Isaiah 2:1-5
All right, let’s give our attention
now to God’s word, Isaiah chapter two, verses one through five.
Hear the word of the living God. The word that Isaiah, the son
of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come
to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of
the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be lifted up above the hills and all nations shall
flow to it. And many people shall come and
say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and
that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth
the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge
between the nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples. And they shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
anymore. Oh, house of Jacob, come, let
us walk in the light of the Lord. Amen, the word of the living
God. Maybe you dig around in your lockbox, You know, you probably
have one of those little boxes where you keep your passport,
you keep your old driver’s licenses, you know, you got your stock
certificates if they still issue those. But perhaps in there is
your birth certificate. For some reason I ran across
mine the other day and I was looking at it. There’s on it
the county, there’s the town, there’s the state. where I was
born, Halifax County in Virginia, the South Boston Community Hospital,
I think it was, the state of Virginia. The seal of the hospital
is there, all the way back 1977. But I wonder how many of us have
a spiritual birth certificate? I don’t think we do. But wouldn’t
it be interesting if we had one, a spiritual birth certificate,
perhaps you know the date, Perhaps you know the time, perhaps you
know the place, perhaps you know the passage of scripture. Perhaps
you know the preacher or maybe the parent or the other living
vessel who told you about Jesus. But your place of spiritual birth,
at least by my count in Psalm 87, would be Jerusalem. Jerusalem that is above the heavenly
city, Psalm 87, is one of the Psalms we like to read as elders
when we meet with someone for church membership. We read of
how God loves the church and how in the church were born Rahab
and Cush and Philistia and other places. It says some were born
here, others were born here and it lists them. And even we on
down the line can say we were born the new birth in Jerusalem
that is from above. And that’s an important thing
to think about as you consider Isaiah as a whole. And then Isaiah
chapter two, where we are tonight and will be next week as well. Last week and the week before
in Isaiah, we heard a lot about doom and gloom and destruction.
You’re bad people. He even called us His church,
a woman of ill repute, you might say. But chapter two is about
restoration. Chapter two is about redemption. And Isaiah is speaking by the
power of God’s word that it will come to pass. It will become
true in a latter day that blessings and restoration and good things
will come from the mountain of the Lord. Now, if you cheat and
read ahead in Isaiah, you’re gonna see that the mountain of
the Lord is not gonna be the place where the people of God
live. They’re gonna be exiled to Babylon.
The mountain of the Lord is not going to be the place where God
dwells. His glory will depart. The mountain of the Lord will
not be the place where his temple is. The temple will be laid waste.
laid to ruin, stone upon stone, burned by fire. Remember in our
study of Ezra and Nehemiah. They had to repair the ruins.
They had to repair the reproach. They had to repair the rubble
of the city of God. They had to rebuild its walls.
They had to rebuild the gates that were burned by fire. They
had to reset the city and the temple and the altar and their
houses and everything. And God was gracious to them
in doing that. But this passage gives us something
of a picture of the importance of the church. Something about
the significance of the importance of the meeting place of God with
his people. And you see that in the description
of God’s mountain. Now we love the mountains for
different reasons than the people of God. We love the mountains
because of their beauty. We love the mountains because
of the views and the climate. And we love the mountains because
of their activity. We like to snow ski, snowboard. We like
to go hiking. We like to go mountain climbing.
Some people go up the mountain, some people go down. I don’t
understand either really. They’re nuts. But for the Israelites
who were hearing this word, this oracle, this message from God
through the mouth of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, they understood
exactly what he was speaking of. You see, mountains, mountains
were a big part of religion. Mountains were a huge part of
religion and they got you close to heaven. this mountain and it was 5,000
feet, you got pretty close. But say there was a 6,000 foot
mountain. Or as in Israel, Mount Hermon,
about a 9,000 foot mountain. The higher up you go, the closer
you get. I suppose on Mount Everest, 28,000
plus feet. And maybe Kilimanjaro, some of
the other big ones, you’re on up there. Our little five and
six foot thousand mountains in North Carolina are nothing to
the the 13 years or the 19 years or however many y’all had in
Colorado, our mountains are small, but the, the, the pagan religions
of the day, the Canaanites and all the ites and all the people
that live near and around Israel, they worshiped on mountains too.
And the higher they got. the closer they believed they
got to heaven and to their gods. And so one of the things you’ve
got to understand, both in the pagan religion of the day, and
one of the reasons Israel’s in trouble is they’ve been worshiping
pagan gods. They’ve mixed worship of Yahweh with other things,
and it’s syncretism. I think we talked a little bit
about that this morning, though maybe we didn’t use that word.
