As a reminder, next week, David Rims and Mike Tang's group is doing snacks. David Rims and Mike Tang's group is doing snacks for next week. Week after that is Cheryl. By yourself. And the other groups, I'm not going to tell you now. You're going to forget anyway. Alright, let's take a look at chapter 26 and 27.

As I started saying, chapter 26 and 27 is really directly linked to chapter 24 and 25. The theme is pretty similar. It's kind of like an apocalyptic view of the last times. Remember what we said, that God's judgment upon the previous chapters? What was the difference between starting from 24 to what we're starting now versus what he was saying in the previous chapters?

What was the biggest difference? Remember last week? Okay, so it's a worldwide judgment. It's not geared toward Babylon or it's not geared toward Assyria in particular. It is mankind basically is being judged, right? Okay, so that theme is going to continue to run through. This section, chapter 26 on, there's prophecies and then there's response from God's people in the midst of God's judgment.

Where the nation of Israel or God's people in particular are basically singing praises in the midst of this judgment. And so that's what you're seeing in chapter 26 and 27. So let's begin. But before we do this, what is the lofty city? What does that signify? I think you kind of have to have some sense of what the lofty city is because the whole thing is about this lofty city.

Yes, if you're referring to the generic understanding of Babylon, not Babylon as a nation. Okay, meaning the world. Okay, alright, so in chapter 26 and 27 when it's talking about the lofty city, it's basically talking about the world. Right. And so keep that in mind as we're going through it, that this is what he's referring to.

He's not talking about necessarily one particular nation, but the world itself. Okay. What is said of those who trust in the Lord? Right. He said those who trust in the Lord will have perfect peace. They'll have their mind set on him and they will have perfect peace. Again, these are pretty straightforward answers, so I'm going to go pretty quickly.

So if you notice that and you may have noticed already, but as you're studying through the Old Testament, you find that the word trusting in God and obeying God is used interchangeably. Right. We discuss a lot, especially as we've been in the Book of Romans, like what is faith, what is works and how does that work together?

But in the Old Testament, trusting God, believing in God, obeying God, all is used interchangeably. In fact, if you think about it, in any other walk of life, faith and works is just assumed. Right. If you believe something, you just assume that there's going to be action that's going to follow because your belief is what's going to cause you to do something or not do something.

Right. So even when it comes to our saving faith, we have this discussion. Is it by faith? Is it by works? Because because of the specific language in the New Testament. But in the Old Testament, when I'm talking about trusting Lord, he's not talking simply talking about those people who have certain feelings toward God.

Right. It's used interchangeably. Again, when we talk about peace, the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom. And that's the term that they use to greet each other. Again, when I went to Romania, Romania, they use a form of that the Christians would greet each other and they say Pache.

Pache basically means peace. Right. And so that's the way they greeted each other, because to a Jew, Shalom, the peace of God was what they were constantly pursuing. So when Paul says in the New Testament, grace and peace to you, his first generation of believers would have understood that as Shalom, because Shalom has such a huge part in the Jewish history and their their religion that they understood that God Shalom meant that they would have the Lord's blessing in everything that you just like it says in Psalm chapter one.

So when we when he talks about that, you will have perfect peace. The meaning behind the peace is like just the way we say, oh, we don't have anxiety and we feel OK. The peace to a Jew meant that everything was good. Right. Your family, your future, everything is in God's hands.

So he says those who put their trust in him, you will have perfect peace. You will have that Shalom that the whole nation's been seeking. Right. So what are the people of God called to do and why? Right. But to put our trust in him. The reason for the trust, because God is a God is mightier than those who seem to be strong.

He is an everlasting rock. Right. Those that harass Israel and those that Israel is previously feared will be destroyed. In other words, all that confidence that you put into other things. Right. All the fear that you have, that God is going to conquer all of them. So it doesn't make sense to put your trust in anything else but to him.

