Who Taught The Ocean
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Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning? and who told the ocean you can only come this far? and who showed the moon where to hide ‘til evening? Whose words alone can catch a falling star?
Job was dealing with a boatload of problems from friend and foe when God spoke these words to Him
Who enclosed the sea behind doors
when it burst from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and thick darkness its blanket,
when I determined its boundaries
and put its bars and doors in place,
when I declared: “You may come this far, but no farther;
your proud waves stop here”?
Have you ever in your life commanded the morning
or assigned the dawn its place,
Judah is living in desperate days. They have turned from the Lord. It is often said that everything rises and falls by leadership. Ahaz is godless and idolatrous leader and the people have followed him. God has increasingly allowed their adversaries to beat them up and beat them down. Isaiah 9 and 10.1-4 repeats the phrase “in all this, His anger is not removed, and His hand is still raised to strike.”
Isaiah has had the difficult task of balancing the truths of hope and judgment.
In the bulk of chapter 10 (the passage we study today) we will see Isaiah give Judah a few important reminders.
Reminder 1
Adversity is God’s Megaphone
Adversity is God’s Megaphone
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”- CS LEWIS
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger—
the staff in their hands is My wrath.
I will send him against a godless nation;
I will command him to go
against a people destined for My rage,
to take spoils, to plunder,
and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
But when the Lord finishes all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.”
Note: WHEN THE LORD FINISHES HIS WORK AGAINST MOUNT ZION AND JERUSALEM
Sometimes the Adversity we encounter is not of our own doing; It is a storm of life… It is pain that has come in the normal course of living a fallen life in a fallen world. But it is a teacher none the less (Job is an example of this)
Sometimes (like here) God has sent the Adversary. Like Judah, we can fail to listen to God’s corrective voice in our lives and so God uses an evil enemy to provide the opportunity for repentance. We don’t like to think that God would do this, but it is clear in Isaiah, that He SENT the Adversary to His rebellious people.
God is Lord Over Adversity
God is Lord Over Adversity
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger— the staff in their hands is My wrath.
I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. It is his intent to destroy and to cut off many nations.
For he says, “Aren’t all my commanders kings?
Isn’t Calno like Carchemish? Isn’t Hamath like Arpad? Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms, whose idols exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
and as I did to Samaria and its idols will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols?”
But when the Lord finishes all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.”
For he said: I have done this by my own strength and wisdom, for I am clever. I abolished the borders of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty warrior, I subjugated the inhabitants.
My hand has reached out, as if into a nest, to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered the whole earth. No wing fluttered; no beak opened or chirped.
Does an ax exalt itself above the one who chops with it? Does a saw magnify itself above the one who saws with it? It would be like a staff waving the one who lifts it! It would be like a rod lifting a man who isn’t wood!
Therefore the Lord God of Hosts will inflict an emaciating disease on the well-fed of Assyria, and He will kindle a burning fire under its glory.
Israel’s Light will become a fire, and its Holy One, a flame. In one day it will burn up Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
He will completely destroy the glory of its forests and orchards as a sickness consumes a person.
The remaining trees of its forest will be so few in number that a child could count them.
Adversity Reveals a Remnant
Adversity Reveals a Remnant
On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.
Israel, even if your people were as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed; justice overflows.
For throughout the land the Lord God of Hosts is carrying out a destruction that was decreed.
In both the Old and New Testament there is a emphasis placed on a remnant- a select group of people who are the real deal.
Today Christianity is not popular in America, and as a result those “identifying” as Christians is dwindling. But does that mean there are fewer Genuine Christians? I don’t think so. I think we have seen a decrease nominal Christianity, but there is a strong and sold out remnant, saved and secured by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is Hope in Adversity
There is Hope in Adversity
Therefore, the Lord God of Hosts says this: “My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, though he strikes you with a rod and raises his staff over you as the Egyptians did.
In just a little while My wrath will be spent and My anger will turn to their destruction.”
And the Lord of Hosts will brandish a whip against him as He did when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; and He will raise His staff over the sea as He did in Egypt.