Copyright Mike Sullivan, 2018.
This study is part of a ten-week teaching series on Isaiah given at Xenos Christian Fellowship in 2017 and 2018.
This morning we're going to talk about everyone's favorite topic, God's judgment!!
I was torn about covering this. But you can't do the book of Isaiah justice if you avoid this topic. So we won't. Today we'll devote our entire time together to studying a section of Isaiah that focuses on God's judgment.
The specific kind of judgment we'll spend most of our time talking about is temporal judgment. Temporal judgment is when God allows and sometimes introduces negative consequences into the lives of sinful people (often in Isaiah, sinful nations). This involves things like military defeat, drought, famine, disease, and so on.
We use the term temporal to emphasize that these judgments happen in this world. Not in the next life, but in this life, in history, here on earth.
We see examples of God's temporal judgment in the very first chapter of Isaiah, and judgment passages are scattered throughout the book. When you arrive at chapter 13, though, mention of judgment becomes more frequent and intense. In chapter 13, Isaiah predicts God will judge the nation of Babylon (13:19-14:23). Then he predicts the judgment of Assyria (14:24-27), Philistia (14:28-32), Moab (15:1-16:14), Syria & Ephraim (17:1-11), Cush (18:1-7), Egypt (19:1-20:6), Dumah and Arabia (21:1-22:14), and Tyre (23:1-18).
As you move through these chapters, God turns his wrath toward different nations like a rotating tank turret, blowing them away because of their sin. And then, in chapter 24, his judgment explodes into a judgment of the entire world (24:1-23).
The first nine judgments listed above have already occurred. That's why, for example, there is no country of Moab today. But God's judgment of the entire world is yet future. Let's read about it...
24:1 Behold, the LORD lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. 2 And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. 3 The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken this word. 4 The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away.
If you read the rest of chapter 24, it's clear that Isaiah is describing a global judgmenti, not just something pertaining to the nation of Judah. And it's clear it happens at the very end of historyii. It is still in the future.
When people read this, some say, "well, that's the God of the Old Testament. He is a God of wrath. The God of the New Testament is more loving and would never act like that." But the truth is, the New Testament describes God in the exact same way. It teaches that one day God will judge the entire world.
2 Thessalonians 1:7 "...when the Lord Jesus appears... he will come with his mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don't know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus."
From cover to cover, the consistent testimony of Scripture is that judgment is coming.
In fact, no book in the Bible talks more about this final period of temporal judgment than the New Testament book of Revelation. It provides more detail than Isaiah about what God's judgments will be like and who will be affected.
Do we have to talk about this?
So... if you're new to our church, welcome to your first week at Xenos! You may be wondering, is this what they teach every week? It's not. But judgment does come up from time to time. We typically pick a Bible book and teach straight through it. When judgment comes up, we talk about it.
I get the fact that this is an unpopular topic. You typically see this kind of verse on a refrigerator magnet [show magnet with "be still and know that I am God" on it]. These are the kinds of verses we want to think about. But you never see magnets like this: [show magnet with "Jesus will come in flaming fire bringing judgment on those who don't know God"].
People don't want to read or think about judgment. And I'm not just talking about people who have no use for Christianity. Christians avoid the topic of judgment. And not just Christians, but people like me who teach the Bible on the weekends. You could attend church for a long, long time and never hear about the topic of judgment. J. I. Packer correctly points out,
"To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the church mumbles on about God's kindness, but says virtually nothing about his judgment." – J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 148.
That's true, but Jesus took a different approach...
Unlike many Christians today, Jesus didn't shy away from talking about judgment. He had no inhibitions about it. Likewise, the authors of the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, routinely wrote about God's wrath, his anger, against human sin. And Isaiah is no exception.
We may have inhibitions about God's judgment, but Isaiah doesn't. So, we're going to see what he has to say. Like I said, we wouldn't be doing justice to Isaiah's message if we skipped over all the judgment passages.
