Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Isaiah 33 - Our God Is A Consuming Fire

Transcript

Isaiah 33 - Our God Is A Consuming Fire · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
• 0:03
  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
• 0:10
  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
• 0:14
  others. Let's dive right in.
• 0:15
  Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are in Isaiah chapter 33
• 0:20
  today, and we are nearing the end of this particular portion
• 0:25
  of Isaiah that has a lot of the prophecies, a lot of apocalyptic
• 0:31
  kind of world ending language statements and prophecies about
• 0:38
  the doom of the nations surrounding Israel.
• 0:42
  The end of Israel and Judah's current reign and the punishment
• 0:49
  of the ungodly all across the lands.
• 0:52
  And the hope and the rescue and the redemption that God would
• 0:55
  bring in making a new Jerusalem, a new people of God and dwelt by
• 1:02
  the Holy Spirit and LED and ruled by God himself.
• 1:07
  That's what's coming. And so we're going to read along
• 1:10
  those same types of lines even today as we see the difficulties
• 1:15
  that God's people were currently in, what they currently needed,
• 1:19
  the hardships that they were as a result of foreign oppression
• 1:24
  and sinful oppression and wickedness even within their own
• 1:28
  nation, and what God was going to do as a result.
• 1:32
  Let's begin reading in verse #1 of Isaiah 33.
• 1:36
  Whoa. You destroyer never destroyed.
• 1:39
  You traitor never betrayed. When you finish destroying, you
• 1:44
  will be destroyed. When you have finished
• 1:46
  betraying, they will betray you. This is that same idea of, if
• 1:51
  you will, the boomerang of justice, that what you have put
• 1:55
  out is what is going to come back to you.
• 1:59
  This would be some of the biblical truth that underlies
• 2:05
  the belief that some people have in what they call karma.
• 2:09
  That is, you get what you have put out onto others.
• 2:14
  Now, the Bible talks about existence in a fundamentally
• 2:19
  different way than Buddhism or Hinduism, both that have the
• 2:25
  concept of karma as a solid part of their teachings about
• 2:31
  humanity's existence, existence and the universe's existence and
• 2:35
  all of that. So even when I say karma, that
• 2:39
  has one kind of thought that comes into most people's minds,
• 2:43
  at least in my context here in America, which is a lot simpler
• 2:47
  and not what is in the mind perhaps of some of our listeners
• 2:52
  in India and in Asia, or for those from a Hindu or a Buddhist
• 2:57
  background. So here is the biblical mindset,
• 3:02
  which is God's justice. His punishment on evil is
• 3:10
  proportionate, it is personal, it is tailored.
• 3:14
  It's not here is the exact same punishment for those that murder
• 3:20
  people and those that are liars, or those that have betrayed
• 3:24
  others, or here's these ones that have abused people.
• 3:28
  There is unique personal justice that is proportionate and
• 3:34
  tailored to the crime that goes from God to humanity.
• 3:40
  May that bring a sense of wonder and thankfulness to our hearts
• 3:47
  that we'd be able to rejoice that God does actually deal with
• 3:50
  wicked, with wickedness, with wicked people, and with evil.
• 3:55
  And may it cause fear and trembling in our hearts that we
• 3:59
  would we would want to make absolutely sure that we know
• 4:04
  Christ as our Savior, that we have repented of our sin.
• 4:08
  We have turned to him in faith, calling on him to be our Lord
• 4:11
  and our Savior, trusting in his goodness and his righteousness
• 4:15
  in order to make us right with God at one with God.
• 4:20
  That's the atonement think at one meant and as we have had our
• 4:25
  sins atoned for and washed away, we can rejoice in that.
• 4:29
  But let our hearts consider the future that is coming for all
• 4:36
  mankind when either we stand before the throne of God and our
• 4:42
  Savior shows his nail scarred hands and says I have paid the
• 4:47
  debt for this one or that day. When we or when people stand
• 4:54
  before the great white throne of God, and from that throne He
• 5:00
  sentences them to just proportional personal punishment
• 5:07
  that will not end at any point. He will not give out a sentence
• 5:12
  that then He reneges on and on at some point.