Again, so a lot of these things are pretty straightforward. So I'm going to go pretty quickly. All right. So this second section we go into. Right. What does it mean for the righteous to have level path? OK, so starting from here again, when you look at that text, his main point behind it is attitude of God's people in the midst of judgment.

OK, so I don't have anything for you to write down on there, but that's basically the underlying theme behind all of this, that they're being judged. But in the midst of this, they're singing praises to God. Right. So you would think that people who are under the under the judgment of God will be begging for mercy.

Right. Or crying out to God or like, why is this happening? Questioning God. Instead, in the midst of this judgment, the people of God are recognizing his glory. And they're singing praises to him. So he says that the righteous, the Lord will make his path straight. The meaning behind two, the two things when it says to level to the righteous will have level path.

One, again, to a Jew, we talk about level path. It has direct reference to the cities of refuge. Right. Again, how many of you remember the cities of refuge in the Old Testament? Right. OK, a few of you. Cities of refuge in the Old Testament is a huge theme because so much of the New Testament language is directly linked to the cities of refuge.

So next time you are reading through the Old Testament, I encourage you guys, when you come to the cities of refuge, because it's not just in one passage, his numbers, it's in it's in Joshua, it's all over the New Testament. And then if you really started and go back to the New Testament, you'll see so much of the language talking about Jesus being our refuge, a level path, the righteous fleeing to the father.

All of this is tied to this, this teaching of the cities of refuge. So this level path to a Jew in Israel, the best roads like in Rome, you know, I said all the roads lead to what? To Rome. In Jerusalem, all the best roads lead to the cities of refuge, because part of the teaching in the Old Testament was that they would establish six different cities, all cities that were occupied by the Levites.

And so if somebody killed somebody accidentally, right, and then they would have a man called the avenger of blood, basically a close kin who's trying to avenge, you know, the brother or sister, whoever that they killed accidentally. And so they created the cities of refuge for somebody. Again, I don't know how often this would happen, right?

How often somebody would kill somebody accidentally and a kin would want to kill them. So they made all this road and then they built these cities all just spread out. So anywhere in Israel, you would be able to see a city of refuge because they would be on top of a hill.

And then the best roads in Israel would always lead to the cities of refuge. Right. So if you read that and say, well, you know, how often does this happen that they would dedicate this much time, this much energy to build this, right? And it really wasn't because there was such a great need.

This happened all the time. It really was to again, it was a foreshadow of what Christ was going to do. Right. So especially in the book of Hebrew, when you read the language about Jesus being the refuge, he's a high priest who covers over us, that all of this language is directly linked to the cities of refuge.

So I'm not going to get into too deep into that right now, but that's where this level path, that's the first understanding of it, is that level path means one of the meaning behind it, that they would have understood it, is the quickest and the fastest and the safest way to get to the city of refuge.

Okay. So he says the righteous there, he's going to make their path level. And then the second meaning, obviously, behind that is that they're not going to have anything to stumble over. Right. Now, this city of refuge was not meant for the guilty. In fact, when they ran to the city of refuge, they would actually have a trial.

And then if they found him to be innocent, they would allow him to be in the city under the protection of the high priest so that avenger of blood who was chasing him would have to wait outside and said, no, we found him to be guilty. And then so he would have to go back home.

But he was found to be guilty. He would not be let into the city. Right. So the innocent would run to the city. And so the quickest path to get there would be this road. Okay. Now, obviously, this points to the coming of Christ and us being us being declared innocent by the blood of Christ.

So every person who has received the atonement of Christ will be declared innocent because of Christ. So, again, this is one thing that is years if you're studying through the Old Testament and you come into one of those passages, I highly encourage you take some time to look deeply into it, because there's so much imagery of the gospel in the in that that teaching of the cities of refuge.

Okay. What we desire of his people be at the conclusion of the judgment. Okay. So in the midst of the judgment, people of God remember and desire him all the more. Right. Instead of being angry. Remember, they're being judged, too. It's not just the world. It's God's people. God is allowing them to go through all this.

