Until the Fury Has Passed By - Isaiah 26

Turn with me please, to Isaiah chapter 26.  As most of you know, several of us attended the Together for the Gospel pastor’s conference two weeks ago in Kentucky.  One of the reasons for attending this conference was the free books that everyone receives.  One of those books was the ESV Study Bible.  Approximately seven thousand copies were given away.  The retail price of this Bible is $50.  You can do the math.

So was using my new Study Bible this week in preparation for today’s message, and I found in the notes that the chapters we’re studying today are sometimes described as apocalyptic.  When last we looked at the book of Isaiah, we covered several chapters which had a common theme that went something like this: “You’re all gonna die.”  But those oracles of Isaiah were directed toward the nations surrounding and including Judah: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and others.

However, today we read in these next chapters of the punishment of the world.  Isaiah has moved from the local judgments of God, to global judgment.  And you thought it couldn’t get any worse.  Let me quote from the study notes of the ESV Study Bible:

Isa. 24:1–27:13 Third Series of Oracles: The Final End.  The third and climactic vision of God ruling the nations in judgment and salvation.  While chs. 13–20 and 21–23 address particular nations, chs. 24–27 foresee the whole world in crisis at the end of history, but with the people of God wonderfully secured in their own city (cf. 24:4; 25:8; 26:19; 27:6).  These chapters are often called “apocalyptic,” since they depict the final conflict and God's victory in vivid images. 1

The word “apocalypse” usually catches people’s attention.  It is the Greek word for the title of the book of Revelation, and is normally associated with the end of the world.  It is the stuff of countless movies, the most recent one being 2012, which one movie reviewer described with these words, “Phenomenal!  2012 is the best disaster movie ever!“ 2  I’m not sure exactly how to take that.  I watched the trailer and I’m convinced I don’t want to see this movie.  Great special effects; Very scary.

Now if you are tempted to think all of that is just so much science fiction, I found a link to another website: www.hardenedstructures.com.  This is for real!  Here is a brief blurb from their site:

“Our . . . Engineering Methodology encompasses all aspects of blast hardening, blast effect mitigation, protective design technologies, advanced security and alternative energy systems.  We provide . . . specific designs addressing conventional weapons, forced entry, chemical, biological, radiological and explosive (CBRE) weapons, 2012 mitigations, Climate Change and any type of Apocalypse or World Ending Scenario.”

In other words, they build houses to survive the end of the world.  I don’t think what they mean by “World Ending Scenario,” is the same as what Isaiah means by his world-ending scenario.  However, there is a hardened structure in the book of Isaiah that will survive the Apocalypse.  Turn to Isaiah 26.

1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. 

2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. 

3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. 

4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. 

5 For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. 

6 The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”

7 The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous. 

8 In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you;

your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. 

9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. 

10 If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the Lord. 

11 O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let the fire for your adversaries consume them. 

12 O Lord, you will ordain peace for us; you have done for us all our works. 

13 O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance. 

14 They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them. 

15 But you have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

16 O Lord, in distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. 

17 Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord; 

18 we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. 

19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. 

21 For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

If you survive the destruction of the world, you have something to sing about!  Notice in verse 1 that this is a song of the survivors of God’s wrath against the world.  The song begins with “We have a strong city, and HE sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.”  The strong city set up by God is for the salvation of His own people from destruction.  This is the ultimate, eternal safe house, the everlasting sanctuary which God supplies for the righteous nation that keeps faith. (v2).

When Isaiah speaks of the righteous nation, is not talking about the United States.  The righteous nation that keeps faith is the Church, the people of God who have been made righteous through Christ, who persevere in faith to the very end.  He’s talking about those people described in verses 3 & 4:

3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. 

4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. 

