The Hope of Messiah’s Reign • 07.28.24
The Hope of Messiah’s Reign
Isaiah 32
Allowing future hope to inform today’s struggles
- When Messiah reigns, everything will be transformed
- Preparing for Messiah’s reign requires repentance
Good morning, church family! Praise the Lord for bringing back our Students safe and sound from their Summer Retreat! We’re thankful for the time they had to dig into the Word and build deeper relationships with one another and their student leaders. Thank you to all leaders who took a week off work to invest in the youth of our church! Can we show our appreciation for their sacrifice?
If you’re new here, welcome! My name is Pastor Nick and I have the privilege of studying God’s Word with you this morning. Today we’re picking back up in Isaiah 32. Let’s go ahead and grab our Bibles and turn there this morning.
Ushers + Bibles (Isaiah 32; page 704)
Do you ever stop and think, “What am I trusting in? What am I depending on?” I imagine, for many of us, we are simply busy with daily life, and we do not often stop to ponder these deeper questions. Is my hope in the right person/place/thing? What happens if it is not? These questions can be uncomfortable and therefore tempting to avoid. “Better to just keep my head down and press on in my current way of life.” Yet God’s words through Isaiah have been inviting us to stop and ponder these things.
Lately, we’ve been learning a lot about trust. If you’ve been with us over the past two months, you’ve heard a lot about the nation of Judah trusting in themselves or in foreign nations like Egypt rather than trusting in God. We’ve talked about the problem of trusting in anything rather than God from a variety of angles:
- the folly of self-reliance
- the pride of thinking you have a better plan than God
- the danger of ignoring God’s warnings of discipline/judgment
- also the positive angles of God’s good plan of salvation and redemption
We’ve compared the bitter fruit of man’s ways to the good fruit of God’s ways. Just last week, we saw that the Lord is faithful, and he keeps his promises; he eagerly waits to show mercy/grace/justice to his people! These were truths that the Judeans SHOULD have recognized and believed given the extensive evidence for it in their nation’s history, yet they were unwilling to listen.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what God told Isaiah would happen. Remember all the way back in Isaiah 6, when God gave Isaiah his prophetic calling/ministry? God had said:
Isaiah 6:9–10 (ESV)
9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
God knew they were trusting in the wrong things, and he provided more opportunities through Isaiah’s preaching to reveal and increase the hardness of their hearts. Each week as we have come together to study Isaiah, we have heard of the painful progression of Judah’s rebellion against God. They have demonstrated their spiritual blindness and hard-heartedness chapter by chapter. Today, as we read chapter 32, we are entering a passage that gives hope in the midst of their folly of trusting Egypt.
Today we will hear of a coming righteous king whose leadership transforms the land. His godly leadership provides protection to those under his care. He even transforms those who were once blind/deaf/dumb. Rather than calling evil good and good evil, like we heard about back in Isaiah 5:20, the people will think and live righteously. Those who rule under this king will also rule justly. As our sermon title reveals, this is speaking of The Hope of Messiah’s Reign.
However, even with this hope held out for the future, we will also see there is still trouble in the present. The people must go through a time of refining judgment before enjoying the restorative work of the Lord. Let’s read our text for today.
Isaiah 32:1–20 (ESV)
Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.
2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
a shelter from the storm,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know,
and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
5 The fool will no more be called noble,
nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.
6 For the fool speaks folly,
and his heart is busy with iniquity,
to practice ungodliness,
to utter error concerning the Lord,
to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
7 As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil;
he plans wicked schemes
to ruin the poor with lying words,
even when the plea of the needy is right.
8 But he who is noble plans noble things,
and on noble things he stands.
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice;
you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10 In little more than a year
you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the grape harvest fails,
the fruit harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease,
shudder, you complacent ones;
strip, and make yourselves bare,
and tie sackcloth around your waist.
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
for the fruitful vine,
13 for the soil of my people
growing up in thorns and briers,
yes, for all the joyous houses
in the exultant city.
14 For the palace is forsaken,
the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
will become dens forever,
a joy of wild donkeys,
a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19 And it will hail when the forest falls down,
and the city will be utterly laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters,
who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
As we unpack this chapter together, our aim is…
Allowing future hope to inform today’s struggles
The future hope that is so brilliantly on display here is that…
- When Messiah reigns, everything will be transformed
If you recall, chapter 31 had just ended on a positive note for the Judeans. God promised that their enemies (the Assyrians) would be defeated by Him. This was one of the many ways in which God would demonstrate His faithfulness, even while they were faithless.
But in chapter 32 we are introduced to a hope far greater than immediate deliverance from the enemy. “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.” This is quite a reversal from their current leadership who were known for making wicked plans as they hid in the dark, inner room. (29:15) Suddenly, the hope of truly just leaders is held out. Those who are described in verse 2 “like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.”