They're being judged. But at the end, they will desire him all the more. Right. That's what the passage says. The judgment here isn't referring to the word or law of God. It's not like God's discerning right or wrong. It's actually talking about the wrath of God being revealed. Right.

So in the punishment of God, it's a revelation of his glory. It reminds of his and reveals his glory. Right. And I think we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Typically, when we think about God's glory, we think about his grace, his love, his mercy. But glory basically means to magnify who he is.

Right. So he is glorified even in the revelation of hell. He is glorified in his judgment because everything that he says and everything he does is who he is. Right. So the passage that we're looking at is even in the midst of wrath, people see his righteousness. Right. And they say they give him glory.

And what does the righteousness or judgment of God teach the world? Right. It produces yearning and great passion for God, for God's people. Right. So what is the judgment? What does it produce for the people of God? A greater passion. Right. So those whose hearts are set on him and that even in the midst of God disciplining.

Right. It produces great passion. It says in distress, they sought you, they poured out and whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. You know, what's interesting is that, you know, oftentimes we look at our circumstances and certain things happen and then we say, well, we were like that because these things happen.

Right. And we typically think that, oh, if we switch situation, if that didn't happen, if that person wasn't in my life. But the strange thing is you can have the exact same event. One person comes out praising God, thanking God, and they become a stronger Christian and they cling to God.

The other person runs from God. Right. Exact same event. Exact same thing. So what causes that person to take to take a step back and say, well, God was really there, you know, and it's equally painful. But why does one person respond to that, giving God the glory and the other person come out of that and saying, like, I will never trust God again.

Right. And same thing with the preaching of the gospel. Gospel is preaching. Why does one person get angry and the other person fall in love? Right. So here it says God's people, the people that God has elected and calling to himself, that even in the midst of judgment, they will see his glory and they will be attracted to him.

But for those who are not, it says it teaches the wicked about righteousness, that there is a judge. Right. Again, even to the world is common grace. That reminds people that there is justice, that there is righteousness. Right. So without judgment, there's more chaos and lawlessness. Remember, we talked about that the second use of the law.

Remember the three different uses of the law. Anybody remember this wasn't from here, this from the sermon. The first one is the one that we are aware, that's not the first one. It's a revelation of who he is. Right. His laws teach us about who he is. Right. Second use of the law is to restrain wickedness.

Right. He uses the government to bring authority to punish wickedness. Third use of the law is to convict us of sin. Right. So this is the second use of the law. What is Isaiah's confidence in the Lord? His main confidence is that the Lord is with him. Right. Even as he sees judgment coming, he says, let's see, verse 12.

Oh, Lord, you will be you ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works. Oh, Lord, our God, other lords beside you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance. They are dead. They will not live. They are shades. They will not arise.

So, again, this is at the end. Right. How Israel has relied upon Syria at times, the Egypt or Babylonians or the Persians. But in the end, all of them. Right. So remember, this judgment is not talking about a particular period. It's all at the end. Right. So the people of God are looking at all of this and everything that we put confidence in eventually erodes and becomes nothing.

Right. So if there's any benefit of getting older, other than we're soon sooner we're going to go to heaven. Right. If there's any benefit of getting older as a Christian is that you see, we get to visually see an experience that everything that we have. We've had confidence in.

Eventually you lose confidence. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, Pastor Mark and I, we took a trip up north and, you know, one of the conversations that we were having. And it was about this subject, you know, how after all these years, you know, like we're talking about the vision for the church and all this stuff.

And and I was just telling him, like, you know, I did a survey of what disciple I saw this on Facebook. So I thought it was interesting what disciple I would be. I almost always comes out, come out as Peter. Right. Like I'm going to do it. I'm going to, you know, I'll die for you like that.

I always come out as Peter. But this time I haven't done that a long time. I this time I did it. It came out as Thomas that I'm close to Thomas. And Esther was surprised. I wasn't surprised because I become much more cynical than I than I was before.

