The Highway of Holiness (Isaiah 34:1-35:10)
The sermon outline can be found in the ministry guide.
When I was a teenager, I was sure that the most important thing in the world was sports. I do not think that was what my parents were aiming for, but I just loved the competition. I loved being on sports teams, having the camaraderie of guys to fight the enemy and to try to win. So when I was sitting in algebra class, I was not thinking about algebra, I was thinking about the perfect jump shot. I was imagining in my mind starting to dribble right and then crossing over to my left and finishing at the hoop. I drank Gatorade because the commercial said that I could be like Michael Jordan if I drank Gatorade. I very much wanted to be like Mike.
When I got a little older, I started believing that academics were surely the most important thing. That made my dad happy. He was the youngest of six kids. He was the first one to go to college himself, but he had to work through over about 10 years, make a little money, and then go take some more classes. He never felt like he got the education he wanted. He was excited when he saw me go off to college. As the son of a house painter, it was not hard for me to buy into this idea that you study hard to get better grades, to get into a good school, to get a better job.
What is most important in life? It is an interesting question and one one with a lot of contenders. Many around us believe it is money, and may not say that bluntly. But it is clear many live that way — for the bottom line, for what money can get you.
Other contenders for an important place in our life could be honour, reputation, faith. I would think for many people these are most important. When they get offended, they become undone. Shame is unbearable to them. We can add to the list.
I bet you would agree that what you think is most important shapes you like nothing else. It does not even matter if you are conscious of what is most important to you.
We have been studying the book of Isaiah, written by the prophet of God in the 8th century BC. He writes at a time of great spiritual decline in Israel during a time when they have become infatuated with power, security. Israel thinks that they can get it from the surrounding nations. While continuing to profess faith in Yahweh, they have moved Him down the priority list. When matters of national security loom, they trust their powers of diplomacy with Assyria, with Egypt. When matters of economy loom, they trust themselves to solve the problem.
It does not seem to dawn on them that their functional trust is no longer in the God they profess. This made Isaiah's ministry difficult. What is more surprising is that as a people, they do not even see that as a big deal. After all, they keep showing up for religious activities. They still call themselves Israelites. Isn't that what matters?
Isaiah's message to them is no. What matters at a fundamental level is who you trust. In fact, that is the most important thing.
The most important thing about you is who you trust.
This is the main idea of Isaiah 34-35: the most important thing about you is who you trust.
Trust in the world and face the world's judge.
Our passage begins in Isaiah 34:1-4 with an invitation to the nations to draw near and to hear and to give attention. Since Isaiah 13, the prophet has been speaking about the nations of the earth that do not worship Yahweh. He addresses them, but it is interesting to ponder the fact that Isaiah would have been speaking these words in Jerusalem or somewhere else in Israel. He does not travel to the nations to speak these words.
So at the very least there is a dual audience — God is speaking to the nations, but He wants Israel to listen. The message that they are to hear is a message about the judgement of God, the wrath of God.
We are told here that the Lord is enraged, furious, devoted the nations to destruction, given them over for slaughter. It gets quite graphic in Isaiah 34:3, with a gory picture of people being slain, leaving behind rotting corpses, mountains flowing with their blood. Isaiah 34:4 expands the judgement out from the people of the earth to say that even the cosmos is going to be undone when God comes to judge. The host of heaven — the stars — they are rotting away. The skies roll up as a scroll and the sun, the moon, the stars are going to fall from the vine like leaves falling from a fig tree.
This is the typical language in apocalyptic literature and is figurative in many ways. It is our interpretive challenge to figure out what the message that's being communicated. And here it's not hard for us to see that we're looking ahead to the day of the Lord, the day of judgement, which will mean the destruction of the unbelieving, in addition to the undoing of creation as it currently stands.