• 5:16
  That punishment is everlasting, and so may our desire be God.
• 5:22
  I want to walk with you, I want to know you, and I want to make
• 5:27
  absolutely certain that Jesus is my Savior because I know what is
• 5:32
  coming for those that have not walked with the Lord, have not
• 5:36
  chosen His way, and I would not want to be one of those
• 5:40
  individuals on that day of justice.
• 5:44
  So that's all from verse #1 verse #2 Yahweh.
• 5:49
  Be gracious to us. We wait for you.
• 5:51
  We recognize we are imperfect. And so we need not simply God's
• 5:56
  justice, but we need God's grace.
• 5:58
  Don't think that just because you are not the worst person
• 6:02
  that there has ever been that you are not also in need of the
• 6:06
  grace of God. Every single one of us, as
• 6:09
  Isaiah will tell us in I think it's somewhere in like 15 to 20
• 6:13
  chapters, all of us like sheep have gone astray.
• 6:16
  Every one of us have turned to our own way.
• 6:19
  And as a result, the Lord is laid on Jesus, the iniquity of
• 6:23
  us all. That is why all must turn to
• 6:25
  Jesus, because Jesus, in his perfection, in his all
• 6:30
  sufficiency, as the eternal Son of God, he took the punishment
• 6:35
  that we deserved. And so by believing in him, by
• 6:39
  accepting his payment for our sin, we can be fully forgiven.
• 6:44
  So we all need the grace of God. Then he says, we wait for you be
• 6:50
  our strength every morning and our salvation in time of
• 6:54
  trouble. Do you seek God every single
• 6:56
  day? When you get up in the morning,
• 6:58
  are you praying to the Lord asking God, would you help me to
• 7:01
  make it through today? Would you help me to be the kind
• 7:03
  of spouse or the kind of parent or the child that I need to be?
• 7:09
  Would you help me to be the Co worker that you would want me to
• 7:12
  be? Would you help me to be a good
• 7:14
  neighbor or a good friend? Would you help me to think
• 7:18
  things that are right, do things that are right, say things that
• 7:21
  are right? Would you give me wisdom?
• 7:22
  Because I'm going to have some hard life circumstances, hard
• 7:25
  choices, hard conversations, and would you give me the wisdom
• 7:29
  that I need? Are you looking for the Lord to
• 7:33
  be your strength every single morning?
• 7:35
  And is He the one that you look to as your salvation in times of
• 7:39
  trouble? Just because God is there does
• 7:41
  not mean that He will not allow you to go through hardships.
• 7:44
  The hardships are what shape us into the type of people that we
• 7:48
  need to be. It's a type of person that is
• 7:51
  more like our God. And so as we go through the
• 7:55
  hardships, do we recognize God? If I am going to come out on the
• 7:59
  other end of this and be a better person, if I'm going to
• 8:05
  be a person that knows and loves God, if I'm going to be a person
• 8:09
  that isn't jaded and harsh and bitter, if I'm going to continue
• 8:14
  to be loving or patient, kind, generous, that has to come from
• 8:20
  you. And so God, I'm calling in you,
• 8:22
  on you in my times of trouble. Is that what you're pursuing?
• 8:25
  Verse #3 The peoples flee at the thunderous noise, the nation
• 8:30
  scatter when you rise in your majesty.
• 8:32
  These people recognize when God shows up, stuff gets done.
• 8:37
  Verse #4 Your spoil will be gathered as locusts are
• 8:40
  gathered. People will swarm over it like
• 8:43
  an infestation of locusts. That is that God wins.
• 8:47
  And when He wins, there is such joy, wonder, amazement that
• 8:54
  comes on all of humanity as a result, that people get to
• 8:58
  experience the blessings that come here, people swarming over
• 9:02
  the spoil that comes when God wins the fight.
