The Fire of God’s Displeasure

By Pastor Matt Black

15 October 2006
Lord's Day Evening
Isaiah 9:17-21

 

Introduction:  We come to the conclusion of our text in Isaiah 9 tonight.   Stand with me as we read verses 17-21.  We are going to be looking at a difficult doctrine, that is the doctrine of God’s wrath against men.  We are going to find out that this wrath of God proceeds from God’s infinite goodness and love for truth and all that is truly beautiful.  We cannot miss this.  If we miss this, then we take away the power and punch of the Gospel.  God is displeased with sinners.  If that were not the case, there would be no need for a Saviour.  The title of tonight’s message is “The Fire of God’s Displeasure”.

 

Stand and read Isaiah 9:18-10:4, “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. 19  Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 20  And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21  Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

            10:1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; 2  To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! 3  And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? 4  Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

 

Notice that God’s hand is stretched out as a fist in judgment.  This is seen in several verses throughout the ninth and tenth chapters.

 

What we are going to see tonight there is something so awful in sin that God is infinitely displeased with it. We will also see that God’s displeasure will not lie dormant forever, but His wrath must be satisfied in one way or another. 

 

We must start with the truth that God is the most infinitely good and loving and holy being, so to displease Him, we must see ourselves as the ones being completely and totally unreasonable.  If God is infinitely good, then for Him one sin is an atrocity.  We don’t see our sin as “that bad” because we no almost nothing about true love and purity and holiness! 

 

We come to a theme tonight that we all need to understand.  When we sin against the perfect goodness and kindness of God who has given us plentifully all things and demonstrated His goodness to all—when we sin against someone so supremely good, we kindle the wrath of a God of perfect love and goodness.  There is a reason God is displeased.  He is jealous for that which is good and pure and holy, and He is ready to defend His pure goodness and holiness. 

 

We come first of all to the end of Isaiah 9 and verse 17,and verse 12, 17, 21 of chapter 9 and verse 4 of chapter 10 all have the exact words: “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”  As long as there is hardness of heart, there is the fist of God stretched out ready to strike.  As long as there is any pride, God is resisting.  He resists the proud, but “giveth grace to the humble” (James 4:6).  This theme runs throughout the Bible.  If you are not in submission to God with your life—reconciled to God through Christ, then God’s wrath is abiding on you (John 3:36).  We cannot soften it.  We cannot twist it around and take the justice and wrath of God out of the Bible. 

 

God is a God of goodness and beauty and purity.  He is opposed to all wickedness, and all who commit wickedness.  You must begin here if you are to preach the Gospel.  To say that God hates the sin, but loves the sinner is to give carnal hope to the lost.  I spoke with a man just this week that said that he believed that Jesus died for his sin and that he knew he hoped he was going to go to heaven because he knows God loves him.  This man has false hope.  This man needs to read Psalm 5:4-5, “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. 5  The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” 

 

Look at Psalm 11:5-6, “the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6  Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. 7  For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness…”  God must hate the wicked because the “the righteous LORD loveth righteousness”. 

 

Psalm 7:11, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.”

 

Dear brethren, it is in our nature to soften these verses.  There is a piercing edge on these verses, and they are painful to read.  They are there for a very important reason, so we must not soften them.  If you do, you soften man’s need for the Lord.  Do you understand that apart from God’s sovereign mercy, we are left to the just hatred of a good, holy, pure, and righteous omnipotent God?  This is the punch of the Gospel.  This is the knockout punch of the Law.  God’s hand is stretched out in judgment still.  His wrath is upon all those who refuse Him. 

 

I.             The Cause for God’s Displeasure.

Why is God angry?  Because of our depravity has affected every part of us.  Look at verse 18, “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.”

 

  1. Notice from this verse first, Sin grows rapidly.  “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.”  Sin is greedy and aggressive.  You let it into your life and it will be to you like the infestation of lice.  It will multiply, affect, and infect everything. It spreads like a wild fire.  Like a cancer, once you yield to it, it will take over your body.  The only rightful cure for sin is radical amputation.  Mark 9:47, “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”  Sin must be removed like a growing disease. 

