Lord, we thank You that, as we open Your precious Word, we can always see the Servant of the Lord in the foreground and the background, on Your heart and in Your mind.
From the beginning of time, there has been a great love story: the Father and His Beloved. You wanted to reveal Him and glorify Him, to cause all fullness to dwell in Him, and to gather all things under Him.
Even as we come today, we yield ourselves, as our brothers shared, and come before You and say, “Lord, show us Your beloved Son, and it is enough.”
We thank You, Lord, for Your precious Word. Even as I fumble through some overview of Isaiah, Lord, help us capture just a little bit of the glory of the Lord. We thank You for this hour and commit it into Your hands, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Amen.
Oh, may it be one day, Lord, some older person would come up and show me how to work with them. Alas, it shall never be.
Well now, you see, you people right here—you’re cooked. You’re looking at my big belly, and you’re not going to be able to see this. Is there someplace you can move? Can you actually see this? Come on, I’m highly suspicious.
And you guys, you’re out of the ball game. Rip? Behind you? Oh, behind me. Then I need to stand up in the no-input area. All right, well, whatever.
We’re looking at the whole book of Isaiah, but not so much at all the prophecies. There’s really too much to draw upon. We are looking at the development in Isaiah’s own life, and we have gone through two stages of development.
Of course, as you know, it is not all clear-cut, as though suddenly one day, at thirty-five years old, Isaiah woke up and God said, “Now you’re a watchman.” It is something that develops in his life.
The first stage is that of one who loved the Lord. He was captured by the Lord. Anybody who is going to serve God’s purpose has got to be captured by the greatness of the Lord, to the extent that you begin a lifetime of decreasing and the Lord’s increasing.
That is how we come into purpose. If we remain large, there is a great limit to anything the Lord can do through us as a servant. The Lord undoes us with a royal vision, and as we see and lay hold of that vision, we begin to discover things about the Lord that are so precious.
Isaiah, the young man, discovered Immanuel. It became a name so loaded with revelation for this dear brother. It was his consolation in times of trouble.
Then, as he began to understand these things, the Lord said, “Now I want you to be My watchman. Now that you see My throne is over everything, I want you to understand what I am doing in the nations about you.”
Here we see this second aspect of prophetic ministry: God is raising up a prophetic generation that understands the times. How important that is.
I know that you have learned the Lord long enough to realize that these global politics and events going on are not at all by chance. The Lord is using kingdoms rising and falling to affect His final purposes.
There are two possibilities for Christians. Either we will be as sleepy as backslidden Israel and be caught completely blindsided by what God is doing, or we will be as the remnant that understands and takes appropriate action.
As we see our country now declining, we have two responses, right? Either to say, “Oh, this is terrible. You know what? I’ve always thought about moving to New Zealand.” That is the wrong response, ladies and gentlemen. I hope nobody here has two tickets for the next boat.
No, the proper response is, “Well, the nation’s going to hell in a handbasket. What do you say we pray for mercy? Maybe the Lord can turn us around.”
It is interesting being in New York City because last year, in 2008, they celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Great Revival of 1858. Some of you might not even know about it.
Here is what happened. In 1857, they had a run on the banks. The banks crashed, and they closed banks across the United States—which was pretty much the East Coast in those days—from October through the end of the year.
In New York City alone, fifty thousand people were laid off work. With nothing else to do, these men—terrified and afraid—began meeting in a little Dutch Reformed church down in the Wall Street area.
They had a prayer meeting of about six people that commenced on one Monday. Within six months, there were twenty-five thousand people praying every Monday. It is called the revival that started by prayer alone.
By the time 1858 was over, one million people had been saved. If you remember, thirty-three million was the population of the whole country in 1858. Do you realize what a marvelous thing God did?
It was because people, in a desperate time of financial ruin, asked God for mercy. And there we are. Can He do it again? Well, we will have to see.
Now we see Isaiah in a third stage. Having been a watchman on the wall, I would now like to look at him as an intercessor standing in the gap.
In Isaiah’s life, we see more than just a prophet. He is becoming a coworker with God’s purpose. What a tremendous calling that is.
In the chapters we will look at today—Isaiah 28 through 39—we see a mature Isaiah interceding with a merciful heart in the gap for the sons of Jacob.
Now, we just have to review. I sense, with the crowd that is here, that not all of you partook of the barbecue yesterday afternoon, and so that means you did not partake of my feast here—my pictorial feast.