Now notice that this peace is given to those whose mind is stayed upon God, who persevere in their trust in Him.  And this perfect peace is granted within the context of the destruction of the rest of the world.  Now that is serious peace!  Listen to what John Gill says here:

“[T]he word "perfect" is not in the Hebrew text, it is there "peace, peace"; which is doubled to denote the certainty of it, the enjoyment of it, and the constancy and continuance of it; and as expressive of all sorts of peace, which God grants unto his people . . . .” 3

This peace is a perfectly peaceful peace, so to speak.  A complete confidence in the saving power of God for His people.  This is a peace that comes from knowing God as one’s all-mighty Savior from anything that would bring His people harm.

The strong city (in verse 1) in which the faithful find refuge is strong because the walls and bulwarks are not made of stone and brick and mortar.  They consist of the promises of a faithful God.  The promise of salvation in the midst of destruction is the safety and peace in which God’s people dwell.  Therefore, Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. (v4)

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. (Pro 19:10 ESV)

Often, we sing these words: A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark, a protector, a shield, a defense that never fails!  David experienced that!  When God delivered David from King Saul and from all his enemies, listen to how David describes it:

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, 3 my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. 4 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. (2 Sam 22:2-4 ESV)

I know many of the things that trouble most of you.  They’re the same things that trouble me.  We pray together fairly regularly about many of those things in order to bear one another’s burdens and see God’s grace take us through times of trouble.  We’re troubled about our children, about our spouses, about our finances, about our health, about our friends and loved ones who don’t yet know the Lord Jesus.  We’re troubled about the economy, about jobs and car payments, about the government and oil spills and earthquakes and crazy world rulers with nuclear weapons.

So where do we turn in our times of trouble?  Should we go to the doctor and ask for tranquilizers for our bad nerves?  Where does the Christian (who by definition is someone who trusts God) go when the cares of this life seem to be unbearable?  Do we make an appointment with a therapist?  What do we do when our burdens become our worst enemy?  Just drink them and smoke them away?  Do we disengage from the world and ignore all our problems in the hopes that they will all just go away?

The Lord is the One in whom the believer takes refuge.  God is a stronghold for us against those people who would do us harm, and against those trials that would ruin us.  So we run to the strong tower, the Lord Jesus, who is mighty to save not only from sin, but even from the effects of sin that are so often against us, from the weightiness of living in a fallen and evil world.

I do not want to minimize anyone’s suffering.  I understand suffering to some degree.  I understand your suffering to some degree.  However, . . . all of our troubles combined, and then multiplied by a thousand, cannot compare to the trouble we read of in these apocalyptic chapters of Isaiah.  This is as bad as it gets.  For example:

24:1 Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,

and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. 

3 The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the Lord has spoken this word.

4 The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.

19 The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. 

20 The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut;

its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.

26:14 They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them. 

The earth is empty, the earth withers.  The earth staggers.  The earth is visited by God with destruction.  And it is in this context of global judgment that Isaiah says to God’s people perfect peace may be had when our trust and confidence is stayed upon God and His promises.  

We’re not talking about some superficial peace like you see in the movies.  Some guy is speaking to his child or his spouse or his lover in the midst of a worldwide catastrophe and he says, “Everything is going to be alright!  I promise!  I know things look bleak.  The world has been invaded by Martians and all the people in the world have been eaten by aliens, and you and I are the last two people alive on the planet.  But I promise you, everything is going to be alright!”

That’s not a lot of help.  Isaiah is not talking here about allaying fears by giving false hope in the midst of certain destruction.  On the contrary, Isaiah is saying there is real and genuine and supernatural peace to be had even in the midst of unimaginable doom: the wrath of God upon an unrepentant planet.  In the midst of Armageddon, in the midst of the Apocalypse, God Himself has promised to care for His own.  

That promise of unwavering love and care for His children is, sometimes, all we have to keep us at peace.  But it is also all we need.  That peace is ours as we keep our minds stayed upon Him, even if the world is destroyed around us.

1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 

2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, 

3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. 

6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 

7 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah. (Psalm 46:1-7 ESV)

Now notice Isaiah 26, verse 8:

8 In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you;

your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. 

9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. 

