Truth, Justice, And The Armageddon Way (Isaiah 59:1-21)

Who is it that “Always gets their man?”

Just ask Snidely Whiplash, whose criminal obsession is tying young women to train tracks. Royal Canadian Mounted policeman “Dudley Doright,” he’ll tell you, “always gets his man.”

The Lord “Always gets His man.”

• When the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air,” He ‘got’ righteous Noah to build the Ark. 
• After the global flood, mankind was scattered abroad to form many nations. God ‘got’ Abraham to start a new nation.
• Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, making “their lives bitter with hard bondage.” the LORD ‘got’ Moses to lead them out of Egypt.

Whether it was Gideon or Barak or Samson or Jephthah or David or Samuel. He even got Jonah! 

God always gets His man Except this time.

Look at verse 16, “He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor”

When was that?? It hasn’t happened yet. It is coming at the end of the 7yr Great Tribulation which shall come upon the whole world.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Injustice Is The Herald Of Your Nation’s Demise, and #2 Justice Is The Hallmark Of Your Nation’s Deliverance.

Let’s take a look at the demise of a nation in verses one through fifteen.

Track with me as I find the word “justice” in these verses (at least in my NKJV).

1. Isa 59:4  No one calls for justice…
2. Isa 59:8  … there is no justice in their ways…
3. Isa 59:9  Therefore justice is far from us…
4. Isa 59:11 … We look for justice, but there is none…
5. Isa 59:14  Justice is turned back…
6. Isa 59:15  … there was no justice.

Repetition is there for a reason. God wants to talk to us about justice & injustice in a nation.

Isaiah wrote and prophesied in the seventh century Before Christ. At the moment, he is warning the Jews of Judah that they will come under God’s judgment because of their disobedience to, and departure from, His Law. The walls of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, and the Temple in Jerusalem, will be  razed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. They would be captives in Babylon for approximately 70 years.

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear.

Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.

• A hand too short to save is an accusation that the LORD is not all-powerful.
• Ears that won’t hear is an accusation that the LORD is not all-loving.

These are the accusations leveled at the LORD in every generation, by every unbeliever.

The problem is sin. According to Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the Israelites’ sins are referred to 32 times in this short passage, and there are 23 separate charges brought against them.   

An indictment is essentially a formal accusation that a person has committed a serious offense These next verses are an indictment of Judah.

Isa 59:3  For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity.

Isa 59:4  No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

Isa 59:5  They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; He who eats of their eggs dies, And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

Isa 59:6  Their webs will not become garments, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And the act of violence is in their hands.

Isa 59:7  Their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; Wasting and destruction are in their paths.

Isa 59:8  The way of peace they have not known, And there is no justice in their ways; They have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Thus ends the indictment. The accused speaks – not in defense, but with repentance.

Isa 59:9  Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!

Isa 59:10  We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places.

Isa 59:11  We all growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We look for justice, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far from us.

Isa 59:12  For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them:

Isa 59:13  In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

Isa 59:14  Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter.

Isa 59:15  So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice.

A final injustice is that anyone who repents is preyed upon by those who choose to continue in sin. Scholars tell us these words are evidence of repentance.

There is nothing unique to Israel in this indictment. God is over all the nations and He expects nations to both acknowledge Him and to uphold justice.

If they don’t do right, He must indict.

Several times in our studies we have paused to ask, “What about the United States? Where are we in prophecy?”

We’re not. At least, not directly. We are a nation and thus are expected to acknowledge God and to uphold justice. We are not doing either of those.

Each of us could suggest various injustices. One on every list is legalized abortion. It is an injustice that you can not put any spin on. We are killing innocents by the millions.

When talking about abortion from the pulpit I don’t always touch upon the fact that there are women here who have had abortions. The apostle Paul would say to you, and therefore we say to you, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). What has washed away your sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

One of His purposes in coming was to “heal the broken hearted” (Isaiah 61:1). If you find yourself struggling, contact the Kings County Crisis Pregnancy Center. They can help you; they will help you.

This November will be the first presidential election in my lifetime in which there is no Pro-Life candidate for the nation’s top office.

Could the lack of a Pro-Life candidate be the watershed moment, the final national sin, that brings a severe judgment upon America?

We will only be able to answer that after it happens.

Presidential elections seem to stir-up the exhortation that churches are not doing enough to influence voting. Critics accuse, “They’re worried they will lose their tax exempt status. They need to obey God rather than man.” The next 3 minutes or so will be interesting, I hope, but put it in the column of Pastor Gene’s Opinion.

