The Wickedness of Shrugging God Off - Isaiah 48:12-22

How many of you have ever heard the term “Replacement Theology”?  You may have heard me mention it recently.  Replacement Theology is the teaching that the New Testament Church became what Old Testament Israel used to be.  It is the theory that the Church is now the recipient of all the promises in the Old Testament that God gave to Israel.  The Church, they say, has replaced Israel.  What makes it confusing is there is no small element of truth in it.  

During the early days of the Old Testament, God created the nation Israel.  That nation primarily consisted of the genetic descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It also had a relatively small number of non-Jewish proselytes that identified with the Israeli nation by means of circumcision.

But in addition to the genetic foundation for this people group, God also gave them a theological base: a system of worship found in the Law of Moses which was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  They had a specialized priesthood, a sacrificial system, detailed rules of public conduct, and a system of government whose executive leader was God Himself.  Israel was originally a theocracy and God was their King.  All of this was supplied to them directly from God by means of Moses.

In addition to the genetic and theological and legal institutions that constituted the nation of Israel, within the nation was a spiritually separated, redeemed people.  Within the race of the Jews were those who genuinely believed the word of God.  They were characterized as having the faith of their patriarch, Abraham, a faith that resulted in their salvation.  But the vast majority of the people of Israel consistently rejected the God of Abraham, while maintaining their outward, genetic, cultural, and national identity as Israel, the nation created and chosen by God to be His own people.

It is this majority of unbelievers in Judah which Isaiah addresses for 66 chapters.  He is speaking to a nation that is outwardly, superficially, technically the people of God by virtue of their heritage, their and their unique religious rituals.  But in chapter 29, God diagnoses their true spiritual condition:

[13] And the Lord said:

“Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

 [14] therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, 

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”  (Isaiah 29:13-14 ESV)

Israel had a cultural religion with no heart.  Replacement Theology is real.  But it is not what some theologians say it is.  When I speak of Replacement Theology, I’m talking about what happened when Israel replaced God with the idols of the nations and eventually with the idol of their own cultural heritage.  Not so much in the Old Testament, but certainly since the days of the New Testament, many Jews have worshipped their Jewishness instead of their God.  

The reason this is so obviously true is because they vehemently cling to their identity as a people, while they simultaneously reject their own promised Messiah.  I believe the primary reason for this is because Jesus is also the Savior of Gentiles.  He is not an exclusively Jewish Messiah.  In other words, national and cultural pride are the gods of Israel, and therefore they are guilty of what I am referring to as a kind of Replacement Theology.

The New Testament Church has not replaced Israel.  However, the New Testament Church is the direct consequence of the work of God through Israel, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.  It is an extension of the Old Testament church. (See footnote 1.)  We read that the Church began with the Apostles all of whom were Jewish, who believed Jesus was the long-promised Messiah of Israel and the world.  This is the fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself out of Israel and every nation on the face of the earth.

Isaiah clearly spoke of this when he wrote in chapter 49 of God speaking to His Servant in whom His soul delights, the Lord Jesus.  He says:

[6] . . . “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob

and to bring back the preserved of Israel;  I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”  (Isaiah 49:6 ESV)

 

It was always the plan of God to extend His salvation beyond the borders of Israel to the nations of the world.  In 45:22 He says, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."  (Isaiah 45:22 ESV)

God repeatedly said the coming Messiah of Israel would be the global savior of all who call upon the name of the Lord.  In fact, He told Abraham at the very beginning that he would be the spiritual father of many nations.   “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  (Genesis 12:3 ESV).  The prophet Joel said,

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’  (Acts 2:21 ESV, quoted from Joel 2:32)

This is the consistent teaching of the Old Testament.  The Jews should have recognized this then, and they should recognize it now.  And while we cannot say unequivocally that the New Testament Church is now Israel, there is one thing about Israel that is identical to what we see in the New Testament Church in America today.  We see multitudes of people who claim to be God’s people who draw near week after week in churches across this country.  They gather with lots and lots and lots of religious words but with no heart for God.  Isaiah could easily have been speaking of the church in America when he said, This people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.  

The reason why so much of the church is in this condition is the exact same reason why Israel was in this condition: The failure to take God seriously.  When the Scriptures are neglected, the heart grows cold toward God.  It is no exaggeration to say that when we neglect the Bible we are shrugging off God Himself.  And much of the Evangelical church today is actively pursuing a kind of replacement theology by denying the sufficiency of God’s revelation to His people.  The church today actively pursues a replacement god for an alternative Christianity which is no Christianity at all.  

The most obvious example of this is the Emerging Church movement.  Brian MacLaren is the father of this movement and has promoted it very successfully within Evangelicalism through his book, A Generous Orthodoxy.  To get an idea of where he’s coming from and why they call it “emergent”, one only needs to read the subtitle:

“Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.” 

A more confused and confusing person you will never meet.  And this kind of talk is met with the mindless nodding of contemplative Evangelical heads with furrowed brows and pursed lips everywhere.  His book was published by Zondervan.  