Here we are looking at Isaiah in his watchman stage. Here are the walls of Jerusalem, lit up at night—modern Jerusalem, actually. There is a famous picture of Isaiah standing on the wall. I am sorry I could not tuck it in graphically, you know—Photoshop. I do not know what that is.
Here is Isaiah standing on the wall, looking at the Lord enthroned. Based on that vision—not a horizontal vision—he determines the fate of the nation. Through vertical vision, down to the horizontal, he begins to see what God is doing in Assyria, all the way to Egypt and all the countries in between.
Last time we saw Isaiah in this position upon the wall, watching the enthroned Lord: “Lord, what are You doing? What are You doing?” There is a lot of inquiry. A watchman has a lot of inquiry: “Lord, what is going on? What are You doing? What about that situation? Is this pregnant with Your purpose?”
This is what it means. He saw that the whole world was being influenced by that throne of the Lord. He thought Egypt was just a secular country that God hated, and he came to find out that Egypt was a country God was about to save. Whoa.
Isaiah said, “Lord, forgive me for my narrow heart. I never saw that You desired to save the Egyptians.” He saw many things up there on that wall in this phase.
Then he became a watchman, and we looked at these verses in Isaiah 21. There are other verses too. I just wrote down a few others here.
“Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice;
with the voice together shall they sing:
for they shall see eye to eye,
when the Lord shall bring again Zion.”
— Isaiah 52:8
“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem.”
— Isaiah 62:6
We cannot go into this, but last time we looked at the seven nations surrounding Judah and their fate. It was all determined because of the forces of iniquity behind them, bringing judgment upon them.
All of it was seen as lessons of moral value and spiritual value to Judah herself. Just as Moab was corrupt because of her immorality and sensuality, so Judah was being corrupted by her immorality and sensuality. Every view out there came back upon them as a warning from Isaiah.
A watchman, we saw, must be a waiter. All right? Here is your job: wait. That is your professional calling. Wait.
We have a couple of brothers in our assembly in New York who are waiters, actually, in restaurants. It does not mean that kind of waiting. It means you are waiting, looking at God’s throne. You are looking at a country and watching for connections: “What is going on, Lord?”
We are waiting for the heavenly point of view—not the high-occupancy vehicle lane on an interstate. “What do You determine about this thing, Lord?” Once we know that, we can bind and loose. But until we know that, we are just making up stuff.
The watchman must be a waiter. A watchman must also be a warner—not the movie production, Warner. The watchman must be a warner as he sees the Lord’s hand moving over the nations and says, “Watch out, this is going to happen.”
Everybody says, “No, it is not going to happen.” Then, when it happens—what did it say in Ezekiel? If you warn somebody and it happens, it happens, but it is not on your blood.
But if I give you to see something and you do not warn those around you about it, I will hold you accountable as well as them. This is a call that involves the denying of self in order to speak the truth in Christ.
A watchman becomes compassionate if he sees those dwelling in darkness. Jonah is the antitype of all this, right? He could not stand those Ninevites.
The Lord said, “What is the matter with you, Jonah? You got heart problems? What? You see, they do not even know how to go out and come in. I have mercy on them. Can’t you have mercy on them?”
A watchman’s heart—if you are faithful to the Lord and keep watching the Lord—a watchman’s heart is going to break, because he sees God’s heart longing to save, heal, and recover. It is the Lord’s desire that no one should perish.
If you truly watch the Lord long enough, you are going to see His mercy behind every action of discipline. You are going to see until your heart is broken and you weep for the nation rather than rejoice like Jonah.
Here is a picture of where a watchman is. As he comes into intercession, we see Isaiah the intercessor. Where do you stand in the gap? You stand in that gap between the two hands of God’s mercy.
On the one hand, He is trying to help, expose, reveal, and save. With the other hand, He is holding back the tides of judgment. The intercessor has to stand right in between those two, seeing both hands.
“Lord, Lord, please. If You find ten righteous in Sodom, will You spare it?” What is that position? He is in between. He knows the hand of judgment and the hand trying to appeal. That is the mercy of God, and that is where Isaiah is now standing.
A watchman is compelled by the mercy of God into the gap: a place of solitude, a place of intimacy, a place of authority—but only on behalf of God’s purpose.
Sorry, gentlemen, if you become an intercessor, you have no more authority at home than you already have. But as you gather together in the name of the Lord and lay hold of things, you will have authority in Christ for His purposes.
I have noticed that people often do not have any authority regarding themselves. But in matters larger than themselves, if they get beyond themselves, the Lord gives them authority.
