You Need Christmas • Isaiah 24

Notes

What’s so important about Christmas?

To the uninformed, Christmas is a secondary thing. Some ethnic groups celebrate it, other ethnic groups do not. Most leaders and officials consider that this holiday is secondary. The First Minister of Wales defended the Firebreak, the lockdown of Wales in October, as saving lives, not saving Christmas.

The reality is that Christmas saves lives, not lockdowns. Jesus Christ coming into the world is the only hope of the world, because Jesus is the Righteous One.

In contrast to a world full of treacherous dealers, Jesus makes the laws, and He keeps them, faithfully. Treacherous dealing brings death. Only Jesus gives life.

I’m reading in Isaiah 24.

1. The Lord will destroy the earth and make ineffective all the peoples because they have broken the everlasting covenant, vv. 1-6.

A. Isaiah 24 is a mini apocalypse, showing the end of this world.

B. God is going to violently pour out judgment on the world, physically distorting it. We will see more of this later on in the chapter.

C. When God scatters the people, they lose their unity and their identity.

1. People combine into groups, united in one way or another. There are countries, ethnic groups, religious groups, employment groups, labour groups, and families. All the different kinds of unities will be scattered. Relationships will be broken. People will lose their specific identities as a result.

2. The priest is a specialised person, selected to represent a mass of undifferentiated people to God and also God to the people. But when the people are scattered, the priest is just another guy like the people.

3. As with the servant, so with the master. The master owns the slave and gives the orders. But when the people are scattered the master is just another guy and doesn’t give orders, and no one obeys. The same goes for the female slave and her mistress. No one is giving orders and no one obeys, they are just two women, that’s all.

4. All the earth is reduced to just people without ties, without specialisation, or categories, just people scattered. The structure of society is gone.

D. The land is going to be completely emptied of value, destroyed and plundered. That means stolen by violence as in war. Everything valuable is going to be forcibly stolen.

E. The earth is going to mourn, grieve, fade away. Lose life.

1. It means to dry up, wear out, falling off. Languish is to become weak, lose strength. Once you were strong, now you are losing life. When you lose your strength, you lose your life.

2. Notice that it’s especially the haughty, proud people of the earth who are doing this. These are the people you would think would be different because they have enough money, fame, houses, possessions, they have it all. And yet, they find that it’s not enough to keep them going. Though they have everything, they have nothing that gives them life.

F. The underlying reason for the judgment and the plundering, losing life and scattering to come, is sin. They have broken the everlasting covenant.

1. A covenant is not a law, it is a relationship guaranteed by an oath of faithfulness.

2. Marriage is just that, a covenant relationship guaranteed by vows.

3. There is an everlasting covenant between God and man. A relationship that is guaranteed by a vow of faithfulness. God created relationship, that’s who He is. For all eternity He is the Father, who loves the Son, sharing and communicating through sharing the Holy Spirit, in love. Relationship is who He is.

4. But people have broken that everlasting covenant. They no longer have a relationship with God, they no longer have life with God.

5. It shows itself in disobedience to God’s laws. Psalm 2:1-3 Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!”

H. There is a built-in punishment in sin, and that is the curse for disobedience. Instead of giving benefits, help, enabling, God takes away benefits, takes away protection, makes things go wrong in punishment.

1. When you break relationship with God you also break relationship with men. You break God’s law which governs relationship with God and men. So relationships are characterised by faithlessness. People betray one another, especially those to whom they owe faithfulness. Lawlessness increases, which means that everyone is out for themselves. You can’t trust someone out to get you. It becomes dog eat dog. That scattering we read of in verse 1 is the direct result of breaking faith with God.

2. Because of that faithlessness the earth is polluted, defiled under its inhabitants. Not a physical pollution, though there is enough of that around, but a spiritual pollution. This is the principle God explained in Leviticus 18. When a people betray one another, steal, kill one another, they pollute the land and make it sick. The land eventually gets so nauseated that it vomits the corruption out, it purges the disgusting people. This describes why a people come together, become strong, then become overcome by their own corruption and their nation is destroyed and overcome. When that happens all over the world, the whole earth is nauseated by the corruption, and the whole earth is ready to vomit its inhabitants out. The curse will devour the earth, it will be burned, few men will be left.

2. All the things that people depend upon to make them happy, fail, vv. 7-13.

A. People are happy at parties, they are happy with musicians making music, strong drink making them loose in their inhibitions, they can kick up their heels and have fun.

B. But in this time that is coming none of that works. It’s been amazing to see the effect of this pandemic, that parties are prohibited, concerts are shut down. Performing artists are out of a job. Strong drink without the rest of the party ambience is no fun. There is no distraction and no relief from stark reality.

C. The city of confusion is broken down. That’s the place where you can get entertained, engaged, fascinated. There’s something there to be interested in. But it is hammered to pieces, it’s shut up, no one can go in. All joy is gone. There is no relief from stark reality.

D. The only thing left in the city is emptiness. With that is fear and dread. When your city gate is bashed and destroyed, there is nothing to stop danger from entering. Life becomes survival, grim and joyless. People are going to be like olives accidentally left on a tree by the harvesters. One here, one there, scattered,

3. The world is going to end through breaking relationship with God.

A. In verse 16 Isaiah cries out, my leanness, my leanness. That means loss of flesh, wasting away. Think of what the death camp survivors looked like when Auschwitz was liberated at the end of World War II. That was a systematic looting of a people. Everything that could be taken from them was taken, possessions, suitcases, clothing, teeth, gold fillings, hair, skin. The Jews were plundered and looted in World War II by the Nazis.

