Judah Is Fallen
Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 22nd January service and hymns are below.
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Our verses are:
Isa 3:1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
Isa 3:2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
Isa 3:3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
Isa 3:4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
Isa 3:5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
Isa 3:6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:
Isa 3:7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.
Isa 3:8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.
Judah Is Fallen
The Lord Jesus Christ never forgets His people and never acts towards us other than with faithfulness and love. We rejoice in God’s mercy that brings hope in the midst of this evil world. We treasure the grace He has shown towards the redeemed of the Lord, despite what we deserve in ourselves. Our passage reminds us God has a people whom He calls ‘my people’ for whom He stands to plead, saying to our enemies, ‘What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?’
Judah and Jerusalem
Isaiah ministered around 150 years after the break-up of David’s kingdom into two separate kingdom’s in the days after Solomon. He was primarily God’s prophet to the nation of Judah and its capital city Jerusalem. These names distinguish Judah from the people of Israel, or the so-called northern tribes. By his time Judah had largely forgotten the God of David and was in social, political and religious decay.
Lessons for today
Isaiah was a spokesman for God, sent by God, with authority to proclaim the great moral and religious truths which reveal the holy character of God. God’s prophets denounced sin and hypocrisy and pointed to God’s righteous purposes of judgment and mercy in the person of Jesus Christ. Despite Isaiah bringing his message so long ago, God’s remnant people and the spiritual church of Jesus Christ in every age continue to discover spiritual lessons from the prophet’s ministry.
God is not mocked
In chapter 3 Isaiah denounces the idolatry and sin of the nation Judah and reveals the consequences which will follow a rejection of God’s will and God’s word. It is a continuing and current warning to the nations of the world that God is not mocked by man’s rebellion, nor is judgment an empty threat. God will bring His wrath on all who are outside of Christ, all who rely on their own strength and wisdom and live in pursuit of their own self-will.
The price of immorality
Our passage describes God’s judgment when He removes His blessing from a people and brings in confusion and chaos. What was true of Old Testament Judah in its social and political failure continues true today. Nations who turn their back on God’s word and God’s pattern for moral living will collapse under the weight of their own corruption. God says, ‘I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another’.
False religion condemned
We also see these features working out in religion and in the religious world. As the Bible is shunned true faith is replaced with Spiritless, institutional religion reflecting the evil of the age. The rule of God is scorned. Every man and woman does what is right in their own eyes. Spiritless churches are synagogues of Satan. Without Christ and without a gospel message such religious bodies are as barren, dead and hypocritical as the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
Days of woe
In churches, as in nations, chaos reigns and judgment follows where Jehovah God takes away from men and women the stay and the staff, meaning basic necessities of life, bringing a famine of God’s word and a drought of gospel preaching such as we see in our day. Isaiah says, ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’ (Isaiah 5:20). These are those days of woe. Judah’s fall is the fall that afflicts our whole race.
Our faithful Saviour
But the remnant people of God will never be forgotten of God even in the midst of a sinful generation and surrounded by false religion. Throughout this passage the Lord’s people are reminded of God’s continuing faithfulness to His beloved flock, even as He removes His blessings, and brings His judgments on the wicked. When the fruits of evil begin to appear the Lord comforts His own, promising to stand up for His church, and affirming their peace declaring, ‘Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings’.
Our sovereign God
In our service tomorrow we shall remind the Lord’s people who they belong to and the blessings they are promised. We shall hear the Lord’s words as He stands in defence of His church and holds accountable all who do harm to His little ones. We shall take comfort that the moral chaos, and spiritual confusion, we see in our present age is itself the first-fruit wages of sin and merely proves the Lord is still upon His throne, dispensing justice and judgment according to His own good pleasure.
Amen
Our hymns are below.
Hymn 1
Gadsby selection 888
No man can come to me, except the Father draw him
J. Berridge 148th
1
No wit or will of man,
Or learning he may boast,
No power of reason can
Draw sinners unto Christ;
So fallen is nature, such her flaw,
None come except the Father draw.
2
His Spirit must disclose
The deadly plague within,
Uncover all our woes,
And show the man of sin;
And feeling thus our ruined state,
We humbly fall at Jesus’ feet.
3
The Comforter must teach
The Saviour’s toil and smart,
And with conviction preach
Atonement to the heart;
Then sinners gaze with ravished eyes,
And feast upon the sacrifice.
4
The Spirit, too, must show
The power of Jesus’ arm,
To vanquish every foe,
And guard the soul from harm;
Believers then grow strong in faith,
And triumph over sin and death.
5
So let my heart be drawn
To Jesus Christ the Lord,
And learn to feast upon
His person and his word,
Feel sweet redemption through his blood,
And give the glory all to God.
Hymn 2
Gadsby selection 1060
“O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.” Hos. 14. 1-4
C. Wesley 112th
1
Weary of wandering from the Lord,
And now made willing to return,
I hear, and bow me to the rod;
For now, not without hope, I mourn;
There is an Advocate above,
A Friend before the Throne of Love.
2
O Jesus! full of truth and grace,
More full of grace than I of sin;
Yet once again I seek thy face;
Open thy arms, and take me in!
All my backslidings freely heal,
And love the faithless sinner still.
3
Thou know’st the way to bring me back,
My fallen spirit to restore;
O, for thy truth and mercy’s sake,
Forgive, and bid me sin no more!
The ruins of my soul repair,
And make my heart a house of prayer.
4
Ah, give me, Lord, the tender heart,
That trembles at the approach of sin;
A godly fear of sin impart;
Implant and root it deep within;
That I may love thy gracious power,
And never dare to offend thee more.
The Lord Jesus Christ is always pleased to comfort, defend and represent His people whom He loves with an everlasting love. He calls us ‘righteous’ because we are pure, clean and holy in Him. He calls us, ‘my people’ because He owns us as our Creator, Redeemer and Bridegroom. He calls us ‘the poor’ because we are the blessed poor whom He has fitted to receive all the riches of His grace and glory.
22 January 2023