Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript
## Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

We just recited, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn your statutes.” That’s really remarkably kind of the theme of Isaiah 28 and 29, which I think is a unit. Our sermon text today will be the first and second of those three parts of Isaiah 28 and 29. So we’re going to be going through Isaiah 28 beginning at verse one through verse four of 29. But really what I’ll be doing is taking a few verses from 28 as my basic topic: plowing with purpose.

So we’ll actually read—although we’ll look through the whole chapter beginning at verse 23 of Isaiah 28. So please stand for the reading of God’s word beginning at Isaiah 28, verse 23.

And when we get to the actual sermon, it’ll be useful for you to have a handout in front of you. I’ll be going through that text, Isaiah 28 beginning at verse 23.

Give ear and hear my voice. Listen and hear my speech. Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clouds? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow the black cumin and scatter the cumin? Plant the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place and the spelt in its place. For he instructs him in right judgment, his God teaches him.

For the black cumin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cumin. But the black cumin is beaten out with a stick and the cumin with a rod. Bread flour must be ground. Therefore, he does not thresh it forever, break it with his cartwheels, or crush it with his horsemen. This also comes from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the gospel as reflected in the text of Isaiah and particularly these two chapters. We thank you, Father, that you do not plow forever. But your plowing is with a purpose. We thank you for this season of Lent in which we meditate upon the sufferings of our Savior and the trials and tribulations you put us through as well.

Help your congregation today, Lord God, to be encouraged by and strengthened by your Holy Spirit with the knowledge that you plow with a purpose and you don’t plow forever. You do it to the end of planting and sowing and having nice tasty bread. Bless us, Lord God, in this hearing of your word. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Life is difficult. It just is. For those of you who like me watch the Lost television series, it is a difficult thing—as the series has shown in the last few episodes, particularly, but really all along—to follow Jacob. Much easier to follow Jacob’s the evil person that Jacob is guarding the world from, it appears, who gets to manifest cool and powerful things and do neat powerful things. It’s difficult to follow someone whose purposes you can’t perceive or understand many times and to go through long periods of service. It’s easy for people to lose hope.

My sermon today, “Plowing with Purpose,” is not about us plowing. This is about God’s plowing. And the text of Isaiah 28-29 is a wonderful text that describes contemporary events that were happening in northern Israel—or Ephraim—and Judah, southern Israel, and would happen over the next 100 or 200 years. They describe contemporary events that would happen with the exile and return. Ultimately, they describe the historical events of the death of Jesus and his resurrection.

So they describe real historical events, but at the same time they contain the means of how God works in a culture, how God works in geopolitical affairs, and it shows us how we can have hope in the middle of hard times. Times are difficult. We feel like, you know, we’re being plowed all the time.

Today’s order of worship—you know, the idea was to have pictures there that sort of showed the clay or the ground being broken, woken up. And Lent is a season, you know, when we meditate upon, as I said, the sufferings of Christ and our sufferings when God plows us, when he breaks us up. And sometimes it feels like it just goes on forever. But the text we just read was an assurance from God that he’s plowing for a purpose. He won’t plow forever. There’s a season of that.

And as we ritually remember all of this stuff, we go through Lent. And we know that at the end of that is the joy of resurrection, and that joy of resurrection is pictured in Isaiah 28 and 29 throughout the whole book of Isaiah really. The message of Isaiah, like the message of the prophetic books, is three things: Israel must die. A reference to the conquering of northern Israel here in the text before us, identified as Ephraim, who the founder of northern Israel was from the tribe of Ephraim. Israel must die. Judah must die. Jerusalem would be taken into captivity as well, much later.

And there was a coming resurrection. So death, death, and resurrection is the message of the prophetic books. They’re not primarily moral reforming books. They’re not saying, “Well, if you just get your act together, everything’s going to be fine.” They are primarily a proclamation, an announcement that you will die in the north. Assyria will take you into captivity. You will die in the south. Babylon will take you into captivity. But the end result of this will be resurrection and a resurrection life unlike anything else you’ve ever known.

So that’s what the message of the prophets is. That’s what’s going on in today’s text, as we’ll see. And it’s a message really, ultimately, of hope—that the plowing of the difficulties that these nations went through at the time was not going to just continue to be plowing forever and ever and ever. The end result is resurrection, and as I said, ultimately this points not to the restoration after the exile as restoration, or as resurrection, I mean—in a way you can see that—but ultimately this points to the death of the great Israel, the great Judah we could say, the Lion of Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his resurrection.

So ultimately, Isaiah and the prophets are fulfilled in the historical events that we celebrate every Lord’s day morning: the resurrection of our Savior. So that’s the context of the entire book of Isaiah. And that’s what’s going on.

And so throughout Isaiah, you have these wonderful lessons of what we’re supposed to do in the hard times that we have. We have before us an interesting week yet again in this particular political administration where, you know, it’s back. The healthcare bill is back. It may well get passed this week. It will be very difficult for business, I think, in the country. Will be damaging to medical care. But you know, it just may happen.

