Isaiah [Part 4] - Downfall of Excess & Ignorance

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. Today we are going to continue to deal with chapter 5 of Isaiah. The first lessons were almost verse by verse of the first chapter and the second chapter, and then I think the fifth chapter on the Song of the Vineyard. Now, I want to deal with the attitude of God as it comes out through the prophecy of Isaiah toward excess wealth and greediness and the outcome of such behavior and such attitude toward those who are the wealthy, the powerful, that ignore the suffering and the poor and the people who barely can afford food.

First, I'm going to repeat from chapter 5 verse 8:

Let me stop here. It's a hard lesson to teach in the modern, western, wealthy nations and churches that look like Roman temples. It's a hard lesson to teach in the prosperous West, but there is also the prosperous East. But there's a lesson that is necessary to teach. Isaiah didn't come from a poor family, neither did Jeremiah, neither did Ezekiel. But I would say that Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah have a great, how I would call it, social sensitivity. What does it mean, social sensitivity? It means that even if you're wealthy and well-to-do and you're a successful businessman or a successful pastor that lives well, you cannot lose the empathy that you must have as a disciple of Christ, who is living by grace and who depends on God's grace for his redemption and for his eternity.

The minute that as disciples of Yeshua we lose that empathy, that concern, that care for those around us and we do what this prophet Isaiah is describing—what's happening in Jerusalem, that people lived in order to party, lived in order to eat gourmet food in the best restaurants, lived in order to drink the best wines, get drunk, and fall into a stupor waste. Isaiah is very strong. It's not my word, don't blame me. Isaiah wrote these things. I am just repeating and trying to explain Isaiah in his days. And he's not the only one; we have the 8th Century prophets who are all sensitive to this, and they wrote it in song. Isaiah, if he said these words in the streets of Jerusalem or in the main square in front of the temple, he sang it. It's in verse, it's in song.

I've been in our modern time in places where you could not preach the gospel. You would go to jail if you preached the gospel. You would end up in Siberia in the gulag, and I know people who have been 25 years in the gulag, believers, for preaching the gospel. I know them personally. We had some of those in our congregation before they died. Yes, I saw it myself in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1970. I saw the same thing in Moscow on Arbat Street. The guy was dressed crazy, funny, was hopping and dancing and acting crazy, and preaching the gospel very boldly with a lot of humor, singing it sometimes, sometimes as riddles, sometimes just jumping up and down and acting crazy, and crowds gathered around him. I picture Isaiah doing the same thing, singing these songs in the streets of Jerusalem, condemning those who amass real estate, live in palaces, waste food, drink the best liquor, and ignore all of their surroundings.

I'm going to stop preaching and start meddling, as they say. How many churches do you know that have orphanages or support orphanages with their funds? How many churches do you know that deal with the widows, even the widows in their own congregations? They may not need money, but they need fellowship, they need friendship, they need community, they need the church to engage them and to use them as the New Testament commands. Isaiah is addressing these problems in very bold and very strong Hebrew language. It's wonderful that we know that it's right. Why? Because this text of Isaiah, in Hebrew, we have about a 2,200-year-old exemplar of that text. The whole book of Isaiah was found in one jar in Qumran. You can visit Jerusalem, the Israel Museum, and see a one-to-one authentic replica of it. Because the original one that sat for two thousand years in a sealed jar of pottery, when they opened it up, it started oxidizing. The oxygen reached it and started making it black. Luckily, a Japanese company photographed it one to one and then printed it on the same kind of leather vellum as the original. So the one that you see in the museum is a facsimile, a one-to-one real facsimile on the same material that the old one was. Luckily, it was photographed several times carefully, but much of it to our regret has become black, has become darkened because it's oxidized. But these are the words of God spoken from the mouth of Isaiah the prophet: social sensitivity. And God is going to judge the church and judge the believers as individuals and their families, and according to even their houses, will be judged for the lack of social sensitivity.

I'll read verse 19 of chapter 5:

Ah, they must have had bartenders already then in the days of Isaiah in the city of Jerusalem that knew how to mix alcoholic drinks together and make some fancy bar room delicious drink.

