A Sword, A Vineyard, and A Trumpet (Isaiah 27:1-13)
The sermon outline can be found in the ministry guide.
Confidence is essential to perseverance.
In our spiritual lives, this struggle with doubt is an ever present reality for us. It's built into the times in which we live when the Lord has designed us to walk by faith, not by sight. It is difficult for us in part because the world in which we live does not think that way. We believe that all true things can be tested and confirmed now. In a world that favours such things, the believer in God is swimming against the current.
Now, God knows our struggle. That is why the Bible is filled with assurances meant to strengthen our faith. It is filled with persuasion designed to convince us that God's promises about the future are trustworthy, because He knows that our confidence is essential to perseverance.
We've been studying what is known as the Apocalypse of Isaiah in Isaiah 24 to 27. These chapters speak of the end times, or “eschatology”. The prophet has zoomed out from Israel and Judah to the surrounding nations, and then the whole world as we've been walking through the book. He has been viewing them from the standpoint in these chapters of all of human history. Isaiah looks past the events of his day, as Israel has declined morally and spiritually, and they are heading towards exile. He sees a day when God's people will be restored, when their enemies will be judged, and all things will be made right.
We said last week that these are important issues for us, because what we need in this life is an unwavering trust in eternal reality. We need to fix in view what the end looks like and then work backwards as we live this life if we are going to grow in faith in all kinds of ways.
In this chapter, we are given a series of images that are meant to cover over our doubts with confidence in the Lord. Confidence that He will do all that He says, will fulfill all his promises, accomplish all of His purposes, confidence that will give us perseverance.
It is my prayer that our study will increase your confidence in God and give you the perseverance you need even just this next coming week.
God will defeat our greatest enemy
Let us look at Isaiah 27:1 — “In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. Leviathan, the twisting serpent. And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
Now our chapter is going to be filled with these in that day statements. This follows on from a number of images in the chapters we were considering the last several weeks that point to the last days. We thought about the resurrection of the dead and the Feast of Heaven, the final judgment. The Lord is pictured here as doing battle with Leviathan, and it is interesting that the prophet is using mythological language that would have been familiar to his first hearers.
Leviathan was an ancient symbol of evil in its monstrous horror. Apocalyptic literature often uses this kind of symbolism to point to the battle between good and evil. So Leviathan can point generally to great power that opposes God. There is little doubt that what's in view here is ultimately the conflict between God and Satan, the mighty fallen angel who is at war with God's people. Our Scripture reading today was from Revelation 12 and it is worth thinking about why Satan is consistently referred to with snake or serpentine or dragon language.
Why would that be the case? He is the snake in the beginning of the Bible in the Garden of Eden that deceives Adam and Eve. In Revelation 12, he is that great red dragon who makes war against the people of God. I think there are three reasons we can infer why Satan is so regularly described as a dragon or a snake.
First, it is because he is devious. He is called a twisting serpent here. He is crafty and is aiming to deceive. It is often called the “father of lies”, which he is, but his lies are camouflaged with the veneer of truth.
“God wants you to be happy so you should always follow your heart.” True and then false.
“You failed him so many times. How could you expect God to continue to love you?” True, we failed him many times, but not true at all.
“We have every reason to think that he loves us. Marriage is supposed to be a blessing and I'm miserable right now. I should get out.” Marriage is supposed to be a blessing and you may feel miserable right now, but that's completely false. This is the way that Satan lies to us.
He is devious, but he is not just devious. He is also deadly. The image of a dragon is not accidental. A monstrous being, the ancient symbol is the kind of creature that human beings are no match for. Adam and Eve are immediately undone by Satan's lies. He's called by Paul in the New Testament, the God of this age, who has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Cor 4:4). God alone must intervene if that blindness is to be taken away and we can see who Christ is.
