Isaiah, Chapter 17

Good morning. Let's see, we did a bit of a shuffle here. We're continuing sequentially through Isaiah. And then two weeks ago, we jumped back to the third chapter. And now we're stepping into a sequence again in the 17th chapter. And then Mike last week covered the Holy Spirit in our doctrinal statement. So we'll continue on with chapter 17 of Isaiah. and the passage that Courtney read for us.

Now, sweeping through this, the first 11 verses and what we typically do here is summarize. the passage for the sake of seeing the bigger picture, and then zero one on a specific passage. One of the points I'd make for those of you who are visiting with us is, this is the page number on your handout that's in the lower right-hand corner. If there is no page number in the lower right-hand corner, then it's not on your handout. If it's real important for you to have it, write really fast.

So, here is first 11 verses, Isaiah was speaking to the nations of Aram and Israel, this is the northern tribes here, the northern nation, that their cities would soon become desolate, a place for flocks, a place for animal herds. Now, this would be Assyria, or Aram is the ancient name, and Israel.

And our focal point passage, verses 7 and 8, tells about the positive spiritual outcome of this otherwise pretty dismal and ominous passage. The other verses doesn't describe a very nice thing. But there is a positive spiritual outcome, and that's what we'll focus on here today.

Verses 12 through 14 tell about the coming tribulation period. That's a seven-year period of time yet in the future, not only for Isaiah, but for us as well. And to give you a perspective time-wise, we're still on your page one there of the handout. This is verses 1 through 11, and that is in Isaiah's own time and describe his time and are fulfilled in his time. Verses 12 through 14 describe that coming seven-year tribulation period before the Lord's second coming.

Now, there are some questions we have to answer before we get to verses 7 and 8, because we need to kind of get the perspective that Isaiah is writing from. There are some people and places here that need to be recognized in order for us to understand the passage. So, let's take a look at those. We've got to ask a question first. Think for a minute here. What is Aram? Who is Aram? Who is Aram? Who is Aram? Aram is mentioned in the book of Genesis. You've got to go there to figure out where this is. Genesis 22 verses 20 through 24 tell us that Aram was Abraham's brother, Nehor's grandson.

This isn't as bad as I'm my own grandpa, but it gets complicated. So carefully through here. Terah had three sons. Two of them are given here for our illustration. Abraham was one that we're of course more familiar with. He had a brother, Nehor. I wouldn't suggest that you name any of your kids that. Abraham had sons Isaac and then grandson Jacob. Nehor had son Kemuel and then grandson Aram. That's who Aram was. So it was, I don't know, figure this out. This is Abraham's nephew, I don't know, something like that, once removed.

Now here's the whole genealogy. Get that memorized. And before you freak out, we'll just zero in on just that part. And to make it even simpler, we'll get the scissors out and snip out about three areas that we don't need to take a look at. So we'll look at this. And that's on page two of your handout, OK? Except for the yellow stuff. Get your felt pen out and make that yellow if you want. OK.

So here is Tara and Abraham and that genealogy. And then through into all the sons of Jacob. But this fellow here, Aram, is the guy that you can see there who is the grandson of Nehor. So there's the connection. Now isn't it interesting how looped this genealogy is? Really close to I'm my own grandpa kind of deal, okay? But not quite there. All right. So we got this Aram fellow. Okay. Now, this is where Aram settled.

As a matter of fact, didn't you say Matt was not too far from Syria? He's not far from right there, okay? So there's a place that's near and dear to hearts here. The cities of Aror were here in the southernmost parts of Aram. So if you look in Isaiah chapter 17 and you run into Aror, it has nothing to do with guys in boats and pulling on oars, okay? It's this place in the southern part of Aram or what is now called Syria.