And what do you do when these problems exist? The very end of these two chapters, 28 and 29, kind of the capstone little thing at the end, says, “Those who complain will be taught doctrine eventually.” In other words, so complaining isn’t the right thing. But rather, what we’re trying—what we have to see—is step back from our sufferings and trust in this Jacob, so to speak, this God who is moving all things toward a particular purpose, including the things that are going on in our lives individually.

You know, yeah, they were bad in Israel and Judah at the time of their being taken into captivity. But not everybody. We know Daniel, you know, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah—these were all good guys. There were a lot of good people that went through great trials and tribulations. I mean, the destruction of their whole culture, the destruction, absolute destruction of their economy, being killed, many of them, their capital cities being trashed and being taken into exile essentially naked and ashamed because that’s what God had done with them.

So that’s the kind of difficulty, that’s the kind of suffering that Isaiah addresses. And in the midst of that suffering, he gives them great hope that this is God’s plowing, but he won’t plow forever.

This particular section of Isaiah 28, or Isaiah rather, chapters 28 and 29, begin the third major section of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is divided into seven major sections, and we’re following the outline that David Dorsey produced and taught here several years ago when he preached on Isaiah. And this is the very beginning of the third day section, the third of the seven sections.

And of course, the third day is the day when vegetation grows up out of the ground. And the third feast is first fruits, right? We talked about this last week in the agricultural cycle. The very first things come up out of the ground, and first fruits is presented before God. Then on the third day, which we celebrate every Lord’s day, Jesus rose from the dead. And this imagery, this resurrection imagery, is what we just read about, and we’ll see more evidences of it as we get to the text where God says he brings the people into the dirt and then out of that spirit, they will speak. They’ll be resurrected up.

So they’re going through very difficult times, and some of you, I know, are going through very difficult times, a lot of suffering in the context of our lives. And it’s—Lent reminds us of that. At the end of the day, there’s a sense in which our lives, really, here on this earth, are a kind of a test, an evaluation. We’re tried and tested in regular ways to see if we really believe the God of the scriptures and love him and trust him in spite of all the hard things that go on in our lives.

I think women particularly in our culture are—have a particular—at this time in history, for whatever reason, I think that women, and frequently in history, have had to go through a lot of suffering. So whether—whatever your case is, whether you’re suffering now or not, or whether you’re going to suffer in the future, or whether you’re suffering as you look at the news of the day today—this sermon is intended to kind of put away in your heads Isaiah 28 and 29 as a text to turn to in the context of suffering, to remember the hope that God plows.

Yeah, the plowing is real. The pain is real. The suffering is real. We don’t whistle past the graveyard of all of that. God is doing those things. They’re hard. They’re painful. But they’re things that are to a particular purpose.

So that’s what we want to talk about today. You kids, the coloring page at the back—you know, you’re supposed to find the face there, and you can find the face. And so the face is in there somewhere. And the idea is that plowing isn’t fun for the ground that’s being plowed, right? I mean, it hurts. The furrow goes through. The slashing, whatever, this thrashing, whatever it is, the sledging machine rather that digs up the dirt. It’s hard and painful. And we don’t want to deny that. We want to say that, yeah, that’s true.

But God doesn’t plow forever. And his plowing is for a particular purpose.

So this happens in the context of the season of the Christian year, the church year, that we call Lent, meaning “lengthening of days.” In this season, we think about suffering. And so we’re doing one Lenten sermon this year from Isaiah 28 to think about suffering. Isaiah has seven sections in it. Today’s sermon text starts the third of these sections, and the central theme of Isaiah is death, death, and resurrection.

Okay, so death, death, and resurrection—death to the north, death to the south, resurrection of Israel after the restoration from the exile, but ultimately in Christ. Jesus rose from the ground. Jesus comes up out of this ground, this plowed-up ground. Remember he said that unless a kernel of wheat is put into the ground and buried, it won’t produce the life that he will produce. So he’s associated with this ground and resurrection out of the ground on the third day.

And first fruits is the third feast listed in Leviticus 23, and relates to us.

All right. So let’s do this first. On your handouts, there’s a basic outline at the top. You know, life is hard. You missed an hour of sleep last night. You come here and old Tuuri’s got this two-page incredibly complicated outline for you. It’s difficult. It’s hard. Gird up your loins. Wake up. We’re going to get through this and you’ll like it. You really will. At least if I give you a little bit of the encouragement that I received from God in this text, it’ll be a great thing for you.

And by the way, my wife is the one that produced most of this outline. I changed it a little bit, but she’s doing great work plowing through Isaiah to look at these structures, and it’s really wonderful. You know, you read through chapters 28 and 29, it’s real easy to get confused, but there are these structures, in particular subjects that are going on. So what are they?

Well, if I can rearrange my pages here for a minute, I will put my papers in order and we will begin to work our way through the outline.