B. The cause of this leanness is the treacherous dealers are dealing treacherously. This is breaking the everlasting covenant with God to the greatest degree. If you betray your obligation to God, you will betray people as well.

C. This betrayal going to be an inescapable trap. You might realise what’s going on and try to flee, but it will get you. You might get away, but you will fall into a pit. Maybe you might get out of the pit and head right into the snare! There is no escape from this betrayal.

D. And God also will shake the heavens and the earth. The windows of heaven are an expression from Genesis 7:11, when God opened up the windows of heaven and flooded the earth. Only this time God pours out a shaking that is so violent that it breaks the earth apart. The earth is going to fall over like a shack, which is a temporary hut. The earth will never be the same.

4. The treacherous dealers are the host of exalted ones and the kings of the earth.

A. There are spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. They are called principalities and powers because they rule in the same way as earthly princes and powers. In Revelation 12 Satan drags a third of the stars of heaven down to the earth. It seems that in his rebellion against God he was able to convince or dominate a third of the angels to go with him. The point to this is that these angels have betrayed their allegiance to God. They have been treacherous dealers with God. They have decided God’s laws don’t apply to them. They are powerful, godlike, they are going to do what they want.

B. They have influenced the kings of the earth to betray their allegiance to the people they lead.

1. They are supposed to defend and protect their people. serve them to allow prosperity and justice. That’s why they are elected.

2. But they don’t serve others, they serve themselves. They act the same way as the fallen angels. They make the laws, but they don’t follow them. They are above their own laws. This is going to result in the most outrageous betrayal of their people, all to benefit themselves.

3. The kings of the earth are not only political. They are economic, the high financiers and bankers who meltdown world economy because they don’t think laws apply to them. They are big corporations who do as they will because they don’t think the laws apply to them, either. News and social media think they can do as they want because laws don’t apply to them. They can use their power to stifle competition and shape people’s thinking the way they want. These are the ones who rule the masses that they will betray.

C. God is going to put them all in the pit and imprison them for many days. We read of this also in Revelation 20, where Satan is bound and put into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. So it seems that all the fallen angels who follow Satan will also be imprisoned, and all the kings of the earth. Then they will be taken out of prison and cast into the lake of fire forever.

5. Judgment ends with God Himself ruling the earth in glory.

A. The sun has been the brightest, the most influential, the highest. If the sun ceased shining, all life would end in eight minutes. The moon is the loveliest at night. The visible glory at night.

B. But they will be ashamed, embarrassed. They will no longer be the focal points. The Lord will be the most glorious, the most beautiful, visible to all. We know from other parts of the Bible that Jesus Christ will return and rule the earth in righteousness. And the earth will be overflowing with joy. A righteous government, at last!

6. There is a very different group of people in v. 14. They are opposite to those who dwell on the earth in almost every way.

A. The others cried out in despair for wine in the streets. These people cry out for joy! They cry out for the majesty of the Lord. That means His excellence, all the reasons He is superior to everything on earth.

B. These people know God. He is the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, the God who made everything.

C. All over the earth, these people sing songs of praise to the righteous. But not to themselves. Another way to translate that is the Righteous One. See, this is Christmas.

1. God is faithful even though man is faithless.

2. He made a new covenant and sent His own Son to save people. Jesus became one of us, He came into the world as a human being under the law of God. He kept the whole law and He took upon Himself all the curse of disobedience and breaking faith with God. He made that law, and He keeps that law. It applies to Him as it applies to everybody. That’s why He is the Righteous One.

3. Because all sin is now dealt with and taken away, God raised Jesus from the dead. Through Him is forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

D. These people have a new covenant relationship guaranteed by Jesus Himself. They have life, they have joy, they have love, unity, and peace, everything that the first group of people can’t have, because they have rejected God. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.

7. So what?

A. Realise the treacherous dealers are dealing treacherously. The host of heaven are rebelling against their God. So are the kings of the earth. They are not faithful in their obligations to rule wisely in the fear of God. They are preparing the whole earth to lose everything they have. It’s beginning to happen right now. Just with the way world leaders are going into huge debt over covid relief, in amounts that no one can repay. Did you notice that? We have to do this. We must provide for relief. Who is going to pay that back? Taxpayers can’t pay taxes if their businesses are shut up due to lockdown. We have to have a vaccine. No other existing medications will work. Anyone who says otherwise is branded as fake news. Vaccines will cost billions. Who is going to pay for that? The whole earth is going to be vaccinated. It’s a big job but we must do this. Who is going to make money from this? You sound like a conspiracy theorist after a while because it sounds so dodgy. Do we just lose everything and the state owns us? The whole earth is headed into a trap from which there is no escape.

B. We really don’t have to figure out things. We don’t have to be in the dark. It’s written here in the Bible beforehand. It’s not fake news. It’s not conspiracy theory. God says this is how the world will end.

C. Christmas is not secondary. It’s the only hope of the world. Jesus Christ coming into the world is the only way out of the trap which is set even now. Only He can take away your sins. Only He can give you life even right now, in the midst of growing gloom. Come to Jesus and ask Him to save you from the wrath to come.

D. For us as believers, we are those people who are singing right now. The world is growing darker and it seems like there is no hope left but that’s not true. The world is going just as it is written. That means that Jesus is coming back again. We don’t have to worry about treacherous dealers. It’s great to listen to prophecy update guys, but what we really want to do is talk to people around us and share with them our hope. Jesus is going to deal with the world. We want to lift our heads up because our redemption draws near.

Let’s pray.