It's kind of like, yeah, right. I've lost all confidence in mankind. All confidence in mankind. And then we were talking about the church, about the vision and all this and all this. And it's after all these years, it's kind of hard not to be cynical because you've seen everything, including yourself, including your drive, including your your will to do something.

And then after failing and after being disappointed left and right, that in the end, my confidence in man, human structure will it's not there anymore. Right. It's not it's not dead, but it's nothing like it was before. Right. But in the midst of that, my confidence in God is much stronger.

Right. Because I've seen the disappointment because it's been disappointing and and I've been let down so many times that in the midst of that, that God is still faithful. That it makes his faithfulness and his righteousness and his mercy that much greater, you know, because you see all of that.

I don't I just don't have confidence. So I become a lot more like Thomas, you know, than I than I am, Peter. I don't know if that's a good thing, but that's that's what came out. So it kind of reminded me of this, you know, like in the midst of all of this, that basically saying like, oh, we had confidence in our walls.

We had confidence in these people. We had confidence in horses. We had confidence in in other soldiers. But in the end, all of them are gone. Right. Only you remained. So Isaiah and the Israelites confidence is that they knew that he was with them, even in the midst of judgment.

Right. Their confidence was that's our Lord. And that was the difference between them and the world. And that's why for Christians, assurance of salvation is important. It is important. You know, Paul, not Paul, but John, he writes in First John. You know, he kind of breaks down like this is what a Christian looks like.

And if you're not this, you don't have you don't have salvation. But at the end of the letter, he says, I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life. His whole point is not it wasn't to shake up Christians and say, maybe you're not a Christian.

The point of questioning them is is so that by examining that the end conclusion would be, no, you are a Christian. Right. So therefore, you should be living this way. Right. But his conclusion was not to put doubt in them. It's actually to was to confirm. Right. But make sure that the confirmation wasn't superficial.

It wasn't just like a placebo, but it was real. Right. So, again, whole confidence, even in the midst of all of this, if he wasn't your Lord, all you would see is judgment. Right. But as a child of God, you know that all this has a purpose. Again, he says his confidence is not in himself.

He said it wasn't us. It was you. You did all of this. We didn't conquer enemies. Right. We didn't provide for ourselves. We didn't persevere. You're the one who did all of this. The way he says in 1718, before talking to the Lord, their suffering was like birth pangs of a woman.

You know, the Bible uses that all the time to talk about pain that you cannot escape. Right. I have no experience, so, you know, I'll just leave it at that. But the Bible and I don't want to scare the ones who don't have experience yet. But the Bible often use that.

And I think about like there's a lot of different pains you can describe. Right. You break your leg, get stabbed. It's like, you know, the end time is going to be like when you get stabbed or something. Something that men can relate to. Right. But I feel like maybe the reason why one is sudden and you can't escape it.

And the reason but the result of it is the birth pains are not bad. In the end, pain itself is bad. Right. But it's meant to produce life. And that's that's what you see in this whole section. The whole section is God is bringing the pain. Yes, there's pain.

Right. But he's refining. And in the end, he's going to build the city of God. Right. So what he's saying here is that when we did this, when we were going through stuff, when we were striving at the end, what is it? It was like giving birth to wind, meaning it produced nothing.

When we did it by our effort, when we tried, when we when we did it, he said, in the end, you went through all that pain and it produced nothing. Right. But when God brings it, when God brings judgment and God brings suffering, it produces life. Right. So what does Isaiah counsel his people to do when the Lord begins his judgment?

Says to shut your doors until fury has passed. Some of you guys know, some of you guys don't know. I kind of lean toward post trip. So you guys may think I'm a heretic. I when I read the scripture, at least my perspective is I think the church is going to go through tribulation.

Right. Does that scare you? All right. Just just so you don't think like, oh, I'm a heretic. John Piper believes that. Who's the other guy? Systematic theology. Wayne Grudem believes that I'll give you I'll drop some other names so you don't you don't think I'm a heretic. OK. But again, in this passage, it tells about how that while it's coming, you know, you protect yourself because it's going to pass.