At the very top, as I said, there’s a kind of an overview of the entire text. So let’s talk about that first.

First, there are woes to Ephraim and Israel in chapters 28:1-22. So north and south, there’s woes. And this first section then has three subsections to it.

The first is “Woe to Ephraim’s spiritual leaders” in verses 1 to 8. Very specifically, in the context of those eight verses, Ephraim is a representation of Israel in the north. And very specifically, it talks about her priests and prophets, the spiritual leaders in the north, are specifically addressed. And when we get there, we’ll see that in the center of that section is a description of the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

So when God plows, his spirit is doing work. The Assyrians are coming. They’re going to do things. But what God wants his people to know is that the Holy Spirit is using the geopolitical affairs of their day, using the Assyrians to plow ground to prepare for new life, resurrection.

Now, that in itself—that’s an important takeaway from this sermon. We’re apt to complain this week as things continue to do, act very oddly at the national level. We’re liable to complain about things that are going on in our lives. And what we’ve got to see is that suffering is overseen by the great sovereign God, and his Holy Spirit is working through events for his particular purposes. He’s plowing with a purpose.

So at the center of that “Woe to Ephraim’s spiritual leaders” is a reference to the Holy Spirit. In the middle of this section is a line upon line, the refreshing word. So at the center, what he does in the center of this between Ephraim and Jerusalem is he talks about the scriptures and how there’s precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, a little a little.

And so he builds up, and this is repeated twice. We’ll look at this in just a minute in the actual text. But the emphasis is upon knowing God’s word, seeing how God has structured his word, and studying it—the word—out in such a way as we can understand it.

Now, Ephraimmites were blind to the knowledge of God’s word. They, you know, they had rejected God, and so they didn’t understand his word. And we’re supposed to know his word because as we let that word interpret the events of our day—and this is all that Isaiah is, from one perspective, right? It’s the spirit-breathed word of God interpreting the events that are happening in these two nations as Assyria and then Babylon is being used by God to set up something greater than Israel.

And Isaiah interprets those events in a right interpretation of the events, the providential, spirit-directed acts of God in a culture through the word of God, through studying it, through hearing it line upon line. This is restful. This gives us refreshing. And as we’ll see in just a couple of minutes as we look at that section, the middle of “line upon line” is rest.

So on your little outlines there, you might next to the A1 put “spirit.” You might next to the A2 put “rest,” because that’s at the center as we’ll see the “line upon line, precept upon precept” way that God wrote this particular part of his scriptures. And then the third section in verses 28:1-22 is “Woe to Jerusalem’s political leaders” in verses 14 to 22.

So you know, north, and the emphasis there is on the spiritual leaders and their rejection of God’s word and lack of knowledge. The center is the importance of God’s word, which will give us refreshing. And then he returns to Jerusalem, now in the south, and he addresses their political leaders. He talks about those that rule and that enter into covenants with the foreign nations around them.

So he’s talking about political leadership in the south and spiritual leadership in the north. That’s just what he does. And it’s a way of comprehensively saying that throughout the country, both in church and state, things are bad. Things are bad.

And the badness in the south is evidenced by Hezekiah’s men advising him and him entering into alliances with Egypt and other nations to defend himself against Assyria. Okay, so Assyria, after they wipe out the north, are now, you know, at the middle of Isaiah, they’re at the very gates of Jerusalem. So they come to destroy Judah, and Hezekiah and his men make the mistake of entering into foreign alliances.

And in chapters leading up to this, those alliances are very specifically spoken against. The judgment of God is upon them because they didn’t look—looked to Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, or armies, as he’s called in this chapter. They looked upon political entanglements with godless nations. God refers to it in the text that we’ll look at in a minute as a “covenant with death.” They made covenants with godless nations instead of relying upon God and his providence, the providential acts.

And of course, God brings them to the dust because of that. He lets Assyria sweep through all of Jerusalem, get right to the gates of the temple, and finally—you know, Hezekiah and the nation realize, or at least Hezekiah does, that they’ve sinned grievously against God. And Hezekiah goes into the temple and he lies prostrate before God, and he asks for God’s protection, finally, instead of the protection of Egypt. And he acknowledges his sin.

Isaiah uses one of these images that’s given to us in the text here of being driven down to the dirt. He lies in the dirt before God. He’s dead. And he says, “Lord God, I was a fool, essentially. You and only you can deliver us. Please do it.” And God says, “Okay.” And he gets up, and the next morning the Assyrians have been blown away like chaff in the wind. God is well able.

So the judgment against Jerusalem and her political leaders is because of bad covenants—instead of relying upon God. And basically what it is—they’re not trusting in the providence of God in the establishment of this Assyrian empire. They look at it just as a political matter. They’re not thinking, you know, in terms of the history of the world and the coming of the Messiah and all the preparations that God is doing for that through Assyria and Babylon and Greeks and Rome. They’re they’ve rejected all of that. They can’t understand it.

