Pride Goes Before a Fall (Isaiah 13:1-20:6)
The idea behind preaching consecutive expositional sermons through a book is to take God’s word on its own terms —to let it set the agenda, even the proportion of what you and I need. Perhaps the idea is that if we are forever ordering our own food from a menu at a restaurant, we are going to leave unconsumed things needful for our health. We need a full and balanced diet.
I am reminded of one of my mother’s favourite stories to tell about her 3 sons. When I was young I simply did not like vegetables. Almost any of them, not cooked vegetables, not raw, not salad. Like a good mom she would put them in front of me and make me sit there until they were consumed. And like a creative and talented young boy I would invent ways to circumvent the rule of law, and not eat the vegetables.
According to the story she likes to tell over a period of some weeks she noticed I was eating the salad she put in front of me, much to her delight. She assumed I was overcoming my childish resistance to healthy food, when in fact I was skilfully pocketing the lettuce from the salad and then heading out after dinner to play in the yard, and emptying my pockets behind the rosebushes.
Eventually, as the Bible says, your sin will find you out. The large and growing pile of decomposing lettuce was discovered in the course of gardening, and the time of judgement came, along with a new period of government regulation, and the eating of vegetables.
We have come through the first section of Isaiah which deals primarily with Judah and their failure to trust God and obey God. They were supposed to be the vineyard of the Lord and the light of the nations — but they have failed to be that, and their judgment looms.
What stretches before us as we move from chapter 1-12 to chapter 13-27 is a zoom out of the camera lens. From Judah to the nations around Judah, eventually like Google Earth we will zoom out to see the whole world in view.
And the zoom out is essential for us. God though His prophet wants us to understand that just as the sin and pride of Israel leads to exile, so the sin and pride of the nations leads them to destruction. Why do we need that? Well, it is because worldliness is tempting to us. Instead of being a light to the nations we are tempted to look around us and be just like the nations. So, God says, let’s take a hard look at them, what they are like and where they are heading?
Now we are going to take some bigger chunks — 8 chapters this morning. We will need to do some summarising, we can’t read it all.
Isaiah 13-20 is a survey of 5 nations, each is going to give us a different look at the same idea, which is this: Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Our outline is built around 5 things pride ignores on the way to destruction:
Pride ignores coming judgment (Babylon/Assyria)
Pride ignores provided refuge (Philistia)
Pride ignores shortness of time (Moab)
Pride ignores human frailty (Damascus/Israel)
Pride ignores God’s plan (Egypt)
It’s my prayer that our study will make us all want to forsake pride, to chase humility, and to be strengthened by the eating of these healthy vegetables.
Pride ignores coming judgement (Isa 13:1-14:27)
We begin with an oracle or a prophetic word concerning Babylon, which is a bit of a surprise here because the empire of concern in Isaiah’s day was Assyria, he has mentioned them many times, this text looks ahead to Babylon which would conquer Assyria 100+ years later, this causes many scholars to suggest dividing Isaiah into a book written by different authors at different times because they simply can’t believe in a God who knows the future. But notice the prophecy begins with saying this was an oracle that Isaiah son of Amoz saw. God gave him a glimpse of the future —and Babylon.
And what we have is going to be typical of these chapters where a kingdom is described in the day of its downfall—and what we are told is that it is God who brings about that downfall. Notice Isaiah 13:4 says it is “the LORD of hosts is mustering a host (an army) for battle.” So you can read the geopolitical history of when this will happen, the Medes will ally with the Persians and destroy Babylon in 539BC, or you can glance down to Isaiah 13:17 where God says He is stirring up the Medes against them.
So let’s stop and gather the first point which is that God not only knows the future of people and nations, He controls it. That should change the way we understand what is happening in the world around us. We happen through providence to be living in a time of peace in a country that knows security. We would apply God’s sovereignty differently if we were living in a war torn nation — grabbing on to these words desperately with two hands. But friends even where we live anxiety over the future is a mark of our age. If God knows and controls the future of nations, surely he knows and controls your future. That should be great comfort to the child of God. Your retrenchment, your sickness, your dilemma is not a surprise to Him, not too big for Hm.