We don't have time to cover everything that Isaiah says about this topic, but we will look at one of the strongest sections on judgment in the entire book—chapters 24-26—and as we do, we will make observations about judgment, respond to objections to judgment, and consider how we should talk about judgment.
Observations about judgment
Let's look at the beginning of chapter 24 more carefully along with a few other passages in Isaiah to try to round out our understanding of God's judgment.
Not arbitrary
If you're raising a two-year old, you know how unpredictable they can be. One minute they're an angel. The next minute they're smearing poop on the wall or throwing toys across the room. You never know what to expect.
God isn't that way. God doesn't rage around, out of control. When he moves in judgment, he does so for clear, predictable reasons.
24:5 The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.
According to this, people break God's laws and therefore he judges. There is a right way to live—there are moral laws—and we frequently violate them. When we do, it stirs God's sense of justice and he judges.
The laws Isaiah mentions here aren't just the laws that God gave the Jews, but moral laws known all over the world. Speaking of all people, Paul says,
Romans 2:15 They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.
We all have a running dialog in our hearts giving us feedback about what we are doing because God has stamped his law on every human heart.
E.g., Feeling bad about punching someone.
When you do something wrong, your conscience is stirred. But it doesn't stop there. God is also stirred—stirred to move in judgment. If that irks you, just realize God can't look the other way and ignore what you have done. His sense of justice demands that some kind of action be taken.
E.g., If someone broke into your house, tied you up, and took everything you had, you'd want justice. You wouldn't be happy to find out the judge gave the thief ten days of community service. You'd want the sentence to fit the crime.
Our built-in sense of justice demands that wrongdoers be held accountable. God operates the same way. He sees sin and insists that something be done.
Isaiah 3:14 The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people... "The plunder of the poor is in your houses. 15 What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the face of the poor?"
Is God supposed to just look the other way and act like nothing is going on? God won't do that. God won't give activity like that tacit approval by sitting on his hands and doing nothing. God will act. God will judge. And when he does, it won't be random. It will be because his moral law has been broken. His judgment is a consistent, predictable, and well-deserved response to human sin.
Not biased
Another observation about judgment that comes from the beginning of chapter 24 is that God's judgment isn't biased. He doesn't play favorites. His judgment affects everyone the same way.
24:2 "...the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor."
Human judges might be arbitrary in the way they hand out sentences, and, if the price is right, they might look the other way and let someone off the hook. But God never operates that way. He can't be bribed. Everyone is treated the same. All are culpable before God of violating his law. Being beautiful or wealthy or well-known or relatively moral compared to other people doesn't matter. God's predictable justice applies to each of them.
Often self-inflicted
Because God is sovereign, because he is in charge, all of the judgments we read about in Isaiah are ultimately God's judgments. But most of them are what we would call passive judgment. That means they result from the sinful choices of wicked humans. Sometimes God does directly intervene and bring judgment, but more often his judgments involve humans bringing suffering on themselves.
In God's judgment of the world at the end of history, this is definitely the case. Notice how Isaiah says,
24:1 "the Lord will lay the earth waste and devastate it."
God is clearly involved in these judgments, but what brings the devastation about? Look at vs. 5 & 6 again...
24:5 "...the earth is polluted by the sin of its inhabitants... 6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth."
Isaiah sees a connection between the curse devouring the earth and humanity's rebellion against God. The earth we live in today is polluted, literally and figuratively, by human sin. Our modern world suffers in many ways from the devastating consequences of our rebellion against God. Warfare, sexual exploitation, economic injustice, abuse of the environment we were meant to care for—these and other sins are already a huge source of suffering across the world. At the end of history, all of this will be worse—so much worse that when the time comes for God to judge the world, he won't need to destroy us, we'll already be doing a good job of that ourselves! In fact, Jesus predicts that unless he returns and intervenes during the final phase of history, no life will be saved:
Matthew 24:21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive...
