When your heart meditates on terror, remember this, the Lord is the stability of our times. The fear of the Lord is your treasure.
Yesterday, April 16, 2007, there was a shooting on the Virginia Tech campus. That shooting was called the greatest tragedy that has happened in a shooting in the USA. 33 people are dead as a result of that. Immediately the news was all over it. When the news was all over it, they started firing questions: are schools safe? Are you going to come back to school? Whose fault is this? What is happening? And on and on and on.
We are living in times of terror. In your lesson today, I don’t know if you picked that word up about meditating on terror but I want you to do for just a minute to Isaiah 33. He tells us there is a day when your heart will never meditate on terror. There is that day coming.
Isaiah 33:17Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; They will behold a far-distant land.
18 Your heart will meditate on terror: “Where is he who counts? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?”19 You will no longer see a fierce people, A people of unintelligible speech which no one comprehends, Of a stammering tongue which no one understands.20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an undisturbed habitation, A tent which will not be folded; Its stakes will never be pulled up, Nor any of its cords be torn apart.
There is a day coming when we will no longer meditate on terror. That day is not here yet.
The question is: how are you and I going to live in the times in which we are living in which insane things like this happen? How are we going to live in these days that we are facing before the coming of the Lord? I want us to look and see that when our hearts today meditate on terror, when it starts to think about the terror that is coming, we need to stop and not meditate on terror but we need to recognize that the Lord is the stability of our times. Our treasure that we need to guard is the fear of the Lord.
Now we see this scripture as we look at,,,
Isaiah 33:6And He will be the stability of your times, (He, the Lord is..) A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is his treasure.
He will be the stability of our times. Your treasure and my treasure that we need to guard and that we need to in a sense build up and increase is a fear of the Lord because this is what is going to take us through the last days.What are the last days going to be like?
Go to 2 Timothy 3 – as Paul is getting ready to depart this life, he knows that his time has come. He knows that he is going to die.
2 Timothy 3:1But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
Realize this, realize this, understand this, understand that the times we are living in will get worse and worse and worse but we can make it IF we will recognize that the Lord is our stability in these times.
2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
What was done yesterday was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. The killer, this Korean man, then turned the gun on himself. He was brutal. He was absolutely brutal. He just shot and shot and shot. The bodies of the people that he shot didn’t just have one bullet in them. They had several.
4 treacherous, (Have you see that word “treacherous” as you have studied? Yes. “Woe be to those who deal treacherously.” ) reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
And what makes them more dangerous:
5 holding to a form of godliness, (“godliness” could be translated “religion.” So when you see the brutality of the radical acts of the Muslims they are holding to a religion and yet this is the character of those people) although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
Now, I want you to go to Romans 1. There are two categories of people in this world.
1) the lost
2) the saved.
The lost are living under the dominion of Satan. They are part of a kingdom of darkness. The saved are those who have come out of that kingdom of darkness and have been set free from that life of sin and rebellion by receiving Jesus Christ as their Savior. We all start off in this category of lost people. But then there is a group that comes out. Romans 1 tells us about those who refuse to acknowledge God, to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One who is Elohim, the Creator, who spoke and brought the world into existence, the One that we have been studying about.
Romans 1:28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
These people who are not walking according to the truth of the Word of God have a depraved mind. I want you to understand that.
Look at Ephesians 2 where he describes all men apart from Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:1- And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
What are we like when we are dead in trespasses and sins?
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, (in other words, you walked the way the world walked.) according to the prince of the power of the air, (you are under the dominion of Satan. You are walking according to the prince of the power of the air.) of the spirit that is now working (where? ) in the sons of disobedience.
The enemy was working in that son of disobedience that just killed 32 people and then killed himself.
3 Among (all these sons of disobedience) them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, (obviously, that man was controlled by anger. What else was he controlled by? We don’t know. But we know that there and to be anger and fury), indulging the desires of the flesh (he was being controlled by his desire, whatever that was and his mind) and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.
So there are 2 categories of people. You and I, until the King comes and we see Him in His glory, you and I can know that it is going to get worse and worse and worse. Yet, in the midst of this you and I can stand in the stability of our times because we know the Lord. He is the stability of our times. You and I in any given situation, “In this situation, I will not fear man; I will fear God. I will fear God.”
When Fadhi, who is a believing Iraqi who we work with, was taken captive, one of the things that I prayed was that he would not fear his captors. I prayed Philippians 1 when it is tells us how we do not respond to fear:
Philippians 1:27Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; (that’s what he was doing.)28 in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God.
Listen, we have opponents. It is stupid to think that we don’t. It is stupid to make detente with our opponents. We have to know the enemy. We have to understand the enemy. We have to realize that the enemy is on the opposite team and it is war.There is no retirement in the time of war.
Philippians 1:28in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God.
Fadhi was released and as I told the group here, he was released, he was given a bag full of ID’s and the terrorists said, “Look and see if your name is among these ID’s because these are the men that we have killed.” Of course, he looked at that whole bag-full and his name was not there. They said, “We wanted to kill you but we don’t know why we can’t.” …Because God had ordained for him to live. Butduring that time that he was taken captive, he meditated on the Word of God. God spoke to him. He feared God rather than men.