• 9:06
  Everyone wins. When God wins.
• 9:09
  Verse #5 Well I'll say this, all those that God has been gracious
• 9:14
  to, all those that have turned to Jesus, all those that have
• 9:17
  relationship with the Lord win when God wins.
• 9:20
  Verse #5 Yahweh is exalted, for He dwells on high.
• 9:24
  He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
• 9:28
  There will be times of security for you, the storehouse of
• 9:31
  salvation, wisdom and knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is Zion's
• 9:36
  treasure here. When it talks about the fear of
• 9:39
  the Lord, that's not just like a panic of OK when I think about
• 9:42
  Jesus. So no, I'm really freaking out.
• 9:44
  No, this is I have awe, I have respect for him.
• 9:49
  I think he's incredible and amazing.
• 9:52
  I can't imagine what he is able to do.
• 9:57
  There should certainly be some measure of fear there.
• 10:00
  Like I can look at a great white shark and, you know, if I'm in a
• 10:05
  shark cage or something, or even if I'm at an aquarium, I can
• 10:08
  fear the shark, fear its power, fear what it is capable of doing
• 10:15
  while fully recognizing I am not in any danger.
• 10:19
  But I can recognize how incredible that shark is.
• 10:24
  That is, of course, a silly human example of what it is to
• 10:29
  have a fear of Yahweh, a fear of the Lord.
• 10:33
  But that's one aspect to it that I recognize.
• 10:35
  This is the God that made everything.
• 10:37
  This is the God who has made everyone.
• 10:40
  This is the God that will one day bring justice on all of
• 10:44
  creation. He is the one that will remake
• 10:47
  everything, including myself, so that everything is put right at
• 10:53
  the end. And so I ought to have a holy
• 10:57
  awe, respect, fear, trembling before this worthy God.
• 11:03
  Do you value the fear of the Lord as a treasure in your life?
• 11:09
  Like does knowing that your heavenly Father is watching you,
• 11:14
  does that cause you to make different decisions than you
• 11:18
  would otherwise? Knowing that your judge is
• 11:25
  seeing you, do you reject some specific ways of talking or
• 11:30
  thinking or things that you would do, or places you would go
• 11:34
  or friends you would hang out with?
• 11:36
  Otherwise, do you say no? I recognize that there is a
• 11:39
  judgment day coming, and so as a result, I'm not walking that
• 11:43
  path of sin. I'm going to choose to follow
• 11:46
  God's good path instead. Verse #7 Listen.
• 11:50
  Their warriors cry loudly in the streets, the messengers of peace
• 11:55
  weep bitterly. The highways are deserted,
• 11:57
  travel has ceased and agreement has been broken, cities despised
• 12:03
  and human life disregarded. So here we've pivoted from
• 12:08
  verses 2 through 6 just praising God and how great God is and
• 12:12
  what God is able to accomplish and bring.
• 12:15
  And now we're zooming back into where we are right now, even
• 12:20
  with some of the things that are mentioned here seems to align
• 12:24
  well with some of what Daniel talks about in Daniel Nine, with
• 12:30
  what will happen at the end of this particular human era and
• 12:36
  the hardships that people will go through, a time of unique
• 12:40
  hardship unlike anything that planet Earth has seen before.
• 12:45
  All at once. There's little pictures all the
• 12:47
  way through. And when you look at the Book of
• 12:50
  Revelation, you'll see, oh, wait a second, that reminds me of
• 12:53
  Exodus. This here reminds me of, you
• 12:56
  know, this Old Testament prophet.
• 12:58
  This reminds me of what Jesus said in this chapter.
• 13:01
  So all of that's put together, but that that appears to be at
• 13:06
  least the time frame in which we find ourselves in beginning
• 13:11
  there in verse #7 So there is a deep hardship that takes place,
• 13:17
  loss of life, inability to be able to travel.