He is deadly. He is not just devious and deadly. We also can think of how the serpent imagery points to the fact that he is a coward. He is the fleeing serpent here. He attacks God's people because he cannot attack God. He thought he could tempt the Son of God not to go to the cross. Perhaps thought at the death of the Son of God he might reign in the hour of darkness, but he was undone at the resurrection of the dead and he's merely a condemned criminal awaiting judgment. Revelation 20:10 points to exactly where he is heading. The devil who had deceived the saints was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. That's what Martin Luther was reflecting on when he wrote “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”:
And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us
We will not fear for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us
The Prince of Darkness grim
We tremble not for him
One little word will fell him
No matter what you feel assails you right now, no matter what attacks you are experiencing, whatever doubts and insecurities, whatever fears and anxieties, God stands with a drawn sword over and against your greatest enemy. God will defeat our greatest enemy.
That is meant as a great comfort for the people of God. No matter what you feel assails you right now, no matter what attacks you are experiencing, whatever doubts and insecurities, whatever fears and anxieties, God stands with a drawn sword over and against your greatest enemy. God will defeat our greatest enemy.
God will meet our every need
Let us read Isaiah 27:2-5.
We have our second “in that day” here. Again the prophet is pointing towards end times from his perspective. When he speaks of a pleasant vineyard, we should immediately think of Isaiah 5, the first time there was a song about a vineyard in Isaiah. In Isaiah 5, it was a song about all that God had done for Israel. He had chosen a fertile hill. He had cleared it of stones. He had built a watchtower and a wine vat. He had put up a hedge of protection. He had planted these choice vines and then waited for Israel to bear fruit. What we read there was that it did not bear good fruit. It bore stink fruit, wild grapes. And because of the wickedness of Israel, He was going to send them into exile. That's what we thought about there.
But the judgment of God on His people raises a question. How does God now feel about them? Is He still committed to them? What we are given here is a picture of God as the gardener, or the vinekeeper since this is a vineyard. And we are told that He will always do two things for the vineyard. First, He says every moment He will water it (Isa 27:2a). So God will nourish His people with all that is necessary for life and growth. Every moment.
Secondly, “lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day” (isa 27:2b). There are marauders that could try to break in and steal grapes or destroy the vines. With vineyards this could be the four-footed variety or the two-footed variety. God describes Himself as the defender of His people. So God says He will protect and provide for His people. He will meet their every need for life and preservation.
He even goes further here in Isaiah 27:4. He says, “I have no wrath.” This is a major interpretive decision that we have to make. It could be connected to what has come before, so His commitment to protect and provide is because He no longer has any wrath towards them. If so, this is probably pointing to the New Covenant, the age of the gospel that we live in. Because of the death of Jesus, God's wrath against sin is propitiated and satisfied. He no longer has any wrath towards the believer.
Or, it could go with the next phrase that follows — “Would that I had thorns and briars to battle, I would march out against them. I would burn them up together” (Isa 27:4). So, some think that this is all pointing to a day when there are no longer any enemies of God's people for Him to fight against. God is like a husband that wants someone to mess with His bride so He can prove His zealousness for her, but there are no longer any enemies to fight. If that is correct, then it could be pointing to heaven itself when all the enemies are gone and defeated.
I take it to be the former, where this is pointing to the age in which we are living right now. I do so mainly because of Isaiah 27:5 — “Or let them lay hold of my protection. Let them make peace with me. Let them make peace with me”. These enemies of God's people who are like thorns and briar — human opponents — are trying to infest the vineyard. and God is confronting them saying, “Instead of opposing my people, why not join my people? Why not lay hold of my protection in the gospel and be at peace with me?”
I think this pleasant vineyard is all a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ. God sustains us with the water of life every moment. He provides spiritual nourishment for us. He protects us from enemies by watching over us constantly and by building His church. The gates of hell are not going to prevail against.
He has no wrath because as Romans 3 says, God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, of propitiation, the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. Brothers and sisters, think about all the ways that God has been good to you this morning. It is a long list. Think of the spiritual blessings that are yours in Christ — forgiveness, adoption, reconciliation with Him. Think about all that He does to feed you with His word through the church and the encouragement of the Spirit. Why has He been so good to you? There is not anything in you or I that deserves His love. We are not lovely that He should love us and yet He has been so very good.