Go back to Romans 1 where we see:
Romans 1:28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, (theses are the enemy; these are the people who have not believed in Jesus Christ)29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil (remember the word “evil.” You saw it in your lesson for today.”); full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Now, this is the society that we are living in. It is going to get worse and worse and worse. Evil is going to increase. But you and I have studied Isaiah. You and I know the end of the story. We have seen that we are to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is our treasure. He is the stability of our times.
Isaiah 33:6And He will be the stability of your times, (He is..) A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is his treasure.
If I live, He has allowed me to live. If I need to know what to do,He gives me the wisdom to know what to do. I have knowledge because I know the Word of God.
Isaiah 5:13Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; And their honorable men are famished, And their multitude is parched with thirst.
Our prayer should be:
Isaiah 33:2O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be their strength every morning, Our salvation also in the time of distress.
We talked about waiting for God. We are to wait for God because God is waiting for us to wait for Him.
Isaiah 33:2O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be their (our) strength every morning, Our salvation also in the time of distress.
So God is your salvation in times of distress. He is your stability.
He is the stability of your times. And you and I in these times should be able to walk as it says in…
Joshua 1:7“Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.
We should be able to walk through it with a calmness, with a peace, with a sense of destiny. Why? If You take my life from me (it says in Philippians 1)
Philippians 1:21-26 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.22 But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose.23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;24 yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
Personally, he says, I’d rather depart and be with the Lord. But his passion was that whether he remained or was taken, that Christ would be exalted in his body.
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
We have come – and I congratulate you – you are the faithful ones. You are the faithful ones. When we started, this auditorium was packed and overflowing. Youare the faithful ones. You have persevered. I commend you. I am proud of you. I look at some of you and you have been here since we were in the barn. We have grown and we have stood and we have walked through hard things together, but we have remained steadfast, immovable:
1 Corinthians 15:58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
I want you to know, that your labor is not in vain.
We have one more week left. In that final week, Isaiah is going to take us into pure history. We are going to look at Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, and his threat upon Judah. It is an historical interlude. Some say Isaiah that Isaiah is divided into 2 parts. The first part is Isaiah 1-35. Then you have the point of the historical interlude and then you go from Isaiah 40 to the end of the book. (There is another division there, but we are not going to look at it right now.) Basically it falls into 2 segments like the Bible: 39 books in the Old Testament; 27 books in the New Testament. It is a good way to remember it as there are 66 chapters in Isaiah.
What is he doing before he takes us into this historical interlude. I believe he is bringing it into a great climax. I believe that he wants us to understand that God is a righteous God. God must judge sin. His holiness demands it. He is the Holy One of Israel. That is a term that is used to describe Him over and over and over again in Isaiah. It is a designation of God that belongs to Him through His words and the prophet, Isaiah.
Isaiah 1:4 Alas, sinful nation, People weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him.
He has shown us sin, he has told us of judgment. But then he does not leave us without hope. He shows us that there is triumph, that there is a future.
I would like to go through and get a quick look at Israel’s future, Zion’s (Jerusalem) future.
There is a group of people, and many of them are just absolutely wonderful, but they believe that Zion has no future, that Jerusalem has not future –that only the church has a future. So as we look at these scriptures, as we observe the text, you tell me if God is through with Israel.
Isaiah 1:24-28 We are looking at the future.
24 Therefore the Lord God of hosts, The Mighty One of Israel, declares, “Ah, I will be relieved of My adversaries And avenge Myself on My foes.25 “I will also turn My hand against you (Israel, Jerusalem, Zion – all the same), And will smelt away your dross as with lye And will remove all your alloy.
One of the things you will see as we continue in the prophets: that God likens Israel to silver and refining the silver and getting rid of the impurities in Israel.
26 “Then I will restore your judges as at the first, And your counselors as at the beginning; After that you will be called the city of righteousness, A faithful city.”
But not until God gets rid of the dross, not until God gets rid of the alloy, will they be called the faithful city.
So until that time, what are you going to have? You are going to have terror. You are going to have Israel, in a sense, meditating on terror.
27 Zion will be redeemed with (what?) justice And her repentant ones with righteousness.
Here is that word “redeemed.” It is very sparsely used in the first segment.
BUT WAIT UNTIL YOU GET to chapter 40 and you move on through: redeem, redeemer, redemption. It comes front and center. Because what happens in chapter 40 is He says, “Come.”
Isaiah 40:1“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God.2 “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”
It is the most awesome, awesome study that we are going to have. Incredible in understanding its prophecies.
Isaiah 1:27Zion will be redeemed with justice And her repentant ones with righteousness.
Catch the “repentant one.” Because he contrasts it with verse 28:
28 But transgressors and sinners will be crushed together, And those who forsake the Lord will come to an end.
So you have the repentant, those that are righteous because they are repentant. Then you have those who are sinners. You have those that are repentant being rescued. You have the sinners coming to an end and being justly judged by God.
Isaiah 2:1-4 You have the nations going up to Zion.
Isaiah 2:1-4 The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.2 Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.3 And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.