Isaiah 1-7: Peace

At the Neighborhood Church, reading through the Bible we're in Isaiah 1-7 for the first week of Advent, where our theme is Peace. Through the study of the sign of Immanuel for King Ahaz given by the Lord through Isaiah, this message highlights how repentance and hope are both crucial for real peace.

Sermon Notes:

Our first week of Advent we are reading Isaiah 1-7, and our theme is peace. The book of Isaiah contains incredible promises and prophesies of a coming Peace despite a current context of conflict. And we will see through these chapters in Isaiah how, even in conflict, God offers a path to peace through repentance, and by our hope in Him.

As we look at the Word of God today, my hope is that if you are not currently in a place of peace, in your life, or in your heart in relationship with Him, that today God would equip and encourage you to be able to receive the Peace that He brings.

Prayer: God of Peace, thank you for You. Thank you for coming to us and not leaving us as orphans. I ask that You would show us the path to peace, bring peace in our hearts through relationship with you, in our lives, and in our families, in our communities, and to the ends of the earth. Please equip us now to know, pursue and receive Your peace. Amen.

Last week in Kids Church we talked about Song of Solomon and how “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Scripture also says that God is Peace, and that He is the God of Peace.

Starting with the perfect wholeness of the garden of Eden all the way to the New Jerusalem, God is indeed the God of peace. (which ‘Jeru’ literally means ‘you will see’ or ‘foundation’ and Salem, or ’shalom,’ means ‘peace’. Combined, beautifully, means, ‘you will see peace’ or ‘foundation of peace’).

Hebrews 13:20: Now may the God of peace, [who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,] equip you with everything good for doing his will, [and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.]

Judges 6:24: So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.

Ephesians 2:12: For He Himself is our peace

1 Corinthians 14:33: For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.

2 Thessalonians 3:16: Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.Review: Chronologically we have been jumping around a bit in our Through the Bible reading plan. Last week, Byron spoke on Song of Solomon, which was written in a golden age of peace and prosperity in Israel’s history. Before that, we read through the dark point of Israel’s history, Lamentations, which describes the period of Jerusalem’s destruction and the exile of God’s people into Babylon in 586BC. This occurs after the reign of wicked kings where, leaving the ‘path of peace,’ apostasy from God brought judgment.

Personal prosperity can bring forgetfulness and pride, where our hope and faith strays away from God. Likewise, for nations, what tends to follow extended peace and prosperity is a degradation of moral standards, a slip into civil war and/or grabs at power. We see this in history and the history of God’s people:

Upon entering the promised land, Joshua fought against the Caananites and the “land had rest from war” (Joshua 11:23). Judges that loved God and others, brought extended periods of peace. Kings that loved God and others, likewise, brought extended peace—David and his son Solomon (derived from Shalom, which again means ‘peace’), brought 80 years of unprecedented prosperity and peace for the nation of Israel. It came after hard-won battles, repentance, and where David’s hope and faith were in God alone. David, through brokenness (his own and others’), loved God and others, bringing peace to his household and the nation of Israel. A warrior after God’s own heart, His own desires: Peace.

As a unified nation in a golden age of peace and prosperity, Israel leaves the ‘path of peace’ through forgetfulness and pride, and splinters into the northern and southern kingdoms, where people are taken advantage of and idol worship is encouraged for political leverage by the next kings, and it spirals downhill from there. This is where we find ourselves in the book of Isaiah.

Overview of Isaiah 1-7:

• Chapter 1 describes the broken condition and future judgment of the nation if it does not repent.

1:4: “woe to the sinful nation …. They have forsaken the Lord […] and turned their backs on him” v7: “your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.…”

1:16 Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.”

• Chapter 2 describes the future Day of the Lord where peace among all the nations will be preceded by future judgment upon the entire world.

2:2: In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

2:11: The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and human pride brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

• Chapters 3 and 4 describes the conditions of the nearer-future judgement of Judah and Jerusalem, and the purified remnant who will remain.

3:1: See now, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support… 4:3: Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem.

• Chapter 5 pronounces woes upon all the wicked who engage in particular indulgent and destructive sins, concluding with a description of the battle-ready nations that the Lord will use to punish the rebellious.
  

5:4: What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? … The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel … v7: he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

v26: He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!

• Chapter 6 describes Isaiah’s vision of the Lord enthroned with seraphim surrounding him, and after his lips are purified by a burning coal from the altar, is commissioned to go and proclaim a message to a people with dulled sensitivity, preventing their healing, and ending in their power and prominence being ‘cut down to a stump.’
  

6:1: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

v8-9: And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ …

v11: Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”

v12, 13b: until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. … the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

Chapter 7 marks the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry, where he speaks God’s words to the King of Judah, which now is Uzziah’s grandson, Ahaz. At this point Ahaz is caught in a significant conflict with strong opposition from multiple sides and is seeking deliverance and peace, but has forgotten God, and is following the wicked practices of the world around him. God sends Isaiah to him to convict him of his need of repentance and faith in God:

7:3: Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

As I was thinking about Isaiah and Ahaz, I believe the Lord helped me realize something about why He asked Isaiah to bring his son with him. You know how the Lord often gives people meaningful signs or specific acts that test one’s faith or repentance? Like how the Lord directed Elisha to tell Naaman to dip himself 7 times in the Jordan and it was hard for him because he was a proud, and yet his obedience led to the healing of his leprosy? Likewise, using young children as signs to Ahaz may have been particularly meaningful because he had his own child ‘pass through the fire.’ The Launder’s field is a place that might symbolize cleansing and repentance.

Here, God seems to be confronting Ahaz with the reality of what he’s done and encouraging him to trust in Him in his conflict. And it may be a harsh reality, because the meaning of the name of Isaiah’s son, ‘a remnant shall return,’ foreshadows a future hope despite defeat and exile.

7:4-9: Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “‘It will not take place, it will not happen, for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’”

The Lord, merciful, desires Ahaz to be patient, not make any rash decisions, to stand firm in his faith, to not turn away. But when offered a sign, any sign he wants, to confirm this, Ahaz rejects it. So God chooses the sign: A child, whose name is ‘God with us.’

7:13: Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”

Rather than repenting from sin and trusting in God and His deliverance, Ahaz turns away and bribes the military aid of the king of Assyria with the treasuries in the temple and the palace. It wins him temporary relief, but the allegiance ends up having ‘strings attached’ that further compromises his faith and worship of God. Assyria ends up turning on him, and Ahaz ends up sacrificing to the ‘gods of Damascus’ which likely meant child sacrifice, which scripture says was ‘his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.’

Although hard to face, Ahaz missed what would have brought him peace.

Luke 19:41-44: As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. … because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

What would bring you peace? What is something that might be hard to face that the Lord is mercifully bringing before you to offer repentance and a path to peace?

Advent: Peace through Hope

During the weeks leading up to Christmas, we celebrate the amazing reality of Immanuel, God’s coming to be with us in the birth of Christ. And through his death and resurrection, we get to anticipate God’s promise of his second coming and our redemption to be with Him together, forever. This is a joyous hope, and gives us great peace.

Immanuel has become the sign for the entire world, and brings peace to all who believe:

9:6: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Gospel: This peace is available for all. If you do not have peace in your heart with God or do not share this hope, and you would like to, consider the birth of Jesus as a baby a sign of God’s love for you. He came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Through your faith that His death on the cross can remove your sin, and that God’s gracious gift to you right now is relationship forever because he’s alive, repent from unbelief and ask Him to forgive you and tell Him you believe He’s the Lord!

Numbers 6:24-26

“The Lord bless you
and keep you;

the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”