During the Sunday school hour, we mentioned how churches just
accumulate stuff, stuff, stuff. And you’ve got to not only be
reformed, but always reforming. You’ve got to take out the stuff
that the world has thrown in. Well, Israel had done the same
thing. They had mixed the worship of Yahweh with the worship of
the surrounding people. And so the mountain of Yahweh
needs to be made superior. to the mountains of other gods.
The mountain of Yahweh needs to be first in their minds, first
in their hearts, first on their itineraries and in their maps,
in their phone. Well, they didn’t have them,
but it should be that habitually they went to the mountain of
the Lord and not the mountain of other gods. And so the mountain
of Yahweh, Jerusalem, Zion, The beautiful, wonderful mountain
that we sing of in the Psalms is the place he is speaking of
here. Now, mountains are not strange to the Israelites. If
you trace through the scripture where God is worshiped, it’s
always at a mountain. We believe that in Eden, God
met with Adam and Eve on his mountain. We see, as we move
through the scriptures, when God met with Abraham, it was
on a mountain. In fact, he said, I want you
to go up to the mountain and worship me and take with you
your son, Isaac, your only son, the one whom you love, the child
of promise, and offer him there on an altar. And then I’ll know,
Abraham, that your faith is sincere. that your trust in me is strong.
And so Abraham did exactly that. He saddled his donkey. He loaded
it with wood. He took the boy and a couple
of servants and they made the three days journey and it got
to the foot of the mountain. He told the servants, you stay
behind the boy and I will go worship. And he bound his son,
placed him on the altar. And in Hebrew says he was in
the act of offering him up. because he believed that God
could raise him from the dead. And then you see Israel at the
foot of Mount Sinai. A couple Wednesday nights ago,
we went through the end of the 10 commandments and we talked
about the terror of God coming to them on the mountain at Sinai.
And they said, after all the thunder and the lightning and
the shaking and the quaking and the terrifying events of Sinai,
they said to Moses, you go near to God and let him speak to you.
And we’re going to go way back over here. And you come down
the mountain and you tell us what he said, but we’re not going
near that scary site. And then we looked at Hebrews
chapter 12 and how under the new covenant, we have not come
to a mountain that is terrifying. We’ve not come to a mountain
that can’t be touched. We’ve not come to a mountain that shakes
and quakes and thunders and lightnings. But we’ve come to the mountain
of God and the new heavens and the new earth. We’ve come to
the new Jerusalem mountain where God is worshiped. And so let
us worship him in holy fear. That’s what we do week by week
is we gather in God’s presence. Well, Jerusalem, it’s kind of
funny if you read this passage and know Jerusalem’s elevation,
you start to chuckle. It says, it shall come to pass
in the latter days. Verse two, the mountain of the
house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of mountains.
Well, Jerusalem has a couple mountains. The temple is not
on the highest one, and it’s only about 2,400 feet. Maybe
if y’all seen, there was a movie that came out probably 20 years
ago, the man who went up a hill and came down a mountain. It
was about a little town over in Europe somewhere. And they
had a really big hill, but it wasn’t classified as a mountain.
So they hauled up some dirt and they made the top of it a little
bit taller. So hence the man that went up a mountain or went
up a hill and came down a mountain, they had to try really hard to
get it to become a mountain. I mean, it’s like saying Bass
Mountain, you know, out there in snow camp, boy, that’s the
Alps, the Alamance Alps or something like that. Jerusalem was little,
2,400 feet. And you look in Jerusalem in
the North, there’s Mount Hermon, 9,200 feet, I think. In fact,
when we read or sing Psalm 133, it talks about the dew or the
snow on Mount Hermon and how it melts and it descends on Zion’s
hills. So Jerusalem, Mount Zion was
the least of the mountains, but isn’t it what God always does?
He takes the least. And he says, this is first, this
is foremost, this is preeminent, this is the mountain. He takes
a little bitty people Israel and says, you’re not great, but
you’re my chosen ones. Could have picked Egypt, could
have picked Assyria, could have picked Babylon, he could have
picked all the other big nations because they were big. No, he
picked a little bitty Abraham and little bitty Isaac and little
bitty Jacob. And he took the small little nation and he planted
them as a vineyard in the promised land. Well, Israel is the least
of the nations. And so Jerusalem is the least
of the mountains, but spiritually speaking, spiritually speaking,
it’s the most wonderful, the best place spiritually. Think
of Psalm 48. I think I told y’all this morning
about growing up in church and singing. I’m pretty sure it was
the Calvary church songs, but we used to sing Psalm 48. Great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, beautiful
in elevation, that’s only 2,400 feet, but it’s the joy of all
the earth. Mount Zion in the far north,
the city of the great King. What made Mount Zion? What made
Jerusalem? What made that mountain so great?
