His Hand is Stretched Out Still - Isaiah 9:8 - 10:4

Let’s begin today by turning to Isaiah 9 and looking at the perseverance of God.  We sometimes hear of the perseverance of the saints, and on occasion we’ve even talked about the perseverance of the sinners.  But today we’re going to look at how God perseveres.

Last week, we considered that God is zealous in His pursuit of His own purposes.  In defining the term “zeal” we said it is “enthusiastic devotion to a cause, and tireless diligence in its furtherance.”  “Tireless diligence” could be translated “perseverance”.  God perseveres.  But unlike us, because we grow tired or discouraged or disinterested, or we simply die without ever attaining some life goal, God can persevere in whatever He does 24/7, for a week, or a month, or for a thousand years, or forever, and never even break a sweat.  

I, for one, am grateful for God’s tireless, unending zeal and perseverance in not only saving me, but keeping me saved, even to the point of having a great High Priest as my intercessor for all eternity.  Such is the zeal of God for His elect people.  That is infinite perseverance on God’s part.

On a much smaller scale, and as a negative example, we see the perseverance of God in punishing the wicked in Isaiah 9.  The text itself makes the point that God is not only relentless in His blessings toward His people, but He is also relentless toward His enemies until His own wrath against unrepentant sin is satisfied.  Read with me beginning in verse 8.

8 The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel; 

9 and all the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart: 

10 “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones;

the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” 

11 But the Lord raises the adversaries of Rezin against him, and stirs up his enemies. 

12 The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west devour Israel with open mouth.

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

13 The people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the Lord of hosts. 

14 So the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day— 

15 the elder and honored man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail; 

16 for those who guide this people have been leading them astray,

and those who are guided by them are swallowed up. 

17 Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men, and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows;

for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. 

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

18 For wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns;

it kindles the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. 

19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is scorched,

and the people are like fuel for the fire; no one spares another. 

20 They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours the flesh of his own arm, 

21 Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh; together they are against Judah.

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

10:1  Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, 

2  to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right,

that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey! 

3 What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar?

To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth? 

4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain.

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

These words are addressed to God’s own people, primarily the people of the northern kingdom of Israel.  God has already sent their enemies against them, but in their stubborn pride they determine to rebuild their destroyed cities and make them even better than before.  They do so in vain according to 9:11.  God is bringing enemies against Syria and King Rezin, and then God will use Syria and the Philistines against Israel who will be devoured with open mouth.  Even so, verse 12 tells us that God will persevere in His anger and judgment against them all.

When the Lord chastened Israel, they did not turn to God but ran further away into deeper sin.  So He cut off from Israel their leaders, both high and low, both elder and prophet, who also swallow up God’s people with their lies.  It is so bad in Israel that even those who would normally be the objects of God’s mercy and protection, “the fatherless and the widow,” are going to suffer at God’s hand because we read in verse 17, everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly.  And God’s judgment continues on.

Verses 18 - 21 tell us that the rampant wickedness of the people serves as a wildfire which God allows to consume the people who are like fuel for the fire.  God’s wrath is poured out, the people consume one another, and the Lord presses on in His zeal against them all.

Then in 10:1 - 4, the lawmakers of the land are under a curse from God for their oppression of the needy.  They write decrees that allow them to make widows their spoil and the fatherless their prey.  But because of God’s unrelenting anger, what will become of them is they will either become captives for the enemy who is coming, or be killed by them.

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

This is exactly why God is a God to be feared.  And these passages are given to us to warn us of presuming upon the grace of God.  The people of Israel and Judah were blessed by the Lord of hosts to have more revelation and more blessing than any nation in the world.  God even dwelt in their midst in the Tabernacle at first, and then later in the Temple in Jerusalem.  But religion, even the right religion, is insufficient to save anyone from sin and wrath and hell.  Only those whose hearts are right, whose faith and hope are in God to save them from their sin, ONLY those escape the persevering, continual, unrelenting, eternal anger of a righteous and holy God.  

I read an article the other day which reminded me of these 4 verses here in chapter 10.  Let me read you a quote from someone who has had a profound impact upon our culture and much of the rest of the world for nearly 100 years:

“Ignorance breeds poverty, and poverty breeds ignorance.  There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things.  Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence.  Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them.”

That was the outspoken opinion of the founder of what is now known as Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger.  In 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League.  Sanger was a radical feminist, eugenicist 1, and Marxist.  She supported the forced sterilization of the poor and the mentally deficient on the theory that preventing them from breeding would preclude the birth of “subnormal children” and improve the gene pool.

“She believed selective breeding to improve the gene pool was necessary in order to bring about Communist revolution because such an upheaval could not be carried out by a working class with limited intellectual capacity.” 2

I trust this miserable woman is as repulsive to you as she is to me.  It is hard to fathom such wickedness, unless you understand the condition of the heart of the natural man.  The unregenerate person is capable of nearly unbelievable evil.  To have people in positions of authority making laws that destroy the poor and defenseless for their own financial gain, like those who did so in Israel and Judah, and who do so in America today, should terrify us.  

But when God gives a nation over to follow their own unrestricted sinful desires, you quickly get the kind of thinking Margaret Sanger promoted in this nation very successfully.  Many governments in addition to ours, like China, have adopted her views and have transformed them into public policy.  Consequently, entire nations of human beings have been destroyed by Margaret Sanger and her disciples.  But God has allowed us to follow our own way of thinking in order that we might be the instrument of His wrath against us.  Our own sin becomes the vehicle or the tool of God’s judgment.  

