Text: Isaiah 30:18-33
If I were going to give today’s teaching a title, it would be, “He Longs To Be Gracious.” All that stands in the way is rebellion against Him. When we cry out in repentance, He will be gracious!
He longs to be gracious to Judah, if they will repent. He longs to be gracious to all believers, if they will repent. He is waiting to hear your cry! So, for both Judah and believers, I will use the pronoun “you!”
Verse 18 —
Isaiah says of the LORD, Therefore — that is, because it is in repentance and rest (sticking to the Lord like glue) that you will be saved — He longs (adhering to) to be gracious to you (to stoop down, to have pity upon, to show mercy)! It is His great desire to adhere to you, and for you to adhere to Him! How blessed are you, if you do it!
When you repent from the heart because you see the condition of your heart and mourn over it, He will adhere you to Him! He will pierce your ear, like the master who pierces the ear of his bondservant whose debt is paid, but when offered freedom, he chooses to continue to serve his master because he loves his master (Exodus 21:5ff)! Oh, do you love your Master like that, beloved? He has paid your debt of sin. Will you now serve Him, out of love?
Therefore (because it is in repentance and rest that you will be saved), He sits on high (He is exalted, He is above you). He is waiting to have compassion on you, to show His mercy to you.
Why does the LORD forgive those who repent and stick to Him like glue? Because He is a GOD of justice. He comes to a proper verdict in all whom He judges. He will show mercy to you because you have repented from the heart.
Do you remember from our last session? In repentance and rest you will be saved (Verse 15)! Oh, enter His rest! It is a rest from your work of trying to make yourself good. Instead, ask Him to make you good on the inside!
It is the sabbath rest of the infilling of the Spirit (Hebrews 4:9), a rest in which you rest from your works and ask Him to work in you, and then through you! It is so very different from the natural sabbath day that the New Testament believers coined a new word to describe it — sabbatismos!
Verse 19 —
O people in Zion, inhabitant of Jerusalem, O believer, you will weep no longer! Why? At the sound of your cry, the Lord will surely be gracious (mercifully stoop down) to you. When He hears it, He will answer you.
He waits to hear a cry of true repentance, a cry of repentance from the heart, from you! Then He will mercifully stoop down to you!
Will you cry out, from the depths of your being? To cry out in true repentance means you fully understand that you have defied the Lord and rebelled against Him. And you are deeply grieved by your actions toward the One who is on high, the Lord your God!
Repentance happens when you see your spiritual poverty (Matthew 5:3) and mourn (Matthew 5:4). Blessed are you if you see it and mourn, for yours is the kingdom of heaven, and He will fill you with the Comforter, His Holy Spirit!
Verses 20-21 —
The LORD has fed you the bread of privation (distress) and given you the water of oppression (prolonged, cruel treatment). You have been distressed, you have been cruelly abused by Satan. The Lord has allowed him to sift you, so you will repent (Luke 21:13)!
The Lord has shown me that Isaiah 30:18-26 points to what happens when a believer is filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus says —
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”
And then your Teacher will be permanently in you —
John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”
He has allowed Satan to buffet you. But when He hears your cry of repentance, He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself from you, but your eyes will behold your Teacher! You will see Him clearly!
What will happen when He teaches you? You will hear Him clearly, and obey Him because your rebellious sin nature will be crucified! Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or the left (see Deuteronomy 28:14, Joshua 23:6ff).
O, humble yourself before the Lord. beloved —
1Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time . . .
Psalms 25:9 He leads the humble in justice, and He teaches the humble His way.
You will become the Amen to the Yes of the promise of His Spirit, (2Corinthians 1:20, Acts 1:4-5), when you cry out in repentance! May you see your spiritual poverty, through these words He has asked me to speak!
Verse 22 —
And you will do acts in keeping with repentance. You will defile the graven images overlaid with silver, your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing (a menstrual cloth), and say to them, “Be gone!”
What is the god that you will cast away as if it were a menstrual cloth? The god of Self, whose root is the sin nature. You have worshiped you.
But when you have repented from the depths of your being and are filled with the Holy Spirit, the god of Self will be cast away, for you will no longer have a sin nature! Instead, you will become a partaker of the Lord’s divine nature (2Peter 1:4)!
Verses 23-24 —
You have sought natural blessings from the Lord, but He is not pleased, for you ask out of your own desires, your own lusts for earthly things. But He is pleased, indeed, when you ask for the spiritual blessing of the infilling of His Holy Spirit! It is a heavenly thing, indeed, by which you will store up for yourselves not earthly treasures, but treasures in heaven! Jesus says —
Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal . . .”
Isaiah describes natural blessing when he prophesies that when Judah repents, the LORD will give them rain for the seed which they will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous. On that day, their livestock will graze in a roomy pasture (wide space).