Please realize that this is a sharp departure from the rebukes previously offered to the ungodly leaders turning to Egypt for refuge/protection! Their current leaders are actively leading them away from God and into captivity. But these future righteous leaders are coming who will provide them a true safe haven. What a polarizing comparison!
The language here is so strong that it cannot be a mere human king. For in verses 3-4 we see this righteous king’s leadership providing for a reversal of the blind/deaf/dumb punishment of Isaiah 6. Under this king’s reign the people are no longer spiritually dead but alive!
Verses 1-4 support that when Messiah reigns, everything will be transformed, specifically…
- Godly character and conduct will become the norm (1-4)
But in these verses, there is no answer for “How? How will these things come to be?” You can imagine some of the people hearing these words and longing to know… “How do we get from where we are to there?” And Isaiah doesn’t give them the answer… yet. It does come, but not until verse 15. For now, they are left to long for these better days where the hope of transformation of character and conduct will occur. But the transformation goes further… In verses 5-8, we see another wrong corrected.
- Ungodly character and conduct will be viewed correctly (5-8)
Praise God that the people will no longer exalt those who are sinful and oppose those who are godly. Recall how God spoke against them back in chapter 5:
Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
We’ve spoken a lot about this over the past weeks. Mankind is prone to ignoring God’s clear instructions on what is right/wrong and instead makes up its own morality system – calling evil good and good evil. When we’re left to ourselves, we get it twisted.
This was true in Isaiah’s day, leading the people to turn to the false religions of their neighboring countries rather than the One, True God, leading them to rejoice in wickedness rather than the righteousness of God, and leading them to mock God’s messengers (Isaiah and his peers) rather than hear and obey. Just two weeks ago we heard that this was also a problem in the New Testament days when Jesus and his disciples walked the earth. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome in the 1st century.
Romans 1:18–25 (ESV)
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Just like their predecessors in the days of Isaiah, men and women in Paul’s day rejected the truth and called good evil and evil good. And this is still the struggle in our day! It happens all around us, and you don’t have to look hard to find it. Just turn on the news or social media or hang out in the break room at work… Engage in a conversation with any one of your neighbors, the odds are you’re going to meet someone who has no interest in what God says but has developed a contrary system of morality. This is a present-day problem just as much as it was a problem in Isaiah’s day!! (Ex. Recreating the Last Supper at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony with drag queens/trans people)
Oh, how sweet it is, against the backdrop of such willful rebellion and suppression of the truth, to know that a day is coming when ungodly character and conduct will be viewed correctly! When folly is revealed as the sinful danger it is rather than being called “courageous” or “noble”. God testifies in Isaiah 32:6 about the behavior of a fool. He/she is a person whose heart is busy with sin, whose life is full of practicing ungodliness, and whose speech is full of defiance of the Lord. The things they speak about the Lord are not accurate but wrong. Even though they may boast about their care for the poor and the oppressed, the reality is that they further harm rather than helping them.
This is exactly what had happened in Judah in Isaiah’s day. The folly of those in leadership had not benefited the common citizen. Instead, it was leading them away from the blessing of the Lord into the hands of the enemies. Though there may have been partying on the rooftops for a short while, it will end in shameful nakedness as they are taken into exile. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel also share words from God holding these foolish leaders accountable. Let me share just one of them from Jeremiah 23:
Jeremiah 23:1–6 (ESV)
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
You can hear many similarities in the promises God makes through Jeremiah as He has made through Isaiah! This future king who reigns in righteousness is the hope of the people! God will not tolerate the folly of evil men and women forever. A day is coming when evil will be known for what it is, and no one will argue about it. God will reveal the truth, and all will agree. And in that day, the noble will be regarded for their noble way of life. Noble or honorable, meaning one of high moral principles or even generous or wise. When the righteous king reigns and all is transformed, it is the noble in character who will stand and have security before the Lord.
Oh, how we ought to long for that day! When good is good and evil is evil and evil no longer prospers but righteousness reigns!
But when will this be? And how will this be? And how can anyone truly be noble if we all struggle with sin? Our answer is found in verses 15-20, where the source of transformation is revealed.
Isaiah 32:15–20 (ESV)
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19 And it will hail when the forest falls down,
and the city will be utterly laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters,
who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
This text reveals both the source and the outcome of transformation…
- The Spirit is lavished on God’s people, and they dwell secure (15-20)
Notice the progression in the text. First, the Spirit is poured from on high. This tells us that God initiates this transforming work by sending His Holy Spirit. And, as we observe in the passage, the Spirit’s power transforms both the land and God’s people. It’s a great transformation both physically and spiritually. Using language reminiscent of Isaiah 29:17, God demonstrates His power to cultivate the wilderness or turn the cultivated field into a forest again. He is POWERFUL and ABLE to transform all things.