And so they look at, you know, their President and they complain, and all they do is, you know, get all ticked off. They don’t realize that God is plowing for a purpose to produce better fruit in the future.

Now, it’s interesting because at the center of this section is the Lord Jesus Christ. God says he’ll establish this rock, this firm foundation in the future. He tells them in the middle of the judgment against them what he’s doing. He is moving through a series of empires now to bring about the coming of Messiah King—King Jesus will reign. So political leaders have to bow the knee not to the head of Egypt but to the head of God’s kingdom, Jesus Christ.

So Jesus is at the center here. Now, it’s interesting because we’ve got Jesus and we’ve got the spirit and we’ve got refreshing. You know, that’s an easy message to take away from this particular text. If you know the structures, if you are diligent to study the word of God, if you don’t say, “Oh, this is so complicated. What does the simple Bible say?”—this is what the Bible says.

The Bible says that in difficult times, God won’t plow forever. That you should understand that he’s bringing you a time of refreshment as he providentially works to manifest the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and his spirit moves pieces of the chess pieces around on the board to affect his purposes in the culture and in the world. And as you study God’s word and trust in his providence, even in the midst of great suffering, you know that God is plowing for a purpose, and the purpose is the establishment of Jesus Christ and Jesus giving the spirit out to bring us a knowledge of his word.

Rest and refreshing is found in that word as it interprets the events of our day as well, and our specific little issues that we struggle with, as well as the national issues and the global political issues as well. So it’s a beautiful picture.

Now, it’s interesting because the spirit that I mentioned is the center of that first of those three sections here. The spirit has been basically absent from Isaiah’s book until from chapter 11 on. He’s mentioned in chapter 11 in a six-fold pattern. You remember 11 is when, you know, a rod will come forth from Jesse and the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and might and power and all that stuff.

So we have Jesus being predicted or prophesied—the coming of Christ the King—the rod out of Jesse, David, right? Kingly guy who has the spirit of God in 11. And then there’s no reference to the Holy Spirit, direct reference, until these very verses. And in this particular section, in this third day section, there are many instances of references to the Holy Spirit, both direct and indirect.

And it’s interesting here that, you know, it’s matched up in the structure of these verses to the king, to the coming of the establishment of King Jesus. So we have spirit in Jesus, just like in chapter 11, where Isaiah put it all together: that the king will come and he’ll have the Holy Spirit, and the spirit will affect righteousness and judgment and justice in the nation.

So that’s what it is here. And so the center of this first section is rest and refreshment, but it happens in the context of the Holy Spirit and of Jesus Christ. So that’s, you know, the bulk of this text today, chapter 28:1-22.

But then there’s a short section on your outline. This is now the B section: “Death and Resurrection,” and this is from 28:23-29:4. So we’ve got these judgments, and then we’ve got death and resurrection imagery. And then in chapters 29, we don’t have it detailed here, but it goes back to these themes of judgment, like it’s been talking about in the first portion of chapter 28.

So here, in the middle of the entire section really, then, 28 and 29 is the second section of “Death and Resurrection,” and as we’ll see in verses 23 to 28, we have references to this plowing and reaping and eating that I just described to you there. So we have that, and then at the very center the last verse I read—which is God’s word and works: “The Lord of hosts has great counsel and great wisdom.”

And then we have “Judgment, Humility, and Resurrection” in terms of Judah again in the concluding section there and the last few verses of that. So that’s kind of the way the text moves. And so if you’re reading 28 by itself, really, you’re kind of coming into the center of something. And that’s okay to do it that way. But the fullest understanding of it is to see the center coming back out in chapter 29.

But 28 has this nice culmination. And what is the culmination? It talks about God’s counsel and his providence and works. So let’s look at that verse that we just read, and you can either look on your handout or just directly in the scriptures.

This is in chapter 28, and it’s verse 29, the last verse of chapter 28.

So look at that if you will for just a minute, either on your outlines or on your scriptures. The last verse of chapter 28, and as I said, this is sort of the center of the whole teaching here about God in times of judgment, says: “This also comes from the Lord of hosts. See, he’s reminding them that he’s the Lord of armies. You don’t have to make foreign alliances. The Lord of hosts is the one who is actually doing all this stuff. He’s brought Assyria to your gate.

“The Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel. See, in words, instruction, and who is excellent in guidance.” Now, the word “guidance” is translated in some translations “workings.” I think in the King James version, it’s translated “wisdom.” In some of your texts, it’s not the normal word for wisdom, though. It’s specifically a word for wisdom that means “the wise actions”—a wisdom that produces practical effect.

So it’s God does works in wisdom. His wisdom produces works. So he’s bringing to pass things, and he’s doing his plan wisely. That’s the implication of that term. So at the culmination verse of chapter 28, we have the same message. We have the importance of the scriptures, God’s counsel, and the importance of God’s providence, his wisdom working in the world.