Consistent provision and protection and no longer any wrath. Friend, if you are here this morning and you are not a believer, we are so glad that you were willing to come. We do like to spread the word that this is an open service. and we would like more people to know they can come and find out more about what the Bible teaches here. I don't want you to miss Isaiah 27:5 as God's speaking to you this morning. When He says, “Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me”, He says that because He sent His son to die for the sins of anybody who will turn from their sins and trust in Him. It is an open invitation. It is a free gift. Accept this.
What is the catch? You have got to turn from your self rule and your sin, which has not done any good for you anyway. And you have got to make Jesus your Lord. What does He intend to do? He intends to protect and provide for you and love you to eternity. This is the only thing.
It would be too good to be true if it weren't true. What keeps you from turning from your sin, making peace with Him this morning? Speak to us!
God will discipline our wayward hearts
Let us read Isaiah 27:6-11 together.
The phrase “in days to come” is our third time marker which introduces our third section. It is in some ways a continuation of God's dealings with His people. We just thought about the fact that He loves them, meets their needs. Even the exile did not signal a change of His affection. God still loves His people.
But we might still wonder whether He can use them. Does the failure of God's people ruin their fruitfulness and their usefulness? Think about your own failure as a believer for a moment. You have not been as faithful to the Lord as you could have been. We may have been believers for different lengths of times, but all of us can look back and think with regret about ways in which we have not sought Him earnestly. We have not been zealous in fighting against our sin. We could have been more faithful church members, more faithful evangelists. We praise God for the good news that we are forgiven and we are still loved by God. But we can easily lose confidence in the idea that God can really use broken vessels like us.
Likewise, we can easily lose confidence that He can really change us. Look at Israel here. We are told that in days to come Jacob shall take root and Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit (Isa 27:6). You may remember the image of a stump. Israel is like a tree that was cut down in the exile. But the root is still there so shoots can still come out of the tree. We might wonder if this going is to be a really sad looking tree with just a stump, and a little shoot coming out of it. What kind of a tree is it going to be? Well, we are told here that it is a massive tree.
Look at the image. It is filling the whole world with fruit. So apparently God can still use His wayward people.
How does this happen? In Isaiah 27:7, we are being asked here to do a comparison between how God judges His people and how He judges unbelievers. Israel versus Assyria or Israel versus Babylon.
Isaiah 27:8 reads, “Measure by measure by exile you contended with them. He removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.” The east wind was hot wind that would blow in off the desert. In the east of Israel it would destroy their crops. It was a picture of judgment. This verse means that God chastised or disciplined Israel in a measured sort of way. We can picture a good parent with a young child who has disobeyed considering what is the best way to make the punishment fit the crime. Parents, we need to be careful, right? We need to work hard not to discipline our children in anger and not to forget about the fact that our goal is always their good, their reformation, teaching them the difference between right and wrong. God never loses control — that is what measure by measure means. He brings the discipline that's needed.
I like what commentator Matthew Henry writes here: “God will deal out afflictions as the wise physician prescribes medicines to his patients. Just such a quantity of each ingredient. Thus God orders the troubles of His people, not suffering them to be tempted above what they are able (c.f. 1 Cor 10:13).”
I wonder if you trust the Lord's discipline in your life. Do you trust Him to measure out the medicine to you, the medicine that you need?
Friends I wonder if you trust the Lord's discipline in your life. Do you trust Him to measure out the medicine to you, the medicine that you need? You know we do not need to be able to connect our hardships to something specific that we have done wrong. I am not saying that we are able to do that. Hebrews 12:7 tells us to endure all hardship as discipline. God is treating us as children, He writes, for what children are not disciplined by their father. So when hardship comes we are supposed to see it as allowed into our lives by the hand of a good father to discipline our wayward hearts towards Him. Are we prone to wander? Yes. Do we need discipline? Yes. He provides it for us.