This kind of national evil that we see in Isaiah, and in our world today, is a sign of God’s abandonment.  In Romans 1, we read that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness by giving such ungodly people over to follow their own hearts.  In 1:24, God gives evil people up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.  In verse 26, He gives them up to homosexual passions.  In verse 28, He gives them up finally to a debased mind . . .

to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Three times in that passage, Paul says God gave them up.  And He gives them up in His wrath to do whatever they want to do.  That is the perseverance of God in His zeal against sin.  It is undoubtedly the worst condition a people could ever be in, and all people everywhere constantly demand it.  The demand to be left alone by God.  Thankfully, God does not always answer that prayer.

To be given up, or to be given over to an unrestrained, depraved heart and mind is to be given over to self-destruction.  The wrath of God is poured out on men when He withdraws and does nothing to prevent sinners from being as evil as they naturally want to be.  

A man by the name of Edmund Burke once made this famous comment: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  That is not quite accurate.  Here’s what he should have said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that God do nothing."  Beloved, we know from reading a little bit further in Romans that there are no good men.  Even Jesus said there is none good but God.  And if a good and righteous and angry God simply does nothing, evil men will quickly become the cure for their own wickedness.

To punish Israel, all God has to do is nothing.  Their enemies will kill them all.  And that is what is going to happen.  Look again at Isaiah 10.

5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! 

6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him,

to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 

7 But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think;

but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few; 

8 for he says:

“Are not my commanders all kings? 

9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?

Is not Hamath like Arpad?

Is not Samaria like Damascus?  [The capital of Israel like the capital of Syria?]

10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, 

11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?”

12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. 13 For he says:

“By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;

I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.  14 My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped.”

15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?  As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! 

16 Therefore the Lord God of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors,

and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire. 

17 The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame,

and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day. 

18 The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body,

and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. 

19 The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.

20 In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22 For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. 23 For the Lord God of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.

24 Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. 25 For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. 26 And the Lord of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. 27 And in that day his [Assyria’s] burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat [fat = the blessing of God]. ”

I have a question for you: Do you believe the promises of God?  None of us have ever faced any trials that would come close to comparing with the awful events we just read about.  God’s anger burned against Israel, and He was going to persist in punishing them by means of Assyria.  He did exactly that, and they were destroyed.  God used Assyria as the rod of His anger.  The staff in their hands was God’s fury against his own wicked people.  They were the means by which God accomplished His justice.

Then, King Sennacherib turned his attention toward Jerusalem: “Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?”  “I’ve taken whatever I’ve wanted, entire cities and kingdoms, and no one can stop me.  I’ll take Jerusalem also.“  

But God makes a promise to Jerusalem and to Hezekiah: “[I] will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.  Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?  [I promise I] will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and the remnant of the trees of his forest [of soldiers] will be so few that a child can write them down.

Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.  In a very little while my fury will come to an end.  [I promise.]

Can God be trusted to keep His promises?  In this instance, the only hope the people of Jerusalem have is that God will do what He has said through Isaiah.  But suppose God were to break His promise?   And that is really the question here.  What does Sennacherib’s man say to Hezekiah’s people?  “Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you into thinking your God will deliver you!“  

But God promises through the word of Isaiah that Jerusalem will be the surviving remnant in Judah.  He promises He will completely defeat the arrogant king of Assyria.  God makes a promise to Hezekiah that Sennacherib won’t shoot a single arrow into the city, that He will put a ring in Sennacherib’s nose and haul him back to where he came from.  But what if He doesn’t?  What if God doesn’t keep His word?

If He doesn’t, then Jerusalem and all its inhabitants are destroyed at the hands of arrogant Sennacherib, the lineage of David ends, evil prevails, the Messiah does not come, the world does not have a Savior.  

And God is a liar.  

You see, this is why God keeps all of His promises: for his own name’s sake.  As bleak and dark as everything looks, in the end, God’s judgment against sin, all sin, will be accomplished.  He will send a Savior, God’s own people will be delivered, He will defeat all of His enemies, He will grant us eternal life, He will come for us to take us to Heaven, He will transform us into the likeness of Christ, He will keep us forever, . . . for His own glory and for the sake of His own name.  

Beloved, there have been, there are now, and there always will be men like Sennacherib.  And Margaret Sangers.  And Osama Bin Ladens and Saddam Husseins.  Evil men and women who have exploited the poor and the needy and the “less evolved” for the sake of their own personal gain.  There will always be such people.  But God accomplishes His purposes by using them as agents and instruments of wrath against sin.  

At the same time, while such awful events occur, God preserves His remnant, the people He has chosen to save out of the world.  The question that is often asked is, why doesn’t God save everybody.  But the question that should be asked in light of this theme we see of a remnant of people is, why does God save anybody?  Why does He even bother with the remnant?  For His own name’s sake.  

Do you trust Him to keep His promises to you?  What kinds of challenges are you facing?  Do you trust God to remain faithful to you in the midst of those trials?  If God is sovereign over the nations to punish evil and to preserve His own people, He is certainly going to persevere in His righteous judgment against sin, and in finishing the work He’s begun in you and me.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

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1. Eugenics - the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).  "eugenics." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 05 Mar. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics>.

2. From an article in the March edition of Townhall Magazine entitled “Big Abortion, Big Eugenics, Big Business”, pp. 48-51.