We know there is a day coming in which God’s judgments will be in all the earth.  It hasn’t come yet.  But it is coming.  So, in the path of God’s judgments, we wait for Him.  That is why Isaiah says again and again and again throughout his book, “In that day . . . ”.  In that day, God will punish the nations.  In that day, God will bring His wrath to bear.  In that day, the Lord will bring an end to this world and all the evil in it.

This is what it means to have faith in God.  We look to “that day”, we wait for that promised future day, when the culmination of every promise God has ever made takes place.  Perhaps the greatest promise is of that great and awful day when this world is no more, all the enemies of the Lord Jesus are gone, and we become the heirs of a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells.

So we wait.  And we trust.  And our souls yearn for God to come and make right everything that has been made wrong.  We look forward, as Isaiah did, to the final fulfillment of verse 12:

12 O Lord, you will ordain peace for us; you have done for us all our works.

One of the fundmental truths of Protestant Reformed theology is this: We are saved by works.  We just aren’t saved by our own works.  We’re saved by the works of our Substitute.  He has done for us all we are required to do, but cannot do.  Consequently, God has ordained from eternity past, that all who trust in Him to the end, will be the recipients of eternal perfect peace, eternal fullness of joy, eternal deliverance from death, eternal remission of sin, and eternal life.  

The gospel of salvation by grace is right here in this Old Testament verse, Isaiah 26:12.  God Himself has done for us everything required of us to secure our everlasting rest.  And that promise is made, once again, in the midst of a text that speaks of the judgment of the entire world.

So we wait, we trust in the promises of God, and we are at peace.  And the peace that comes from persevering faith in God is a peace that not even death can extinguish.  Not even death can overthrow this solitude of the soul which God grants to those who trust Him.  Look at verse 19:

19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. 

“Your dead . . . .“  Those who belong to God, though they die, yet shall they live.  At the final resurrection, the dead who died in Christ will rise, will awake, and will sing for joy!  We will come out of the ground singing!  Because Christ has won the victory over death and the grave, not only do we have no need to fear death, but when we rise from the dead at the Lord’s return, we rise with a song on our new, incorruptible, immortal lips.

14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first [singing!]. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 ESV)

Finally, look with me at verses 20 and 21:

20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. 

21 For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

-  When God destroyed the entire world in Genesis 7, Noah was not taken out of the world.  He was kept safe in the midst of the destruction and came through the flood.  

-  In Exodus 12 when God destroyed Egypt with the ten plagues, and the Angel of Death passed through the land and killed all the firstborn, God did not take His people out of Egypt but kept them from death because He made provision for them.

-  In 2 Chronicles 36, when God brought Babylon against Jerusalem and destroyed the city, burned the temple to the ground, and killed all the inhabitants that refused to repent and worship Jehovah alone, He did not first remove the remnant of the people He preserved, but kept them in the midst of the destruction and delivered them afterwards.

-  In the book of Daniel, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, they were not delivered from the fire, but protected in the fire and were taken safely through it.  The Lord Jesus Christ was with them in the midst of the fire.

Notice what Isaiah says here: The day is coming when the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.  There is coming a day of reckoning, a day of judgment.  It is described here as the day of God’s fury.  Some synonyms for fury are “lividity”, “rage”, “ferocity”.  I can hardly imagine what the fury and rage and ferocious anger of God against sin must be like.  But notice the invitation given in verse 20:

Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.

“Come MY people.  Hide yourselves for a little while.  Soon, My fury will be done.”  God invites His people to stay their minds upon Himself in order that even in the midst of His raging fury against all His enemies on that dreadful future day, His own people might have complete, total, perfect peace.

I don’t know what kinds of things trouble all of you, but if there is a peace of soul that may be had in that final day of judgment, certainly there is a peace to be had in our sufferings now.  So trust in the Lord, and if need be, hide yourself for a little while, because this too shall pass.  

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:1&7 ESV)

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1. English Standard Version Study Bible, p. 1281.

2. http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/

3. Gill, John. "Commentary on Isaiah 26:3". "The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible". <http://www.studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?book=isa&chapter=026&verse=003>. 1999.