One of the things that immediately strikes all of us, I think, is that we have a tendency to play this subject down, to not talk about the wrath of God as much. The Bible does not shy away from the topic and neither do the Old Testament prophets. Jesus did not shy away from talking about it. In His final sermon in Matthew 24 and 25, He closes it with a picture of final judgement, the solemn separation, some to life, others being cast into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The apostles did not shy away from it in their preaching. Peter closes his letters speaking of the day of judgement and the destruction of the ungodly. The New Testament ends with the book of Revelation, which closes itself with the starkest of divisions between those who are saved and those who are cast into the lake of fire.
The question is, if the Bible does not shy away from this, why do we, when the topic comes up, well, why do we downplay it? Why do we change the subject? Maybe we feel embarrassed. Talking with an unbelieving family member or friend, we are far more likely to express concern about their health and easily share with them some new diet thing that has helped us or encourage them to see a doctor. Yet, we do not really speak with them about the risk they run of forfeiting their eternal soul. I think one of the reasons is that deep down, we may feel that wrath is unworthy of God. Maybe we equate divine anger with the irrational rage and loss of temper that we see in our own lives or people around us. Or maybe we associate it with cruelty and see it as incompatible with the God who is gracious and loving.
If so, the misunderstanding is all ours. It is our problem. God's anger is not like the anger of man. It is not impulsive. He does not lose his temper. His wrath is His settled opposition to all that is evil, to all that is untrue, to all that is wrong. To think about it more clearly, we might ask ourselves what God would be like if He had no wrath against moral evil. One quickly realizes that for God to be good, He must hate evil. He must oppose all that is wrong.
But I think still, we might wonder whether the punishment fits the crime here. I mean, why must God destroy those who are evil? Let us keep reading in our text in Isaiah 34: 5-8. While Isaiah 34:1-4 were a kind of general introduction. The prophet moves now to a concrete example of God's wrath against evildoers in the country of Edom. This is the country to the southwest of Israel, modern-day Jordan.
In Isaiah 13 to 23, we walked through oracles against each of the nations individually. This text is here and not there because Edom is being brought up as typical, as a concrete example for God to say, “This is what it will be like for the other nations.” But we might ask, “Why choose Edom as the example here?”
Throughout the Old Testament, Edom is the opposite of Israel. They are constantly trying to block what God is doing in the world. In Genesis, we read about Esau. the father of Edom who sought to kill his brother Jacob (later renamed Israel). In the book of Numbers, Edom refused Israel's safe passage when they're wandering in the Promised Land. Edom will actually join in the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. So Edom is typical of the nations who insist on their own way in opposition to God. Isaiah is saying here that you can choose Edom's way or you can choose God's way, but pay attention to the results. What demands our careful attention here is this language of sacrifice. In Isaiah 34:6-7 we see that the Lord has a sword, so it is clear we are talking about judgment. The sacrifice of wild oxen in Bozrah, the capital of Edom speaks of what is sacrificed in the day of vengeance, the year of recompense. Both young and old, the leaders and the common people, everyone in Edom is slated for this sacrifice (Isa 34:8).
This is the consistent logic of the Bible. Sin demands payment. Something has to atone for sin. God told Adam and Eve, His beloved first creation, that if they disobeyed, if they ate of the fruit of the tree, then in the day they ate of it, they would surely die. Because death is the requirement for sin. That is why the Old Testament sacrificial system was necessary. God did not just take to Himself a people and say, “Let us just overlook your sin.” Sin has to be paid for by the death of a substitute, the tabernacle, or the temple. What these verses tell us is that the nations of the earth, by refusing God's grace, the sacrifices He provides, have become their own sacrifice for sin.
We must not shy away from the truth that sin is a matter of life and death. Even unintentional sin must be atoned for by sacrificial death. All sin must end in sacrifice — either of the sinner or of one in the place of the sinner.