It appears that the fundamental doctrine upon which the emergent movement tries to stand is the teaching that nothing is certain.  That is the post-modern mantra: We can’t really know anything to be undeniably true.  Only the evangelical “Christian” community could come up with such absurd nonsense, publish books, schedule seminars, and sell tickets to teach people that they can’t know anything..

Another book that has been wildly popular in the Christian and secular world for eight years is The Purpose-Driven Life.  According to Wikipedia and ABC News, "The Purpose Driven Life," has been translated into 56 languages and has sold 30 million copies" as of March 2007.  We could probably safely add another 10 million to that figure.  So it has been no small success.

I read an article a few days ago in which a soldier stationed in Iraq in 2004 said he was kicked out of a Purpose-Driven Church Bible study because he brought his Bible to the study.  Here is what he said:

I am currently serving in Iraq.  I am in the Army National Guard. “A lot” of PDL [Purpose Driven Life] study groups have sprouted up at various camps around Iraq.  The people in my unit have done the PDL study 3 times now!  They started for 3 months, then again started again for 3 months, and AGAIN started the “same” study. (continuous back-to-back-to-back)  At no time have I EVER seen one of them carry a bible into the study.  I finally decided to join them on their 3^rd study.  . . . I didn’t know anything about the book and I was the only one who brought their bible and used other bible passages that pertained to the chapter that day.  It just seems like this “study” is sweeping quickly and people are replacing the everliving Word of God for a manmade book.  A good friend and I have been talking a lot about the principles and teachings of Rick Warren and his ‘light’ approach to the gospel.  It seems no one is preaching the Word of God.

Why does it not seem odd to Christians to have a Bible Study for 9 months without using a Bible?  If we look to what is popular, and if we were to read what is on the shelves of nearly any retail Christian bookstore, it would indeed appear that no one is preaching the Word of God.  But the reason for this is because no one seems to have an appetite for it.  The Bible is so old-school.  Not only that, but you can’t really make any money preaching and teaching the Bible today.  There is so little demand for it.  What makes money in both the Christian and the secular world is whatever attempts to replace the Bible and biblical Christianity. 

Another more recent example of this which you’re no doubt familiar with is the book, The Shack.  At least it does not pretend to be deeply theological or biblical.  It is a novel.  It is fiction.  And it has sold between 12 and 15 million copies.   Eugene Peterson, the writer of The Message Bible, said, “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize, the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” 

In listening to a message by Michael Youssef in which he was refuting the teachings of The Shack, he said one thing which makes my point for me very clearly.  Someone actually told Pastor Youssef that The Shack was better than the Bible.  

That is precisely what I’m talking about when I say the Evangelical church is guilty of replacement theology.  God is being replaced because the Bible and biblical doctrine are being replaced with so-called Christian books and teachers which are not Christian at all.  Paul Young, the author of The Shack is a Universalist.  This guy whom Eugene Peterson calls a theologian believes all people everywhere will go to Heaven.  On the other hand, Dr. Al Mohler from Southern Seminary called The Shack “undiluted heresy”.  And it was a best seller.

Now, would you please turn with me to the Bible.  I’d like to read to you from Isaiah 48.

[12] “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called!

I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.

[13] My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I call to them, they stand forth together.

 

[14] “Assemble, all of you, and listen!  Who among them has declared these things?

The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

[15] I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

[16] Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit.

 

[17] Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.

[18] Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;

[19] your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains;

their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

 

[20] Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it,

send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” 

[21] They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;

he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.

 

[22] “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”  (Isaiah 48:12-22 ESV)

To whom does that last phrase refer?  When the Lord says, “There is no peace for the wicked?” of whom is He speaking?  In this context, who are the wicked that have no peace?  

We understand that statement to be a declaration of a universal truth, that God withholds His peace and His blessing from the wicked.  But in this passage I believe God may be referring to two groups: the people of Judah, and the people of Babylon.  In speaking to the Jews He says in verse 18, Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!  Then your peace would have been like a river.  But instead of enjoying the peace of God, they will go into captivity, they will become strangers in a strange land, filled with strange gods that they preferred over the true God of Israel.  They replaced the God who laid the foundation of the earth and created the heavens, with the lie of idolatry.

Of course, God has already said there will be no peace for Babylon either.  They certainly qualify as being among “the wicked”.  God is going to raise up Cyrus who will rule over the Chaldeans in order that the Jews might return to Jerusalem.  That is why the Lord says to the Jews in verse 20, Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”  God will redeem His people from the hands of Nebuchadnezzar by the hand of Cyrus.  

Forfeiting the peace and the blessing of God is no small thing.  If God is for you, what difference does it make who might be against you?  But if God is against you . . . .  It would be helpful to know if there were some kind of preventative measures the people of Judah could have taken in order to avoid their 70 year road trip to Babylon.  Because we understand God is sovereign, I suppose we must say that it was inevitable that the Jews would eventually wind up as permanent tourists in a land far away.

But that is not what this text says.  Regardless of what we believe about God’s sovereignty, notice what this passage says:  Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!  Then your peace would have been like a river.  But now, they are reaping the consequences of their own irresponsibility.