Rather than allowing folly and wickedness to reign, justice and righteousness will reign. And the effect of justice and righteousness abiding in the land and people will be peace, quietness and trust FOREVER. True security/peace with God and one another will be possible! This is speaking of an entire society transformed by God’s Spirit.
I immediately thought of Paul’s writings in Romans 5. There are many similarities to what we are hearing in Isaiah. Listen in:
Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Having the further revelation of the coming of Jesus Christ (the long-awaited Messiah), Paul declares that peace with God is possible through faith in Jesus. It is through faith in Jesus that any man or woman can be declared righteous/justified rather than guilty of sin. This faith in Jesus is the source of our peace with God, which allows us to dwell in security with Him. As Paul explains, through faith in Jesus, we have tasted and seen God’s grace, and this gives us great hope of the glory of God! We no longer have to live in fear of our sin and its outcome – death. Because, in Christ, we have been forgiven and freed! This is Good News!
And, on top of that, we also know that our sufferings are not meaningless because they are producing endurance in the faith in us. And endurance in the faith produces godly character, which leads to hope that does not put us to shame. Why does hope in the face of our present sufferings not put us to shame? Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. We have confidence that we are God’s children and a part of his kingdom!
What Isaiah reveals in part, the New Testament reveals in whole. God’s Word shows us that it is by faith in Jesus Christ that any man or woman has access to this transforming work of God the Holy Spirit. When a sinful man or woman is convicted by the Holy Spirit, they are brought to a place of confession of sin and repentance (turning from sin to God) which demonstrates authentic faith. This faith is the evidence of the transforming work of God’s Spirit in your life. It is what produces peace with God and righteousness in you.
This is the fuller answer to the question “How can this be?” that we posed earlier. What Isaiah reveals in part, the New Testament through Jesus Christ and his disciples, reveals in whole.
The testimony of the Bible is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and He has come and conquered sin/death through his perfect, sinless life and subsequent death, burial, and resurrection. Though his kingly reign was inaugurated at his first coming, we will not see his reign fully culminated until he comes again. However, the Holy Spirit has already begun being poured out upon God’s people in the New Testament era. We see it first in the book of Acts at the day of Pentecost, but we also see it throughout the New Testament (Ephesians 1; Romans 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:19) as it is taught that Christians are indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit upon salvation.
What does this mean for us? It means we can respond today with repentance and faith. God’s Spirit convicts us of our sin and gives us a new heart that can believe and follow Him!
It also means our hope for the future can have an immediate impact on the way we live today. Through faith in Christ, we can forsake complacency and pursue holiness. We can seek to live righteously, being a blessing to our community and a help to the oppressed. God’s people should be known for their peace with God and fellow men. We should be ambassadors of God’s kingdom, not our own kingdom, nor any earthly kingdom. The church is an outpost of heaven on earth. Our fellowship and treatment of one another is especially sweet and ought to brightly display the glory of God.
It also means if your hope/trust is in Christ, then you have every reason to rejoice and be secure in this tumultuous life. You know the righteous king who is a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm (32:2). Though life may be full of trials and temptations (AND IT IS!), you have a place of refuge to turn to and find rest in. Look to Christ! Hope in Christ! Trust in Christ! He is worthy of it. He is the One who brings order to chaos. He is the One who graciously lavished mercy on you and who will force even the trials of this life to do good to you. He is preparing you for an eternity with him!
You can also recognize the correlation between placing your hope in unsecure things and life falling apart. It was when Judah looked to Egypt/idols/self that they were unprepared for the storms of life. Because these things were insufficient shelters. They could not protect them. That’s why verse 19 speaks of the necessity that pride must fall/the judgment of God must come. When you put your hope in things other than God, it invites hard consequences/discipline. However, as verse 20 implies those who trust God and draw near to him will flourish.
I appreciated the words of commentator Gary Smith.
The theological principle that Isaiah teaches is that true security and peace are by-products of righteous living, and righteous living is made possible through the gift of God’s Spirit and the rule of his just king. Security cannot be gained through human effort or the manipulation of a person’s circumstances, but it can be received as a gift because of the Spirit’s work in one’s life… (NAC)
God repeatedly confronts our human temptation towards control and manipulation of our lives/circumstances. We cannot make a secure and peaceful life for ourselves. True peace and security only come from bowing the knee to God’s rule and reign and accepting his gift of the transforming Spirit. Only then will you be able or even desire to live righteously and experience the security and peace that God provides. Let’s make it personal…
How have you responded to the hope of Messiah’s reign? Have you confessed your need for Him? Have you turned from your attempts to control/manipulate life to trust in Him? Or are you stubbornly stuck in your sin, futilely trying to work your way out of the storms of life in your own strength?