But this passage is not speaking of the children of God, but rather those opposed to Him. And the language that it uses is “the day of the Lord.” The prophets regularly speak of a coming day when God will intervene in history to bring judgment on His enemies, and blessing on His people. We read of the blessing down at the start of chapter 14: “For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob” (Isa 14:1).
So the Day of the Lord is the day God intervenes to judge His enemies and save His people.
But our passage is doing more than telling us what the day of the Lord is, it is telling us why it must come. Look at what God says in Isaiah 13:11a: “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity”.
In the eyes of God evil demands a response, it must be punished, and He says He will do it. And He takes a step further into what evil is, what is at the root of the wicked human heart? Isaiah 13:11b again: “I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.”
Babylon, and all superpowers, and all powerful people before and since have an arrogant pride that animates their behaviour. This is given even fuller treatment in Isaiah 14:12-15.
The root of sin is pride. When we claim control over our own lives and whatever power we can get over others we are attempting to unseat God from His throne.
The root of sin is pride. When we claim control over our own lives and whatever power we can get over others we are attempting to unseat God from His throne.
The guy who first shared the gospel with me used a tract that illustrated the life of the sinner as a circle with a chair in the middle of it, on the chair was an “S” that stood for self, and there was a cross representing Christ outside the circle. It was called the self-directed life. The second circle replaces the self on the throne with the cross, putting Christ on the throne of the life. This is a good way to think about the difference between being an unbeliever and a believer. Who is on the throne?
What we are meant to see in this first nation brought under review is the proud arrogance that makes God your adversary as if He will not respond, as if He will not judge. This first 2 chapter unit is bookended with the other Mesopotamian superpower — Assyria, who was in control in Isaiah’s day. Read Isaiah 14:24-27.
Friends as surely as there is a God, He will judge. Why would we doubt that? When you meet someone who doubts God’s judgement, when you are tempted to doubt it — think of how biased a decision that is. And if He will judge, who could stand in that judgement? Oh friends, what a terrible thing to ignore.
This is not a complex thing, but it is a life changing thing. Picture the Singapore manager of a multi-national company, his boss is in Europe, so he starts abusing his authority by bullying all the people in a local office. He starts taking company money and using it for luxurious personal items, he openly boasts of the fact that he can do whatever he wants, he holds elaborate parties that trash the main office. And then his boss comes for a visit — and we picture some kind of a scene. Who did you think you were? Did you think you would get away with it? Are you insane?
Friends when we live for ourselves, that is what we are doing. We are living like we will not be judged. But we will be! 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Some don’t believe that. Many ignore it. In our age it often just recedes from view in a shower of material prosperity that consumes our vision. There is a God, and judgment from Him will come. Where we disagreed was what to do about it.
A Christian understands that the reality of coming judgement means we need forgiveness through Jesus Christ, what He did on the cross. That is the only way that we could survive on the coming Day of the Lord — not the day of temporal judgment like the one pictured here in Isaiah, but the day of final judgement.
Having found forgiveness in Christ, the Christian then lives to please and serve the Lord out of gratitude, and assumes that this will show the truth and reality of our faith. Anything less calls into question the very existence of our faith.
Friend is pride causing you to ignore coming judgement? To live as if it is not a reality? Isaiah’s words are a wake-up call to us. Pride ignores coming judgment.
Pride ignores provided refuge (Isa 14:28-32)
We turn now from the Mesopotamian superpowers, to Israel’s near neighbours, first Philistia — this is modern day Gaza, much in the news these days. This oracle is dated for us when King Ahaz died. Israel and Philistia were perpetual enemies who fought each other for regional supremacy, the death of Israel’s King is a natural time of rejoicing for them. Isaiah is telling them they should not rejoice because a much greater threat is coming to them — you can see them in Isaiah 14:30 anticipating a time of rest and safety, when in fact they should wail and melt in fear because “smoke comes out of the north” (Isa 14:31) meaning that Assyria will soon sweep down on them.