The rule governing Churches states, “Churches and other 501(c)(3) organizations can engage in a limited amount of lobbying (including ballot measures) and advocate for or against issues that are in the political arena.” But the law prohibits pastors from endorsing or opposing candidates during official church functions such as sermons.

✏ Churches apply for tax exempt status. The pastors who are criticizing churches who aren’t endorsing candidates are tax exempt because they applied for it and, in doing so, agreed to follow the IRS guidelines. In other words, they promised to follow the law but are openly breaking it. I will respect them when their “Yea is yea” and they renounce their exemption.

✏ What’s not to like about the Church being exempt from taxes?!

✏ I’d like to think that we will humbly disobey the ruling authorities when it comes to obeying God rather than man. Who remembers COVID19? Do you remember the egregious restrictions the government put on Church services? Do you remember the Church in town that was never shuttered? That was us.

Injustice is the herald of a nation’s demise.

It can be argued that there has always been injustice. True, and one day either a particular injustice or the accumulation of them will cause God’s longsuffering to cease.

Let’s take a look at the deliverance of the nation of Israel.

Isa 59:16  He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

“Zion” refers to both a hill in Jerusalem and to the city itself. Zionism the movement to establish the nation in its land.

When the LORD said there was “no man… no intercessor,” it is a dramatic pause in the action to heighten the moment. There was a man who would intercede. He would be more than a man. He would be God in human flesh; He would be the God-Man; His name is Jesus.

There is something very similar to this in the Revelation. In Heaven, John sees “in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it. So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals” (5:1-5).

Both of these passages – Isaiah & the Revelation – are describing Jesus Return as King to save Israel. As is typical of Isaiah, we have quantum leaped from the 7^th century to the end of the Great Tribulation.

Isa 59:17  For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

I love those scenes in movies where the heroes ‘suit-up’ for battle. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers did an especially good job with Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli at the Battle of Helms Deep.

He comes as a warrior, complete with a “breastplate” and a “helmet.” With “zeal,” and for “vengeance” He will subdue every enemy of His people, the Jews.

Isa 59:18  According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay.

Isa 59:19  So shall they fear The name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.

We are taken forward in history to a moment of global victory. From west to east, all the way to the coastlands, this man will conquer.

The enemy coming like a flood is a favorite verse when we are in some testing or trial. That’s fine! BUT – it is describing a real future event.

In His Olivet Discourse about the Great Tribulation, Jesus warns Jews in & around Jerusalem to flee from the antichrist. He describes what happens next:

Rev 12:15  So the serpent [Satan] spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman [the nation of Israel], that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.

Rev 12:16  But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

This flood could just be a metaphor for the ferocity of the antichrist’s troops going after Israel. Could be a flood!

The forces of the antichrist will invade Israel in what has become known as the Battle of Armageddon. J. Dwight Pentecost wrote, “It is not an isolated battle, but rather a campaign that extends over the last half of the tribulation period.”^[1]

Isa 59:20  “The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” Says the LORD.

This is the moment the apostle Paul is thinking of when he says “all Israel will be saved.”

Isa 59:21  “As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.”

Every Jew living at that time and every Jew born in the Millennial Kingdom will be saved.

Jerry Bridges wrote, “God’s wrath arises from His intense, settled hatred of all sin and is the tangible expression of His inflexible determination to punish it. We might say God’s wrath is His justice in action, rendering to everyone his just due, which, because of our sin, is always judgment.”

God expects all nations to uphold justice. God does indeed punish nations because of their sins, e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah.

Is there hope for the US? Nineveh was on the calendar for judgment on account of injustice. Jonah gave them no real hope, preaching, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (3:4). They repented, “and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it” (3:10).

I’m of the opinion we already are under judgment. Look, for example, at violence in America. Again, critics say, “There has always been violence, sometimes worse then what we are experiencing.”

OK… But today we are no longer policing violence. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t recall Law Enforcement being told by government to stand down.

• “Pittsburg PD recently announced that police officers will no longer respond to certain calls labeled ‘in-progress emergencies,’ such as harassment, theft, and burglary alarms.”
• A Vallejo CA resident who addressed the City Council said same thing that is being repeated all across our nation. “I don’t know if when we call 911 if there’ll be a response… If someone will show up.”

Whether we are ripe for judgment or are already judged will be revealed in time.

Larry Norman once sang, “Don’t ask me for the answers, I’ve only got one – That a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son.”

We must return to, and turn to, Jesus.