Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-200 (Expository Sermon)

SUNSHINE AFTER A STORM (Isaiah 2:6-4:6)

by Rod Benson

There is something special about sunshine after a storm, whether the storm is meteorological or moral. In Isaiah 2:6-4:6, the eighth century prophet describes a moral storm that threatened to swamp Judah, followed by the calm and consolation and celebration of its aftermath.

Isaiah has a message of judgment and a message of hope to proclaim to his people. In 1:1-2:5 he has outlined the scope and content of the whole book; now he focuses on the key themes of judgment (2:6-4:1) and hope (4:2-6).

GATHERING CLOUDS

In a surprising turn from 2:5, Isaiah begins this section by accusing God of abandoning his covenant people (2:6). In a way, God has abandoned them. But it is not his fault. God is neither unloving nor capricious. He is merciful and gracious. The fault lies with the people.

Where once they were a “faithful city” and “full of justice” (1:21), now they are faithless and full of sin. They are full of occultism (2:6b), conspicuous wealth (2:7a), self-confident military might (2:7b), idolatry (2:8), arrogance and pride (2:9-11). How far they have fallen!

Isaiah, who in 2:6 charges God with abandoning his people, reviews their depravity and faithlessness and in verse 9b says to God, “do not forgive them.”

The root of their problem is pride, and it is destroying them. Pride first appeared in the Garden of Eden, and it is a universal human malaise that acts like a spiritual cancer, denying us of psychological wellbeing, destroying our social relationships and distancing us from God.

What ruin and misery pride wreaks in our lives and communities today! But be careful not to personify pride and hold “it” accountable for the ills it brings.

It is you and I who become proud, and arrogant, and self-sufficient, and autonomous, and alienated from God. It is a sickness in our nature, in the core of our being, that generates pride – a sickness that God alone can heal.

There are many kinds of pride, but the worst is religious pride, because it mocks and subverts the very means God uses to heal us.

Verses 12-22 describe the terrible judgment that awaits those who sin against God: not local or individual but global in scope. A Day is coming when the world will be unremittingly exposed to the “dread of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth” (2:19b, 21b).

Many of Isaiah’s contemporaries looked forward to the day of the Lord as the time when he would step in and destroy Israel’s enemies, just as he had done long ago in the days of Moses and Joshua. But Isaiah and the other eighth-century prophets realized that this confident expectation was grounded in arrogance rather than faith, for Israel and Judah had taken on the ways of the surrounding nations and were therefore just as deserving of judgment [Barry Webb].

Human arrogance is the greatest barrier to genuine spirituality; and human religion is the supreme expression of that arrogance.

People are free to fashion their own idols in disobedience to God’s word, and to create their own belief systems in opposition to his truth, but on that Day they will realise the total inadequacy of their idols and ideas, and find themselves spiritually bankrupt, without hope and without time to change.

“Stop trusting in man!” shouts Isaiah (2:22; cf 2:5). Come to your senses! Forget your avarice! End your fiercely protected autonomy! Trust God, the only source of life, the one who gives you breath, and the one to whom you are ultimately and inevitably accountable.

THE STORM BREAKS

What is the outcome on that Day? People will be humbled (2:9, 11, 17). God will be exalted (2:11, 17), and revealed in his majestic splendour (2:10, 21b). This is the final triumph of God and his purposes. This is what we mean when we pray, “Your kingdom come” (Mt 6:10a).

In 3:1-12 Isaiah shows how personal sins (small and great) build and overflow, involving and implicating others, corrupting whole communities, and leaving a legacy of devastation for generations to come. The people’s sins bring about a self-inflicted social crisis – but a crisis condoned and coordinated by God.

What will this social crisis look like? Siege will lead to famine as food and water run out (3:1). Judah’s leaders will likewise disappear (3:2-3). Where there is “rot at the top,” sooner or later everything starts falling apart and everyone suffers.

Historically this occurred about 100 years after Isaiah’s death when Babylon sacked Jerusalem (cf 2 Kings 25:1-12), finishing what Assyria started. But it began to unravel during Isaiah’s lifetime.