It was God’s chosen mountain. It was God’s chosen place where
he would meet with his people. And so it’s the precious mountain
of God. And throughout the Psalms, you’ll find the Zion songs that
during COVID when we didn’t know what was going on and how long
it was going to go on. we were on Sunday nights just
getting to the Psalms of Ascent, 113 through 118, the Hallel Psalms,
and then 121 through 134, I guess it is. And so we did a series
on those Psalms of Ascent where the psalmist basically says,
woe to me for I dwell in Meshach, I’m way over here. And by the
end of the Psalms of Ascent, he gets to Mount Zion. But you
come along to about Psalm 121, and it says, I was glad to me
when they said, let us go to the house of the Lord. It’s one
of those songs where you get in line with the people on the
road to Jerusalem, and there’s some 200,000 people in Jesus’
day that would go up to Jerusalem for the feast. And so they sang
Zion songs, they sang pilgrim songs. And I think the thing
that you ought to see, not only in this Psalm, God picks a small
mountain and makes it a big mountain, but people flow uphill spiritually. If you wanna be God’s people,
if you wanna be God’s children, you go up to his mountain to
worship. I think the ladies Bible study class on Wednesday, we’ve
talked about this. Anytime you see the little phrase,
go up, go up, go up, it always means worship. It always means
going up God’s mountain, up God’s hill. And so the uphill flow
to God’s mountain was to be a magnet. It was to be an attraction. All
the nations were supposed to look in on this little bitty
mountain and say, something’s different there. Something special
there. We’re scattered out into the
world since the great commission, since Jesus ascension, since
Pentecost. But everybody in their day went
to Israel for wisdom and godliness. We go out, but they were to come
in. And so it was a magnet for all.
Well, the mountain of the Lord is something important to see
in this passage, but we also ought to see what comes out of
Zion. And so out of Zion from this
mountain goes the word of the living God. You had to go to
Jerusalem at least three times a year to keep the feast. Aren’t
we glad that we can go to church in our town? And aren’t we glad
we can go 52 weekends out of the year or about 30 if you’re
average American or zero if you’re becoming an average American,
I think, but they could go up to Jerusalem. The inflow of the
people left with the outflow of the word. And they would go
up and keep the feast. They would go up and keep the
festivals. They would go up and worship. They would go up and
sacrifice, but they would also go up and learn. You’ll remember
last year when we looked at Ezra and Nehemiah, they went back
to Jerusalem and Judea. They first laid the foundations
for the temple. They next laid the altar and
began worship again and sacrifice. And then they built their own
houses. And then they got a little lazy
because, you know, TV was too good. And God had to send Haggai
and he said, you live in impaneled houses and my temple’s not built.
So after about 15 year hiatus, the temple got built. And then
comes along Nehemiah and he comes and rebuilds the wall and rehangs
the gates and fortifies the city, sets a guard and he establishes
the Sabbath. But remember one of the most
important figures to come in the life of the restoration was
Ezra the scribe. Ezra, the priest, he was the
one who knew the law, studied the law and sought to do the
law. And he wanted to teach it to
all the people. And you can imagine the effect of people living for
God, people living according to his righteous commandments.
And that’s the idea we get here. Come, let us go to the mountain
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may
teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. As we
go to church, as we go up the mountain to worship, we learn
the old and new covenant scriptures. We learn what it’s like to be
his people who walk in righteousness. We learn to love God. We learn
to love neighbor. You know, I think we mentioned
it this morning. We’ve mentioned it a lot because
it’s the cultural crisis we’re in. There’s the great de-churching.
And what happens to a society when people quit living by Judeo-Christian
values? That society unravels. And if
you’ll remember back to chapter one of Isaiah, Israel had unraveled. The people of God, the nation
of God, the boundaries of God’s people, they had begun to unravel
and they were unfaithful to God. They were unfaithful to one another.
They were under God’s judgment because they no longer lived
according to his word. And so they were coming unglued
and unraveled. But God speaks of what effect
His mountain, His law, His word will have. Out of Zion shall
go forth the law. The word of the Lord shall go
forth from Jerusalem. And what does His word do? It
will judge between the nations. What will His word do? It will
judge disputes between peoples. And what will the result be?