He is describing the enemy that will come from Babylon against Israel and take the elite of Jerusalem, of Israel, to exile on the river Euphrates and Tigris and in between them.

What a description, but what is the point that the prophet is saying? He says, "You don't want to do what I want, you don't want to keep my law, you don't want to be obedient, you don't want to love your neighbor, you want to become rich and powerful and enjoy good food and good wine, ignoring my commands, ignoring the love that you should have for your neighbor who is suffering. That's why I'm going to bring the enemy, and the enemy is going to be sharp and strong, and his weapons will be effective, and he will trample you under, and your palaces and your homes and your wealth will be taken away from you, and you will be taken away from your land."

This is, my dear brothers and sisters, something that you don't hear anymore among our Christian brothers and sisters. There is no fear of the Lord, and there is no fear of unrighteousness. And yes, I can say this about the United States for sure, that they call darkness light and light they call darkness. What is righteous and good they call bad. What is politically correct and agrees with everything that is called abomination in the word of God they call bad. What is good is what is diametrically opposed to God's word. The things that God in His word, in the law of Moses and in the New Testament, calls bad, today they are considered good. They're called abomination; today, they're considered politically correct. If somebody condemns all the abominations that happen in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, where the abomination is marching down the street openly with police protection, with government approval. And if somebody opposes it, he's the one that's bad. He's the one that's wrong because he says and he quotes the scriptures, quotes from the Hebrew scriptures, from Isaiah the prophet. He will be condemned, he will be called names, he will be rejected because he wants to stand on what is right and what is good and what is healthy in the long run for every nation, but specifically for the nation of Israel.

Yes, yes, we are talking about the 8th Century BC, and we are the generation—I am the generation that has been born after the Holocaust, after the exile. We live in Jerusalem, in Israel, because our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, for generations and generations who lived in Spain and Portugal and Poland and Russia and in China—yes, even in China, and in even in Japan and in the Philippines and in India and all over the world—because they were thrown out of their land and taken to exile, and only at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, God has awoken the giant and has enabled the Jewish people to return back to this land as He promised would happen.

But the reason why He kicked us out of here to exile is hearing the prophet Isaiah, and it's in Jeremiah, and it's in all the prophets: in Hosea, Joel, Amos, all the prophets. And above all, it was already predicted in the law of Moses in the 12th century BC when Moses went up Mount Sinai 40 days and 40 nights, contending with the Lord, and received the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Torah. But the Ten Commandments were written on stone with the finger of God, who etched the stone with these commands. And yet there are great countries who have taken the Ten Commandments out of their courthouses, out of their public places. But when you take out the Ten Commandments, what comes in? All the demonic, evil, twisted immorality that is called moral today. You're a good person if you say that what is called abomination in the Torah and in the prophets is wrong, but what the abomination people do is right. Ah yes, that's in Jerusalem too, and in Israel too, and in Korea too, and around the world. That is what is considered good. What is dark is considered light. What is evil is considered good. What is wrong is considered right. Isaiah the prophet is teaching us, no matter what people consider, it doesn't change God's will. And eventually, God's will will rule, and the punishment for the abominations and the sins of our society are going to come.

So, as disciples of Yeshua, our job is to be the guards on the walls, the ambassadors, and the representatives of God and His will to our society, no matter what the consequences will be. Yes, that's our calling: to be witnesses of God and of Yeshua. God the Father and Yeshua the Son, and the Lord who participated in the creation of the world together with God, is the light of God for men. And Isaiah is warning the people of Jerusalem in his days in the 8th Century BC, but the problem is we've got to continue from the mouth of Isaiah, from the pen of Isaiah, to address the same illness, the same sickness that he had in his days in Jerusalem and is repeated in our days in Jerusalem again, and in Korea, and China, and Japan, and India—not to speak of the United States and Russia and Western Europe. If we don't speak out the word of God as Isaiah did, as Jeremiah did, and they paid a price for that, who is going to do it? Who is going to be the guard at the gate that says evil is not going to enter, until they repent? God bless all of you in Yeshua, and keep reading Isaiah.