 

  1. Notice also that this verse teaches that sin and God’s wrath against sin are joined together.  If a person chooses to sin, then he is also choosing the Lord’s displeasure.  Now as the Lord is infinitely greater than us, so is his displeasure infinitely greater than our displeasure, so much so that we call it His wrath and anger.  Now remember it is a good and pure and holy fierce wrath.  It is a wrath that will sufficiently vindicate His goodness and purity.  If you give yourself to sin, you are also giving yourself to God’s displeasure. 

 

Matthew Henry seems to set this verse up correctly.  He says, “The displeasure of God, incurred by sin, shall consume the sinners, who have made themselves as briers and thorns before it, and as the thickets of the forest, combustible matter, which the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the mighty God, will go through and burn together.”[1]

 

  1. Sin is self-destructive.  It devours!  It spreads like a fire!  It must be stopped immediately.  There may be “pleasure in sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25), but sin is only a bait for your destruction. It will catch you.  As Genesis 4:7 says, “sin lieth at the door.”   Sin is always waiting for you offering you pleasures, but at the end there is destruction.  It devours.  “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). 

 

  1. We also notice from this verse that sin affects every one of us.  We read, “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.”

 

1.      Sin affects both great and small in a society, in a family, in a church.  It devours both the briers and thorns (those in low position) and the thickets (those in prominent position or in authority). 

 

2.      Sin’s reward will amount to a puff of smoke!  “they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.”

 

II.           The Consideration of God’s Displeasure.  We ought to be concerned about this! 

 

We come to verse 19, and the thought continues, “Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire.” 

 

  1. Notice first that sin is the fuel by which the anger of God is kindled.  The most just thing God can do is to leave us to be punished in our own sins.  The worst that God could give to any one of us is to leave us alone.  You might ask, why is God so angry with my sin?  We paint God to be some psychotic, bitter dictator.  This is not the case at all.  God is pure love.  In order for God to maintain His own love and goodness, He must hate all that opposes goodness.  You understand this.  We look at that bad guys in a story, and we want them to be caught and justice to be done.  We look at the ugly filthy criminals, and the light within our conscience says, “that guy needs to be taken out of society.”  We think God is over-reacting to our sin because we do not see sin as God sees it.  As long as you and I discount sin, God’s hand is stretching out to resist us and to judge us.  Calvin said, our “own sins are the fans by which [God’s anger] is inflamed”. 

 

  1. The result of the Lord’s wrath.  “Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened.”  God gives Israel up to their own sins.  God deals with people in mercy, but there comes a point when God as a way of allowing us to reap what we sow, God will give these kinds of people “over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28).  The land becomes darkened.  As John 3:19 says, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” God gives

 

  1. Second we see in this verse the reason for God’s wrath.  “The people shall be as the fuel of the fire”.  Matthew Henry said this: “God’s wrath fastens upon none but those that make themselves fuel for it, and then they mount up as the smoke of sacrifices, being made victims to divine justice.”  Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.”  We have chosen our own way.

 

  1. The recompense of God’s wrath.  God here gives people over to what they want.  Their whole world collapses.

 

When a person rejects the Lord’s way in life, and has no way to preserve himself, he turns to utter wicked and cruel self-preservation.  He is given completely to the world, and he has no protection.  The world will utterly devour.

 

Look at what we have here in verse 19, “....no man shall spare his brother.  20  And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21  Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

 

Do you see that this is exactly what we have in our country today? Our culture has collapsed! 

 

What have we done here. 19, “....no man shall spare his brother.”  Babies are not spared because of the selfishness of our society.  Our country is going the way of Europe.  We are having less and less children because children are such a bother!  They are work!  The world is becoming cannibalistic!  They spare no one for their own desires! 

 

Be very careful of this wicked culture.  We (as verse 20 says) “eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied”.  We can never have enough.  We’ve got TV on demand.  We’ve got all kinds of illicit vices that are available.

 

Beware of all these things!  If you have cable television—turn off any channels that displease the Lord.  If you have the Internet, beware!  This culture wants to give you EVERYTHING you want!  Avoid it!

 

Conclusion: What is the answer?  Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  Hunger and thirst after Jesus!  Jesus is the fountain of all our desires.  I love what Haggai 2:7 calls Jesus—the “desire of all nations”.  Is He your desire? 

 

Closing Hymn:  624 I Know a Fount

 


[1] Matthew Henry—his comments on Isaiah 9:18.