But how should we respond to His discipline? That is in Isaiah 27:9. The sin in view here is idolatry, as Israel worshiped the gods of the nations, the gods that were supposed to bring wealth or they were supposed to bring fertility or victory in battle. Their guilt therefore was the breaking of the first table of the Ten Commandments, — not to have any gods before Him, not to make for themselves graven images or bow down and worship them. We are told here that when they grind down the stones of these idolatrous altars and crush them to pieces, that that will be the full fruit of the removal of their sin. The full forsaking of their idols is the sign of forgiveness or atonement. So to say it briefly, without repentance we should expect no pardon from the Lord. Our hearts must truly want to get rid of sin and this inward feeling of our hearts should take outward manifestation in a change of life. That's what repentance means, powderizing our idols, crushing them to pieces.
Let us consider the person struggling with sexual sin. They are viewing things that they should not view on apps and websites, movies, and you talk to them about getting some accountability, software and deleting media accounts and getting rid of streaming services. They tell you they do not think that that is actually necessary.
They have an alternate, less drastic approach that they want to take, but the problem continues. The problem is that is not what repentance looks like. Or the person is not growing spiritually, but they also have no spiritual disciplines in their life. They are not reading the Scripture regularly. They are not praying about what is going on in their life and are irregular at church. You talk to them about developing some spiritual disciplines, but it is hard, right? We are respond to God's discipline with idol-crushing repentance — that is the message here.
Megan and I like to come back to the way we trained our kids to obey when they were young. We made them memorize a phrase, “What is obedience? Right away, all the way, with a good attitude.” But Megan and I have often reflected how useful it would be in our own spiritual lives if we would respond to the Lord that way. Right away, all the way with a good attitude.
Now Isaiah 27:10-11 is sobering because it describes the cost of unrepentance — “for the fortified city is solitary”. There is a great deal of debate about what is the city in question. Isaiah does not tell us. A fortified city is now pictured here as deserted so animals are wandering through the city grazing. Women are walking around and searching for firewood in it. Some interpreters think this is Jerusalem after Babylon captures it in 586BC, so it is a picture of Israel in its unrepentant state. Others think it's a continuation of the generic fortified city that we've been running into in the past several chapters, thus it is a picture of mankind in their proud unrepentance towards God. Either way, this stands as a warning of what happens if we refuse to repent. God says this is a people without discernment, meaning that they do not see that in rejecting God they're sealing their own doom. Therefore, He who made them will not have compassion on them. He who formed them will show them no favour. The empty city is a stark contrast to the tree from Isaiah 27:6 that fills the whole world with fruit. Isn't it? Fruitful tree or empty city.
Beloved, let us be a people eager to grow in the ways that the Lord wants us to grow. There are things about this church that need to change, but all the most important ones deal with our hearts, our humility, our responsiveness to the Lord. These are all the most important changes that we need to make as a church. As individuals, we should be constantly identifying idols in our lives so that we can turn away from them and figure out how to powderize them. It is the key to our ministry faithfulness.
You know, one of the best ways you could show your desire to be humble before the Lord is to be humble before brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the best things that you could do for your spiritual growth is find a trusted friend and give them a permission card to ask any question or to tell you anything they see that seems to be a miss in your life. This may sound scary to you but that is one of the best things you could do. Give people that permission card. They probably will not do it if you do not encourage them to. But that kind of humility before brothers and sisters sets us up well to have that same posture towards the Lord.
God will gather us at the end
We have two “in that day” in Isaiah 27:12-13. These are parallel verses describing the same event. And we've got some geography to get straight in our minds. So from the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt and the land of Assyria to the land of Egypt, both describe what happened in the exile. So the Euphrates is where Assyria and later Babylon were.
The exile happens in two stages. My seminary professor said that all Christians should know these two dates. I'm not sure that might be a bridge too far, but 722BC and 586BC. 722BC is the fall of Samaria, the fall of the Northern Kingdom. And then Judah falls in 586 as Jerusalem does. In both of those events, while some are carried off into exile in the north, others scatter to the south in Egypt. The geography describes the scattering. But theologically, you realise that many would have assumed that this is the end of God's plans and promises to Israel. He had promised through Israel to bring blessing to the whole earth but now, the descendants of Abraham are scattered. They are likely going to be assimilated here.