All right, so the question is, what do you think of leftovers? Do you like leftovers? Care for any? Your favorite, right? Okay. Aram's leftovers. Aram didn't just disappear. Aram, we have the language Aramaic, and that was the language commonly spoken in Israel. during the New Testament period, Jesus and his disciples probably often spoke in Aramaic. And so that would be one of the leftovers from the nation of Aram.

Another would be, it was the capital city of Aram, Damascus, where Paul was headed to persecute the Christians, as he said in the book of Acts, to the point of death. when the Lord confronted him on the road to Damascus. And he didn't say, why are you persecuting the Christians? He said, why are you persecuting me?

Confronting Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul went into Damascus and it was there Ananias, by direction of the Lord, met him on Straight Street. Here is Straight Street in Damascus, the street where Ananias met Paul. And Ananias was told to go and meet Paul there, find him on that street. Here's Damascus today, a portion of it.

Now, who is Ephraim? That's another name that crops up in the early chapters and verses there of Isaiah. and especially in this chapter. So who is Ephraim? If you're thinking this and you have any idea who this guy is, you're probably as old as I am or older. But anyway, no, it's not him.

This Ephraim here, Joseph had two sons, okay? And one of the sons was Manasseh and the other was Ephraim. And Jacob blessed the younger one, contrary to tradition, who was Ephraim. And he was blessed most highly of the two. Okay, so that's the guy. Now, so the tribe consisted of all those who were descended from this guy Ephraim, who was one of the two sons of Joseph. The northern nation of Israel was sometimes called by that most prominent tribe. It wasn't by any means the only tribe, but it was a most prominent tribe among the ten, Ephraim. Alright so here is Ephraim located over here.

Now you see this chart here, you see the blanks and the lines, and you see parts of the names of the twelve tribes, you see all the lines and the arrows and all that stuff, you see that? You're probably wondering why does Vern have that up here? I have no idea myself, let's go to the next slide.

This is where Ephraim was settled. That's where Ephraim was settled, right here just north of the area where Jerusalem and Judea and those people were. And so each of the tribes had an area that they had designated to them. All right. So here's the initial area for Ephraim. The northern nation of Israel was, as we mentioned, also called Ephraim. So you'll see Israel.

When you see Ephraim, especially in the Old Testament, you need to ask the question, is he talking about that specific tribe or the person Ephraim, or is he talking about this northern nation? Because it got called Ephraim, even though it was only one of the tribes that were a part of Israel. just like Judah was only one of the two tribes in the southern kingdom. The nation of Judah was composed of the tribe Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. So in the same way that Judah was the name for the entire nation, even though it was only one of the tribes, Ephraim often was called for the entire northern nation, even though it was only one of the tribes.

Looking at the passage here, here is the passage we're going to zero in on and step our way through. We look first a bit at this word, Asherim, because it's towards the end. Why do we start at the end? I don't know. It seems like a good thing to do. So we'll look at this word here. And just to make clear, we're not talking about Ashton, it's Asherim. Okay? Different guy. All right. So what does Isaiah mean by this word Asherim? Why should we pay any attention to it? Asherim here, In the King James, if you have that, will say groves. In the singular, it's Asherah.

Those were carved images. Frequently what they would do is they would make various things that would look like a grove. It would either be a grove of trees, they would carve them up. or they would take trees and put them up on a high place and put them together and have them carved up, or they would make pillars out of stone and have those carved up, a bunch of them gathered together so that it looked like a grove. And they would have these pagan rites that would be conducted alongside these groves of Asherim statues, if you will, Asherim idols. The placement and worship of these idols was oftentimes in high places, they put them in places of higher elevation, done alongside altars and burning incense.

Now, one of the things we see often in scripture is Baal, it's sometimes called Baal, but it's Baal and Asherah. And these were male and female deities correspondingly, mentioned together a number of times in Judges chapter six. This is where Gideon got rid of the altar to Baal, right? And in first and second Kings. All right. The altars mentioned in this verse, Isaiah 17, verse eight, likely referred to altars to Baal. So the, cause these were often done together and carried out together.

