When God brings judgment, God's judgment always leads to peace. That is the purpose of it when it's for His people. Judgment comes in and purges and cleans and deals with the problem. And on the other side of that judgment, He's going to bring about peace. That is just the way God works. We see it through the cross, the judgment of the cross. brings peace to us and a peace with God, peace from God, and the peace of God, but it takes a just judgment for that to take place. Christ just stood in that judgment on our behalf. Remember when we was reading through Matthew's gospel on the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus said, look, you need to reconcile with your adversary quickly while you're on your way to the judge. Because when you get to the judge, The judge is going to find you guilty, and the judge is going to turn you over to the officer, and the officer is going to put you in prison. So you need to do whatever it is needed to deal with your adversary quickly while you're on the way to judgment. Well, I want to tell you, God is saying, hey, I'm your adversary, but I'm also your justifier. I'm your advocate, your judge, and your justifier. You better come reason with me while you're on the way to judgment, because I can do something with you now, but if I don't do something with you now, I'm going to turn you over. You're going to have to face judgment without my mercy, and I'm giving you a space of time to get it right with me right now. I can cleanse you. I can wash you. Remember, every time God does a work, it's so that He can reconcile us to Him, and that's what He was wanting to do. But they wanted to persist in their unfaithfulness, and it was going to cost them drastically. So Isaiah says, hey, come and live in this light. God's going to rule and reign on this earth, and you want to rule and reign with Him. You want to walk with Him. But it ain't going to happen if you don't live for Him now. if you don't walk with him now. And what was going on? Think about it like this. I got to thinking today, when I was recording some of these things, I normally would turn the phone on so the phone don't ring. I put my phone on airplane mode so I don't get a text in or anything like that because I'm recording it on my phone. So I sent Stephanie a text to say, hey, I'm going dark for a little bit. I'm doing a little recording. I'm going dark. We do that when we say watch a movie or something, and we can't stay on our phones and watch a movie at the same time, because we don't have good enough internet signal to do that, so we send a word out to the girls, hey, we're going dark for a little bit, so you know what happens. We're all on airplane mode when you're trying to get a hold of us, so you'll know. Well, God gives this description. What does the word Jacob mean? Y'all remember what that word means? A deceiver. A surplanner, that's right, he's a deceiver. So here it is, O family of Jacob, you deceiver, you surplanner, not only are you prone to deceive, but you're prone for deception. You can't afford to go dark. You cannot afford to go dark. You need to live in the light. Light. You already have a predisposition for deception. You have a predisposition to deceive and supplant others. You can't afford to be in the dark. You need the light. The light is going to shed light on your deception. And we all have a predisposition to be a deceiver and to be deceived. We can't afford to be in the dark. We got to be in the light. We have to be in the light. We have to have light to be able to walk with the Lord. But look in verse number 6. What had happened? Scripture says, for you, God, have released or loosened your people, the house of Jacob. You've loosened them. The word forsake means to just, you've released them, you loose them, you let them go. You let them go after what they want. Why? He tells us. Why did He let them go? Because they are what? They are replenished From the Eastern ways they are replenished or filled up. The idea of being replenished is the idea of being filled with Eastern ways. The word Eastern just simply means that which is right before them. Right before them, what is right before you. Basically saying you're filled with what's right before you. You're filled with the atmosphere right before you. Whatever's going on in the culture, that's what fills you up. Whatever's presented right before you, that's what fills you up. You're not filled up from above. You're filled up with what is temporal. You're filled with Eastern ways. He says you have become like what? Soothsayers. The word soothsayer simply means a soothsayer lives for the times. They are discerner of the times. They observe the times. Whatever is the winds of the cultural is going, that's what they know. They're soothsayers. They live for right now with no insight for what is to come. And then He brings up a nation. What nation does He tie in? The Philistines. Anybody know what that word means? Philistine. Means immigrant. That's all it means, an immigrant. What did an immigrant do? An immigrant would leave their land to go to another land for mere survival, for their resources, for their stuff. The people of God were never to be known as an immigrant, they were to be known as a pilgrim. A pilgrim passed through this world because they had hope of something brighter, something better. Remember that's the description of Abraham. Abraham was known as a what? One who was passing through this world, who was headed on to a place whose builder and maker was God. Abraham never got comfortable in this old world that he lived in. He was passing through this world, headed to a place whose builder and maker was God. But an immigrant will leave his land to go to another land that's more