My mother was a great servant. She only lived ten years after she got saved, and then the Lord took her. She had a healing ministry—an actual physical healing ministry. I saw many times her lay hands on people, and they got healed.
You know what? She could not heal herself. The Lord gives you authority when it comes to helping others, to serving His purpose in others. But for yourself, you have to crawl in mercy like everybody else.
Have you ever realized that about yourself? Well, Larry—even his son—said, “You know, this is one of God’s great jokes: you go somewhere, and the further you go, the more anointing the Lord gives you, that we have help.”
By the time he gets to Romania, he is a regular man of God. Then he comes back here, and he is breaking the mugs and asking for mercy. That is where all of us are at, you know.
I bring laymen over to Russia every once in a while. These guys—Joe and Joe Bob and Fred—they get over to Russia, and the next thing you know, they are fanning them out into these communities, where suddenly they are thrust into preaching the gospel.
None of them feels like, “Well, wait a minute. I just came to watch.” Within a week, they are all gospel preachers, because every one of you in this room has enough gospel knowledge to be an effective evangelist in Russia right now. That is all they need: hear the Word, and they will be saved.
But as soon as you come back home, you are just Joe Bob again. It is like when you cannot go to the surface too quickly—you get the bends. You have got to go back up slow.
In Isaiah 28 through 39, we see the watchman becoming the intercessor in the gap for God’s people. It is interesting: the term used throughout Isaiah 28 through 39 is this word woe.
As God pronounces woes of judgment upon the backslidden people, Isaiah is no longer looking out at the nations. He is looking at Judah herself. Isaiah groans and weeps as he speaks to Jerusalem in the Spirit of Christ Jesus.
Through each of these woes, Isaiah and the remnant are seen interceding. Let us understand something about intercession in a basic way.
Intercession is not natural to us. Caring for other people more than ourselves? I do not know.
First, there must be a personal undoing that gives birth to a heart of mercy for others. This is a development in our lives.
Then one must learn the difference between compassion, prayer, and intercession. Compassionate praying is empathizing with those in trouble and asking God for mercy to help them find relief.
Intercession first finds God’s will and then stands with God’s best interest for that person, even if it means some discipline and some undoing.
Intercession involves a death to self and a life lived in ascension. We must decrease, and Christ must increase. If we would be intercessors, we have to live a life in ascension.
I remember the first time I heard this. I heard it from Norman Grubb. He said—he was very English—“Well, you see, when you are an intercessor, you realize that your life is not only dead and hid in Christ in resurrection, but your life is over. Now you live in the heavenly places for others. That is the life of ascension.”
Ah, if you have some need, you say, “Now, Lord, just remember my need, but let us pray about these big things.” Wow. Now there is a goal, huh?
Isaiah is over fifty years old. God’s measure has increased in him, and larger matters weigh upon his heart. Oh, he could be selfish, just as selfish as any of us, but he is allowing these larger matters to pass through his heart.
Intercession is a priestly ministry, where the family of God is carried daily upon the breastplate. You do not choose to do it. You may say, “I choose a ministry of intercession,” but it is actually something that is laid upon you as the Lord captures you.
Only hearts wrestling in intercession will find the way through to mercy in the time of the woes.
Let us look at the woes for just a minute. You will see there are actually six woes. But first, what woe really is.
We think of the preacher who says, “Woe to you.” Or there is that old joke some guy told me in seminary, and I did not catch on. He said, “You know Isaiah had a horse. Did you know his name?” I said, “No, I did not know.” He said, “His name is Me.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Because Isaiah says in chapter 6, ‘Woe is me.’”
But we hear these preachers who say, “Woe to you, woe to you.” That is not at all the spirit of the woes in the Bible.
“Woe” in Hebrew is hoy, hoy. It is a deep sigh that comes from the intercessor when mercy is being ignored. It is a sigh.
Some of the more modern translations say, “Ah.” In each of the chapters, as these woes begin, it says, “Ah, Jerusalem.” It is a sigh; it is not a yelling.
Stephen Kaung always says “woo,” because it is the same as “shoe,” you know: S-H-O-E, W-O-E—shoe, woo. Anyway, it is hoy.
Woes are groaned whenever wrath has begun going forth. That hand stays back as long as it can. The woe starts to break through the fingers of God’s mercy, and when you see that, you say, “Hoy.”
Isaiah pronounces six woes in this section. If you look in your Bible at Isaiah 28, you will see these sections.
“Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim.”