• 13:22
  There is crying and weeping even from the strongest in society,
• 13:27
  the warriors. We read this in verse #9 the
• 13:30
  land mourns and Withers. Lebanon is ashamed and wilted.
• 13:34
  Sharon is like a desert. Bashan and Carmel shake off
• 13:38
  their leaves. These are all places that are
• 13:40
  normally teeming with life and trees, and now all of them are
• 13:47
  completely barren, that there is a destruction even to the
• 13:52
  wildlife and vegetation that is in the land.
• 13:56
  Verse #10 Now I will rise up, says Yahweh.
• 13:59
  Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.
• 14:04
  You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble.
• 14:07
  Your breath is fire that will consume you.
• 14:11
  The peoples will be burned to ashes like thorns cut down and
• 14:14
  burned in a fire. You who are far off hear what I
• 14:18
  have done. You who are near know my
• 14:21
  strength. So here God is bringing judgment
• 14:23
  against these people that have caused all of this devastation
• 14:28
  in the land. He he says here the efforts of
• 14:32
  these people will be useless. It's chaff.
• 14:35
  That's the unusable, that's the part you just take off of the
• 14:39
  corn stalk or the wheat stock and you can toss it on the
• 14:43
  ground, you can throw it in the fire because it does no good to
• 14:46
  anyone. And God says your plans, evil
• 14:49
  humanity will end up coming to nothing.
• 14:53
  And I am going to come in judgement.
• 14:55
  Verse #14 The sinners in Zion are afraid.
• 14:59
  Trembling seizes the ungodly. Who among us can dwell with a
• 15:04
  consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with ever
• 15:08
  burning flames? Verse #15 The one who lives
• 15:12
  righteously and speaks rightly, who refuses profit from
• 15:16
  extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his
• 15:21
  ears from listening to murderous plots and shuts his eyes against
• 15:25
  evil schemes. He will dwell on the heights,
• 15:29
  and His refuge will be the rocky fortresses, His fruit, His food
• 15:32
  provided, His water assured. I think they're even in verse
• 15:37
  #14 what the ungodly say is recognizing who Yahweh is.
• 15:43
  They call him a consuming fire, the one in ever burning flames.
• 15:49
  This is what we read in Hebrews many, many months ago.
• 15:52
  I think back in 2024 that our God is a consuming fire, that
• 15:58
  the Daniel 7 description of him is that his throne, his chariot
• 16:04
  has flames that flow down into a river.
• 16:08
  And as John mentions in Revelation, he describes that
• 16:13
  that scene of God's presence with God himself, if you will,
• 16:18
  being living fire, holiness, justice, that all of that fire
• 16:24
  then pulls into a place into a lake and he calls it the lake of
• 16:28
  fire. And the question there is who is
• 16:31
  able to they they say verse 14. Who among us can dwell with a
• 16:36
  consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with ever
• 16:39
  burning flames? The answer is the righteous,
• 16:43
  that the same thing that destroys the wicked, those that
• 16:47
  walk with God, those that love God, they love being in that
• 16:51
  place. I was just thinking of an
• 16:53
  example of this might have been this morning or yesterday.
• 16:59
  I'm going to lose some of you here and that's OK.
• 17:01
  I don't like apple pie very much.
• 17:05
  It's just not my thing. I'm also not big on watermelon,
• 17:12
  not super big on pork chops. I'm trying to think if there's
• 17:15
  any food that I just genuinely actually hate, man, I need to
• 17:25
  think harder about that because then that will eventually give
• 17:29
  the illustration a little bit more punch.
• 17:31
  But I don't like apple pie, and if you offered me apple pie 1000
• 17:36
  times, I would never take it. I have no desire for it.
• 17:41
  For other people, you could offer them apple pie 1000 times
• 17:44
  and they will take the apple pie 1000 times because that is what
• 17:49
  their desire is. So the same thing that for me
• 17:52
  would be unwelcome, unwanted with apple pie.