We are told this is not so in Isaiah 27:12. The image of beating wheat involves the separation of the kernel of grain from the worthless husk. We are also told that they will be gleaned one by one or gathered one by one. So, somehow through this disaster, God is going to accomplish a clarifying of who really is the child of God.
And then He is going to regather them. Isaiah 27:13 is a parallel repetition and expansion. In that day a great trumpet will be blown and they will be gathered to come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem. Now, the question for us is when did this return happen or when does it happen? This is a key question. We might answer that it happened partially when after 70 years of exile in Babylon, some of the Israelites returned to the land. We read about that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the last historical books in the Old Testament. But that return falls far short of what is described here. They do build a second temple but they are soon conquered by the Romans and Israel falls into deeper and deeper spiritual compromise.
We might answer that it happens more fully with the coming of Christ and His death for sin, the going out and the preaching of the gospel to all nations, the age of the church. But those in Israel who are true believers respond to that preaching and the tree of Israel grows to fill the earth, as people from Gentile nations like us believe.
I do not think either of those are wrong answers. Remember that interpreting prophecy is a bit like seeing a mountain range that is in the distance. Sometimes you are looking at one peak and there is a peak beyond it. It is very much like what interpreting prophecy is. I am persuaded that the language of Isaiah 27:13 means that though the return and the age of the gospel are part of the fulfillment, the meaning is only finally and fully exhausted by the return of Christ and the end of the age. I think that because of this language of the great trumpet that is blown by the chief of angels at the end of time.
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 — “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.”
The trumpet is blown suddenly without warning. People will be going to work. They will be at work. Some will be eating. Some will be sleeping. All will on some level assume that this day will be like every other day. But it will not be, for the trumpet will not just get the attention of the living. It will sound so loud as to wake up the dead.
Have you thought about that? Matthew the tax collector will rise. Mary Magdalene will rise. Augustine of Hippo with his mother Monica. They will rise. So will many more that are dear to us. Laura Clement and Dorcas Lau and Ernest and Verda Paulson. They will rise. It's a great multitude that no one can count. They will rise from the dead in response to this trumpet. They are gathered one by one, each and every one, followed by those who are still alive, who are left. The truth is unmistakably that God will gather all His people at the end. None are lost, none are forsaken. They are gathered for worship as we are here, but this is only a dress rehearsal. There will be no separation. There will be no veil on that day. We look in a mirror dimly now, but then we will see face to face.
Now how does that affect us when we walk out of here in just a few minutes? What does that have to do with our lives today? We have not heard the trumpet yet. Some of us are young and are students. I hope you put your heart into your studies because the Lord gave you a brain and a life to use as best you could use it. I hope you put your energy into studying and preparing for tests that are coming, but I hope you likewise realize that those tests do not define you in any way, shape, and form. I do not know if your parents appreciate me telling you this, but ten years from now nobody will care what you got on that test. They will not.
Some of us are parents. We ought to remember that our children are not fools. They may be foolish sometimes, but they are not fools. If we tell them that we believe that day, the day of the trumpet, is the most important thing in the world to us, if we give lip service to that, and then we give life service to building a heaven on earth and making material things our focus, our children will see it. They are not fools.
Some of us are immersed in concerns of career. They are necessary concerns, I know that. Employment is a gift to be thankful for and stewarded, but friends, a career is not worth building your life around. Do not take the means and make it the end.
Some of us are nearing the end of our earthly pilgrimage. I would imagine for you, you model for us what it looks like just to savour these words, just to enjoy them, to delight in them. None will be lost. All will be gathered. Death is not the end. Worship is the end. And so after we scatter here, we do it with the expectation that we will gather again.
I do not know if it is next Sunday or not, but the writer of the hymn put it this way:
We meet to part, but part to meet
When earthly labours are complete,
To join in yet more blest employ,
In an eternal world of joy.
God will defeat our greatest enemy. He will meet our every need. He will discipline our wayward hearts and He will gather us at the end. Confidence is necessary for perseverance. Let us pray.