It’s in his wisdom that he brings Assyria to your gates. It’s in his wisdom that he brings that person that you are struggling so much trying to know how to work it out with them. It’s in wisdom that he’s brought you your particular husband or wife.

I mean, the worst relationship in the world is marriage, right? I mean, maybe my marriage is different than your marriage. Oh, that didn’t sound good. But, you know, marriage is the most intimate of human relationships you have. And because of that, and because of all the time you spend together, and you begin to think of the other person as just an extension of yourself, you feel real free, more free than normally, to sin. There’s a lot of sin that goes on in marriage.

Don’t you know this is just the way it is? Don’t think that somehow you’re the only one that has trouble in your marriage. Everybody does. It’s the hardest thing God calls you to do, okay? But you have to remember in the middle of whatever sufferings you may be going through in your marriage at any particular time—there’s a lot of joy, of course—but in the times of difficulty, you got to remember this stuff: that God is wise in his work.

In his wisdom, he has brought that person that seems to be an Assyrian at this moment in time, as he’s yelling at you, to your gates. You know, it’s in wisdom that he has brought you into this relationship. You have to trust in his providence, and you have to trust in understanding his word as you work your way through how to have this relationship be sound.

So whether it’s, you know, Assyrians at the gate, or, you know, who determines who’s going to marry whom, it’s the sovereign God who does all things in wisdom. So a rejection of his providence is this complaining, and a rejection of his word is linked to that as well.

And what the text tells us, then, is that the path of refreshing and joy is knowing God’s word, studying it, and trusting in God’s providence in the midst of difficulties and knowing that he’s plowing with purpose. The plowing won’t last forever. He’ll come along, and then, you know, sow things.

I remember Dennis Peacock years ago, a couple of decades ago, at this church. I believe he said it in a sermon here: that, you know, you read the newspapers and you see what God is plowing up. And where he’s plowing, that’s where you want to plant seed, right? So God plows. He causes difficulties and trials and sufferings. And then he uses his people, and he plants seeds. The seeds grow up. You got to harvest that grain, which also is a painful process to be harvested. And the grain has to be crushed, baked, and then it’s this beautiful loaf of bread that is the blessing of God to the world.

That’s the way it works. That’s what this communion table is all about: death and resurrection and trusting God in it. So that’s the message. That’s the message.

So let’s look now at a little bit of the details. And I know it looks, you know, complicated and long, but you know, it’s really not. Let’s just look at the text now and try to understand how this works. And we’ll make a few comments as we go through.

Now, so looking back at page one of the handout: the first section, the A section, is “Woes to Ephraim and Israel.” And so let’s begin to look at that in the text, okay.

So verse one, right? So we’re under 1A: “Woe to Ephraim’s spiritual leaders.”

And if you don’t have the handout in front of you, just try to follow along with your scriptures. It’ll be a little more difficult. But what does he say to begin with? You know, the beginning and end of things are important. So he says at the beginning: “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower.”

So what’s going on? The ultimate sin here described at the very beginning of people who reject the word of God or who reject the providence of God is pride. Over and over again in Isaiah: pride, pride, pride, pride, pride. We know better than God’s word. We don’t need that. We know better than him what should be happening in the Senate this week, you know. So it’s pride that’s the basis for the drunkenness of Ephraim.

Again, Ephraim is just a designator for the northern tribes. Throughout the book of Isaiah, Ephraim is a description of the northern tribes, Israel, which is another name for that. So he tells them here, he begins by giving them a declaration of woe to them.

And God says that to you in verse two: “The Lord has a mighty and strong one, like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty waters overthrowing.”

Well, this is Assyria. God will destroy northern Israel because he has this weapon. He has this plow that he’s going to use. So right away, God warns prideful people that God has all kinds of tools, and many of them are not that gentle, to plow you up. And Ephraim will be plowed by God, and he’ll be plowed specifically with the Assyrians. They’ll bring them down to the earth in the next section.

At the end of verse two, he’ll bring them down to the earth with his hand. So again, the imagery that’ll continue throughout 28 and 29 is set up here. The prideful people who exalt themselves over God’s word and his providence will be brought down to the earth, and they’ll be brought down through this process of plowing. It’s like big tall weeds have risen up thinking they’re so beautiful, and God says it’s ridiculous. I’m going to plow you under, and you’re going to be brought down to the earth. So it’s death—going to the earth is death.

And that’s what’s going to happen to the north. The crown of pride—he says the drunkards of Ephraim will be trampled underfoot. Again, you’re crushed. You’re down in the ground now.

So Ephraim had a crown. Crowns are good things. But their crown was a crown of pride. Instead of a crown of thanksgiving to God for the wonderful fertility of the land that they had, they were unthankful, and they took, you know, joy in themselves. America is a crown of pride. Why? You know, we were—God warns us in the law that when he takes you and blesses you and gives you a lot of fruitful things and good commerce, be careful that you don’t think your hand did it.