Isaiah’s audience didn’t have the privilege of knowing who the Messiah would be, but we do. He was encouraging them to hope and trust in the future Messiah who would transform everything. I am encouraging you to hope and trust in the Messiah who has come and has already begun transforming everything. His work will be completed one day and those who have believed in Him will dwell with Him in glory forever. I want to see you there! *pause*
However, there is one more big lesson from this text today. We have not addressed the teachings of verses 9-14, where we learn:
- Preparing for Messiah’s reign requires repentance
In this section of the text, which is sandwiched in-between the future hope passages, God speaks to the present-day struggles of Judah. And he chooses to do so by addressing the complacent women of Judah. Now you may think, why pick on the women? Well, this isn’t the first time God has spoken about the way the women of the nation were conducting themselves. This happened once before in Isaiah 3:16-4:1, where they were revealed to be proud and more concerned with their external appearance than internal holiness.
This is simply a picture of how society was acting in that day. They are complacent/at-ease or, as we’ve said before, self-reliant! Their rest and trust are in the wrong place. They take comfort in their celebrations and partying, which is a foolish resting place. Their trust should be in God alone, yet they were not living according to God’s will and ways.
So, God warns them, discipline and destruction are coming. You will have to face the present pains. There are consequences for disobedience and idolatry. Rather than celebrating, they will be lamenting the barrenness of their land. It recalls some of the language of Isaiah 5, where the fertile vineyard of Judah is overrun by thorns and thistles.
This is a sobering reminder that sin has brutal consequences in our lives. We cannot make friends with it and think all is well. God hates it and He will oppose us in it. He knows exactly what is necessary to produce righteousness in us, and that includes confronting us in our sinful ways.
Thankfully, we know verses 15-20 follow this passage, as well as the hope of the coming of Jesus that we already heard about from the New Testament. We know that God is not only faithful to confront, He is also faithful to forgive… if we confess our sins and repent (turn from them to trust in Him). That is what God desired of Judah – repentance. He wanted them to take their sin seriously and flee from it back to Him. He alone is God and He alone can satisfy their souls.
This text today leaves us with some important questions: Do you want to live a complacent, blind life following the wisdom of the world? Do you want to face the devastation that is surely to come to all who reject God? OR do you want to trust in God’s Spirit and His righteous King to provide you with hope for a peaceful and secure future? (Again, I am thankful for Gary Smith’s comments, as he provided these insightful questions.)
As you consider personal application of this part of the message, let me put it plainly. Our lives ought to be marked by repentance. Whether it is turning from sin for the very first time as you profess faith in Jesus or turning from sin as someone who has been walking with Jesus for years. Repentance is necessary as we prepare for Messiah’s future reign.
- Kids – if you have been blessed to trust in Christ at a young age, you have the privilege of learning how to confess sin and turn from it for the rest of your life. You can make it your aim to get really good at it!
- Whether we’re young or old, if we know Christ, then it should be our regular practice to confess sin and turn from it! God has given us a clear path to preparing for his righteous reign. If you’re not sure what that sounds like or looks like, let me break it down simply for you:
- Confession – saying the same thing God says about it. Be specific. (“The way I spoke to you was unkind/unloving. The way I treated you was selfish.”)
- Ask forgiveness – not ‘I’m sorry’ but “Will you forgive me?” This is what is taught in Scripture and invites the other party into the peace-making process.
- Live out repentance – to repent is to do a 180 and go the other way; If you were unkind in your speech, then make it your aim to build others up with your words. If you were selfish in your actions, then identify ways to serve others instead. You’re putting your words into action. Turning from sin to God and living out practical obedience.
(Share The Gospel Call & True Conversion by Paul Washer as a good resource. Chapter 1 is all about repentance!)
I am thankful that God has revealed it is possible to have a peaceful and secure future in Christ. That may not mean our present is trouble or temptation-free, but it does mean I know where I’m going and what awaits me there. And that gives me great hope in the face of present struggles. I want everyone who attends Harvest to have that same hope and to see that future hope gives us the strength and grace to face each day with the joy of the Lord. And as God’s people, we have the privilege of being ambassadors of righteousness and peace and rest in the Lord. So, let’s take this message of hope and help to our community! Will you join me in prayer towards this end?
Pray for our own trust in Jesus and faithful lives of ongoing repentance. Pray that our peace and joy in Christ would be tangible within our body and in our conduct throughout the week. Pray for opportunities to share this hope with others!