Peter Barnes: Isaiah 5:21-30
(23 September 2018)
SERMON NOTES: YET MORE WOES! (Isaiah 5:21-30)
Isa.5:1, 7 leads to six woes and judgment.
1. Woe to the proud.
– 5:21. Pride is the problem, which Calvin says that it is ‘too common in all ages’.
– Prov.3:5-8; Jer.9:23-24. The problem is our proneness to deceive ourselves.
– the motto of the University of Oxford comes from the opening words of Psalm 27, Dominus illuminatio mea, which means ‘The Lord is my light.’ Today it could use Romans 1:22. Contrast to Luke 14:11.
2. Woe to those who pervert justice.
– 5:22-23. There is a link between private and public morality which ought to be quite obvious.
– Ex.23:8; Deut.10:17
– 5:24. Calvin: ‘if contempt for the law of God is the source, head, and accumulation of all that is evil, there is nothing against which we ought more carefully to guard than that Satan should take away our reverence for it’. Human law derives from God’s Law.
3. The woe of judgment.
– 5:25. God is determined to punish His people.
– 5:26-30. Isaiah is referring to the Assyrians (7:17). ‘Whistle’ or maybe ‘hiss’ to bees (7:18). God does not even sound a trumpet.
– 5:27-28, 29-30; 2 Kings 17:21-23.