So when, at the end of history, we find the world is at war, and people are starving and disease is spreading—all like the Bible describes—it will be God's judgment, but it will also be judgment humanity has chosen for itself, through our own selfish actions.
Once set in motion it is inescapable
This final judgment isn't upon us yet, but when it comes, Isaiah says it will be inescapable. Further down in chapter 24, Isaiah says...
Isaiah 24:17 Terror and pit and snare confront you, O inhabitant of the earth. 18 Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare...
Picture that in your mind. A man escapes from a pit only to be caught in a trap. The point is, try as he might, he can't escape. Other passages in Isaiah give the same impression. God's judgment is a flood, a storm—once it arrives it brings overwhelming destruction that can't be avoided.
Summary
Judgment is not arbitrary, it is not biased. It is often self-inflicted, and once set in motion, it is inescapable.
All this has a clear implication: now is the time to find a way to avoid judgment! Once God's judgment has begun, it will be too late.
I was talking to a high school student about this topic a few years ago. He had been attending our Bible study for a few months, he was getting to know people, and he was really drawn to Christ. But he wasn't ready to become a Christian. He explained, "I believe all this is true, but if I decide to become a Christian, I won't have much fun in college. I'm going to get my degree first and become a Christian after that."
What would you say to someone like that? After assuring him it's enjoyable and fulfilling to follow Christ at any age, I asked how he could be sure he would be alive after college. The truth is, we don't know what the next year or next month or next day holds. We don't know when God's time of judgment is coming or whether we will live to see tomorrow.
What we know now is that God has provided a clear way of escape. In chapter 26, Isaiah says...
26:3 "The steadfast of mind you will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, for in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock."
Isaiah gives us a general guideline here for how to approach God: trust him; put yourself in his care. That means, as we face the prospect of judgment, we should turn to God for a way out. You can't rescue yourself, but God is willing and able to do it. Paul explains how:
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!
This verse says the blood of Christ can shield you from God's wrath and judgment. There's no mention here of finding protection in keeping God's law. And there's nothing here about avoiding judgment by going to church every week. Protection from judgment comes only through the blood of Christ.
The blood of Christ points to how Jesus suffered when he was on the cross. When he was crucified, he took the judgment that you and I deserve—God's wrath/anger toward our sin—onto himself. Because of what he did for us, Christ can shelter you from the wrath of God like a heat shield protects a space capsule re-entering the earth's atmosphere. But you must call out to Christ, ask him to forgive you, and ask that his blood, his death on your behalf, protect you from judgment.
Objections to judgment
I admit, our description of judgment so far is pretty rough. The author C. S. Lewis comments on how off-putting this topic is to many people:
"Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all things, a common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalized spirituality to which we can all flow, and you will command a friendly interest. But the temperature drops as soon as you mention a God who has purposes and performs particular actions, who does one thing and not another, a concrete, choosing, commanding, prohibiting God with a determinate character." – C. S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven (New York, New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1984) p. 18.
The notion that God has opinions about how we live is offensive enough. But the idea that God might judge us for ways we have violated his law—for some people that's just flat-out unacceptable. I've heard more than one person say, "I refuse to believe in a God who judges." They ask, "How could a good God ever judge?"
Well, Isaiah has a completely different take on things. He does believe in a God who judges. And he cites God's judgment as one of many reasons why he is good and worthy of praise.
25:1 O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name... 2 For You have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin; a palace of strangers is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt.
Isaiah is exalting God and giving thanks to him. Why? The text says, "For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin..." Isaiah praises God because of his judgment!
How can Isaiah speak so positively about something that seems so negative? Here in this passage, and in other parts of Isaiah, Isaiah gives us two reasons why God's judgment is good and necessary. The first is that...
God's judgment can draw people back to himself.
People often see temporal judgment as simply God venting his anger, kind of the way I felt last summer when I saw rabbits in my back yard eating my black raspberries! I wanted to grab a pellet gun and reign down some temporal judgment on them right then and there!