Who were the Lord punishing that day? Leviathan. Clear reference to Satan, serpent, dragon. These are all metaphors used of the devil. So, again, the judgment here is not just talking about one. It's talking about the whole world. The city is reference to the world itself and how the god of this age is Satan.

Right. So it's talking about the final judgment. We know that Leviathan is identified with a serpent. Now, why a serpent? What is it about a serpent that God is trying to teach us something about our enemy? Whenever the Bible uses the term serpent, what does he use it as a reference to?

A couple of things. Well, I'm not here to serve it. It's not a straight forward. Just by nature of physicality, it's the opposite of the street. So if the Lord's going to make straight the way of righteousness, then that path is very different than a winding path. And a serpent only travels winding.

So he's contrasting the reality of the winding is the non straightness of the serpent. The scripture always describes the enemy's attack as a scheme of the devil. Right. You mean a serpent? A garden of Eden? I just assumed that they would know. That's not an answer. I'm just that's just what I thought.

What else? What are some other scheming? How does Jesus use innocent as dove? Kind, cunning, I thought you said kind. Yeah, it doesn't fit at all. Cunning, scheming. Yeah. So, I mean, we may be adding, but you know that when we think about a serpent is conniving, it's always hidden.

Right. But it's also very dangerous. Right. I know there's not venomous. Right. But the venomous ones, you know, you wouldn't get bit. They're not fast enough to bite you. They're always hiding. And then they they pop out. I was also thinking like snakes typically tend to kill their prey when they're sleeping, they're injured, distracted by something else.

And there's all different kinds of snakes, but they can kill you so many different ways. Sometimes eat you, poison you, strangle you, hang you upside down. That's a less common one. Sounds like a dissertation paper right there. If you get a, if you ever get a THM, that's your dissertation paper.

50 different ways Satan can kill you. So, I mean, it's interesting. I think it is worth like meditating and thinking about because, you know, our attack is never straight at you. Right. The things that hurt us the most are the things that come at us that we don't expect.

And we would say like, oh, you know, I can take it from the world, but not from here, not from them, not from my friends, not from my family. It usually comes in areas that you don't think about. And that's where we're the most vulnerable. Right. Because we don't expect it.

And so the Bible always describes him as cunning, scheming. Right. And so we need to stay alert. And if we're not spiritually sober when these things happen, we don't we don't think of this as like satanic or spiritual attack. We just think of, you know, people stink. You know what I mean?

And then you don't you don't really engage spiritually. You just allow yourself to give yourself into it. Right. We know that the serpent is always resisting God. It says it's fleeing, twisting. Right. Has the idea of coiling, resisting God. And then ultimately the destiny is destruction by the Lord.

Right. How is Israel's judgment different from the nations that struck it? They said the Lord dealt with them with thorns and breast. OK, well, seven through nine, basically, it says that the Lord does not deal with Israel the same way he dealt with the rest of the nations. Right.

That God crushed them. But Israel will not be crushed. So even though he brings judgment upon them because of their sins, the Lord is pleading to make peace, to make peace. Right. And ultimately, just like the birth pains, the pains may be difficult, but ultimately it's going to bear fruit.

The image of Israel putting forth shoots and being fruitful, putting forth shoots, meaning that it was cut down. It only had a stump. Remember, we talked about that in the previous passages where the Messiah is going to come as a branch that comes from a stump. Right. Everybody thinks instead, but it's going to come back alive.

And so we see again, that's why this is not a mandated in church. So you have to believe, be a dispensationalist. But again, you know, if you've been in our church long enough, you know that we believe, at least in the leadership, that Israel will be restored in some form.

Right. And I don't know specifically how, but again, when we look at Scripture, it seems like it points to that. Unless you interpret all of this as a church, which we don't. Church is a partial fulfillment of that. But ultimate fulfillment is going to be the nation of Israel.

And then he says at the end of the judgment, life still comes after judgment for his people. Though God strikes strikes Israel for their sins, he does not carry out the severity as he does to the pagan nations. Turn with me to Romans chapter 11. Turn quickly to Romans chapter 11.