Now we might say, the nations did not know of their predicament. And to varying degree, that might be true. God meant the Jewish nation to be a light to the other nations but they did not always shine a clear light. The knowledge of this need for a substitute largely awaited the coming of Christ. Even now the good news of the sacrifice of Jesus for sin still has not made it to all people. That is why missions is our priority as a church. But we should be clear in our minds that this does not represent a viable excuse. There is no excuse. In Romans 1:18-20, we read that God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all the unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. For what may be known about God is plain to them from what has been made so that they are without excuse. Beloved, we must not shy away from the truth that sin is a matter of life and death. Even unintentional sin must be atoned for by sacrificial death. All sin must end in sacrifice — either of the sinner or of one in the place of the sinner.
That is the truth that Isaiah 53 comprehends about the Messiah. He, speaking of Jesus, was pierced for our transgressions (Isa 53:5). He was crushed for our iniquities and upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With his wounds, we are healed (Isa 53:6).
If you are here and not a believer, I hope that this language of sacrifice makes sense to you. God's very nature as holy requires sin to have its payment. If He did differently, He would cease to be God. It is required because of who He is, and that means that your hopes for leniency, when you stand before your maker, your hopes that He might grade you on a curve are vain. That is not how He is going to judge you. And that means you must have a substitute.
I hope you can see that this morning. That is what Jesus was, a substitute for sin. God was offering Him for you such that if you will trust in Him, your sin will be paid for. Why would you not do that this morning? Why would you not turn to Christ? Do not have the sword of the Lord fall on you. Have it fall on Jesus in your place.
So, wrath comes on the unbelieving. They are the sacrifice, if they will not accept God's sacrifice. Isaiah 34:9-17 and following, describe the result for the nations of the world.
Edom was a flourishing and populous, prosperous nation. We read here of its ruin. There seems to be an end-time view of what happens to the nations that oppose God. The picture is a horrific one. A pitch here, is a naturally occurring resin. It burns in sulphur, which in Latin means burning stone. If you want to know where fire and brimstone comes from, this is where it comes from. Basically the land is pictured as a post-apocalyptic horror. Think of movies we may have seen. We who live in the age of atomic weapons can perhaps conceive of this image better than the ancients.
The end result of our relentless quest for knowledge, which first surfaced on the plains of Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago, is the capacity to destroy not only ourselves, but our whole natural system as well. In Isaiah 34: 11 it starts to describe the depopulated reality. There's a line and a plumb line which are the tools of the engineer to build, but they're stretched over nothingness now (Isa 34:12). The strongholds, the high rise buildings that are monuments to the pride and power and wealth are now deserted (Isa 34:13). Nobody rushing around making important decisions. Instead there are just animals, just like a zoo, an Old Testament zoo. Commentators are not even sure about many of the names of these animals. What is important for us to see is that the people are gone and the animals are taking over. There are no people. Maybe we are supposed to envision the financial districts of New York, London, Shanghai, Singapore, but no people, just animals.
Isaiah 34:16-17 are the conclusion. The Book of the Lord is His eternal decree which is specific in the details of judgement. The mouth of the Lord has commanded, it says. The sovereign of the universe has commanded this desolation and He will bring it to pass. Just as He sovereignly apportioned Canaan to His people Israel, so He has apportioned the Edoms of this world to the birds of the desert.
What do we take from all of this? On a national level, we see that no nation or people is the master of its destiny, independent of the Lord and His evaluation. He is the Lord of the nations and He is the judge of the nations. But personally, we should think about how God's people were meant to process this. As I said, it was largely Israel that was hearing about the destiny, the future of the nations they are trying to cooperate with. Look at where they are going to end up. The prophet has taken them to an end times view of where all that goes. Take a look at the world, friends. You want to trust in the world? To trust in the world is to trust in the glory of humanity. To trust in the creature rather than the Creator. I think Isaiah is trying to show them how very foolish that is.
Friend, what do you really trust in? Where is your functional trust day to day? In things that you think can provide for you? Maybe you could ask yourself what shakes you when it is threatened or when you lose it? Maybe it is your health, your good name, your reputation. Maybe it is just ease and comfort. God's people are meant to turn away from all that the world offers to something that is more real, more lasting.