— Isaiah 28:1
“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel.”
— Isaiah 29:1
“Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord.”
— Isaiah 29:15
These are six hoys, six sighs, six woes. We will look at just three of them: the woes to Ephraim, northern Israel; to Ariel, Jerusalem; and to His rebellious children.
Who is Ephraim? They are the blessed tribe of Joseph. They are the parentage of Joseph and Gideon. They had Samaria as a capital. They were stronger than Judah in warfare.
The tribe of Ephraim was the tribe. Why? It was the blessed tribe of Joseph. They had strength and prosperity you would not believe. When Judah got in a fight with Ephraim, Ephraim won.
They were very prosperous under King Jeroboam II—the most prosperous. They far outweighed Judah in those great days of prosperity.
But idolatry and worldly alliances caused their exile by the Assyrians in 721 BC. They are still a lost tribe today. Who can find them? People write books about them; no one knows.
Here is the verse:
“Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim.”
— Isaiah 28:1
It is so interesting in this particular prophecy. It shows an aspect of pride that I guess I had never seen before. You know what pride does? It makes a person drunk.
Northern Israel got drunk on their prosperity, drunk on their strength, and drunk on their blessings.
Why did the Lord pronounce a woe upon a nation already captive? When Isaiah pronounced this woe, Ephraim was already in captivity under Shalmaneser.
Why would the Lord pronounce a woe on a nation already in captivity? Because the warning regarding Ephraim is this: pride destroys a nation. Pride makes a nation drunk.
All the leaders were drunk. Then they went to the priests in northern Israel, and the priests were drunk. Read it yourself. Everybody was drunk in Ephraim.
God says, “Woe to you. The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is trodden underfoot.” This is a quote from Isaiah 28:3.
I am going to cut right to the chase. Rather than talk to you about the historical thing involved, I am going to share the spiritual principle, because what the Lord wants today is intercessors.
I wonder if you have a heart big enough to carry the hoy regarding these matters. Who would Ephraim be today? In type, it is no guesswork at all. In this present age, it is the church.
It is the church that has fallen away from its center in Christ and idolizes men—professing believers who live only by the strength of their human flesh.
It is a lukewarm, affluent church, drunk with pride and abundance, full of dead tradition: Christendom with its religious forms, but denying the power of the living God.
We are right back in Revelation 2 and 3, and the Lord is saying, “Hoy! Hoy! What is the matter with you? Have I not been merciful to you? Why have you left your first love? Why are you chasing after teaching? Why are you listening to Jezebel? Why do you have a reputation that you are alive, and you are dead as wood? What is the matter with you?”
These are the woes that we have today.
How does God respond to Ephraim? You have to read it for yourself, but let us look at Isaiah 28:16.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,
a tried stone,
a precious corner stone, a sure foundation:
he that believeth shall not make haste.”
— Isaiah 28:16
We can stop right there. You know what the Lord does in the midst of pride? He presents His foundation stone, Jesus Himself.
Will you fall on that stone, or will that stone fall on you? This is the offer in mercy to the proud church. How wonderful God is in His mercy.
God’s reaction to a believer’s pride is always this: in mercy, He reveals His Son before them—either to believe and fall upon Him, or to be judged.
We begin to see the alternatives in times when wrath begins to break forth and God’s hand of mercy has to be removed for the correction and judgment of His children. We are offered a choice in every one of these instances between the two hands of mercy.
Here is our choice:
This is counterintuitive. The Lord says, “My hands are coming to judge,” and you say, “Then I am running to You.” Most people run away.
You will see this principle worked out throughout this whole section. The remnant runs to Him. Isaiah, Shear-jashub, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz run toward the Lord: “Lord, I wait for You. Lord, I seek Your mercies. Lord, I believe that as I stay in the shelter here, You will protect me.”
They run into it, not away from it. But that is the choice when the hands of mercy come down and are removed for judgment. Which way are you running—away or toward?
Out on Long Island, about fifteen years ago, they had the idea of building a nuclear plant for electricity. They built the whole thing at a cost of six billion dollars.
Then they discovered—this is typical of engineers, sorry—there was no escape route in case there was a meltdown at the nuclear plant.
In the end, they shut it down, and for four billion dollars more, they tore the plant back down. The people on Long Island are paying the ten-billion-dollar debt that led to nowhere.
But let me tell you about some saints I knew who lived seven miles from the nuclear plant. There was a woman there, scared out of her mind about a nuclear meltdown. She was obsessed. Her husband could barely calm her down.