But the Lord will do far more for you, O believer, now that He has come and died and risen and ascended and is glorified at the right hand of the Father! He will make you spiritually prosperous — a witness of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8), walking as He walked and being as He is (1John 2:6, 4:17)!
Will He do it? I know He will, for He has done it in me! When will it happen? When you see your spiritual poverty, mourn over it, repent from your heart, and ask Him to fill you with Himself!
Then you will go to work in His harvest fields, where the grain heads have matured and turned white for harvest (John 4:35). He will lead you into a wide space (Psalm 119:45), where you are free from slavery to sin (John 8:31-36). And you will produce much for the kingdom of heaven!
Isaiah describes beasts of burden — oxen and donkeys — who are given the very best food, even salted fodder, which is the most nourishing for them. Again, he is describing natural blessings.
But you who carry the gospel on beautiful feet (Isaiah 52:7) will give the very best nourishment to those you encounter, food that is pure and carefully prepared — the gospel! You will be the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13).
Verse 25 —
Remember Peter’s exhortation that if you humble yourself before the Lord, He will lift you up? When He lifts you up, you will be like a lofty mountain, like a high hill!
And from your belly will flow rushing, flood-stage rivers of living water (John 7:37-39)! When will it happen? In the day of the great slaughter of your prideful sin nature and the collapse of the tower of your pride.
Verse 26 —
Instead of the darkness of your despair, His light will be in you! The moon is the lesser light, and the sun is the greater light (Genesis 1:16). But when you are filled with His light, you, the moon, will shine as brightly as the sun. And Jesus Christ, the Son, will shine seven times brighter than you!
When will it happen? On the day that the Lord heals your fracture (brokenness). Brokenness always results from sin. When you repent, He will heal you of your sin by crucifying your sin nature! And He will heal the bruise He has inflicted upon you in order to humble you so you repent and ask Him to fill you with His Spirit! He has brought you low so that you will look up!
Verses 27-28 —
Isaiah gives us a vivid picture of the coming of the name of the Lord. Judgment is part of His character (His name). Therefore, when His name comes, His judgment comes! Burning is His anger, and dense is His smoke! It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31)!
His lips are filled with words of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire! It is an echo of Isaiah 29:6, when He says the enemies of His people will be punished with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire.
He will come in like a flood, an overflowing torrent. His judgment will reach to the neck of the enemies of His people. What will happen to His people and the people of the earth who have defied Him and rebelled against Him? He will shake them back and forth in a sieve —
Hebrews 12:26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.” (See Haggai 2:7.) 27 This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
And He will put in the jaws of those who have rebelled and defied Him a bridle that leads them to ruin. They will be led down the broad path that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13)!
Verse 29 —
And you will have songs as in the night — in the same way that songs are heard during the feasts of Israel. You will sing as you view the destruction of the sin nature in you which was manipulated by the enemy of your soul, Satan!
And you will be filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1Peter 1:8), and rejoice and go forth to the sound of a flute (the heavenly kind), as you ascend to meet with Him, by His Spirit. Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? King David tells us —
Psalm 24:3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity (evil, idolatry), nor sworn deceitfully.
O beloved, you will have clean hands (pure works) and a pure heart, when you are filled with Him!
Verse 30 —
Isaiah appears to speak of Assyria’s demise, in the natural. But Assyria is a type of Satan, and this clearly speaks of Satan’s demise in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).
The LORD will cause His voice of authority (excellent, majestic voice) to be heard, and He will cause everyone to see the descending of His arm (His power), in fierce anger and in the flame of a consuming fire, with cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones!
Verses 31-32 —
And at the voice of the LORD, Satan will be terrified. He will be struck with the rod of God!
Every blow of the rod of the punishment of Satan which the Lord will lay on him will be accompanied by jubilant praise from His people — the sound of tambourines and lyres. And He will battle Satan, brandishing His all-powerful weapons, and He will fight with those weapons. And He never loses a battle (see Isaiah 6:1)!
Verse 33 —
For Topheth (a place of human sacrifices to the false god Molech) has already been prepared for the king of Assyria — again, a type of Satan. The LORD has made the place of his demise deep and large. It is a funeral pyre of fire, with plenty of wood. And the breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire. That is Satan’s end, and the end of all who defy the Lord and refuse to repent! He destroys Satan with a single breath from His mouth!
This word that the Lord has given me to speak is not for the world system that defies God, but for you who believe in Jesus Christ yet still rebel and sin against Him!
Therefore, repent from the heart! He longs to hear your cry of repentance. He will answer when He hears it. He will crucify the sin nature that caused you to rebel. He will fill you with His light and His living water, when He fills you with His Spirit!
Do not keep Him waiting, beloved. This is a limited-time offer. Seek the Lord while He may be found —
Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while He is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. (KJV)
Thank You, Lord, for showing me Your mercy, when I repented. You were waiting for me to turn to You, and answered quickly, when you heard my cry! May your church and Your people Israel do likewise. So be it. Amen!
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