By: Gen. Deborah Green – Jan. 9, 2017
PRAISE GOD. Welcome to this broadcast. The name of this message is “Indignant Anger.” And this is the Lord displaying His indignant anger, or prophesying through the prophet Isaiah that He is going to bring that anger.
Now, this particular chapter—Isaiah 30—the whole first part of the chapter, is God crying out against His own people. Oftentimes we find that that is the theme that brings God’s anger up: is His own people. Well, if we look at that theme, God has every right in this generation to be angry, because those professing to be His people are as far from God as they can possibly be, and yet they are claiming they love God, they serve God, they obey God.
But it is falsehood—because they are living in delusion, and they are living in their own mindset. What I mean by that is that they have reimaged God, they have cut out the parts they don’t like, they have put extra sugar on Him, and made Him super-sweet, and made Him into a marshmallow, and a puffball and so they can have Him their way. And the thing that they serve isn’t the God of the Bible at all. And so God has a right to be angry with them for the multiplied whoredoms, their idolatry, their abomination, their lies, their deception, and their following after the ways of the heathen.
But in the beginning of this chapter you find out that God is saying, “Woe to the rebellious children.” And it’s “WOE TO the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel and carry out a plan, but not Mine.” Ok, they’ve built their own Church, they’ve built their own way, they’ve built their own Jesus, they have done it their way, and God is saying, “Woe” to those who choose that way, who think they can do it themselves, who will have it THEIR WAY and no other way.
Listen, there’s no way that we maintain the presence, the power, the glory of the Living God—unless we go His way. There’s a lot of people who are under Babylon’s Jesus who are totally destitute spiritually, they are destitute, they are wandering, they’re in confusion, they are under delusion, and they have not the anchor of their souls at all, because they are serving this falsehood of the counsel of man, rather than the dictate of God. So we see that GOD JUDGES THAT AS REBELLION.
See, people say, “Well, maybe somebody got a little deceived and went overboard.” God says, “Woe to the rebellious children.” So in God’s eyes, when we take another way, other than God’s way, we are rebellious. GOD DOESN’T CATER TO REBELS, and God doesn’t protect rebels, and God doesn’t put His approval on rebels, He says, “Woe.” So here He’s giving the prophetic Word to the prophet Isaiah and He’s saying, “WOE TO the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel and carry out a plan, but not Mine, and who make a league and pour out a drink offering, but not of My Spirit, thus adding sin to sin.”
Now if you look at Churchianity, they’ve made a league, they’ve joined together, against who? God. Not against the devil, not against sin, not against the works and the workers of iniquity, but they have made a league against God, His righteousness, and His holiness, and they have given their approval to that which is wickedness, perversion, uncleanness, vileness and corruption.
So, skip along, we’ll go to verse 12 and it says, “Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you despise and spurn this [My] word and trust in cunning and oppression, in crookedness and perverseness, and rely on them. Therefore this iniquity and guilt will be to you like a broken section of a high wall, bulging out and ready [at some distant day] to fall, whose crash will [then] come suddenly and swiftly, in an instant.”
So in other words, the Lord is saying, ‘You don’t want me, you want this crookedness, you want this perversion, you want all this oppression, you want all these lies, you don’t want the truth.’ Now, that’s the indictment God has against the modern Church: You would rather bow to the agenda of the homosexual movement, than to bow to my desire. It’s true, God sees it that way!–that those people, who say they are Christians, WOULD RATHER BE SUBJECT TO WICKEDNESS, THAN TO RIGHTEOUSNESS.
You think about it, it’s utterly true. They are saying abortion is alright, they are saying homosexual activity is alright, they are saying transgenders are approved of God, they are saying that fornication, in all of its forms, is acceptable: everybody does it these days, divorce is commonplace…in one day and out the next. It doesn’t matter as long as we praise the Lord. How can you praise the Lord with filthy hands? How can you praise the Lord with a heart full of iniquity? How can you praise the Lord when you violate His holiness? You’re not praising the Lord, you’re praising an IMAGE OF YOUR OWN CREATION.
Ok, going on, we have a lot of territory to cover, and it says here, “And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing so that there cannot be found among its pieces one large enough to carry coals of fire from the hearth or to dip water out of the cistern.” So, in other words, this wall is going to be so broken. What is that wall? That wall was God’s protection around them, and when they despised it, they broke the wall themselves. And then He’s saying that whole wall will come down because of the way you’ve mistreated me.
“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength. But you would not.” In other words, He’s offered to them REPENTANCE REVOLUTION. He said, “Come, walk ye in the way, for I am that way. Come unto me and you will be forgiven.” But He said, “You won’t go that way, you won’t accept My mercy, you won’t accept my forgiveness, you won’t accept what I want to give you.”
God sees when we fail Him, and He offers to us the way to be quickly restored, to be quickly forgiven, to be quickly accepted/reaccepted by Him. And we’re the ones who stubbornly defy God, who resist His call to repent. And He’s saying to these very people that He’s called the rebellious children, “You won’t even take the way that I offer.”