promising simply to survive, to feed off of the land. And they'll live among foreigners or whoever it is because they live for what's right before them. It's a survival mode. And God's people would have never lived that way. This land, this world is not our we're passing through this world. And if we get caught up in this world, we're starting to act just like the world we live in, who lives for things, who lives for stuff, who lives for resources, who lives for this and lives for that, but with no sight of eternity. And that is why God loosened Jacob to let them do as they pleased because they were more interested in the gold. They were more interested in the silver. They were more interested in the chariots and the might and the power of men. They were more interested in horses. They loved the stories of the abundance and they were caught up in that which was right before them, that which they could put their hands on, but they had lost sight. of eternity, of having to one day give an account before God. Man, they live for stuff. And this vivid description that we see, I mean, this can be very descriptive. We can get caught up into this. that we fail to be that witness who lives for the glory of God and lives to help other people live for the glory of God, who lives to be a witness for the glory of God, to turn people from living for stuff in this old world, but to live for Jesus in the light of His return. You know, that's why he said this. Go back to chapter 1 if you would, and I think you'll see this. In chapter 1, verse number 12, he says, When you come to me, when you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand that you trample my courts? God didn't see it as that they come delightfully to come and celebrate Him and His goodness. He said, When you gather together and you come to worship, I see you as like cattle trampling the courts of the Lord. Trampling my courts. He says, verse 13, bring no more futile sacrifices or incense. It is an abomination to me. The new moons and the Sabbaths and the calling of the assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity in sacred meetings. That'd be like in our modern day, you know, your Easter services, your Christmas services, your big highlighted days where people gather and come. The Mother's Day and the Father's Day. When people will go out of their way to say, okay, I'll fulfill my duty. I'll go to a service because it's a high holy day. Are you with me? That's what they had. They had high holy days that they would come and God says, look, that's never what I asked you to do. That's not what I want you to do. I want you to trust me, live for me. And when you gather with the people, you come to celebrate me. Not how you live what you want to live and then you bring a sacrifice thinking I'm going to accept that sacrifice when you've not lived for me nor cared for me or you have not been a witness for me in this old world you live in, but you have perfected the sacrifice. He goes on to say, he says, I'm weary with bearing in, verse 15, when you spread out your hands I will hide my eyes from you even though you make many prayers I will not hear. Why? Your hands are what? Full of blood. Now you think they were murderous? I don't necessarily believe that's what he's referring to. This was a civil society that was a dog-eat-dog world. Everybody was looking out for themselves. That's obvious the way he describes it. I think the idea goes along with the book of Ezekiel. and other places in the Scripture that teaches us that God's going to hold us all accountable for what we did with our brothers and sisters. Did we try to keep them from stumbling to the slaughter? Did we try to hold them back who were drawn toward death? God told Ezekiel that if you don't warn your brother of his wayward ways, his blood is going to be held on you. He said, if I show you the error of His way, and you choose to keep your mouth shut and silent, and you let Him keep on going without interfering, God said, His blood is on your hands. But if you warn Him, and you help Him, and you show Him God's got another way of living for Him, and He chooses to ignore that, He says, you're free. Paul said it in the book of Acts, hey, I have not shunned or warned all men. No man's blood's on my bank because I have told everybody that the need that they have to trust Jesus and repent and turn toward God. And I think that's what he's saying. Y'all have just let people live however they want to live with no accountability and responsibility. You have not been a witness to me. You've not delivered them. You've not stood in the gap. You just said, well, look, I'm going to keep silent. If that man wants to live that way, let him live that way. I'm going to live my way. I'm going to do my thing. Let them do their thing. And I can say before God one day, God, I didn't know. And God says, hey, doesn't He know the hearts of all men? And isn't He going to give you what you did with what you had when you had a chance to do it? Yes, He will. Proverbs 24 tells us that. Deliver them that are drawn toward death and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. And don't say before God, I didn't know it. Because it said, doesn't God know? And will He not render to each man according to his works? I think the blood on their hands was is that they were not warning one another. They just let people do what they wanted to do because they were doing what they wanted to do. It just wasn't being a witness. Why? Because everybody was living for what was right before them. They had no foresight of eternity. They weren't living in the light of the Lord. They were living for themselves. And they've let that idea of the soothsayer who was living for the times. As the