Baal being the male deity that was worshiped alongside of the Asherah. The mention of the Baal and Asherah deities ends with the Old Testament. There is a slight reference in the New Testament for a Baal I won't bring up, but in general, they end with the Old Testament. All right, now you have altars, which we mentioned are likely altars to Baal, Asherah and the incense stands.

These are strong indications from the passage that we're looking for a fulfillment in Isaiah's own time, because even by New Testament times, these had disappeared. There's no indication that it's likely to be in some future time. So Isaiah is saying that even within his own lifetime, within a time that everybody there who was listening would experience, these people would finally come to this conclusion that we see described in this passage.

So there's the timing indicator. Here's the timeline. You have this on page three of your handout there. And you may remember this from the second week that we showed this. And right in here, and you have this very similarly on, I believe, page two of your handout.

This shows where the nations, the Northern nation and the Southern nation, the Northern nation of Israel, sometimes called Ephraim, and the Southern nation of Judah split. Okay, just to make sure we have it, here's the Northern nation of Israel and the Southern nation of Judah and how each of them proceeded. Now, this is on page two of your handout. The point we wanna bring out is there's a particular time here when the Northern nation began to be hauled off by the Assyrians, taken away from their homeland.

Can you imagine what that would be like? Some people come in and say, hey, we're moving you to Argentina. By the way, you're leaving tomorrow and anything you can't carry in a backpack, you can't take. That would be tough, wouldn't it? But that's what they did. They came in and said, you're moving. No choice. You don't like it? Tough. You're going. And they moved them out.

One of the things that we pointed out previously when we looked at this is Isaiah, prophesied alongside Micah. Micah also spoke of some of these kinds of things. The northern nation also had its own prophets, Amos and Hosea, who testified during this time and also said, you're going to be hauled off.

You are an unfaithful nation. You are going to be taken away against your will. Assyria was the nation that was having empire power, spreading power at that point in time. Assyria's philosophy was take the nations that you don't trust and move them, scatter them, move them somewhere else. And so they carried out that philosophy with virtually everyone when they got control. So what happened? That's the outcome. All right.

733 through 732 BC, Assyria began making a move with some of the tribes. They deported a lot of the population of Aram and they deported a lot of the population of Israel, some of the tribes of Israel. Then finally in 720 through 715, they deported the rest of the tribes of Israel. All moved out with a few scattered exceptions who were allowed to stay behind.

Then they relocated some other people from the northeast and from the north to take over that land, and those people became the Samaritans. These are the Samaritans we hear about often in the New Testament. Let's look at the big picture. Here's the area around Judah and, excuse me, Ephraim and Aram. And they moved most of them up in this general area closer to the population center of the people of Assyria. So the people of Israel and Aram got moved hundreds of miles away. Now you have this on page four of your handout. Let me know when you got it memorized, and then we'll continue. Maybe not. Okay. We're going to zero in on this part of it, just to keep it simple here. And so we'll look at just this. Here is Samaria, that is the capital. And if it helps you, you can think of that, that is some area.

That's Samaria and they moved them from there up to these locations shown there with the circles. Then they moved the people that were in these areas to the north and to the northeast back into the area around Samaria. So that became the Samaritans. Here's the site of Samaria today. And this is the valley. It's among this mixed population that Jesus went to talk to the woman at the well. This is John chapter 4.

You can also see in Acts 1.8 and 8.1-24 how the Samaritans were additionally given the gospel. And Jesus told the woman at the well that he was indeed the Messiah, even though they were a people of mixed race and a people who had gotten a mixed message. They understood that clearly, and they also understood Jesus was a Jew, and he was the Messiah come from the Jews. Jesus also told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and this was intentionally selected.