So then He goes on and He said, “But you would not, And you said, No! We will speed [our own course] on horses! Therefore you will speed [in flight from your enemies]! You said, We will ride upon swift steeds [doing our own way]! Therefore will they who pursue you be swift, [so swift that] One thousand of you will flee at the threat of one of them; at the threat of five you will flee till you are left like a beacon or a flagpole on the top of a mountain, and like a signal on a hill.”
So in other words, He says, ‘You will be totally filled with fear, not with courage, not with strength, not with the power to overcome the evil workers, but you will run, run, run, run—because you have chosen your own way, you have chosen to believe in your own strength, in your own understanding, in your own power, rather than me.’
And then it says, “And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you.” Now, people want to paint the picture of God—that He’s just a ghoul who can’t wait to do evil, that He’s a wicked old guy with black boots up to the hips and a tight black suit, and a black whip, and a big tall black hat, and He’s just beating people incessantly. That’s a lie, that’s the wickedness that’s in the heart of those who conjure such things, that’s the wickedness that’s in them—they can’t wait to beat God because they hate God. And they’re trusting in the wrong thing, they’re trusting in themselves.
Then it says, “And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you.” In other words, THE LORD WANTS TO DO YOU GOOD.
See, the basic nature of God is goodness, mercy, love, longsuffering, kindness, patience, and a desire to bless His people; to do good to you, “and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!” So in other words, we keep looking to the Lord.
Then it says, “O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more.” So here He is speaking out to these rebels, promising them all these good things. So, can you say, ‘that’s a God that only wants to do evil’? NO, He wants to do good.
It’s like if you have a child, you give them a job to do, and they frit off here, go over there, play all these games. And it’s not a hard job, “Ok, fold your clothes.” But they act like you ask them to get in 10 cords of wood, it’s just too much to do, it’s too hard. THEY WANT TO PLAY, they want to do this, they want to run off here, they want to go over there—they want to do everything except what you ask them to do. And then finally you think, “Well, I don’t know what to do with them.” So you say, “Well, if you get that done, you’ll get a treat. If you get that done, I’ve got a good surprise prepared for you. I’ve got something that you’ve wanted for a long time, and if you get done I’ll give it to you.” And then see if they do it.
“O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher. And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver and your molten images plated with gold; you will cast them away as a filthy bloodstained cloth, and you will say to them, Be gone!”
So, in other words, by the overshadowing of the Living God, by the mercy that He is, that your heart will be returned unto God, and YOU will take ACTION to revolution against these things that have been your whoredom, against these things that have been a part of your adulterous fling on God, and you will destroy them, you will do away with them.
You never hear of people destroying objects of idolatry anymore. Instead they just accumulate more idols, and more idols, and more idols. And they think, “Oh, it’s ok, God has no issue with these things anymore, that’s all Old Testament.” No, that’s NEW TESTAMENT. We are not supposed to worship idols, and yet, God’s people multiply idols.
But He’s saying, “When you are returned to me, you’ll destroy those idols, you will take the action to get rid of the things that are not of God, that are not of God.” We need to let God examine us by His Spirit every single day. “What is in my life that is not of you? What is it that you object to? What is it that you consider an idol?”
See, all of us need to realize that WE ARE SINNERS SAVED BY GRACE. In other words, if it wasn’t for the mercy of God over our lives, we would still be in continual sin, we would still be transgressors, we would still be rebels, we would still be the enemies of God.
So, for us to trust in ourselves and our own understanding, and to determine that we can do everything right…that’s foolery. The only way that we’re kept right is by subjecting ourselves to God. And every one of us, since Adam and Eve violated God, have the root of rebellion in our hearts. WE ARE CAPABLE OF SERVING IDOLS, if nothing more, the idol of SELF. That’s the idol of this age—self! But we’re capable of serving that idol, we’re capable of serving other idols, so we should never think that we are oh 100% for God, while an idol is tugging at our heart.
I mean I’ve heard people say, “I’M ALL THE WAY JESUS!”—except when Jesus wants to take me where I don’t want to go, then I’m all the way opposing Jesus. So we need to realize that hey, that fat rebel is there. And that thing will lead us to damnation. So, to be in subjectivity to God means don’t be afraid to come before God and say, “Ok Lord, ferret out, by the power of your Spirit, any idols that I’m serving, show it to me, that I could get rid of it.”
It’d be like saying, “Well, I never need to wash my clothes,” and I get stinkier, and stinkier, and stinkier, and I say, “Well, I don’t need to wash my clothes!” Well, why don’t you need to wash your clothes? “I got them washed once.” And that’s how we can get in our relationship with God. “Well, I don’t need to wash these idols out of me. I don’t need to clean up my act. Once saved, always saved, I’m ok!” NO, WE NEED TO CONTINUE TO BE OK; AND WE DO THAT BY SUBJECTIVITY TO GOD.
So, going on it says, “Then you will defile your carved images…and you will cast them away.” Then it says in verse 23, “Then will He give you rain for the seed with which you sow the soil, and bread grain from the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures. The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory and salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and with fork. And upon every high mountain and upon every high hill there will be brooks and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter, the DAY OF THE GREAT SLAUGHTER, [the day of the Lord], when the towers fall [and all His enemies are destroyed].”