times changed, they changed. Whatever was popular at the time was popular to them. That's just how they lived. Sounds like our society, doesn't it? Sounds like our society today. And that is what was going on. Man, there's so many parallels that we see with the nation that God was about to judge in our nation. When He refers to them as Sodom and Gomorrah, you think God coming to Jerusalem and Judah and saying that you're like Sodom and Gomorrah. What was the big sin with Sodom and Gomorrah? Pride. Just haughty, arrogant pride. The first thing was is that Ezekiel 16 will tell us why God did what he did with Sodom and Gomorrah and how Jerusalem and Judah looked just like them is that they loved their pleasantness and their luxuries more than they loved God. And as a result of that, they became open-minded in all the finery things of life, and they were not concerned for the widow, they were not concerned for the orphan, they did not look after one another, didn't defend the poor in His cause, they just took care of the wealthy so that the wealthy could keep their pockets full, and they just looked out for one another, and then that kind of living then led to lewdness. of where they just walked in their immorality with no shame upon their face, they come out of the closet. It's one thing to have affections. It's another thing when you have those affections and you're not ashamed of them, and you flaunt them arrogantly and haughtily before the public and before people's eyes, and see, that's when the judgment begins to fall. But that is only evident of a prideful, arrogant heart who says, we would rather do it our way And then they start living lewdly before God. That's what happened. And see, this is what's going on with Jerusalem right now. They have become lewd in their living. And he says it in verse number 21 of chapter 1. He says, Y'all used to be faithful, but now you're unfaithful like a harlot. You used to be full of justice, but you're unjust toward men. You were filled with righteousness before God. Now you're unrighteous. You're murderers now. That is, your land has become unsafe. Your silver has become like dross. You're untrustworthy. You've mixed your wine with water. You know what that's basically saying? Everybody was cheating one another. You couldn't find nothing authentic. Everything was overpriced. It wasn't worth what it was priced. And so therefore everybody's what? Unreliable, untrustworthy, you're unbearable, you're unforgiving, and you're unconcerned about one another. Man, what does that sound like? Sounds very similar to where we are today, huh? Man, so descriptive. But I wanna tell you, God keeps throwing that out there. Look at verse 16. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. That's basically saying when you get right with me, you're gonna do right things. Come, let's reason before we face the judge. God said, I am the judge, but I'm also the justifier. I can justify you, and I can do it justly because I've taken the judgment for you. You go back over in chapter number two, and this end time picture that we have there, notice what he says. Verse six says again, God forsaken them because they were replenished. They were filled up again and again with the wrong kind of ways. They are like soothsayers, like the Philistines, and they are delighted or pleased with the children of foreigners. There's nothing wrong with taking care of the foreigner. But you see, the idea of being delighted in the foreigner is the fact that you're delighted in that which is foreign to God. You're delighted in that way which is foreign. The foreigners had foreign ways, and their ways were foreign to the people of God. But when you are living for what is right before you, you can't help but be enticed by this foreign way that is foreign to God and you're interested. And he was saying these foreigners come from places that were lands full of silver and gold. and that there is no end to their treasuries. Their land is also full of horses, and there's no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands. And you see, they were delighted in all that. That tickled them. That pleased them. And they wanted to hear more and more. Tell me other stories about it. Let me read more about it. I want to know more and more and more. And God has warned His people from the beginning, don't learn the ways of the Gentiles. It's only gonna cripple you. Don't learn their way. Yes, they may look good, they may smell good, they may have a lot, and they may appear, all they have is gonna appeal to your flesh. And man, it's gonna be tasty, but it ain't gonna endure. Trust me, God is saying, trust me. But verse 22 of chapter 2 says, sever yourself, cease, stop yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he? What it all boils down to is simply this, don't put your confidence in man. Not just a man, but don't put your confidence in mankind whose breath's in his nostrils, whose life, whose spirit is in his nostrils. I think it's twofold. Number one, we've seen it many times. We've all seen this. We know it's inevitable for all of us that's appointed unto men to die once and then we face the judgment. But there's going to come a day that each one of us, each one of us, are going to exhale that breath that's in our nostrils and we're not going to suck no more air in no more. Life's over on this side of heaven. We'll exhale one last time and that life is going to disappear and we'll never suck another, we'll never inhale again in this life. That's what man comes to. Just one last breath. And life is done. So he's saying don't put your confidence in mankind. What is mankind? What is man that finds life simply in his nostrils? That's all he is. So don't trust it. Don't