Jesus was talking to a man who was an expert at the law, and so he's trying to illustrate him to the point, genealogy does not save you. just because you're Jewish doesn't get you anything automatically. He did so by having the Samaritan be the one who helped the man on the road while the two Jews following the law passed by. This Samaritan, the good Samaritan, and even today you'll hear of good Samaritan laws, The good Samaritan was the one who did the good thing, regardless of his genealogy. The genealogy that was not Jewish. The genealogy that came from a pagan nation.

All right, so here's John 4.20.

The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, our fathers worshipped on this mountain. That's the mountain. They were sitting about where you see this picture being taken from, as she looked up at this mountain. So when it says this mountain, that's the one she's talking about. They had a temple up top.

Okay, as we look at this passage here, one of the things that we're going to see when we get into chapters 40 through 48, is that these two verses summarize those chapters. the issues of those chapters, because what this set of verses do is they point to, this is the Lord, this is the one who is truly God, the others are made by man, the others are fakes, the others are ones made by human beings who have been made by their maker. Basically asking the question, do you want to worship the God who made you, or the gods? you made in order to worship something. Here are some things to notice here. The majority of the people in the nations of Aram and Israel are occupied with the worship of these pagan deities Baal or Baalim and the Asherim. and they included the use of all these things mentioned, these poles or groves, the altars and the incense stands, all the things that he mentions there.

Now, as we look at this passage, there's a positive and there's a negative. Let's look at the positive part first. And that day, so here's this coming day, man will have regard for his Maker and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel. That's the positive statement.

The negative statement, he will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands, nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, even the ashram and incense stands. Alright, now, looking at these, something else to notice, a pattern in these verses, in that day man will have regard for his maker, who made man, the Lord made man, right? Instead of the work of his hands. Is it the one who made man, or the one that man makes? The things which his fingers have made. Not God, but man. Do you worship the maker, or do you worship what you made?

That's the contrast he's got there. Something else to take a look at here. We point out, of course, that this is a Hebrew poetry pattern. And if you don't know what that is, you'll have to ask somebody next to you. And if you still don't know what it is after that, come see me.

There is a parallelism in the way these are written. In that day, man will have regard. Now notice, here's the positive statement, man will have regard. In the negative statement, man will not have regard. So there's a clear statement. And then the next part, parallel to that, is look to. Who will you look to? So have regard, or as the King James has it, have respect, is the positive and then the negative. or look to. What are you going to look to? What's going to be your focus?

That's the issue that he brings up here. Okay, let's take a look at this phrase, in that day. We've said that that phrase is used throughout Isaiah. We've seen it a couple times before. It points to a future time. We have to look to the context for which time. We've determined already that the existence of this word Asherim, and we're talking about the incense and the altars to Baal, those all point to a future but within Isaiah's own lifetime.

One of the tests of a prophet given by Moses is Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18. Those are the passages, okay? One of the tests of a prophet is that a prophet must say what is true. If a prophet foretells something and it does not come true like the prophet says, don't listen to him. And by the way, the outcome from the prophet at that point isn't so good. The prophet must tell the truth.

And Isaiah could tell these people something within his own lifetime, And not only is it a verification, this is from God, but I'm telling you the truth, I am indeed a prophet. Here is near-term prophecy fulfilled within his lifetime. So here's Isaiah 17, 11 through 1 there. What is Isaiah saying here? What is he saying?

After all, their false gods failed them miserably. These people of this northern kingdom called Israel, or otherwise known as Ephraim, would finally come to a place of saying, you know, those altars didn't work so good. They didn't turn out to do what they were supposed to do. They didn't help us all that much. We're in a mess. We're all getting hauled off. Can you imagine getting hauled off?

You're being told, you've got to move. You've got to move hundreds of miles away. You don't get to pick your house. You don't get to move because it's a promotion. By the way, it's not. You're getting moved because they tell you to. And you're getting moved with everything you can carry and nothing else. And you're going to go to this other land. And you're not going to be familiar with it. And the people aren't going to speak your language. That's where you're getting moved to. That's where you're going to be. While you're doing a lot of walking, because it's hundreds of miles away, you can also do a lot of thinking.