The result will be peace. They’ll beat their swords into
plowshares. There’s gonna be less war and more farming. Nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war anymore. No more boot camp, no more gun
factories, no more ammunition storage, more farming, more life,
more prosperity. That’s the idea. Now, think back
for a moment. Isaiah said this will happen
in the latter days. How do we understand the latter
days? Is this gonna happen in Israel’s time? Was this the restoration? Is this gonna happen in Jesus’
time when Messiah comes? Is this gonna happen after Pentecost
with the gospel being preached to all nations? Or is this gonna
happen in our day? You know, this passage is stamped
on the UN building in New York City. They shall beat their swords
into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
anymore. How’s that work in the UN? It’s the second anniversary
of Russia invading Ukraine. We just had another war start
back in October, and we’ll probably do another war over in Asia as
China looks to invade Taiwan. The UN can’t make peace. The UN may broker peace, but
it’ll be temporary until a stronger power comes or until somebody
develops a weapon that no one can stop. The only true peace
comes from hearing the law believing the law, believing by faith in
the one who kept the law, Jesus Christ, and then living according
to his commandments. Only, only Christ can change
hearts. And that’s the longer look at
this passage that we have to take. Restoration will come.
They’ll be exiled and come back and rebuild and all the rest,
but Jesus will come and he will fulfill all the law and all the
prophets and all the writings. And he’ll say, look, they all
point to me. He is wisdom. He is justice. He is goodness. He is grace. And then Pentecost
will come. And think about that for a moment. When Pentecost hits Jerusalem,
they go out to Judea. They go to Samaria. And then
where do they go after Samaria? To the ends of the earth. Come, let us go up to the mountain
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Judah, that he may
teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. And then
when we go back down the mountain, out of Zion shall go forth the
law, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem and peace will spread
across the earth. And so the gospel flows from
God’s mountain, it flows from God’s city. And I think if you
think through all this passage teaches us about the Old Testament,
the Old Covenant, the people of God before exile, after exile,
but now us who live this side of the cross and this side of
Pentecost, we get to go up to God’s mountain 52 times a year. And if you come back to evening
worship, that’s 104. Twice is always better than once,
isn’t it? And then we have Bibles in our hands. It wasn’t until
the print and press, it wasn’t until the Reformation, it wasn’t
until these days that God has given us copies of God’s word
in our own language. We got study Bibles, we got stacks
of Bibles, yet we’re the most spiritually illiterate generation
that has ever lived. And so the challenge is to make
the pilgrimage, come to church. The encouragement is to listen
to God, who is the light of the world. Listen to God who is the
light to the nations and take those kingdom values as they
rest in your heart and take them out into your spheres of influence,
to your families, your workplace, to your neighborhood, to all
the places you may go during the week. And if you do as God
says, and as you live according to his ways, you live out of
the realities of a changed heart, it will settle disputes. It will
make wars cease and we’ll be at peace. of the mind of the
golden age of post-millennialism and all that. If you don’t know
what that is, don’t worry about it too much. I’m a pessimist, sometimes
an optimist. I guess it depends on the day
of the week. Things are going to get better as the gospel goes
out. Things are going to get worse as Satan has his way. But when the Lord comes, all
things will be made right and made new. But we have seen We
spoke of it this morning in terms of the Christ haunted South,
which is no more. But we have seen what Judeo-Christian
values can do for a nation or even a region of the nation.
And we can see what happens when it goes away. But do remember,
as you come to God’s holy mountain, as you come to worship, the word
of God equips you to do what God commands. The word of God
repairs what is broken. It straightens what is crooked
and it saves. And when we pray every Sunday,
perhaps every day, some of you pray this prayer, your kingdom
come Lord, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We’re praying that there will be heralds, that there will be
teachers and there will be disciples of God’s word in his church and
that the word of God will dwell richly among his people and spread
abundantly as the radiance of the light of God’s word goes
out from our churches, the gospel radiance of the church as a whole,
yes, but as individuals, each of us goes all kinds of places
every week, where by God’s grace, we’re given opportunity to give
an account of the hope that is within us. And so our prayer,
our encouragement ought to be, come, let us walk. in the light
of Yahweh. In our prayer, verse five, O
house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. May it be so, pray with me. Lord,
there is no better light than yours. There is no better word
than what you have spoken. You have proven to be bright.
You have proven to be true. You’ve proven to comfort and
build up. You’ve proven to give life where
there is none. And so we pray that we would
trust you, trust your word, come to your mountain and go down
that mountain and spread your word across the land. We ask
for your blessings as we go tonight to have the courage to speak
of you and to speak of you often to a dark and dying world and
before a crooked and depraved generation. Hear us, help us
and bless us, we pray in Christ’s holy and mighty name, amen.