Trust in God and rejoice with His ransomed people
In Isaiah 35, we have a change of scenery — from Edom to Israel, from the unbelieving nations to the believers in the Lord. The main goal of the message, the sermon, is given there in Isaiah 35:3-4. He is speaking to the believer to strengthen their trust in God. How does he seek to do that? The prophet uses a series of three images — a desert, a garden, a highway.
He begins with the desert. It is interesting that in the last chapter, Edom went from luxuriant to desert. Here in Isaiah 35, we are going the other direction. We begin in the desert and God’s people are living in the wilderness (Isa 35:1). Isaiah 35:7 also describes for us a place marked by burning sand, the thirsty ground, the haunt of jackals. Look at the description of life in the desert — weak, feeble, anxious, and then blind, death, lame, mute. And one of the reasons that the prosperity theology has been so devastating to the Christian church is not only does it take the hope that is supposed to be in heaven and tries to read it back into this life now. In addition to that, it tells struggling believers that what you are going through, you do not need to be going. In fact, even more diabolical, if you trusted the Lord enough, you would not be going through this right now.
What did the apostle say? If only for this life we hope in Christ, we are above all men to be pitied. The apostle was not confused as to where he is living. No, friends, we do not deny the desert. We are not living in the Promised Land. Singapore may be a garden city, but it's not the Garden of Eden. We are not there yet. One of my deep hopes and prayers for this church is that we will get better at talking to each other about the hardships of life, that it would become more normal to say, “How are you doing?”, “I'm not doing very well. I'm struggling with this right now.” You do not have to pay a therapist to have someone to talk to you about your struggles. You can talk to people around you. That should be normal for us. We should do that because God tells us that when we are weak, we are strong. He tells us that we can boast all the more gladly about our weaknesses, our hardships, our calamities, knowing that Christ's power rests on us when we do so because we're saying God's grace is sufficient for the desert.
That is the first image but that image is replaced here almost immediately, isn't it? It is replaced with the image of a garden. The desert, we are told in Isaiah 35:1, shall blossom like the crocus. The crocus is an iris, beautiful purple and yellow and white blossoms. It shall blossom abundantly. The desert, now gardens start singing (Isa 35:2). We read of the glory of Lebanon, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. These are references to parts of Israel near the Mediterranean coast, where the foliage is luxuriant and full because there is water. In Isaiah 34:6 we read of water breaking forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert. What we are reading about here is not the temporary bloom after a flash flood. We see burning sand now becoming pools of water, springs of water (Isa 35:7). Animals are lying down on grass and there are even reeds and rushes. Those are the kinds of plants that grow beside water. So the second image of a desert that is bloomed into a garden is pointing to a return to paradise.
God made us to live and to work and to worship in a garden paradise. He made us not to experience physical lack, physical decay, but life and vitality of an eternal kind. That is what we read about in Isaiah 35:5-6, where it says, “The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall the lame man will leap like the deer and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.” We get the picture of a celebration as people are set free from the dysfunctional, decaying, dying bodies that we currently inhabit. You might remember Peter and John healing the lame man, the man lame from birth in Acts 3:8. He starts leaping around. Glory. What is mortal will be clothed with immortality in the land of glory.
I think Ralph was probably reading this chapter when he wrote Gloryland:
The lame will walk in Gloryland
The blind up there will see
The deaf in Gloryland will hear
The dumb will talk to me
The doctor will not have to call
The undertaker - no
There'll be no pain up there to bear
Just walk the streets of gold.
I think that's why in this image the whole place is singing. It is a place of incredible joy. The desert is a garden.
One final interesting image for us. In Isaiah 35:8, we see that a highway shall be there. So perhaps it is just right for us to picture not just a garden, but a garden city. A highway called the Way of Holiness. What is this highway? Well, it is a highway from the desert which is now blooming heading towards Zion, heading towards Jerusalem.