But if you read passages on judgment carefully, you see God has certain goals in mind. In Isaiah, and all over the Bible, God often uses judgment to draw people back to himself.
Look at what Isaiah says about Israel:
Isaiah 9:11 Therefore the LORD raises against [Israel] adversaries from Rezin and spurs their enemies on, 12 The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west; and they devour Israel with gaping jaws... 13 Yet the people do not turn back to Him who struck them, nor do they seek the LORD of hosts.
God is allowing Israel to suffer military defeat because of their sin. And yet, the people of Israel do not turn back to him. What does that imply? God is hoping that losses on the battlefield will move his people to abandon their evil ways and return to him. This is a disciplinary use of judgment—God is allowing these calamities to get Israel's attention. And this disciplinary use of judgment isn't limited to the people of God. Look at what Isaiah says about Egypt.
Isaiah 19:22 The LORD will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so they will return to the LORD, and He will respond to them and will heal them.
Clearly God isn't just being punitive. He strikes Egypt hoping they will wake up and turn to him.
We have all been in a situation when someone simply isn't going to listen. Sometimes temporal judgment is the only way God can get our attention.
Here's a second reason why God's judgment is worthy of praise...
God's judgment upholds justice
After explaining how God moves in judgment, Isaiah says...
Isaiah 25:4 For You [God] have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress...
What is Isaiah saying? God, in your very act of judgment, you are defending the helpless—you are protecting needy people who are being mistreated. When we think about judgment, we tend to focus on how people being judged suffer. But that's not the full picture. When an oppressor faces God's temporal judgment, the people they oppress are set free. Justice is served. Victims are protected.
E.g., My first grade teacher was truly mean. Once she lifted me off the ground by my ears. She smacked students. No joke. When word got out about her behavior, the school administration judged that she was unfit to teach and removed her. They did it to protect us. Job loss must have been hard for her, but we were set free from her tyranny!
Isaiah says that God's judgment plays a similar role. Starting again in v. 4, Isaiah says...
Isaiah 25:4 For You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a rain storm against a wall.
Ruthless people pound on the innocent like rain pounds down in a torrential downpour. Their oppression is relentless. The prophet Amos describes how ruthless people pant after the very dust on the heads of the poor. They are rapacious. Always taking, taking, taking. And when God sees this, he will act. Isaiah says...
Isaiah 25:5 Like heat in drought, you subdue the uproar of aliens; like heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the ruthless is silenced."
The ruthless can't be ruthless anymore because God has shut them down.
So, God's judgment is more than an action he takes against sinful people. Through his judgment, he upholds justice and defends the cause of the defenseless.
Miroslav Volf is a theologian from Croatia who has, in the past, wrestled with the notion of God's judgment. In this quote he shares how he came to appreciate the need for judgment as he witnessed atrocities against his people during the Croatian war for independence in the 90's. He writes,
"I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn't God love? Shouldn't divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That's exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love." – Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 138-139.
Think about how angry you get when someone you love is being mistreated. God has similar feelings. He cares about justice because he cares about people. His wrath and temporal judgment are founded in his love. That's a second reason why God's judgment is good and worthy of praise.
Summary
So, how can a good God judge? We have two solid answers:
God judges to draw people back to himself.
God judges to uphold justice.
Now, let me give you a question to ponder. How could a good God NOT judge?
What would it say about God if his policy was to just look away and act like nothing is wrong?
"Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hitlers and Stalins… and His own saints, be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection. But to not judge the world would be to show moral indifference." – J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 143.
I'm not excited by the idea of judgment, but if God didn't judge, I'd have some serious concerns about how good he was.
How should Christians talk about judgment?
I know many of us have heard Christians make heartless statements about God's judgment. When I was a student at Ohio State, I used to cringe as campus preachers launched their mean-spirited tirades about God judging evil sinners.
The judgment they spoke of was a reality, but they showed no compassion or concern for the people they yelled at. I saw no evidence of empathy for people who were far from God.
