to exploit others, God intervened, overturned, did some serious, generational house-cleaning, and held them fully responsible. God is within His rights to intervene in our lives. Do we need Him to intervene and remove our stay and staff? Will He see it needful to remove enough if His protections so that the consequences of our own behavior bring us to our knees? Re should reconsecrate our lives to Him now, and plead with Him to guide us to His house.
When looking for leadership, shall we look to men or to God? Will we ask what the conference officers think, the PhDs think, the pastor thinks, our favorite uninspired author thinks, our favorite preacher thinks? Or will we ourselves study for ourselves and gain a personal experience? That is what we must do. We must learn to know Jesus personally, for a second-hand experience surely would mean our final undoing.
Will we remember that we eat the fruit of our own doings? That wickedness done by us results in wickedness returning to us? That righteousness done by us results in righteousness returning to us? One of the early problems of United states naval submarines in WWII was that the early versions of the torpedo after launch sometimes circled round and returned to detonate against the submarine. What we do returns to us. This is the way things work. It is an integral part of the unselfish design of God’s universe. We must do good no matter what nonsense we see or experience at the hands of others around us.
We must all—boys and girls, men and women—avoid the self-absorbed focus of the daughters of Zion who walked through Jerusalem seductively tinkling and clacking and swishing, calling attention to themselves—all while their own people slipped further and further into moral free fall until God had to intervene if the people were even to be saved for future opportunities to become part of His kingdom.
Conclusion
Isaiah chapter three offers us some hard things. But also, in unexpected ways, we are given encouragements. The discipline of God is offered, not to destroy but to restore. He still claimed Israel as His own, even after enormous provocations. We can depend on certainties, such as that doing good returns and does us good, even as doing evil returns and damages us. We see that God will sometimes intervene so that a people can be led to a situation where they can more readily see their departures from God and seek Him for restoration.
Finally, we see the indifference of the daughters of Zion, more interested in fashion than mission, more interested in turning heads toward themselves than in turning their hearts to God. It is, perhaps, in the daughters of Zion that we see the most interesting parallel to Seventh-day Adventists, since we understand ourselves to be identified in Revelation as matching the Laodicean period of the church, a time which is dominated by an attitude neither hot nor cold but lukewarm, a period when the church has difficulty seeing its true state, and is focused on how it appears to others more than how it appears to God. May God help us to gain an experience with Jesus that is not like the haughty daughters of Zion, that does not require Him to tear down in order to rebuild, and that does not impede His intentions by keeping us here on planet earth for yet another generation. GCO
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