One day I happened to be there with some other saints, and we were having coffee at somebody’s house. The woman started in again: “I know they are going to melt down, because they were just about complete. We have nowhere to go. We will build a bridge.”
On Long Island, if you suddenly have to escape, there are only three highways. Eight million people are going to take those three highways. You will be faster running over the tops of the cars.
There is no way off. Then, when you get all the way to New York, you have to travel across three little bridges or one little tunnel. There is no escape. This woman was freaking out.
Suddenly the wisdom of God came forth. One of the sisters sitting there, drinking coffee, said, “Well, I do not know about you, but I will tell you what I am going to do.”
She lived in the area as well. “If I hear that the place is in a meltdown in a major way, I am walking right toward the plant. I figure it is better to be nuked right away than to live with radioactive burns for years and finally, you know, conk out.”
You know something? That woman who was obsessed and worried snapped out of it. She said, “Well, of course, we love Jesus. Hey, yeah, I am going to walk with you.” And it was all over.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you see the judgments of God coming, run to God. Run to the hiding place. Do not run away from Him. You cannot run.
Do we not know that from Jonah? There is no place you can hide except in His will.
Laz tells that wonderful story—I do not know if it is fictitious or not, but anyway, who knows? He says the only safe place in war is in God’s will.
He had neighbors in London, and during the Blitz they decided to move way out into a remote area of England. Sure enough, some German guy dropped his bombs and blew up their house way out in the sticks. The idea was that their place was safe right there in London, in the will of God.
God gives an option to this proud, drunk people: “Just before I do something in judgment to you, watch. Look one more time at My Son. He is the King. He is the Lord. He is the exalted One. He is the very foundation stone of your life.”
“Do you want to stand on that foundation, or do you want to be crushed by it?” Now, that is a merciful offer. It may sound tough to you, but God is trying to save somebody’s life—especially those drunk with pride.
The question is this: when you think of Christendom, that whole backslidden church, this whole prosperity thing, and all these blind people just going on like little hamsters in a hamster cage, do you sigh at the thought of our compromised brethren? Does it do something to you?
You realize we are part of them. We will undergo judgment because of them, and they because of us. Do you hear the call to intercede for their recovery upon that one foundation again?
It is a very simple point I make. But sometimes we do the old ostrich thing, sticking our heads in the ground as if to say, “I do not care about them.”
There is truth in the fact that, just as it says in Revelation 2 and 3, you must be an overcomer. You hear what the Spirit says to the churches. You must be responsible for yourself.
But do not just say, “Okay, I am leaving all these other people.” If you have seen God’s heart, you know that is not God’s heart.
The second woe: “Woe unto Ariel.” This is Isaiah 29. It begins, “Hoy, Ariel, Ariel.” First, you must know what that means.
Isaiah often uses poetic language, and Ariel literally in Hebrew means “lion of God.” This was a name given to the city of Judah, Zion, because David was called the lion of Judah. Ariel means lion of God.
Here is God’s heart: “Hoy, Ariel, Ariel. What are you doing, Jerusalem? Do you not see the wrath breaking forth? Do you not see it? But no, you are blind.”
This is a whole section about blindness. This woe for Zion can only be uttered with the tears of Jesus.
Many Bible scholars say that Jesus actually said, “Hoy, Yerushalayim. Hoy, Yerushalayim.” That is the way you say it in Hebrew. Woe to you, Zion, Zion.
You remember, of course, I am talking about Luke 19, when Jesus overlooked the city and said, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” Those are words of tears—God’s city in such disrepair and blindness.
How could Jerusalem fall so far from God? Here is the answer, simple and plain, ladies and gentlemen: by religion.
Listen to what He says. This is just the Bible: “Your feasts have become a yearly routine.”
“Okay, Zelda, we have got to go out to the Pentecost feast. Get the kids, pour them in. Oh boy, I am going to have to cook some more of that matzah. Oh boy, this can be tough. We have got to do it.”
You know, the old religious routine: “Come on, we are going to church today,” and all this kind of stuff. Ah, wait a minute. I changed from the Jewish calendar to the Christian year. Same routine. Just wear different-colored smocks, if you are the high priest of the church of what is happening now.
“Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
and with their lips do honour me,
but have removed their heart far from me,
and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.”
— Isaiah 29:13
You realize that Christians can say, “We fear the Lord,” and it is a traditional posture. The fear of the Lord is lived in a life, not in a statement.