One reaction to all this would be to avoid talking about judgment altogether. But we can't do that and remain faithful to the Bible. J. I. Packer points out,
"No doubt there have been some who have preached of wrath and damnation with tearless eyes and no pain in their hearts... Yet if we would know God, it is vital that we face the truth concerning his wrath, however unfashionable it may be, and however strong our initial prejudices against it. Otherwise we shall not understand the gospel of salvation from wrath, nor... the cross, nor the wonder of the redeeming love of God." – J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 156.
If we are faithful to the Bible, we will talk about judgment. But how should we do it? Here are a few points to keep in mind:
Emphasize that God doesn't delight in judgment.
It is clear that temporal judgment is coming. Not just in the past, but in the future as well. That's the whole point of Isaiah 24-26. But God isn't rubbing his hands, eagerly anticipating the opportunity to judge.
Ezekiel 18:23 "Do you think that I like to see wicked people die?" says the Sovereign LORD. "Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live."
Any parent who has ever watched their kids make choices that endanger their lives can relate to this. God knows each of us. He loves us. The idea of moving in judgment against someone is heartbreaking to God, and this comes out in the ministry of Isaiah.
One night when Isaiah was walking through the city of Jerusalem, God gave him a vision—a glimpse into the future. Isaiah saw Jerusalem being destroyed by an invading army because her people had rejected their God. Look at how Isaiah responds to the vision...
Isaiah 22:2 You who were full of noise, you boisterous town, you exultant city... 3 All your rulers have fled together, and have been captured without the bow; all of you who were found were taken captive together, though they had fled far away. 4 Therefore I say, "turn your eyes away from me, let me weep bitterly, do not try to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people."
If you've ever tried to comfort someone when they are weeping and they've waved you off so they can be alone in their grief, that's what Isaiah is doing here. He wants to be alone because he is so heartbroken about what his people will choose for themselves. And what we see in Isaiah's heart reflects the heart of God. God does not delight in judgment.
Instead of rushing eagerly to judge, God prefers to wait. That's a repeated emphasis in scripture (e.g. Gen. 15:16). Why does he wait? Because he wants to give people a chance to turn to him.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
By holding off on judgment now, God gives people time to respond to his call to come to him and be forgiven.
Some of you have sensed God tugging on your heart for a long time to come to him. That's not just a feeling. That's God trying to get your attention! God will judge. His justice demands it. And that's coming in the future. But he doesn't want you to perish, so he is waiting and urging you through his Spirit to respond now.
Don't avoid the topic.
If you are disturbed by judgment, that's a good thing. Judgment should disturb you because it disturbs God. In Isaiah 28, God calls it his strange work. But as disturbing as it is, people need to know about it.
E.g., A few weeks after I first came to our church, I attended a weekend retreat. After one of the teachings, I went up to talk to the teacher. He asked me what I thought of the retreat. I said, "this is a great group of people. I'm having fun here, etc." Maybe he sensed I was flippant... I'm not sure what got into him. But he cited Romans 5:10 and said, "you know, you're an enemy of God until you are reconciled to him through the death of his son." I am not recommending his approach, but I couldn't stop thinking about what he said. He probably thought if I didn't see that sin is offensive to God and deserving of judgment, I would never see my need for forgiveness.
In Romans 1, Paul insists "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (1:18), and in Romans 3, he underscores the severity of the problem by saying "we are all under sin" (3:9), "there is no one righteous, not even one" (3,9), and "the whole world" is "held accountable to God" (3:19).
That's a lot of bad news, but it is an essential part of what we need to share. How can people seek refuge from judgment if they don't know it's coming? We aren't fully giving the Christian message, the gospel, if we're just talking about how to be saved. People also need to understand what they are being saved from.
During his ministry, Jesus talked about both salvation and judgment. He affirmed the reality of judgment even as he explained how to escape it.