And it's during that time when they would come to realize, you know, those altars to Baal, those didn't work. And those big Asherim poles that we had, I'm not going to carry those. I can't carry those gods that I had. I think I'll talk to the god that I don't have to carry. I think I'll talk to the God who made me. I think I'll talk to a God that I didn't make." That's the time when it dawns on them. The Lord really is the Lord, and not the idols that I make.

The prophets Amos and Hosea had also delivered a similar message. So these people were getting the message through multiple prophets. They were getting told this message loud and clear. But it would take getting ripped from their homeland for it to sink in. They would hear the words and they would say, ah, you're just full of it. But no. No, when you're ripped from your homeland, when you can't carry your big giant stone and wooden gods with you, then it begins to sink in. And that's what was happening to them.

So here is Hosea and Amos giving a similar message to what we see Isaiah has written for them. So Isaiah raises some burning questions for us. Questions like, what are we going to look at? How does it fit for us? How are we going to see things? How are you going to look at things? What's it going to look like?

Who or what will you worship? Good question. Will you worship what the Maker of all things has made? or the things that humans make out of what the maker of all things has made? Will you worship what each of us sees in the mirror as we start each day? Will you try as many do to chase after the appearance of somebody who's spent several million dollars looking the way they do? Oh, and plus being airbrushed. How many dozens of plastic surgeries will it take until you're really, really happy, really happy?

Or will you worship the maker of all things, Jesus Christ the Lord, the one who made everything? What or who will you say really matters in the end? When it comes right down to it, what really makes a difference? What's really worth it? What will you have ultimate regard for? What will you have ultimate respect for?

Will it be circumstances? Oh, I just got to get my circumstances right. If I get my circumstances right, then I'll really be happy. Then if I get the circumstances right, then I'll have peace. Is that it? Maybe if I just have enough stuff, Or maybe it's if I have the right stuff.

I don't want this stuff, I want that stuff. Until they show you on the TV the new stuff you got to have to add to the stuff that you replaced with the stuff you had before. Do you get it? Other people's changing opinions. Will that be what matters? I've actually talked to one fellow in recent months who had his mother tell him You really need to forget all this Jesus stuff. Watch Oprah. Other people's changing opinions.

Or will it be the changeless, eternal character of your Maker? The one who is your only Savior? The one in whom you've been unfathomably blessed for good, for eternity? What's going to occupy your minds and hearts? What will draw you from the affections of the heart? What will be so treasured that nothing can compare to it? If you could only see one thing, if you were given that choice, okay, you can only see one thing, what would it be? What or who will be of such infinite depth of character as to increasingly draw your attention?

Not only just for the time that we're here on planet Earth, not only for the time when we're walking about here, talking to one another, eating and all the other things we do. But when this is all done, when this is all gone, what will really be worth it? what will have lasting value. Now, as I ask these questions, I'm not asking these for any of us to make us feel guilty or to operate under law. Legalism isn't going to do anybody any good.

Instead, the questions are asked to encourage us as believers to look at our eternal position in Christ, to see what is often unseen. The Lord has designed it. It is God's eternal purpose that He share His glory with us, and each of us is transformed as we behold the Lord through His Word. We are transformed from glory to glory, as the Lord puts it. So the question is, which eyes will we see with? Which eyes will we see with? A number of us may have eyes that are short of perfect.

What's very interesting, I got talking with Hal at one point, and as he and I got talking, of course, we're both former engineers. He also has amblyopia in his left eye, which means the left eye is legally blind. So do I. We also both have problems with the right knee and a few other things, but anyway. A lot of things in common, but ultimately it's, which eyes do you really see with?

