Bringing the light of Jesus Christ into a sin-darkened world. This is the Lighthouse Radio Bible Study. Hello, my name is Ben Fordham, and I invite you to join us now as we study God's Word together. Welcome to the Lighthouse Radio Bible Study. I greet you all in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and thank you for tuning in. As we look to the Word of God today, I would like to draw your attention to the book of Isaiah and chapter 29. We will read verses 9 through 16. This chapter began with a woe pronounced against Ariel, which again we understand from the context to be speaking about Jerusalem. The Lord is not pronouncing a woe upon the little mermaid, although we might be able to make some arguments in favor of that. We know that the city has fallen from righteousness and the Lord is going to tell us in this portion of chapter 29 through the prophet Isaiah that he will work what he calls a wonder or a marvelous work. We heard in the last chapter about a strange work and here we have a marvelous one that he will make the wise foolish The Lord is going to judicially blind and confuse the wise men and rulers of Jerusalem. These are men who have honored God with their lips, but truly demonstrated that their hearts are far from Him by their lives. They think of God not as a sovereign to be honored and served, or worshipped by manner of life, but as sort of a genie that grants wishes, but only if we know the secret of where to sprinkle the blood of the goats and the lambs, and how to wash our hands properly. Our text this morning could easily be read as what has been happening in our age. We find in this text that God is judicially blinding men. It is true of the church today that we have honored God with our lips, but our heart is far from Him. It may also be said that the Lord has confounded the wise, and taken them in their supposed wisdom. Professing themselves to be wise, they have become fools. This is true of us, for sure. This is a Romans chapter 1 situation, all over again. This is one of those judgments that we don't necessarily need a prophet to see coming. What does it mean to be prophetic when we see this pattern repeated in the scripture? The Lord is showing us what He will do. He gave us this pattern in Isaiah. He spoke it again to us in Romans chapter 1. And this has been true all throughout history. God has blinded men. God, in effect, gives us what we've asked for. You say, well, we didn't ask for this, but in reality, the way we serve God, we surely, yeah, didn't ask for it, but we did ask for it with our lives. We didn't say it with our lips, but we said it with our lives. How is it that churches have gotten to the point where they not only affirm homosexuality, but glory in it by making homosexuals their pastors? How can such plain teachings of Scripture be denied? Sodom and Gomorrah sound familiar? It is often said that the Lord of the Old Testament was more severe than the Lord of the New Testament. This is simply not so. And where was Christ when Sodom and Gomorrah was being destroyed with fire and brimstone? Christ was there hurtling the fire and brimstone, or at the very least, He was standing by as God Himself affirming it. How is it that we have pastors that can blithely say that Jesus would affirm sin. Look around and ask yourself why the world is turned upside down. We know that it is. Murderers are supposedly the victims here. We are confused about genders, but what does the scripture say? God created us male and female. Make no mistake, there are very wise men and women by the world's standards that are very confused by all of this. or in all of this. We have entered into a world where 2 plus 2 equals 4 is a racist colonial concept, and then we stand by in awe when doors fall off of planes in mid-flight. There is a price for having no standards at all. I know, I know, standards are mean. The problem with denying the reality of the world that God created is that the Lord does not need, then, to send fire and brimstone to judge us. He simply can give us what we've asked for, and we will grope around in the dark until we fall into the pit we dug for ourselves. If we deny that two plus two equals four, sooner or later there will be consequences. Why are we so confused when there are consequences for denying God's word? So, I ask you, what are we to do? Let us look for our text, or look to our text. Isaiah chapter 29, and we begin reading in verse 9. Stay yourselves and wonder, cry ye out and cry. They are drunken, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes. The prophets and your rulers, the seers, hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder. For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. For shall the work say of him that made it, he hath made me not, or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he hath no understanding. Stay yourselves in wonder, cry ye out, and cry, they are drunken, but not with wine, they stagger, but not with strong drink. This first verse tells us of a judgment that is pronounced against Judah and Jerusalem, although it certainly applies to the world and age in which we live. God is going to turn the world upside down. The command here is to stay yourselves and wonder. Stand and see what the Lord is going to do. Behold, the Lord is doing something, and you are to cry out and shout. Ho, we say, the Lord is doing something. and they look at us and go, hmm, those guys really don't know what they're talking about. There are men walking around and they're staggering and drunken, but they have not had any wine and strong drink. In other words, they are thoroughly confused. They have been blinded, Romans chapter one style. We read Romans one, verses 18 through 23. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it to them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made light to corruptible men, and to birds and to four-footed beasts and creeping things. Something strange is happening in their day and something strange is happening in ours. The world we live in is behaving in a manner that looks like everyone's walking around in a drunken stupor, staggering about, and no wisdom is taking hold of them. Wisdom, it seems, has been chasing us, but we have been fleet of foot and are much faster than wisdom. We've lost our car keys and are searching for them under a streetlight because that's where the light is, not because we might have dropped the keys there. Verse 10. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes. The prophets and your rulers, the seers, hath he covered. What is happening here? The Lord is pouring out the spirit of deep sleep. It is a judgment of God to have these men staggering around as though they are drunk. The Lord has closed their eyes. In other words, this is judicial blindness. This judgment is particularly meted out upon the rulers, those civil and ecclesiastical rulers in Judah. And sadly, the pattern holds to that in our day as well. The Lord confounds the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of our day. He confounds the wise and makes them seem foolish. They lift themselves up in pride, and maybe even declare pride month, and the Lord then blinds them. We read of something like this in 1 Corinthians, both in chapter one and chapter three. 1 Corinthians 1, 19 and 20, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 1 Corinthians 3, 19 and 20. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Remind me again, do you see this being worked out in our day? Verse 11, and the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed. which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee, and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. The word of God is a closed book to these men. They cannot open it because they are not able to break the seal, or they refuse to break the seal because they are lazy and think it has nothing to offer them. This vision, the word of God, is withheld from them. either by their own crassness or by their own inability. Either way, God has judged them. They do not have the capability to open it, or do not have the desire. The people in this passage are described as learned, and therefore we would esteem them capable of understanding what this book has to say, but God has judged them by taking away their capacity or desire to open it. What the Lord seals, no man may open. Remember that from Revelation 3 verse 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. Something for us to remember as we read the Word of God. We might have great understanding. But without the Lord opening it to us through the Holy Spirit, we will not have it open to us to understand. Verse 12. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee, and he saith, I am not learned. What shall we say? If the wise and learned cannot help, surely we must turn to the unlearned. Turns out they are of no help because they cannot read. They are not learned. This may seem obvious, but if the wise and learned are confounded and cannot open the book, and the unlearned can open it, but they can't read it, we are lost at every turn. Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, the people perish. But he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Verse 13. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Why is it that God has blinded these men of Judah? It is because they are hypocrites. They have drawn near to God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him. They showed great affection to him outwardly, but did not obey his word. Ezekiel 33 30-32 Also thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people. They hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. For they hear thy words, but they do them not. Jesus cited this passage from Isaiah, and directly applied it to the hypocritical religious leaders of his day. This sounds all too familiar. These have come forth, and they want to hear what the Word of God has to say. They have no interest in doing what the Word says. The fear of God that they did demonstrate was taught by precept, or traditions of men. They, in other words, had a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof. They were, like we are, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. They understood the forms of worship, but not the God who had lovingly given them to them. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder. For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. So now the Lord has promised to do a marvelous work among this people, a wonder to behold. He will take away the wisdom of the wise and understanding of the prudent. The Lord is going to rewire these men and blind them. He gives them over to what is called in the scriptures a reprobate mind. Like he did at the Tower of Babel, he confounds and confuses men. But you say, brother, I thought God wasn't the author of confusion. Nay, I tell you that he is. He is indeed. He is only that because we asked for it, but he gave us what we asked for. He is not the author of confusion in the church as though he does not give a command about how he should be worshiped. He is the author of confusion when we sin. This is a wonder to behold. These men cannot see the truth. They can only see their wicked lusts. Their consciences have become seared. The Lord takes away the wise man's wisdom, such that the wise man cannot see the truth that is plainly before him. He cannot see that he is a foolish reprobate and that he is the cause of his own destruction. The wise man becomes a fool, who says in his heart, there is no God. But he has seen the works of the very God he denies. What a wonder! Verse 15. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? This is what these men have done. They have sought very deeply to hide their counsel from God and tried to hide these counsels as though they were in a cave. They have done their evil deeds in the darkness. They have tried to hide their intentions from God while going through the motions of worship as though they could pacify God with these kinds of indulgences and live as they pleased otherwise. The pretense of godliness is the public face they show. But privately they are seeking anything but the Lord. Verse 16. Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. For shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he hath no understanding? Who is turning what upside down here? These men have turned the world upside down. This is a phrase you might remember from Acts chapter 17 verse 6. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. The unbelieving Jews, men of a baser sort in Paul's day, claimed the apostles had turned the world upside down. But the reality was the Jews had done that, and the apostles, following Christ, were turning it right side up. The blinded fools of this world are turning everything upside down, but you must remember they are the potter's clay. They have the order of things mixed up. They are the clay, and though they may try to mock the potter, they are in his hand, not the other way around. Romans 9, verse 20. Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Verse 21. Hath not the potter power over the clay? of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. Some lessons for us. Upside down and inside out. No, I'm not going to rail on Disney just because I used another Disney movie title. It is my hope that the scriptures we have looked at and their lesson are plain. But I do know that that depends upon the blessing of the Lord. It is all plain to him that understandeth, and that understanding comes from God. The world you live in, and I live in, has been turned upside down. Men are trying to be women, and women are trying to be men, and the genders are multiplying. Sadly for them, this only works if they start with a male and a female. The least safe place for a baby is their mother's womb. the church is affirming sin. All these are evidences that the world is turned upside down. If you do find a church that will preach biblical roles in the family, you are going to find it nearly empty. If you find one that preaches fables and fun, you will find it nearly full. The best that you might say about some of these churches is that they are social clubs that preach certain principles of prosperity that have a loose affiliation with the scripture, but will not look at the hard sayings of the Word of God, and will certainly not give God the glory. But they will teach you how to go get your own glory. These are houses of stoicism and discipline, or houses of epicureanism and fun, but none of them really are houses of God. How did we turn the world upside down like this? And why is Brother Ben accusing the church of doing so? Well, in a word, hypocrisy. We have long said one thing and done another. This is evidence that the church has left her first love. Like these men of Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah's day, we have drawn near to God with our lips, but our hearts have been far from him. Okay, now it's time for Brother Ben to bring forth some evidence. How do I make this claim? Well, according to one source, 7 out of 10 women who have abortions claim to be Christians. I want you to let that sink in. Who's having abortions? Is it Christians or non-Christians? The divorce rate among Christians, at least until very recently, has not been found to be significantly different than that among secular marriages. What does that tell you? More than 64% of Christian groups, according to Pew Research, and this is from 2014, are accepting of homosexuality. Do you think that number has grown or shrunk in the last 10 years? This means they either believe it is not a sin, or they believe it's not a big one. And I know all the arguments, those precepts of men. This didn't start with blatant sin. It started with the church abandoning discipline and preaching the Bible without living it. It started with Christians, at least Christians so-called, living in promiscuity, but teaching the truth of the Bible regarding homosexuality. This was no excuse for either sin. We just thought that showing up in our Sunday best at church every Sunday and living like we please during the week was good enough. And we were okay with a little sin. But suddenly, when a lot of sin is here, and the world is turned upside down, we're not okay with that. And we want to go back to a time, a simpler time, when it was okay to have sex before marriage, but not okay for homosexuals to be running rampant with a pride month. And into all of it, I say, let's go back to King Arthur. We just thought showing up in church in our Sunday best and living like we please during the week was good enough. Someone here is not understanding the word of God. And it's us. It's not God who doesn't understand his own word. But we act sometimes like God doesn't understand his own word. We live like God doesn't understand his own word. We have turned the world upside down by getting the effect out in front of the cause. We have not served God because we love him, but rather we've made a good show of it as though we could fake it and fool him. And instead, he has turned it on its head and made us look foolish. Because we are. So what are we to do? Remember that the unbelieving Jews brought Paul and Silas before Jason and Thessalonica and claimed that they had turned the world upside down. We know that they had been the ones guilty of turning it right side up. And what had these apostles done? They had preached the word, the gospel, and had done so in power and demonstration of the Spirit. Not only that, but they were known by their manner of life among all to whom they preached. So that's the secret. Let that be said of us as well. Let the world know that we are Christians, as those in Antioch were known. It wasn't made popular by branding, they didn't make the name up themselves, rather the manner of life, and God's hand working among them made it known to all the world that these were followers of Christ. We have become Facebook and Instagram Christians. Christians in pictures we post, but not in the reality of our lives. This must change. If we repent and become authentic Christians, they will haul us into court and claim we've turned the world upside down. May it be so, and may they be right, and may the Lord give us more light. bringing the light of Jesus Christ into a sin-darkened world. This is the Lighthouse Radio Bible Study. The Primitive Baptists who bring you this program each week do so with the following conviction. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. It is our guide for what we are to believe, and it is our guide for what we are to do. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, and He is to be followed as Lord and Savior. And, we believe that His salvation is a free gift of God's sovereign grace, not dependent on any work that we do, but wholly dependent on His finished work done on our behalf. We present this weekly Bible study based on the premise of Psalm 119 verse 105, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. If you would like to contribute to the furtherance of this program, then please send your donation to this address. The Lighthouse P.O. Box 1317 Baxley, GA 31515. Again, that is The Lighthouse EO Box 1317, Baxley, GA 31515. Or if you would like to send a question or comment to us, you can also send your correspondence to that address. We also have a website where you can access our programs and other helpful information. It can be found at www.lighthousebiblestudy.org. That's all one word and with all lowercase letters. Again, that's www.lighthousebiblestudy.org. Until next week, this is your speaker, Ben Fordham, praying that God will light your world.