So if you have your Bibles, turn to Romans chapter 11. Eventually we're going to get here, but Romans chapter 9 through 11 is what convinced me that God is not done with Israel. Can somebody with a loud voice read chapter 11 verses 1 through 10, I guess? I asked them, has God rejected his people by no means for I myself in an Israelite?

The son of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Has God rejected his people for you? Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? How he appealed to God against Israel? For they have killed the prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

But what is God's reply to him? I have kept myself seven thousand men who have not vowed to me to abandon. So too at present time there is a remnant chosen by grace, but if it is by grace it is no longer on the base of the supports. Otherwise grace will no longer be grace.

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. They left, obtained it, but the rest were hardened as it is written. God gave them a spear with a knife. Stupor. I saw what I see and hear what I hear. Down to the very day. And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs for it. Okay. So if you read chapter 11 it sounds a lot like what he's saying about Israel here, right? That they're going through periods of judgment, but at the end of that he's going to reawaken them and a shoot's going to come out and they're going to start to bear fruit again.

Right? And so again, when I was studying through Romans chapter 9 through 11, the whole discussion in Romans is what about the Jews? If the Jews have been given the law and for hundreds of years they thought that that was going to make them right with God, and they said, no, that doesn't make you right with God.

You're under condemnation just like the Gentiles. Right? That's the whole discussion all the way to chapter 9. And then he says, well, if that's the case, then who are we? We thought we were God's people. Is God done with Israel? He said, by no means. And he spends the next three chapters explaining Israel's place in his sovereign plan.

Right? So again, there's more to it than that. But what he says here is again, it reflected in what he says in Romans 9 through 11. They've experienced a temporary hardening of their heart because of their sins. But at the end, God is going to regraft them in to the church by grace and not by works.

What will be the case with the fortified city? Again, we're talking about the world. Right? The judgment is going to be thorough. They're going to become desolate. Calves will graze. Right? Meaning that there's no owners. They're just roaming free. So it's not like the calves are grazing. Oh, it sounds like heaven.

No, it's a picture of judgment. In fact, oftentimes when the Old Testament talks about judgment, it talks about animals just grazing around freely because there's no owners. Right? Everybody has been judged. There's nothing left. To summarize what the Lord will do in that day. Right? And the final judgment, which is the judgment will fall on everyone one by one.

This is not just this area or America or this one area or one group of people. It says everyone one by one. All of them. Right? The next phrase when he says there's going to be a great trumpet that's going to be blown. The blowing of the trumpet is significant in the Old Testament.

We see it in two places. One on the Day of Atonement when they were announcing the year of Jubilee, which where all debts were supposed to be paid off and year is considered the year of the favor of the Lord. The year of Jubilee began with the blowing of the trumpet.

Right? So there's that significance. Then the other significance we see in the book of Revelation, which I don't have up here. If you look at there's three judgments, right? Three separate judgments of seven. There's a seal judgment, there's a trumpet judgment, and then there's the bowl judgments. Right? There's different theories as to the meaning of these judgments.

But all of these judgments start out in chapter one with the blowing of the trumpet. There's a trumpet that's blown and then in chapter five, the seal judgments begin. And then we get to chapter eight, the trumpet judgments, and then the bowl judgments one by one, it gets revealed.

Right? So that's the picture that we see here. Again, we were talking about last week how this saw talking about the end times. So the blowing of the trumpet, it has one significance of the year of the Lord, the favor of the Lord is coming. And then here's another judgment, another blow on the trumpet that signifies judgment.

And it fits right in with this, what he's saying, because judgment is going to be followed by restoration. Right? So those who are scattered and judged by, slaughtered by Assyria and Egypt will again return to worship the Lord, that he's going to regather his people at the end. So if you look at these passages, I'm not going to go there, but Matthew 24, 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, 1 Corinthians 15, 52, that all of these passages talks about how at the end time, he's going to gather his people to himself.

Alright, that's it.