So, what is He saying here in this chapter? The same thing that He says to us. He says, “If you will stay near unto me, if you will walk uprightly in me,” that means getting rid of idols, “If you will obey me, then you’re going to have mercy in this day of holy war, the great slaughter.”
So, it’s the verification that what God is saying then, is what God is saying now. The cycle goes around and around. And we have reached the cycle where God has turned the Assyrians, you might say, loose on His people: they have been under the oppression, they have been under the darkness.
Now, when Obama was going to be president, before he was even elected, the Lord said that he was going to be a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION. What did he destroy? He destroyed the holiness and the righteousness of God out of the land. And God’s people, backslid as they are, have been under that oppression—where they have to say, “Gay is ok,” they think, because their hearts are full of idols.
One of the idols that Christians can fall prey to is to be accepted by the heathen, to be approved of men, to be applauded, to be raved on, “Oh what great people you are!” And then you turn from pleasing God, to pleasing those goons that are Satan’s advocates to GET YOU TO BACKSLIDE so you can join their camp and be one more goon. It’s amazing how many are dumb enough to fall for that.
Then it says, “[the day of the Lord], when the towers fall [and all His enemies are destroyed]… Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days [concentrated in one], in the day that the Lord binds up the hurt of His people, and heals their wound [inflicted by Him because of their sins].” BECAUSE OF THEIR SINS.
So, He’s not saying, “I’m going to heal you because you were always good,” He’s saying, “I am going to heal you of what was inflicted BY ME because of your sins.” We like to think that, “Well, in God’s time, He’ll heal me!” Maybe God’s time is dependent on my REPENTANCE, dependent upon my TEARING DOWN MY IDOLS, and dependent upon me WALKING UPRIGHTLY. Because you notice He’s not saying this is going to happen, until they’ve destroyed their idols.
“Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with His anger, and in thick, rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.” So, indignant anger is what we see in the time of God’s Holy War…INDIGNANT ANGER.
Now, this word “indignant,” which I think is interesting, it means ‘to be displeased at.’ So, when God is displeased, He reveals the side of His indignant anger. And then it says, “feeling or expressing anger or scorn, especially at unjust mean or ungrateful action or treatment.”
So God is going to be expressing this indignant anger, and He’s going to be burning with that anger. And it says also it’s going to be “thick, rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.” Now, we’re living in a time when God is expressing His sore displeasure through His prophets with the conditions that are. And people being addicted to sugary words, addicted to honey-coated phrases, addicted to their sugar-daddies, and their sugar babe mamas, are expecting to hear MORE SUGAR, MORE SWEETNESS, MORE HONEY, EVEN SYRUP.
They’ll even take an artificial sweetener if they have to, they’re so addicted. They’re diabetics; they gotta have it. They’re hooked. And so when the Word of the Lord comes with indignation, with anger, like fire consuming, they can’t bear it—because they’re ADDICTS TO FALSEHOOD, to lies, to cunning, to oppression.
And then it says, “And His breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that causes them to err will be in the jaws of the people. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one marches in procession with a flute to go to the temple on the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard and the descending blow of His arm to be seen, coming down with indignant anger and with the flame of a devouring fire, amid crashing blast and cloudburst, tempest, and hailstones. At the voice of the Lord the Assyrians will be stricken with dismay and terror, when He smites them with His rod. And every passing stroke of the staff of punishment and doom which the Lord lays upon them shall be to the sound of [Israel’s] timbrels and lyres, when in battle He attacks [Assyria] with swinging and menacing arms. For Topheth [a place of burning and abomination] has already been laid out and long ago prepared; yes, for the [Assyrian] king and [the god] Molech it has been made ready, its pyre made deep and large, with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it.”
So, what do we see? We see a simultaneous call, a simultaneous warning, a simultaneous display of the nature of God. We see that He is calling to His own to come in out of rebellion, to put aside their idols—the things they have given themselves unto in their whoredom. And He’s telling them, “Break down those things, cast those things aside, and I will give to you great goodness, great mercy, great abundance, great blessing in a time when I’m bringing all of the enemies to ruination.”
And He’s also bringing forth the fact that He’s going to burn up with fire, He’s going to bring utter devastation to the enemies of the purpose of God. So we see that we see the God of mercy, we see the God of wrath, we see the God of indignant anger being revealed.
Now, we can choose the God of mercy, we can choose the God of blessedness, we can choose to dispose of any and all idols He reveals to us, -OR- we can choose to defy Him and be still rebellious children, and we will be found under the Holy War, we will be found under the wrath revealed, we will be judged with the enemies of God. Or, we can welcome the call to repent, apply it to our own selves—not just Joe down the street, but to us, and say, “Lord, show me any idols that hinder your move in my life—THAT I MAY REPENT, THAT I MAY DESTROY, THAT I MAY BE RIGHT WITH YOU,” and obey that. And we will find that in this time of God’s Holy War, that we are able to rejoice, and give thanks, give praise for the mercy of the Living God, AS HIS INDIGNANT ANGER IS REVEALED UPON THE WICKED. Amen.