We can see on the outside that there's various issues, but what do you really see with? And it's not a question of just seeing things spiritually. There are people out there who can offer that, but seeing what the Lord has in mind for us to see. Will you see with the eyes of faith the riches of His grace? Frequently, as we went through Ephesians, we saw abundant grace. We've said before, grace isn't grace unless it's amazing. That kind of grace, do you see it?

Will you look to the One in whom you've been placed and blessed, seen only with the eyes of faith? If I were to tell you this morning, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. And I said, and afterwards, I want you to come up and show me a sample of it. You couldn't bring something up that we could look at. It's seen from God's revelation through the eyes of faith. But oh, how much there is to see. Do you see what you believe? The reverse of how it's usually put. Some in this world will only see what they believe, and some don't even go that far.

There's no question about it. But God in love revealed Himself. If we are willing to put our trust in the Lord, the Lord has declared that His eternal purpose for us is to reveal, declare, and share His glory with us. And that includes everything that's going on in our lives.

The amblyopia that Hal and I have in our left eye, that's a part of God's eternal purpose. The right knees that bother us, that's a part of God's eternal purpose. But Hal's going through right now, it's a part of God's eternal purpose. It's not just senseless. It's not just, gee, it'll be nice when he gets that past and gets that over. It's part of God's eternal purpose. The Lord is using that. to fulfill His eternal purpose. The intent is that we glorify Him.

But only the eyes of faith are going to see that. What are we going to look to? He's not talking about just these eyes. What are we going to look to spiritually? Paul prayed for the Ephesians that the eyes of their hearts would be opened. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. has verse 2 as a focal point there. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus. Looking away from all the other things. Fixing our eyes on Jesus.

Can you do that with your spiritual eyes? Yes. Can you do that with your physical eyes? No. Now, my left eye doesn't work so good, and I can't see very well out of the right. But if both of them just went completely south on me, I can still fix my eyes on Jesus. And interesting, Randy had a singing Blessed Assurance. That song sings of seeing, of sight, written by a lady blind. She is not writing that as a person who can see, but she can see spiritually. She has eyes that see, even physically not, but spiritually, yes.

In Philippians 3, when we studied that a few years back now, In verse 14, it says, I press on towards the goal. This is the skapos. We get our word scope from this. It's the thing at which you fix your gaze on. They would just fix their eyes on the goal in order not to be distracted. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus. Paul saying the same words, the same idea with different words there.

Or, in 2 Corinthians 3.18, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. There's a verb form used here.

Noun forms are used in 1 Corinthians 13.8 and James 1.23. The three times that this word mirror, either in verb or noun form, is used in the New Testament, it's used of the Word of God.

It is the means by which we see and see actually who we are. Our study of God's Word is not so we can get really intellectual or not so we can be really religious. Neither of those are any particular good by themselves, but for beholding the Lord of Glory in His Word so as to be transformed, changed from the glorious image into the glorious image of Christ the Lord. It is a work of the Holy Spirit. You see, in the end there is no end. The Lord is not delighting in the pain that He puts us through any more than He delighted in putting the people of Aram or of Israel, Ephraim, through being hauled off, ripped out of their homeland. The Lord did not delight in that, but He did desire that they look to Him, that they come to that place.

The Lord desires, as Paul prays, that the eyes of our hearts would be opened, that we would look, that we would see what this world cannot see through eyes of faith, that we would be drawn to the Lord himself, the magnificent and infinite glory of the Lord, the one who calls us to place our focus on him, that one, to be occupied with him, with him alone. If I were to adapt the words of Isaiah 17 7 for us in the church, I would put it this way. In that day, the saints who are in Christ the Lord will have ultimate regard for their maker and their eyes will look to the Lord of glory, beholding and being occupied with him and so being transformed from glory to glory.

Let's look to him now as we close our eyes. Lord, thank you that It is amazing. We can close our eyes and who knows, this might be the last time we do so. But we can behold you. And Lord, we ask that you would draw our hearts, draw our affections to do just that until the day that we behold you face to face. In Jesus name, Amen.