Observance replaces a life offered. Words replace a heart response. Oh, the subtle robbery and blindness of religious routine.
Religion has a way of dulling the conscience and making you feel good. I was saved at twenty years old, but my mom used to go to church because she was a professional singer. She always tried to drag me to churches where she was singing.
I hated going to church. But I have to admit, whenever I went to church and sat there for that agonizingly long hour, I came out feeling pretty good.
Somehow I felt that if I died, I would not go to hell. I was pretty righteous—I had gone to church. So I faithfully went both Easter and Christmas. I was about ready to be raptured, I reckon.
It is amazing how religion can anesthetize you to your total lack of spiritual reality, you know? Ah, this is our state.
This chapter in Isaiah 29 is all through the New Testament. The issue regarding Israel’s blindness—“you see, but you do not see”; “you honor Me with your lips”—is mentioned in Luke, Romans, Mark, and 1 Corinthians.
You know why? Paul, like Isaiah, was an intercessor groaning for the blind sons of Jacob. Is that not true? He was standing in the gap for his blind brethren.
With an ache in his heart so great, he said, “There are times I could wish myself accursed, if only they could come in and see the Messiah.” He was standing there, hurting. A hoy was upon his heart.
The question is: do we groan and intercede for the dear people around us, blinded by the bondage of religion? Bound by legalism so that they cannot even hear the living Christ?
It is all doctrine. It is all propositions. They do not hear Christ in the words; they just hear the words. What a shame this is.
Some even groan for the Jews, still there, blind as a bat to their Messiah. I will not even say his name, because I do not want people to run around and anybody to be exalted.
But there are people standing between the hands for Jerusalem right now—for the Jews themselves. Some are brothers we know. It is costing them their lives, their health, and their hearts, but they see something and they are standing there, just like Paul.
God would have His full purpose among His children. Do not forget: Romans 9 through 11 calls the Jews His children, who are acting in complete defiance and rebellion. But according to election, they are beloved. It is a strange mystery there.
In Isaiah 30 and 31: “Woe to My rebellious children.” If you look there for a second, you see it: “Hoy, to the rebellious children, saith the Lord.”
If the Lord were anybody other than gracious and compassionate, He would have smacked us around, and He would have stoned most of us while still in childhood.
What can you do with a rebellious child? What can you do? Something in God’s heart breaks when He sees a child rebelling and kicking against the very goads of their purpose and being.
The act of rebellion—we just see the words; they speak for themselves:
“Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord,
that take counsel, but not of me;
and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit,
that they may add sin to sin:
That walk to go down into Egypt,
and have not asked at my mouth;
to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,
and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!”
— Isaiah 30:1–2
These rebellious children doubly sin. First, they remove God’s covering from their lives. Oh, dear God, have mercy on rebellious children who walk out from underneath their covering.
They will be eaten by the lion just like that. He snacks on Christian kids out from under the covering. What a dangerous place to be. But there are some so stupid—including ourselves at times, huh?
They doubly sin by removing the Spirit’s covering over their lives and then willfully drawing over them the covering of Egypt and worldly counsel.
What does the Lord do to His rebellious children? What do you think—smack them around? Let the left hand go?
Here is the word: “The Lord will wait.” That is the translation in my Bible, and I think in the King James. The word is wait. We will see it in just a second.
“And therefore will the Lord wait,
that he may be gracious unto you,
and therefore will he be exalted,
that he may have mercy upon you:
for the Lord is a God of judgment:
blessed are all they that wait for him.”
— Isaiah 30:18
God is waiting. What does this mean? God waits. Very interesting: the Hebrew literally means He longs for.
What does the Lord do with a rebellious child? He longs for them, just like the father of the prodigal son. His heart is sick day and night. But what does He do as He waits?
“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity,
and the water of affliction,
yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more,
but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying,
This is the way, walk ye in it,
when ye turn to the right hand,
and when ye turn to the left.”
— Isaiah 30:20–21
The Jews call matzah “the bread of affliction.” I do not know if you know that. Even though you receive the bread of affliction from the Lord, this is how the Lord waits.
He holds the hand back, and He waits. He gives you a little deprivation there, just a little bit of trial. Then He keeps His Word very near you, as near as your heart, as near as the turning of your heart.
Suddenly there is the Word that gets you. Is not the Lord wonderful? He does not make us crawl back twelve miles, wait six months, and then start to talk to us.
As soon as you say, “Lord, have mercy,” He starts speaking just like that. God’s children who are rebellious—God is a merciful God. Wonderful Lord.