And that’s just what Ephraim had done. That’s what this country does. We think it’s our own productivity. It’s our own wisdom. It’s our own, you know, use of the natural resources. It’s all about us. So Ephraim was prideful like that. And God says that’s why he’s going to plow them under.

And in the case of Ephraim in the north, they’re not really going to come back either.

And then at the center, in that day, the Lord of hosts will be—filled—this is verse five—”will be rather for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people, for a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.”

So at the center of this, he says that, you know, God’s going to crush you, and he’s going to instead manifest his Holy Spirit in this. So the spirit now is mentioned in verse six as the means through which God is affecting these things. So he’s going to be now for a crown of glory.

At the center of this section on judgment is the declaration by God that actually the enemy he’s plowing with the purpose, and he’s going to create a crown of glory, which will be with the coming of the spirit—the one filled with the spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, ultimately—and the spirit, like in the New Testament, is described as having a spirit of justice. And he’s also strength.

So the Holy Spirit is one who brings justice in the world, and he’s a strengthener to those who need strength, to those. So that’s the opening section.

The tribes in the north, headed by Ephraim, are described, and they’re going to be brought low. They’re going to be humbled. They’re going to be brought to a death-like position through one that God has brought into being, the Assyrian Empire, and he will crush them. But the end result is for the establishment of a crown of glory for God himself.

Verse 7 goes on to say—and I mentioned this earlier—that “through intoxicating drink they are out of the way. The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink. They’re also swallowed up by wine. They are out of the way.”

So here, this is why we see that this is talking to the spiritual leaders in the north. So it’s the prophet and the priest, and they’re intoxicated. Now, later in chapter 29, he’ll say they’re not drunk with—they’re not foolish through drunkenness, or they’re not drunk with wine. They’re drunk, ultimately, because they rejected the council of God.

Whenever a culture or a person takes upon themselves interesting ideas and perspectives that are not Bible-based, God relates that to drunkenness. Now, even in Ephesians, Paul says, “Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.” There’s a contrast between what’s going to control you. But the only opposition to the spirit is not literal wine. And usually, the imagery in these prophetic books isn’t necessarily literal.

I mean, it’s certainly true that drunkards are not filled with the spirit, but ultimately, the problem with Ephraim is pride, not drinking too much. And ultimately, it’s the fatness of their heart. They’re not thankful to God. They don’t acknowledge him with their hearts. This is another thing that’s mentioned in chapter 29 and matching section.

It says, “These people, you know, they come near to me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me. And therefore, I’m going to give them this intoxicating spirit of blindness.”

Now, look, we’re here today. We’re drawing near with our voices, right? You recited God’s word. You put it into your mouth. You’re singing songs, right? You’re drawing near to God today with words, lip service. That’s what you’re supposed to do. But if you’re drawing near only in lip service, and if your heart is far away from God, he says, “You’re like Ephraim. You’re like Jerusalem. I’m going to plow you in a way that’s going to bring you down to death, and maybe he’ll raise you back up.”

But that’s the kind of people in Ephraim that are being described in this text. It’s not that they drink so much. It’s that they get drunk with the spirit of the age. And because of that, God is cursing them because of their not being close to him.

So that’s the opening section. And then the second section in the judgments upon Ephraim and Judah are “Line upon Line.”

And Howard L., you know, he remembers this verse, “line upon line.” When we first started Parents Education Association, Howard got a newsletter going for us, and it was really good, and that was the name of it: Line Upon Line. And we were trying to lay out line upon line instruction from God’s word as it relates to the civil magistrate.

And here in this section, the importance of knowing the word of God: verse 10, “Precept must be upon precept. Precept upon precept, for-fold repetition. Precept is like a command in reference to a teaching that God brings us. Line upon line, line upon line, little upon little, little upon little.”

Okay, that’s a lot of repetition to remind us that God’s word has to be studied in its details, and a knowledge of God’s doctrine has to be built up. Okay? And it’s not only there with all that repetition on your outlines. If you look, it’s repeated down again in verse 13: “Same thing. But the word of the Lord was to them: ‘Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line. Here a little, there a little.’”

And you could sort of read in these verses two things. One: this is true. God says this is the way you have to understand the Bible. You’ve got to build up a sense of an understanding of the scriptures and an understanding of doctrine, line upon line, precept upon precept.

But secondly, what’s going on here is people mock this. Oh, all that stuff you’re telling us, Isaiah, all that, you know, line upon line. You’re saying it over and over. We don’t want to hear it anymore. They’re mocking. They’re scoffing the teaching of God’s word. And so you see that in here as well. And God says that’s another reason for the judgment. Their pride has caused them not to be able to hear the word of God. And as a result, they become very stupid.

Now, but right before this is the center of this particular section, in verse 12. That’s the B section there.

“To whom he said, ‘This is the rest with which you may cause—me cause—the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing.’”