We are told several things about this highway. First, the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way. Or maybe better, it shall belong to those who walk the way, those who walk with God, like Enoch of old. Christianity's first name was the Way, because we are on a journey from the city of destruction to the celestial city. And the idea here is that the mixed nature of the church will be no longer. The wheat and the tares will have been separated so that only those who are true believers will be there. We do our best to have a pure church. It is not because we are trying to be an exclusive club, but we're trying to clarify what it means to truly be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So as many as possible will join us. But purity will be elusive until this time when there will be no hypocrites, no false professors. Only those holy through faith in Christ, in the work of His spirit on their lives. In Isaiah 35:8, we read, “even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.” I take this not to be fools in the wicked sense, but those who are simple, meaning it will no longer take thought or wisdom or effort to stay on the narrow path. You are locked in there and it is a safe path. There are no lions, no ravenous beasts. Just a place for the redeemed to walk and to sing with everlasting joy and happiness. Sorrow and sighing, it says, shall flee away.
And the destination is Zion, which I take to be not just the literal Jerusalem, but the throne of God and the very presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. These images are what are meant to strengthen weak hands and make firm, feeble knees to say to those who have an anxious heart this morning, “Fear not. Be strong.” I do not know what produces anxiety in your life. I don't know what is making you anxious this morning. I am sure you have some. We all do. In the midst of that fear and that anxiety as we cast around for something to trust in, we are in a place of temptation. The world offers alternatives, doesn't it? Achievement and wealth, relationships and status, things that offer a veneer of trustworthiness. But friends, these two chapters unmask those things. They are not worth your trust, but God is. The joy of the redeemed in the kingdom of God is worth your trust. Isaiah's strategy to turn us from worldliness is to have us think on heaven.
Maybe you have heard that old adage, “He is so heavenly minded, he is no earthly good.” Friends, I do not even think that is possible. I agree with the way C.S.Lewis put it, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they've become so ineffective in this.”
[Preaching about heave] is the water for a thirsty soul that we need. This is desert survival. Not a mirage, but the real promise of a God who can be trusted to keep his promises. He can be trusted more than all those other pretenders.
I think our modern age does not do us any favours in this regard. There is so little preaching about heaven. We sing even less about it in modern hymns. But friends, this is the water for a thirsty soul that we need. This is desert survival. Not a mirage, but the real promise of a God who can be trusted to keep His promises. He can be trusted more than all those other pretenders.
We should conclude.
What is the most important thing? Is that clear to you this morning? I was thinking about how distracting life can be with all the pressures that come upon us, and how moments of clarity, where we see what really matters, are elusive to us. It made me think immediately about an experience I had right before I came. Many of you will know that the reason that we came in the first place was that I was in the U.S. for cancer treatment. In the middle of chemotherapy, I had to spend a number of weeks in an infusion center in a hospital. An infusion center is a place like no other I have ever seen. You check in, and you leave behind all your stuff. You go there to put poison into your body, for, in my case, seven hours a day, for a straight week. And you are hoping that the poison is going to kill the cancer.
That is the idea. But as you go through that day after day, you start going down physically. It is a very difficult place to be.
I am in this infusion centre. It is circular with rooms around the circle. There is nothing to do for seven hours a day and you can take your IV and walk the circle. So there I am walking and looking at the faces of the people. And they are looking at me, young and old, all in the same boat. I can only tell you, I cannot really describe it for you, but I can tell you that all of us were going through a time of crystal clarity. None of the other stuff of life mattered to us. There was one thing that mattered, and that was survival. That was life, and whether we would live.
When all of that other stuff was stripped away, it was clear to me that trusting the gospel of Jesus Christ is all there is. Oh, where else are you going to find life? Life, eternal life.
That friends, is the most important thing. So I wonder this morning, what do you trust in? The most important thing about you is who you trust.
Let us pray together.