• 17:56
  I can't necessarily say it's a punishment, but it would at
• 17:59
  least be something unwelcome to these other people.
• 18:03
  They love it. Maybe a slightly different way
• 18:07
  to phrase this, I really enjoy spicy foods.
• 18:11
  I've even gotten some of that, I think it's called Boldak Spicy
• 18:16
  Ramen from the corner store over by my house and I love it.
• 18:21
  It's super spicy, it's very spicy, it is hot, but I enjoy
• 18:26
  it. If I were to give that same food
• 18:29
  to my son or my daughter, 6 and 3 1/2, they would, they would
• 18:37
  hate it. It would feel like punishment.
• 18:40
  But because I love it, it's good for me.
• 18:45
  So that the blessing in my life, the thing I want is the thing
• 18:48
  that tortures or harms my children.
• 18:53
  And so here the very presence of God himself is a consuming fire,
• 18:57
  and those that love God are able to live there.
• 19:00
  But for those that hate God's presence, God's presence would
• 19:05
  be a source of torture and destruction to who they are.
• 19:11
  So even as you think about hell and the lake of fire, want you
• 19:16
  to consider some of those thoughts as well.
• 19:19
  That some of what is being discussed is a way of looking at
• 19:27
  God's presence and who He is and our response to God and our
• 19:35
  desire for him or our desire to have nothing to do with him.
• 19:39
  So just keep some of those things in mind there.
• 19:43
  Verse #17 And I promise we are, we're rounding the bases.
• 19:48
  We're we're getting right to the end of this episode.
• 19:50
  Your eyes will see the King in his beauty.
• 19:53
  You will see a vast land, your mind will meditate on the past
• 19:58
  terror. Where is the accountant?
• 20:00
  Where is the tribute collector? Where is the one who spied out
• 20:04
  our defenses? Where are these people that just
• 20:07
  a moment ago we're coming to destroy the land, to destroy
• 20:12
  God's people? Verse #19 You'll no longer see
• 20:15
  the Barbarians, a people whose speech is difficult to
• 20:18
  comprehend, who stammer in a language that is not understood.
• 20:22
  Look at Zion, the city of our festival times.
• 20:25
  Think Passover, Feast of First Fruits, Pentecost, those kinds
• 20:30
  of things. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a
• 20:33
  peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander.
• 20:37
  Its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor will any of its cords be
• 20:41
  loosened. For the majestic one, our Yahweh
• 20:44
  will be there, a place of rivers and broad streams where ships
• 20:49
  are that are Rd. will not go and majestic vessels will not pass.
• 20:54
  For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our lawgiver, Yahweh is our
• 20:59
  King. He will save us.
• 21:02
  Your ropes are slack, they cannot hold the base of the mast
• 21:06
  or spread out the flag. Then abundant spoil will be
• 21:09
  divided. The lame will plunder it, and
• 21:12
  none there will say I am sick. The people who dwell there will
• 21:16
  be forgiven their iniquity. Here at the end of all things,
• 21:21
  power and spoil joy. Riches will not belong to the
• 21:27
  greatest and most capable, but it will be those who were looked
• 21:32
  down on, the sinners, the fallen, the lame, those that
• 21:37
  could not walk. God will heal them.
• 21:40
  There will be no more sickness. There's going to be no more
• 21:42
  cancer, no more heart attacks, no more of life's difficulties
• 21:48
  on that wonderful day. And why is this?
• 21:51
  Because Yahweh is our judge, He's our lawgiver, He's our
• 21:55
  King, and He will save us. He will forgive us.
• 21:59
  And so may we look forward to that coming day with joyful
• 22:03
  anticipation. If you have any questions or
• 22:05
  anything, please, as always, send a comment, DM, whatever
• 22:11
  text call carrier pigeon, whatever works best for you.
• 22:15
  Don't forget to like, share and or subscribe.
• 22:18
  Leave a review if you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
• 22:22
  podcast and look forward to joining you next episode for
• 22:25
  Isaiah chapter 34.