Okay, so at the center of this, God tells us that refreshment, true rest, comes from an understanding, a study and understanding of God’s word as it relates to the events that are going on in your particular life. This is the source of refreshing and rest. It’s the middle here, okay.

In the middle is the focal point. It brings our attention to it. God has put these two lists on either side of it to make it real clear what the focal point is. And the focal point is that it’s not a lot of work. You think it’s work to study the scriptures. But God says the end result of that work is refreshment and rest.

It’s the most beautiful time of my life when I study the scriptures. It’s the most joyous time I have. It’s the time when I feel refreshed the most is when I study the word of God, come up with an understanding of a particular section, and then try to work to communicate it well.

But to understand it brings such refreshment and rest to us. May the Lord God grant all of us an understanding of his word that produces that kind of refreshment. And may we then endeavor to study God’s word line upon line, precept upon precept, so that we may have a good understanding of it.

So judgment on Ephraim—the spiritual leaders, they’re prideful. They’re drunkards because they’re intoxicated with other spirits. God has blinded their heart because they have a false—lip service only in their formal worship of God. And he says that he’s going to bring judgment to them and crush them and bring them to death.

And then he says at the center of all this is God’s instruction in his word, the words coming from Isaiah, that they’re rejecting. The only true source of refreshment and rest in the midst of difficult times is a knowledge of that word, that understanding, that helps us to understand that word as it relates—leads—to our times. Eli, you know, Isaiah is helping them to see what’s going on, and they’re blind to it. They won’t hear it, and so they’re blind to the only source of refreshment and rest.

And then, at the third, the matching section, is “Woe to Jerusalem’s Political Leaders,” verse 14:

“Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men who rule this people.”

So there we have it: the rulers, the civil rulers, are being described specifically, and they’ve made this covenant with death, at the verse goes on to talk about. They’re in Jerusalem. So now we’ve moved to the south. They’ve made a covenant with death, which is these covenants they’ve made with foreign powers to protect them rather than turning to God for their protection. Instead, going to foreign entanglements with godless nations, “we’ve made lies our refuge,” he says, as the text continues.

And then he uses—at the center of this—verses 16 and following:

“Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily. Also, I will make justice the measure—his the measuring line—and righteousness the plummet.’”

So at the very middle of this judgment is that God says what he’s doing through the political actions of the day is establishing—ultimately—the coming of Jesus Christ. He’s going to have this series of empires, and it will lead to the establishment of the Stone—Jesus Christ.

And with this side of the coming of Christ, we want to look at the same events in our lives, little ones, big ones, and say this is part—God is plowing for a purpose. The purpose is the establishment, the manifestation, the visible manifestation of the reign of Jesus Christ in the context of the world. That’s the crown of glory that was referred to in contrast to the crown of pride that the Ephraimmites had.

The crown of glory will be the Lord Jesus Christ, and then his spirit split sent forth into the world.

So the heart of this is to remember in difficult times that God is establishing the manifestation of his kingdom. They, on the other hand, have trusted in things that are ridiculous. They have trusted in things that aren’t going to help them at all.

Look down at verse 20. He says, “Your bed is too short to stretch out of, and the covering so narrow that one cannot wrap himself in it.”

Now, what he’s talking about here is these covenants that they’ve made with Egypt. It won’t work. There won’t be a covering, a protection for you, described as a blanket over you, to keep the Assyrians away. The blanket will be too short. The Assyrians are going to get at you. Your bed is too short. The blanket rather is not wide enough.

So what he’s saying is: every time we try to protect ourselves through means that seem right to us, but aren’t the means of God’s word—if we’re not ultimately relying upon God for our protection, any other source of trying to make things right, of trying to alleviate the suffering that’s coming our way—it’ll be a bed too short and a blanket too narrow. It’ll be a bed too short and a blanket too narrow.

Anything that we do that we think can protect us—even as wise as it might seem, as obvious as it is that this is the way out—if it’s not God’s way, it will be a way that will not bring a covering to you.

And he warns Jerusalem. This is what’s happening to them. You’re going to be—it’s going to be too short. The terror is coming. The bed is too short. God says, “These guys at your gates who are going to besiege your gates, that’s me.” He says that in this chapter. He says, “I’m going to have siege walls mounted against you.”

And Jerusalem literally had that from Assyria’s men, Rabshakeh, at the head of the army. He laid siege to Jerusalem. But God says, “I will bring sieges against you. I will construct a siege wall.” The Assyrians, Rabshakeh, who actually is taunting God at the gates of Jerusalem, is himself the tool of God to humble his people, to bring them to death, so that he might raise them back up again.

And that’s what he says he’s going to do. So the mockers, the scoffers, these men will be brought to destruction, that he might raise them up from life again.

And then we come to the last section, the one that we read at the beginning of the day.

What’s going to happen here is the plowman doesn’t plow all day long. He plows to sow. He’s going to create a harvest. He’s going to bring about his blessings upon the people. His plowing is for a purpose.