Isaiah 14:32a asks “What will one answer the messengers of the nation?”. As Philistia sends envoys to Israel what should Israel say? “The Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge” (Isa 14:32b). In other words, Israel should be ready to play the role that God had given her to be a light to the nations, to let people know that both in temporal crisis and in the face of eternal judgment that Yahweh, the God of Israel is the only refuge.
This prophecy is tragic in two ways. One is that there is no historical indication that Philistia ever did find refuge in Yahweh. How sad to have a refuge, but be too proud to take refuge. Friend, I pray this isn’t true of you. Young people, youth — you might be here because your parents make you come. They want you here because they hope you will take refuge from the wrath of God in Christ. Don’t be too proud to listen, too proud to take it. That would be tragic.
But the second tragedy is from the background we have already studied in Isaiah 1-12, we know Israel herself is far from being able to play the role of light to the nations. They were too focused on being like the nations to focus on being a refuge for the nations.
We ought to think about the great calling the Lord has given us to be salt and light to the world..
Friends, we ought to think about the great calling the Lord has given us to be salt and light to the world. Remember Jesus words from the Sermon on the Mount? “You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world…let your light shine so that people can see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven” (Matt 5:13-16).
Evangelism is not just about telling people the good news, it is about that, and we should do that. But it is not just go and tell, it is also come and see. Come and see what a group of people are like who are not consumed with greed and financial anxiety, but who are generous with their money. I was so encouraged by the love offering we took for our recent women’s and missions conferences that enabled people with less resources to come and benefit. Come see and feel and experience what that is like.
Come see a place where there is sexual sanity — where single people are chaste because they love Jesus. Where married people walk with a spouse till death do us part — not because their spouse is so amazing but their Lord is so amazing. Where young people and old people really try to understand each other and care for each other. We are supposed to be salt and light.
There is much I think to be encouraged about here at GBC, I’ve been here a short time, but I can see God’s grace at work. I can see it in young believers as they testified to their faith in Christ through baptism this morning and desire to walk in newness of life. I can see it in a desire for deeper discipleship and deeper relationships awakening in people. Friends, realise being salt and light is a high calling, and we’ve got to repent when we don’t live up to the call and set our sights anew. We want to be a living and speaking testimony that people can set aside their pride and come find refuge in the grace of Jesus Christ. We should be witnesses to that grace.
Pride ignores provided refuge. Philistia did. Sadly many do.
Pride ignores shortness of time (Isa 15:1-16:14)
Isaiah 15-16 brings us to an oracle concerning Moab, to the southeast of Israel. In it we see some of the same themes we are developing. Isaiah 15: 1 immediately tells us Moab is going to be destroyed: “An oracle concerning Moab. Because Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone; because Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone.”
Ar and Kir are leading cities of Moab that will be destroyed overnight. Isaiah 15:9 emphasises that though it will be done by a foreign nation God is actually behind it: “For the waters of Dibon are full of blood; for I will bring upon Dibon even more, a lion for those of Moab who escape, for the remnant of the land.”
Dibon was the capitol city of Moab. The “I” there is Yahweh, who is bringing total destruction. So this is similar to what we’ve seen in the first two nations, but here similar to Philistia we get a call to take refuge in the God of Israel. Look at 16:1: “send the lamb to the ruler of the land, from Sela, by way of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Zion.” They should send a request for help, that is what the lamb means. In Isaiah 16:3 they should seek counsel and justice, and in Isaiah 16:5 they are told to look for a Davidic king, a Messiah.
Moab should be looking for a Messiah from Israel to reign over them. But they won’t. Why? Isaiah 16:6-7 tells us, “We have heard of the pride of Moab—how proud he is!—of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence; in his idle boasting he is not right. Therefore let Moab wail for Moab, let everyone wail.”