He afflicts with the bread and the water, longing not to judge. Then He keeps speaking, longing for those with ears to hear what the Spirit would say in these late days.
Maybe even this present economic trouble, if it becomes great trouble, is only the bread of affliction, that we might have ears to hear.
Here is another verse in the same section about the rebellious children. We all quote this and love it as a salvation verse:
“For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel;
In returning and rest shall ye be saved;
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength:
and ye would not.”
— Isaiah 30:15
Is that the whole verse? We lop off the bottom. Even the Navigators lop off the bottom. You memorize the top part, but maybe we should memorize “and ye would not,” because that is where some of us are at.
Does the uncovering of our rebellious brethren, and their sifting by the enemy, cause us to groan? Is there a hoy when you see that?
Can we watch a generation of young people be swept away by worldly counsel and not groan? I do not know the size of your heart, because I know so many of us are trying to survive ourselves.
But may the Lord raise up intercessors who recognize and weep, even as people play games with God. But we are not playing games.
If we sense the woe going out from mercy rejected and wrath gone forth, we need to pray for these whom the enemy has made a counter-testimony to the Lord’s name.
That includes pride. A proud nation of Ephraim was a counter-testimony to the way God’s people should be. That is just terrible.
Jerusalem was not Zion, the beauty of God shining its glory out across the earth. Jerusalem was a compromised place. It was a counter-testimony. As people came to Jerusalem, they saw all that was wrong with religion.
Rebellious children are a counter-testimony because every time the world sees a rebellious child, they say, “Ha, ha. Look at that—that is a Christian.” And God is mocked. You understand what I am saying?
These counter-testimonies—oh, we need to pray for recovery, for healing, for salvation. May it be that every child of God is a willing witness, that we are humbled of our pride and see the reality.
All through this section, behind the scenes, you see the Lord looking for intercessors to stand in the gap.
“And he saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no intercessor.”
— Isaiah 59:16
Then He found intercessors in Isaiah and the remnant interceding. Oh, praise God.
Isaiah and the remnant interceded by waiting with God to act in mercy and revive His people.
Listen to Isaiah’s prayer. It is right in the middle of this section. It is hard to explain; you have to see it for yourself. God pronounces judgment on the people, and then in the very next paragraph you hear a remnant saying, “Oh, Lord, we love You. Lord, we wait upon You. Lord, we care for You. Lord, we have Your interest in mind.”
“Lord, all we do is think about what You are going to do, and how we believe that You will be faithful.” It is the strangest thing. You hear a judgment, and then you see this remnant of people loving God, worshiping Him, and trusting Him with all their hearts.
Which position are you in? As things get worse, which position will you be in? The group saying, “Oh, woe is me, woe is me,” or the group saying, “Lord, we trust Your goodness. These things are befalling us according to Your plan, and we hide in the shelter of the Rock.”
Here are just a couple of places in this same section. If you went all the way through Isaiah, you would see this reality:
“O Lord, be gracious unto us;
we have waited for thee:
be thou their arm every morning,
our salvation also in the time of trouble.”
— Isaiah 33:2
“Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens,
that thou wouldest come down,
that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth,
the fire causeth the waters to boil,
to make thy name known to thine adversaries,
that the nations may tremble at thy presence!”
— Isaiah 64:1–2
Lord, we want Your name to be known even more than our own safety, protection, and prosperity.
“For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear,
neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee,
what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.”
— Isaiah 64:4
Wonderful prayer of the remnant.
The Lord heard the intercessory prayers of Isaiah and the remnant and, in an amazing way, revived His people, Judah.
You heard the story earlier today, as Steve stood here with “no input” on his forehead and shared with you about Hezekiah. When Ahaz died, his son Hezekiah became king.
This is the son whom Ahaz passed through the fires of the god Molech, and he became the greatest king of Judah in answer to prayer.
“And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.”
— 2 Kings 18:3
“He trusted in the Lord God of Israel;
so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah,
nor any that were before him.”
— 2 Kings 18:5
He was the greatest king of Judah. Do not confuse that with David, the king of Israel. This is now the split country. Hezekiah was called, according to the Word, the greatest king of Judah.
His upright heart and acts of righteousness pleased the Lord. You heard about all of them this morning. He cleansed the house of God, opened the doors, consecrated the priests under the blood, and tore down all the altars.
This is Nehushtan—the serpent lifted up that had become an object of worship—which had to be destroyed by Hezekiah. Then he declared the greatest Passover feast that had been since Solomon.