• • Had the people of Judah paid attention to the Scriptures, 
• • had they listened to the prophets God sent to them, 
• • had they worshiped God as He prescribed for them to do, 
• • had they not indulged their insatiable appetite for all things idolatrous, 
• • had they obeyed the word of the Lord, 

Then they would have experienced the wondrous blessing of the peace of God.

But instead, because of their neglect, because they shrugged God off and chased after other religions and other “spiritual” experiences, and because they preferred fiction over the truth and exchanged the truth of God for a lie, God withheld His peace and His blessing from them.  Even worse, God punished them.  He was angry with them.  And if not for the sake of the integrity of His own name, He would have destroyed them completely.

But apparently God just didn’t realize the big-heartedness of the Jews.  They were simply trying to be ”progressive” and “multicultural” and “open minded” and “tolerant” of differing views of God.  “Surely there is more than one way to God!  Surely ALL the Gentiles can’t be wrong!  Why can’t we worship other gods in addition to Jehovah?”   

God says they were wicked.  They ignored the revelation of God by paying no attention to His commands, and that was their downfall.  What was their very first infraction of the Ten Commandments, the worshipping of a golden calf, continued to be the number one sin of preference.  In their wickedness, they preferred not to be so narrow minded as to limit themselves to 

• • one God and 
• • one revelation of Him and 
• • one means of worship and 
• • one priesthood and 
• • one holy book and 
• • one narrow understanding of God.  

“No, we want to be like the nations.  We want a king like the nations, and we want to worship like the nations.  We’re tired of being the odd man out.  We’re tired of being different from everybody else.  Everybody else has a god they can see, and bow down to, and carry into battle with them.  Everybody else is so cosmopolitan and we’re so backward.  We want to be like everybody else!  We want to be a part of the global community!”

Israel was not simply practicing their so-called God-given right to worship whatever they preferred.  God said they were wicked.  And that is exactly where the American church has been living for 100 years.  We’ve been replacing God and the Bible with anything and everything in the name of being liberal and progressive and accommodating in an attempt to make ourselves more acceptable to an unbelieving world that is at enmity with God.  And we’ve done it for so long that we’ve become like the nation of Israel, “the chosen people of God” who didn’t really believe in Him any more.

We’ve lived in a compromised Christian culture for so long that now, it is an insult to be called a Fundamentalist.  It is very un-cool to have doctrinal convictions.  It is extremely politically incorrect to suggest that people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ EXCLUSIVELY as the single means of salvation from sin are going to a real place of eternal torment called Hell.  And this kind of thinking has become unacceptable WITHIN the Evangelical community, WITHIN the church.

Because we have not paid attention to God’s commands, the American church culture has become wicked.  And we are far more culpable than Old Testament Israel was.  We have the complete revelation of God in the New Testament!  We know and understand things the Old Testament Jews never knew!  But thanks to people like Rick Warren, and Paul Young, and Brian McLaren, and the publishers that produce their heretical books by the millions for the sake of making a buck, MULTITUDES of Evangelicals are being led astray into “undiluted heresy”.

There’s not a whole lot we can do about much of what is going on in the visible church today.  We are not many, and we are not particularly influential.  But there is something we must do, regardless of who we may or may not influence.  The writer of the book of Hebrews put it this way: 

 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.  For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore [past tense] witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.  (Hebrews 2:1-4 ESV)

The nation of Israel was nearly destroyed and the tiny remnant was carried away as captives to Babylon BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T PAY ATTENTION to the word of God.

[18] Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness [would have been] like the waves of the sea;

 [19] your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants [would have been] like its grains;

their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

Regardless of what everybody else may be doing, what about you and me?  Are we really paying attention to God’s commandments?  Are we really concerned with what the Bible says?  Jesus said, 

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.  And he who loves me will be loved by my Father.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.  (John 14:21a-24a ESV)

Do we love the Lord Jesus?  He didn’t say, “Whoever likes Me” or “Whoever accepts Me.“  Do you love Him?  Or are we just going through the motions, hanging out in our little Christian circle, being part of a pseudo-Christian culture that is shrugging God off?  Thankfully, (or maybe I should say, “hopefully”) none of you here are attending Bible-less Bible studies, and reading books of fiction that are “better than the Bible”.  

But beloved, multitudes of people are.  People whom you know, who claim to be Evangelical, born-again, Bible-believing Christians.  Consequently, they are worshipping a god who isn’t the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Holy One of Israel.  We need to help them and warn them of the slippery slope of this “replacement theology” which we’re seeing happen right before our very eyes.  Warn them, and tell them God calls it wickedness.

 “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

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1. Jesus makes reference to "the church" in Matthew 18:17, long before Pentecost when the New Testament church presumably began, according to most Dispensationalists.  Therefore there was something commonly known as "the church" during the ministry of Jesus, and it is from this text that we get much of our current teaching regarding New Testament church discipline.  Jesus obviously included believing Jews in "the church" in Matthew 18. Later, the Apostle Paul would explain (Romans 11:13-35) how Gentile believers are "grafted in" to this original, pre-existing, Old Testament Jewish church which consisted of Jewish "Christians" like Abraham, Joshua, Caleb, Moses, and all the other OT saints mentioned in Hebrews 11.