Sermon Tone Analysis

©March 27th, 2022 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Isaiah

One of the advantages of going to a small school is the opportunity to participate in lots of different activities.

I played sports, even though I was never a great athlete.

I also got to participate in scholastic bowl, which was kind of like a trivia competition.

Some of the questions we faced in scholastic bowl were math questions and the most difficult of these were calculus questions.

We couldn’t take calculus until our senior year, so prior to that point, these problems were basically impossible to solve.

So the coaches taught us shortcuts for how to do derivatives and integrals so we could answer these kinds of questions quickly in a scholastic bowl meet.

I would explain to you what derivatives and integrals are…but I honestly don’t know, because when I actually took calculus and it came time for me to learn about them, I wasn’t interested, because I felt like I already knew enough.

To this day, I can’t really tell you what calculus is used for, but I can still answer those trivia questions about it.

My reason for sharing this story is because sometimes I think this is the same way we approach the Christian life.

We are more interested in our own agenda than we are in doing things the proper way.

Sometimes we want to skip some lessons to get to the “fun part”.

We believe we know what’s best for our lives and so we ignore what God has told us as outdated and unnecessary or too simplistic.

But God has a reason for teaching us things the way He does.

There are lessons we need to learn before we can move on.

When we try to “skip ahead” we end up missing out.

In our passage this morning, we will see this attitude is not unique to us.

It is the same attitude that existed among the people of Israel.

We will see how God responded to this attitude in them.

Hopefully we can learn from their mistakes.

Human Pride

Isaiah 28 begins with a condemnation of the people of the northern kingdom because of their self-assurance and pride.

1 What sorrow awaits the proud city of Samaria—the glorious crown of the drunks of Israel.

It sits at the head of a fertile valley, but its glorious beauty will fade like a flower.

It is the pride of a people brought down by wine. 2 For the Lord will send a mighty army against it.

Like a mighty hailstorm and a torrential rain, they will burst upon it like a surging flood and smash it to the ground.

3 The proud city of Samaria— the glorious crown of the drunks of Israel— will be trampled beneath its enemies’ feet.

4 It sits at the head of a fertile valley, but its glorious beauty will fade like a flower.

Whoever sees it will snatch it up, as an early fig is quickly picked and eaten.

5 Then at last the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will himself be Israel’s glorious crown.

He will be the pride and joy of the remnant of his people.

6 He will give a longing for justice to their judges.

He will give great courage to their warriors who stand at the gates.

(Isaiah 28:1-6, NLT)

If you look in other translations you might be confused because the wording is very different.

Other translations say that Isaiah condemned Ephraim, not Israel, and the other translations don’t mention the city of Samaria, but talk about a fading flower.

The reason it’s different is that New Living Translation tries to simplify this for us.

Ephraim was the most prominent tribe in the northern kingdom of Israel, so Isaiah was using it to symbolize the kingdom as a whole.

Isaiah’s description of the “fading flower” makes it clear that he is referring to the city of Samaria, because Samaria was at the head of a valley was the capital city of Israel.

So if you are reading from another translation, that is why you see a difference in the wording.

The meaning is the same, but the New Living Translation is just trying to make it easier to understand.

Through Isaiah, God declares that Israel is about to fall, particularly the city of Samaria.

He says He is going to send an army against the city which will smash it like a mighty hailstorm and drown it like a torrential rain.

He uses multiple analogies to describe the utter destruction of the town, which was so revered by the people of Israel.

Why was God going to bring this disaster?

He says it is because they are proud.

They viewed themselves as indestructible.

For example, originally, the king of Israel had his capital city centrally located, in a much more secure position.

But now he had moved the capital to Samaria, which was not nearly as secure, though it was a beautiful place.

The movement of the capital to Samaria was a sign of their overconfidence.

They felt so secure that they didn’t need to worry about where their capital was located.

Its nearness to economic resources was more important than being located in an area that would be difficult to attack.

This is just one example of this attitude of pride.

Israel’s trust lay in its own cleverness rather than in the Lord.

The people of Israel had little need for God because they felt they were doing just fine on their own.

This attitude sounds like the way our society and our nation think today.

Our society has no need for God because we are so enlightened that we no longer need Him to guide us or help us.

If we’re honest, sometimes we even have a similar attitude.

Isaiah warns Israel that they need to turn to the Lord, otherwise He will force them to recognize that the Lord alone is their security and confidence.

The same warning applies to us as well.

Evidence of Arrogance

In the next section of our text, Isaiah speaks specifically of some of the issues that were indicative of the people’s attitudes toward God.

First, he describes rampant drunkenness.

The scene he describes sounds like a frat house after a wild party.

7 Now, however, Israel is led by drunks who reel with wine and stagger with alcohol.

The priests and prophets stagger with alcohol and lose themselves in wine.

They reel when they see visions and stagger as they render decisions.

8 Their tables are covered with vomit; filth is everywhere.

(Isaiah 28:7-8, NLT)

Drunkenness is repeatedly condemned in the scriptures.

People who are drunk make poor decisions and do not think about the things of God.

In fact, one of the appeals of getting drunk seems to be the fact that you don’t worry about anything!

Isaiah says the people of Israel had become accepting of drunkenness.

So much so that even the prophets and priests were getting drunk, and their decisions were influenced by alcohol.

He said this attitude toward drunkenness demonstrated that they were not devoted to the Lord.

Our world today is equally accepting of drunkenness.

We are told that consuming alcohol is a normal part of life and that you can’t really have fun unless alcohol is involved.

Our world looks to alcohol as an escape—even though it doesn’t solve problems, it just masks them for a while.

The world says using alcohol to get drunk (or buzzed, or whatever other terms we might use), is perfectly acceptable and often desirable.

But God says differently.

God tells us to be self-controlled and alert and He condemns drunkenness.

Christians must live according to God’s standards and not the world’s.

If we refuse, we are not much different than the people of Israel.

But Isaiah doesn’t only condemn the people’s attitude toward alcohol, he condemns their attitude toward the Lord’s teaching!

9 “Who does the Lord think we are?” they ask.

“Why does he speak to us like this? Are we little children, just recently weaned? 10 He tells us everything over and over— one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there!” 11 So now God will have to speak to his people through foreign oppressors who speak a strange language!

12 God has told his people, “Here is a place of rest; let the weary rest here.

This is a place of quiet rest.”

But they would not listen.

13 So the Lord will spell out his message for them again, one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there, so that they will stumble and fall.

They will be injured, trapped, and captured.

(Isaiah 28:9-13, NLT)

Isaiah says the people were complaining that the messages from the Lord were too basic for them, that He was treating them like babies rather than grown ups.

If you read different translations, you will find that the phrase “one line at a time, one line at a time” is rendered in different ways.

The reason for this is that in the Hebrew language, the words being used are supposed to sound like baby talk.

The people are mocking the things Isaiah is sharing with them on the Lord’s behalf (and by extension, they are mocking God himself).

There is a lot of repetition in what Isaiah says.

But there is a reason for this.

He was repeating himself because the people weren’t listening!

The message God had for Israel was quite simple: “Trust me rather than your own judgment or the nations around you!” But the people were unwilling to listen, so Isaiah had to keep repeating the message.