Isaiah 10:5-34
The King of Kings

I. Celebrating Great Events in History
1. Christmas, like Easter, celebrates an historical event that occurred over 2,000 years ago.
2. It’s a major historical event that changed the course of world history.
3. But we don’t celebrate Constantine, Charles Martel, Zheng He (郑和), or even Martin Luther.
4. What happened on Christmas is the reason all those other things happened.
II. The Instrument (10:5-12)
A. The Rod of God’s Anger
1. “Woe” to Assyria, God’s instrument to inflict His anger, the Lord’s “fury” (10:6).
2. God sends them against a godless nation. Being religious and being godly are different.
3. The Lord “commands” (or commissions) Assyria to take spoil and kill.
4. How could God command them to do what He commands all people not to do?
B. The King’s Decree
1. God is the King and the King is law. If He decides to confiscate and punish, He can. It’s just.
2. If He decides that you deserve to die for your crimes, He has instruments to carry it out.
3. Sometimes those instruments, are breaking God’s commands, His “will of command.”
4. God as the Judge, can confiscate their property, can sentence them to death.
5. But, from the Assyrian point of view, they were just acting on their greed and cruelty (10:7).
6. God used their greed and bloodlust; their sinful intentions to implement His right intentions.
7. The Lord is the King issuing His decree and sending His agents to bring it to pass.
8. The Assyrians are not excused from breaking God’s will of command because they are doing His will of decree. ‘You did it because you’re greedy and bloodthirsty.’
9. The Lord is the divine Rider on history, like a horseman controlling a horse.
III. The Arrogant (10:13-19)
A. They Think They Are the Masters of Their Own Fate
1. The arrogant think that what God enabled them to do, they did on their own.
2. God says “He will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria.” He did.
3. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, called “king of kings”, defeated and murdered by his own sons.
4. Historian Herodotus wrote that the Assyrian army was killed by plague. Biological warfare!
5. He boasts of His strength. He brags about how easy it was like taking eggs from a nest.
B. Our Choices Are God’s Instruments
1. In salvation, did we do it? Is the crucial difference our right decisions, our spiritual strength?
2. We make decisions. We choose to believe; we choose to live for the Lord. But why?
3. C. H. Spurgeon, “God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith.”
C. The Arrogant Person Glorifies Himself
1. God sends a wasting disease among his “stout warriors”. He burns burn all Assyria’s “glory”.
2. Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias: “Nothing beside remains, Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
3. In 2008 Mummer Gaddafi claimed to be the “king of kings”. Three years later, he was killed.
4. The real King of kings always, sooner or later, intervenes and humbles them.
IV. The Remnant (10:20-23)
1. God will preserve His people. They will “no more lean on him who struck them.”
2. They’ll lean on the Lord. “In truth”, sincerely, not fakery, like the “godless” religious people.
3. “A remnant will return”, repent (Isaiah’s first son). They will return to “the mighty God.”
4. The Father not only gave us the Mighty God, He gave us to the Mighty God, to Jesus, the Son.
5. John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws Him.” Happening now.
6. “Destruction is decreed” for Israel. The result will be an “overflowing with righteousness.”
V. The Judgement (10:24-34)
1. He is, right now, saving a remnant and putting an end to the arrogant.
2. The remnant don’t have to be afraid of the instruments of God’s anger.
3. “In a little while”, the Lord will wield a whip, another weapon, against those weapons.
4. They’ll look threatening for a short while, but God will judge them.
5. His people, who lean on Him, will hear that His anger has come to an end.
6. The things that burdened you here, will be lifted off. They’re under His control.
7. The Assyrians are coming closer, city after city, land-mark after land-mark, closer to Jerusalem.
8. The emperors, the self-proclaimed “kings of kings”, the god of this world, is cut down.
VI. Invitation: God has used a lot of instruments to steer history. But at it was God Himself, Immanuel, given to us, once for all, so that now the Father could give us to Him, the Mighty God. That’s what He’s doing now, through all His instruments, even if the enemy stands right outside shaking His fist. We don’t have to be afraid. He’s the Mighty God. His throne is forever and ever. He’s promised us, as close as the enemies may come, He will cut them down and raise us up, with Christ, on the last day.