His political acts were also full of faith and the fear of the Lord. First, he stood up to Assyria and said, “We are not paying you tribute. The Lord our God is our only trust.” Ahaz had been paying tribute for years.
As a result, Sennacherib invaded Judah with an army of one hundred eighty-five thousand soldiers. There was a guy down below demanding and yelling up on the wall, “We are going to eat you like lunch if you do not come willingly as captives, and we will take you into exile. Your choice.”
The ultimatum was given. But what did Hezekiah do? He laid out the demands of Sennacherib before the Lord. He knew how to intercede.
He went into the house of God, laid out that document, and began to pray. Here is the way he prayed. Here is intercessory prayer. Listen to its content:
“O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubim,
thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth:
thou hast made heaven and earth.
Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear;
open thine eyes, O Lord, and see:
and hear all the words of Sennacherib,
which hath sent to reproach the living God.
Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand,
that all the kingdoms of the earth may know
that thou art the Lord, even thou only.”
— Isaiah 37:16–17, 20
What a prayer. He was not praying even for his own interests. In intercession, he knew what the issue was: the Lord being taunted by Sennacherib. That was the issue.
“Lord, deal with that man. He has taunted and spoken ill of You. You are the great and only God over the nations.” That was the prayer.
Along with that was Isaiah, standing in the gap as well. Oh, when Isaiah and Hezekiah met, this was a day destined by God.
King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed about this and cried out to heaven concerning this very moment.
Isaiah gives us another little insight into intercession: he waited for a word from the Lord. Isaiah waited, and then the Lord spoke.
Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.” You see, Hezekiah is waiting; Isaiah brings him the Word. “I got the Word from the Lord.”
“Because thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:
This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him.”
— Isaiah 37:21–22
“Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?
and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice,
and lifted up thine eyes on high?
even against the Holy One of Israel.”
— Isaiah 37:23
“Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria,
He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with shields,
nor cast a bank against it.
By the way that he came, by the same shall he return,
and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
For I will defend this city to save it
for mine own sake,
and for my servant David’s sake.”
— Isaiah 37:33–35
Of course, as our brother shared, that night an angel of the Lord struck one hundred eighty-five thousand of the soldiers. They left, drifted away, and went back to Assyria, where Sennacherib was killed. Another became king, and the Assyrian Empire just died.
This moment was viewed as one of the five greatest moments in Judah’s history. I do not know if you knew this was one of the top five.
Here is the vital lesson we learn: whenever a prophetic remnant stands in the gap for God’s government, there is revival.
“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,
which shall never hold their peace day nor night:
ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,
And give him no rest,
till he establish,
and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”
— Isaiah 62:6–7
The Lord bound Isaiah and Hezekiah together and revived Zion. From out of Zion came a new prosperity, blessing, purity, and revival that went throughout Judah. What a wonderful time that was.
But indeed, the Lord had even greater plans than just a season of reviving. That is what we will look at next time, as Isaiah, from chapters 40 through 66, bears the very testimony of God.
May the Lord have mercy upon us. Expand our hearts in intercession. Give us the sense of the hoy as we think upon these great matters that are even upon us.
Here Isaiah’s heart was expansive—not just for the nations, but mostly for his people. God was giving him a heart to stand in the gap between the hands.
Lord, we pray that You would expand our hearts as well. Lord, some of us are desperate with need. Some of us have many issues in our lives, and self-survival seems to be the basic mode of operation.
But Lord, we realize that above all this, we are just little rodents down upon this earth. There are great spiritual movements and shakings and risings and fallings all about us.
Oh Lord, would You give us a heart, even to lay aside for a moment our needs and to enter into the heart of God, and to hear what You think about the compromised children, the rebellious ones, the blind ones, the religious ones.
Oh God, that You would revive Your people. How wonderful it would be if the name of Christ and the name of Christian would not be a derision and a byword.
Oh Lord, that holiness could be known when the name of Christ is mentioned, and no longer be a curse word on the lips of people.
Oh Lord, we pray somehow You would revive us into a reality according to Your heart. But we know You are looking for intercessors to stand in the gap with a broken heart.
We ask that You would help us until we sense the groan for all of Your departed children. Oh Lord, recover Your testimony.
Yes, even though it is impossible with all the divisions and churches in Christendom itself, You can do great things. We put our trust in You and ask it for the sake of Your blessed Son, Jesus.
May we see even a little reviving in our day. Help us, Lord, as we call out to You in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.