And then matching that, after the center we’ve already talked about, is “Woes to Ariel.” Look at chapter 29, verses 1 to 4.

We see here this again—this imagery that God himself is doing the work. Look, for instance, at verse four. Or actually, look at verse two:

“I will distress Ariel.”

Now, Ariel is just another name for Jerusalem. That’s clear in the text. I don’t want to get into the meaning of the name because it’s a little complicated, but he’s saying I am the one who’s going to distress Jerusalem, or Ariel, me.

God says, “There shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to me as Ariel. I will encamp against you all around. It looks like Rabshakeh. It looks like the Assyrians. It looks like our spouse who was half us. It looks like, you know, somebody from the government who’s really creating problems for us. It looks like some criminal that trashed my car. It looks like something else. But God says an understanding of his sovereign providence is that ultimately, in this case, he is the one who is encamping against them all around.

“You shall be brought down, death-like again. I will lay siege against you with a mound. I will rage—will raise siege works against you.”

So he says, “I’m the reason.” You want to complain about your troubles and your trials and your difficulties—complain about me. Be honest about it because I’m sovereign. I’ve been plowing you. It hurt. Made you weep. That face on the ground in the kids’ cartoon—I should have put little tears on it. It hurts. Tears are okay to shed in the middle of trials and sufferings.

When we’re in Lent, bad things seem to happen more often than not. It’s a reminder from God that suffering—the suffering of Christ, right—is what we’re brought into relationship with. It’s hard. But ultimately, at the end of the day, like Jacob wrestling with that strange person who attacks him at Peniel, as he just wants to go back to his promised land and do the right thing for God, and he’s looked back at all these bad things that have happened—he had this horrible dad who for most of his life liked the godless guy better than him. He had this horrible uncle who cheated him. He had a horrible time.

And God says, “I was wrestling with you.” He realizes, as he wrestles all night with the angel, it’s God wrestling him. His troubles ultimately—God has been superintending for his purposes for God’s purposes. He’s been plowing with a purpose. Now he doesn’t plow all the time. Jacob gets to go back into the land, then blessed. He limps, but he walks into a sunrise, not a sunset.

It’s God who’s plowing us. And to what purpose? Well, the verse goes on to say, “You shall speak out of the ground. Your speech shall be low out of the dust. Your voice shall be like a medium’s out of the ground. And your speech shall whisper out of the dust.”

That’s beautiful. Resurrection is what it’s talking about. I’m driving you low. I’m plowing. I’m making, you know, clouds of dirt out of what was a nice, level ground before that. But I’m going to bring you back up. You’ll speak from out of that dirt. Jesus Christ was brought ultimately through the foreordained plan, determined, foreknowledge of God—brought Jesus Christ through sufferings to the cross that he might have him speak out of the ground, that he might be raised up, you know, on resurrection Sunday, as a reminder to us—that’s the end of trials.

That’s the purpose for which God plows. It’s his purposes, the manifestation of his kingdom. God doesn’t plow forever. Remember that. If you remember nothing else of today in that complicated Isaiah text, remember that God says at the conclusion of it: I’m not going to plow you forever. I’m going to plant. I’m going to have you grow up. I’m going to make wonderful, tasty bread for the world out of your lives.

But it’s not going to happen if I don’t do some plowing first. Whether it’s this country being plowed up because of its prideful rejection of God—I mean, do our rulers look to the council of God’s word anymore for how to solve healthcare, international crises, whatever it is? Is that where we look for our protection from foreign enemies? Or do we look in real politique and make all kinds of alliances with all kinds of wicked, godless people?

We’re just like these people were at the time of this. I don’t know what God will do if he rips it up up. Don’t despair. It’s so that he might plant something better and better and more glorious—that he might, we might see more evidently in this country once more the manifestation of the reign of Jesus Christ.

And that’s what he’s doing in your life. We tend to just sort of become Christians after a while of lip service. We’re not looking to the counsel of God. We’re not looking at his providence in our lives. We’re suffering, and it’s hard for us. And I understand the hardness.

God says to you today: he’s not going to plow forever. He’s not going to make you, you know, weep the rest of your life. There’s a purpose for it. And the purpose is the manifestation of Christ’s kingdom—not just in some kind of global sense, but in your life, in your life. So that people around you can see that the Lord God, you know, while he plowed you, has also raised you back up.

The word of God is a wonderful picture to us of what this is all about. And ultimately, it’s a reminder that Lent is a reminder that sufferings are God’s plowing for a purpose. It moves us toward Easter. It moves us to resurrection life once more.

Let’s thank God for that.

Father, we thank you. Help us not to be complainers. Help us to be those who study your word and trust your providence, who know that your word, your works, are what are moving in the context of this world. Bless us, Lord God, with a rest today, a refreshing, knowing that in the midst of our trials and tribulations, in the midst of some of us being plowed deep, Father, we have refreshing from your word today, knowing that the purpose of this is the manifestation of the reign of Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray. Amen.