trust it. Well, I think the second part of it is this. Is not only do you not trust mankind, but you sever yourselves from anybody who finds life within himself. that life in his nostrils. His life is in himself. He's dependent upon himself. He's dependent upon his ways. The man that is not dependent upon the Lord that grants us and both takes away life. Amen? Sever yourselves from people who's thinking, who find life in themselves, whose life is just in their nostrils within themselves. That's not the man you want to learn from. You want to learn from the ones who walk in the light of the Lord, whose life is in the Lord, whose strength is in the Lord, whose joy is in the Lord, whose King is the Lord. Amen? So Isaiah, we've got a tremendous world ahead of us. TO GLEAN AND LEARN. YOU GET INTO CHAPTER 3, IT'S GOING TO BE VERY DESCRIPTIVE OF WHAT YOU READ TODAY ABOUT THE CONDITION OF WHAT GOD IS ABOUT TO DO. HE'S GOING TO TAKE AWAY WHAT? THE STABILITY AND THE SUPPORT OF A NATION. HE'S GOING TO TAKE AWAY THEIR BREAD AND THEIR WATER, THEIR STOCK AND THEIR SUPPLY. HE'S GOING TO TAKE AWAY MEN OF LEADERSHIP And He's going to provide, instead of the stability of great leadership, He's going to provide the unstable leadership of childish leaders, of babes. Unstable leaders. He's going to take away great men, great leaders, great works of art, great oratators, great judges who operate with great wisdom, and all that's going to be replaced with unstable, unwise, leaders. who don't know their right hand from their left, who make nothing but silly childish choices, who do nothing but silly and temporal childish things. And that's just going to be a picture of God's wrath and judgment that is coming upon a land because they chose not to walk with Him, not for Him to be their stability. So God's going to give them the instability that they've longed for, and it's going to be a great wreck for a nation. whether you can't find solid, solid, solid leadership over the heads of nations because they chose to go their way. This is part of God's judgment. Part of God's judgment. We see it right now, don't we? When you just listen to these candidates that are going to be in this race and what we have as a whole, hey, you can't help but look and say, good night, Lord. help us turn and turn to you and trust you. It is clear that we've gone beyond just our prideful lack of doing what is right. We've just become openly lewd before you and flamboyant and haughty and arrogant and we flaunt our pride before you and you are turning things upside down everywhere we look in our country and we can't blame nobody but ourselves. Because we have not sought you, amen. We're not living in your light. And God began, do something in me. Start with me. Help me. Help me. Help me look to you and walk with you and help other people, amen. I don't want men's blood on my hands, ma'am. Yeah, all that, that's all been removed. They've taken it totally out. Totally out of, if you went across the board, very few communities and cities and towns and magistrates have any inclination of any godly wisdom taking place in leadership. It's been replaced. It's been turned around. And you see entertainment. He talks about it. When he looked, the skillful artisan, What do we see today demonstrated as art and amusement, entertainment? You see commercials and things, it's like, where in the world they get these people from? How can they even think that has any kind of entertainment value or artistic mindset? That's been removed. That's part of God's judgment. upon a people. And man, he removes the stability of a society and replaces it with unstable times and unstable people. The takeover of the young people and the takedown of the older generation. You think about it in a lot of cities. You think about Meridian. Who runs these inner cities and runs some of these communities? Young people, gangs. Some place, you go to a place that's got nothing but bars on the houses. Who's behind all that? That's young people. It's the enemy behind it, but it's these young people who govern in what's going to happen and not happen, and doing their business, and then the base people mock the honorable people, and the children disrespect the elders. That's all part of it. That's what he says right here. That's what's going to happen and man Lowering the quality of standard of qualification. You know what you know how you become an office today not men of character It's how much money you got? really How many what kind of support you can get behind you who's gonna back you for your agenda? Characters out in this picture here said, who did they go to? He said, look, you got more clothes than we do. You got to be a few more things. We need you to step up and be the leader. That was the qualification. You got more than us. We need you to lead then. And he says, I can't heal your ills. I can't make a difference in that. Think about it. Think about it. Father, we thank you tonight. We pray you help us with these things. I just start with me. I pray that you, I want to reason with you. I want to consider. I want to consider what you say. I want to meditate on it. I want to ponder it. I want to mull it over. And I ask you to give me the understanding for it. That I can comprehend and walk in your light. I want to help people. I want to help turn people. I want to glorify you, and I need your help to do that. We need your help to do that. We want to be a difference maker. We don't want the folks in our community and abroad, their blood on our hands. We want them to hear from us, and we want them to hear. We want them to hear of what you've done through Christ Jesus. We thank you, and we bless you, and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Love y'all.