Sermon Podcast

Isaiah(8):- Yet For All This, His Anger Is Not Turned Away

Is 5:18-30 Rev Evan Seah

3 March 2024

Because Israel did not bear fruit (5:1-7), God pronounced 6 woes against them. The first 2 woes were on the desires for possession & pleasure (see last week’s sermon). The remaining 4 can be seen as the aggravation of these desires – i.e. when one leaves these desires undealt with, they will manifest these evils in V18-30.

The third woe is against the arrogance of the Israelites, who said “Let God hurry; let Him hasten His work…so that we may see it” (V18-19). In other words, they were saying “God, come and judge me, I don’t care” – displaying rebellion & mockery towards God. This will lead them to the next woe, which is having no standard of good & evil, i.e. calling “evil good and good evil” (V20). People who persist in the ‘simple’ sins of greed & desire for pleasure, will ultimately not be able to even recognise their wrong, and so not be able to repent. On the contrary, they will grow in pride, becoming “wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight”, i.e. becoming their own god – the 5^th woe (V21).

The last woe (V22-23) is targeted to those who used pleasure to manipulate people for their own gain, thus causing people to make losses & perverting the course of justice (“who acquit the guilty for a bribe but deny justice to the innocent” V23).

As a result, God promised judgement with no hope of salvage – the whole city will be destroyed as thoroughly as “tongues of fire lick up straw and dry grass sinks down in the flame” (V24). Even after that, “the Lord’s hand is still upraised” (V25), and He would call for the “distant nations” (Assyrians & Babylonians, V26) to come and invade Israel. These nations would be “swift & speedy” (V26), not slumbering or sleeping (V27), armed with powerful weapons (V28) , like “young lions” (V29) with insatiable anger [V27-30].

What does this Word mean for the true church? When the day of evil comes, the Church ought not to fear, because with God’s help, the Church can advance faster than the speed of evil. The “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Joel 2:31) will turn to become the “great and GLORIOUS day of the Lord” (Acts 2:20). Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to come to such a stage of God’s wrath, but start to deal with our desires for possession & pleasure now before it is too late.

---