Let the repetition sink in with this third nation. Again, the great enemy is pride. Boasting. Moab is sure they are right, but they are not right. And not only that, they are almost out of time.
They didn’t know they were almost out of time (Isaiah 16:14). You know time is a funny thing. Sometimes it can feel like it is slipping away from you at an incredible rate, other times it feels like it is barely creeping by. Moab as a nation is in the height of their power, it speaks here of their glory, and their “great multitude.” They feel like they have all the time in the world, but all would be gone in a matter of three years.
Friends, it is a great lie of Satan that you have unlimited time. The Bible never speaks that way. “Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90:12) — mean to teach us that our days are few in number and rapidly slipping away. Our elderly saints speak powerfully to us by their presence. When you are young a year seems like a long time, and something you have an indefinite supply of. When you talk to someone who is old you start to think again.
It is a great lie of Satan that you have unlimited time. The voice that tells you that you have unlimited time is the voice of pride.
Beloved, the voice that tells you that you have unlimited time is the voice of pride. That is why Hebrews says “Today, if you hear God’s voice, do not harden your heart” (Heb 3:15). It must be today. Today is the only day you are sure you have. So, repent of that sin today. Forsake it utterly. Ask forgiveness today. Apologise to your spouse today. Reconcile with your kids today. To your parents today. Throw that that video game that is sucking your life away in triviality — throw it away today. Go out today to a park with your Bible and do business with the Lord — seek Him while He may be found. Do it today.
Don’t let pride cause you to ignore the shortness of time.
Pride ignores human frailty (Isa 17:1-14)
Isaiah 17 is an oracle concerning Damascus, the capital city of Syria or as it is sometime called Aram in the Old Testament. It was a very strategic city, standing on the only good trade route between Mesoptamia and Egypt. It was very wealthy and powerful, and yet the oracle immediately tells us it will be destroyed: “Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins” (Isa 17:1).
Now this oracle is a bit different than the others, we think we are prepared for the same progression as the others, but then we get down to Isaiah 17:3-4 and we read: “The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the Lord of hosts. And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.”
What is this, Damascus or Ephraim? Ephraim is one of the Northern tribes of Israel, indeed the largest one so it often is a stand-in way to refer to the Northern Kingdom after they split. What is going on here?
Well, fear of Assyria had led the Northern kingdom to make an alliance with Damascus. They thought this would give them protection against Assyria. You may remember in Isaiah 7 God says to King Ahaz of Judah not to worry about the threat of this alliance to Judah because before his first son gets old enough to know good from evil Assyria would come wipe them out.
This is all about man in his pride abandoning trust in God and trying to use to use politics to solve his problems. But it won’t work — the day of God’s judgment will reveal the folly of our attempts to save ourselves. And Isaiah then points at the underlying idolatry that has led to the whole problem in Isaiah 17:7-11.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel knew God at one point — that is what Isaiah 17:10 means, they knew the God of their salvation and their Rock of refuge, but they forgot Him. First in days of peace they compromised their spiritual vitality in the worship of idols. Then in the day of trouble they naturally looked to their own efforts to save themselves — in this case an alliance made with unbelievers.
I wonder if we can see the same dangerous progression in our own lives. First an infatuation with the idols of the world around us where we start being drawn to money and sex and power and prestige. Then in the day of trouble we look to our idols to save us — this is how the project of self-salvation goes.
In the day of trouble — we must look to our maker, to the Holy One of Israel. He is the only one who can save.
Isaiah is telling us this is foolish. In the day of trouble — we must look to our maker, to the Holy One of Israel. He is the only one who can save. And so we ought to work backwards from the day of the Lord to the days of peace, and make sure we are not cultivating an alliance with the world, a friendship with the world that will be exposed as enmity with God as James calls it.