Here is how desperate life will become: there will be a complete absence of strong moral leadership, principle-based living and godly example (3:6-7). “The mere possession of a cloak will do as a qualification for leadership if only its owner can be persuaded to take it on. But no one will be willing” [Barry Webb]. “O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path” (3:12b). Notice the irony: Judah’s new leaders lead, but in the wrong direction; they guide, but away from the path established by God. And the people follow.

Into this situation comes God: holy, righteous and just (3:10-11). There will be peace for the righteous, and pain for the wicked. The righteous will find hope, and the wicked will find judgment.

You may look around at (Australian) society today and feel that social justice is not done, and the wicked get away with their flagrant ungodliness. Be assured that God sees and knows everything, and will judge every person with justice.

You may look within and feel your personal sin and moral defilement. The invitation of Isaiah 1:18-20 is for you: come, wash and obey God. He is merciful and gracious. He forgives, restores and renews. That’s his specialty.

In 3:13-4:1 Isaiah turns from portraying God as a mighty warrior (cf 3:1), and imagines him as a judge. Court is in session, and the judge rises to sum up the case and pronounce the verdict (3:13).

Notice the strength of the indictment of the leaders: “ruined . crushing . grinding the faces of the poor” (3:14b-15). Jesus did say, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11), but leaders have a special responsibility to support them.

God cares for the poor. He defends them. He identifies with them. His Son was once a poor carpenter’s apprentice and a penniless preacher.

Verses 16-17 shift the focus from the leaders to the women of Jerusalem, and God’s specific judgment on them.

As Walter Brueggemann observes, “The heads of these women must have endured long hours being caressed in a beauty parlor – and now they are a mass of scabs and sores! The finery of dresses must have been artistically designed – and now the women endure mocked exposure of brutalizing slavery!”

Verses 18-24 give more detail about the sins of the women: the loss of their social identity and self-worth, and the devastating reversal of fortune and status brought about by divine judgment. Verses 25-26 speak starkly of judgment on the men and on the city itself.

This tragic section concludes with a memorable image: in desperation these once proud and beautiful women will be reduced to begging for any man who will have them. Having refused the light of God, they retreat into darkness. The reality of social life in Judah’s immediate future is grim and nightmarish.

THE SUN WILL SHINE

That is the storm; now for the sunshine. Isaiah has consistently pointed to the future: “In that day .” (2:11, 17, 20; 3:7, 18; 4:1). Again in 4:2 he says, “In that day .” – the great and final Day of the Lord, both terrible and glorious.

Isaiah sees images of the future destruction of Judah, and the hope of the righteous remnant restored to the land. But through the storm clouds of divine judgment he also catches far-off glimpses of the end of the world.

The goal to which history is inexorably moving under God is not destruction but salvation, not annihilation but purification (cf 1 Th 5:9; 1 Pet 1:5).

Isaiah uses four images to describe life in that far-off future world. He speaks of “the Branch of the Lord” (4:2a), elsewhere used as a technical title for Messiah (cf Isa 11:1; 53:2; Jer 23:5; 33:15; Zec 3:8; 6:12), but here possibly symbolising the fullness of God’s saving purposes.

He speaks of “a fruitful land” (4:2b), alluding to Canaan, and perhaps to God’s promises to Abraham (Gen 17:7-8). Those promises were binding and eternal, and in that Day the faithful people of God will enjoy their final fulfilment.

He speaks of “a holy city” (4:3-4), no longer faithless and corrupt but purified and set apart forever for God’s dwelling and God’s glory and God’s people. The Bible ends with a similar vision of “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Rev 21:2).

And Isaiah speaks of a “canopy” of glory (4:5-6), with allusions to the exodus, but now the long and tortuous journey has ended forever, and God’s faithful pilgrim people have arrived at their eternal rest. Sunshine – eternal sunshine – has followed the storm.

At the end of The Pilgrim’s Progress, seventeenth century Baptist preacher and writer John Bunyan describes how one of his main characters, Mr Valiant-for-Truth, passes from storm into sunshine:

When the day that he must go hence [through the gates into the City] was come many accompanied him to the River side, into which, as he went, he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave where is thy victory?’ So he passed over, and the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

May you one day hear those trumpets sound for you.

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E097 Copyright (c) 2002 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

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