John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Now, I have to pause here to talk about something that I haven't mentioned yet—eternal judgment. The judgment Jesus says we can escape in John 5:24 is not temporal judgment in this life, but eternal judgment in the next life—eternal separation from God, what Jesus calls hell.
After Jesus returns, and after he sets up his kingdom, he will raise people to come before him to a final judgment, and it won't be disciplinary to draw us back to him. It'll be too late for that. Instead, people who are still in rebellion against God will experience a permanent and irreversible state of separation from God: eternal judgment. Jesus used many word pictures to describe what eternal judgment is like. He compared hell to...
...a valley outside of Jerusalem where they burned trash (Matthew 5:22).
...being thrown into the outer darkness (Matthew 8:12).
...a place where the worm never dies (Mark 9:43-48).
Clearly these aren't meant to be literal—where there is fire and burning, there is no darkness. They are instead figurative descriptions of a literal reality that everyone should want to avoid.
You might wonder, how could God be so heartless as to consign people to a terrible place like that? But that's not how it works. You have to realize, this isn't something God chooses for us, it's what we choose for ourselves.
John 3:19 "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
I hope you're convinced from what we've looked at that God wants people to avoid this final state of judgment. That's why he sent prophets like Isaiah to preach to his people. That's often why he moves in temporal judgment to get people's attention. And it's why he sent his own son to die for us on the cross.
God is ready to save anyone who will admit their sin and turn to him to be forgiven. But he is also ready to respect human choice, even if it leads to this terrible outcome.
If someone does wind up spending eternity apart from God, it won't be because God put them there. God will simply be ratifying the judgment they have already passed on themselves by turning away from him.
I urge you to trust Christ instead. Let him be your refuge from judgment!
Emphasize looking to Christ for salvation.
After God judges the earth at the end of history, Jesus will come and reign as king. And when he does, he will have a feast with those who have found refuge from judgment through Christ. Isaiah says....
25:6 The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and [he says it again] refined, aged wine.
Maybe you were brought up in a church where you weren't supposed to drink a drop of alcohol. I'm not sure what they would say about this verse. This isn't aged grape juice. They are drinking real wine at this banquet!
At this feast, there will also be all kinds of tasty food—choice pieces of meat on the bone, but look at what the host plans to eat...
25:7 And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. 8a He will swallow up death for all time...
One day, God will swallow up death. Death, the ultimate outcome of judgment, will be banished forever. How cool will that be!
25:8b And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken. 9 And it will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation."
That sounds like a great celebration—the kind of feast I'd like to be a part of!! And I'm sure some would ask, "if the feast is so great, why can't God abandon judgment and just invite everyone to attend? Why must some be excluded?"
Well, think about it, would this truly be a joyous occasion if everyone was allowed to come?
God will forgive anyone who turns to Christ and asks for mercy. But what if some people at this feast refuse to acknowledge their sin? What if they intend to continue hurting people? Wouldn't we be holding this celebration hostage to evil?
Commenting on the notion that this feast would be open to everyone, Miroslav Volf points out...
"'Absolute hospitality becomes difficult when the unrepentant perpetrators sit down with their unhealed, violated victims. Such a perverse view of hospitality would actually 'enthrone violence because it would leave the violators unchanged and the consequences of violence unremedied." – Volf, p. 201.
Thank God that's not how it will be! Sin won't be on the throne, God will. That's what will make this feast so awesome!
Notice lastly and carefully what Isaiah says about the people who are at the feast. This is the most important thing to communicate when we talk about God's judgment. Are these people the ones who were sinless in their past life? No way. No one earns a seat at this table! He simply says they are the ones who were "waiting on God that he might save us."
When the topic of judgment comes up, this is what we need to emphasize: wait on God to save you. Look to God to protect you from judgment. Call out to Christ alone. He endured judgment so you don't have to!
i See "on the earth and among the nations" in 24:13.
ii See "it falls, never to rise again" in 24:20. We haven't seen anything happen on a global scale like Isaiah describes here.