You know when Paul writes about not being “unequally yoked with unbelievers” we tend to think about marriage, even though Paul isn’t specific in 2 Corinthians 6:14. It definitely applies to marriage, a believer should not marry an unbeliever to be sure. But I agree with the way Alec Motyer puts it: In truth it is a broader question of our whole life: morality, influence, spiritual loyalty, a whole life without compromise. We are to be in the world but not of it. We don’t question the bus driver about their faith before we get on or the bank manager before we invest our money, but on a deeper level we need to ask ourselves what and who are we relying on, putting our trust in, linking our lives, welfare, and futures with. Ephraim chose Damascus, and sank along with its chosen associate.
Are you living a life allied with the world or separate from the world? Christians used to talk much more about “separation from the world”, than we do these days. It used to be more common to think critically about the kind of movies Christians watch and music they listen to. These days such scruples are mocked. Notice what happens on social media when a Christian suggests that going to concerts with scantily clad women singing about sexually explicit topics isn’t the kind of thing Singaporean Christians should be doing with their time. Such prudishness is mocked, we fancy ourselves more enlightened than that now.
Beloved, be careful about the alliances you make in your heart and in your life. About what you associate yourself with. Your relationships, your entertainment choices, your business partners, your love interests.
More fundamentally, ask yourself where you place your confidence. Is it in resumes and investments, in goods laid by in store for many days?
Pride has no trouble making an alliance with the world. Isaiah warns us not to forget the God of our salvation and the Rock of our refuge.
Pride ignores God’s plan (Isa 18:1-20:6)
Egypt is the final nation, the final Oracle that stretches over Isaiah 18-20, though Cush which is upper Egypt or modern Ethiopia and lower Egypt are both talked about here. And Cush/Egypt was a superpower in its own right, there is a repeated refrain in Isaiah 18:2, 7 which speak of Cush: “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.”
As with the others, their reputation as a mighty nation is part of what makes them blind to what is looming for them (Lk 19:1). The picture here is of a confused people who don’t understand what is happening to them. In Isaiah 20:3-6, Isaiah is given one of those unique prophetic jobs that we see given sometimes to prophets to act out a visual prophecy, God actually asks him to go naked and barefoot for 3 years. When one country conquered another they would often march the exiles naked and barefoot from their home country into captivity — that is what Isaiah is predicting in his enacted prophecy. Maybe we should stop here and be amazed again at the difficulty of Isaiah’s ministry—testifying to coming judgment.
But the main point comes from realizing he is doing this in Israel, as a message to them. The point of his prophecy is to expose the folly of hoping in Egypt. Look at Isaiah 20:6 “if this is what has happened to those we hoped in (Egypt to save them from the Assyrians)…then how shall we escape?” The answer is they won’t.
Instead of false hopes they should be trusting afresh in God, in His purposes and plans. There is a bigger picture going on.
Instead of false hopes they should be trusting afresh in God, in His purposes and plans. There is a bigger picture going on. In Isaiah 19:21-25, there is a fascinating prophecy of a coming day when judgment on Egypt will bear fruit in Egyptians coming to faith.
This is a missionary text — a prophesy of the New Testament age when the gospel goes to all nations and God’s greater purpose is fulfilled of people from every nation worshipping the one true and living God. Assyria and Egypt are not longer enemy nations with false Gods, but united in worship of Yahweh.
You may not have thought about it, but Christians shouldn’t see the world through a nationalistic lens. What is the US doing?And India? And China? And Russia? How does that affect us? I don’t mean these things are unimportant — they are just much less important that what God is doing in the world if we will see it. Friends, the missions efforts of this church both domestically and internationally are of far greater interest and import to us. Planting churches. Growing churches. Do you see God’s big picture?
We should conclude. We’ve zoomed out on 5 nations. Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Ancient Egypt, and they have all come and gone. An endless succession of rulers and armies and peoples. But the purpose of God remains. This should humble us all. Lord save us from our pride. Let’s pray.