(Isaiah 39)

Isaiah 39:1-8; 2 Kings 20:12-19

Merodach-Baladan (Isa 39:1) was twice able to make himself king of Babylon in defiance of the Assyrians (721-710 and 705-703). He was ousted by Sennacherib in 703 and escaped to Elam (modern Iran) where he continued to plot against the Assyrians until his death. That he heard about Hezekiah's illness and recovery suggests that he had a good intelligence system and that communication between various parts of the ancient world was good.

Hezekiah was glad to receive the envoys (Isa 39:2a), because a great world leader was paying attention to little Judah. Surely he felt flattered. What is dangerous about such notoriety is that one can easily succumb to the temptation to convince the important person that he is worthy of the attention given to him. Sadly, Hezekiah falls to this temptation.

God's Plan is to Humble the Proud (Isaiah 23)

Isaiah 23:1-18 (Your money is not yours. It is a gift from God.)

"The Lord Almighty planned it, to bring down her pride in all her splendor and to humble all who are renowned on the earth" (Isaiah 23:9).

Tyre is like Babylon; both are proud. With the pronouncement against Tyre in Isaiah 23, Isaiah fittingly concludes his judgments upon the nations (ch.13-23). As Babylon, the great city in the east, opens this section (ch.13-14), so Tyre, the great city in the west, closes it. As Babylon is described in general, universalistic terms, so is Tyre. As it is difficult to pin down the precise historical events in ch.13, so also it is with ch.23. So much similar are the two chapters that Revelation uses the language applied to Tyre to describe the great world city Babylon (Rev 18:11-24). Thus, Tyre, like Babylon at the beginning, is being used in a representative way. For instance, both are proud and arrogant (Isa 13:11; 23:9).

Weep and Wail for the Proud (Isaiah 15-16)

God's Plan for Proud Moab (ch.15-16) [Gary Smith]

1. A lament over the ruin of Moab (15:1-9).
• Laments over the ruined northern Moabite cities (1b-4).
• Laments over fugities who flee south (5-7).
• The inevitability of Moab's dire situation (8-9).
2. A Moabite request for shelter in Judah (16:1-5).
3. A lament: pride will cause the devastation of Moab (16:6-12).
• Moab is proud (6).
• Moab will wail, its field ruined (7-8).
• Prophet laments; there is no joy in Moab (9-10).
• Prophet weeps; Moab's prayer is useless (11-12).
4. An announcement: Moab's end within three years (16:13-14).

A Proud Man/Church vs. a Humble Man/Church

How can you tell the difference?

	The Proud Person / Church	The Humble Person / Church
1	It's all about ___.	It's all about _____ and ________.
2	Get's joy from promoting ______.	Gets joy from promoting _________.
3	Gets ______ and ____________ when confronted.	Is ________ and ___________ when confronted.
4	Loves to _______ / _________.	Loves to _________ / ________.
5	_______ about what they know.	_______ about what they don't know.
6	_______ others.	Takes _____________.
7	Compares self to ________.	Compares self to ______.
8	"Lord, change _______."	"Lord, change _____."
9	_______ ___ sin.	________ ____________ sin.
10	Concerned with _______ / ______________.	Concerned with _______ / ____________.

The Removal of Proud Women (Isaiah 3:16-4:1)

To deal with the pride of man expressing itself in self-exaltation (2:6-4:1), God will humble:

1. God's people (2:6-11)--for their idolatry (magic, money and military might).
2. All people (2:12-22)--resulting in humiliation, disillusionment and fear.
3. Men--for their oppressive leadership (3:1-15). Removal of Judah's arrogant male leaders.
4. Women--for their vanity leading to flirtatiousness, ostentation, shame and insecurity (3:16-4:1). God's judgement would be the removal of Judah's proud women.

But You Did Not Look To God (Isaiah 22-23)

Isaiah 22:1-15, 11; 23:1-18

"The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah, and you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest. ⁹ You saw that the walls of the City of David were broken through in many places; you stored up water in the Lower Pool.¹⁰ You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall. ¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago. But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! 'Let us eat and drink,' you say, 'for tomorrow we die!' ¹⁴ The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: 'Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,' says the Lord, the Lord Almighty" (Isa 22:8-14, NIV).

Theme: Where do you find your security? The charge against Jerusalem is her self-sufficiency (Isa 22:8-11). In Isaiah 22, when the city (1-14), individual (15-19) and family (20-25) become self-sufficient, they have committed the unforgivable sin (Isa 22:14).

What Happens to You After You Die (Isaiah 14): The Destiny of the Arrogant

Isaiah 14:9-21; 12

"How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!" (Isa 14:12, NIV)

What happens to you after you die? What happened to the king of Babylon after he died? By extrapolation and inference, could we not say that this is how Isaiah explains what happens to all people after they die? If anyone is proud or arrogant, oppressive, violent, cruel or unjust like the king of Babylon, will this not be what will happen? Let us draw this out from Isa 14:9-21:

Gospel Humility and Self-Forgetfulness

1 Corinthians 4:3-4 "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."

The truth about Christians: It is quite possible for Christians to do all sorts of morally virtuous "biblical" things, such as serving God faithfully and sacrificially in church, when our hearts might still be filled with pride, fear, or a desire for power, control, praise, honor and recognition.

Key Question(s):

• What are the marks of a heart that has been radically changed by the grace of God?
• What are the marks of a supernaturally changed heart?
• If we trust in Jesus, what should our hearts--changed at the root by the grace of God--look like in real life?

C.S. Lewis on Pride

"A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

What a reflective quote from Lewis' chapter on The Great Sin that we heard in the sermon. I found additional meaningful related quotes from that chapter:

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves."

"There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others."

"According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison..."

"...if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise."

"In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison- you do not know God at all."

"How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people..."

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good-above all, that we are better than someone else-I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object."

"It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can smuggle itself into the very center of our religious life. But you can see why. The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly."