“Tyre, the Prostitute”
[Isaiah 23:1-18]
February 17, 2019, Second Reformed Church
We begin with the very familiar verse, Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV). And we must be careful – all things work together for good – for everyone? No. All things work together for good for those who love God – believers – for those who are called – the elect – believers. For all those throughout time and space who believe savingly in the One Savior God has sent – all things work together for good. All things – cancer, divorce, political collapse, hurricanes, murder, racism – all things work together for the good of believers.
And, all things work together for the glory of God, because God is Sovereign and desires to make Himself and the salvation He provides through His Son known. Through the Creation, and the Word of God, and the Sacraments – God focuses the telescope on Himself and says to all, “See Who I Am. See What I have done to save a people for Myself.”
Tyre and Sidon are sister cities in what was Phoenicia and is now Lebanon – just to the northwest of Israel. Initially, they were two tiny islands just off the coast, but through engineering skill, the water was routed and the land built up, and Tyre and Sidon were no longer islands, but major seaports in Phoenicia, along the trade route to Babylon and Asia.
David and Solomon engaged in friendly trade with Tyre, and Solomon married a number of women from that nation, unfortunately bringing with them the worship of Ashtoreth into the Temple of the Lord.
Ships from Tarshish – in what we now call Turkey and ships from Egypt regularly trafficked trade through Tyre – and Tyre became a cosmopolitan and extremely wealthy city – just as Corinth would be in the future. It was a city where every idea and practice was known and everything could be gotten for a price. It was a place where truth was relative – or, perhaps, there was no truth at all. But, if you had the money, you could get what you wanted and call it whatever you wanted.
Verses one through fourteen tell of the many falls of Tyre.
God speaks through the prophet, telling Tarshish to wail, for there is nowhere for them to dock and sell their goods, because Tyre has fallen.
Cyprus is likewise told that Tyre and Sidon have fallen and there is nowhere for them to sell their grain.
Nor for Egypt, who has nowhere to sell her grain.
The nations are in a panic, in an uproar – anguished, that this ancient city has been destroyed – a city who was exulted and travelled the world through the traders who came through her.
Tyre was held in high esteem. Through her trades, crowns were placed on heads, her merchants became princes, and her traders were honored throughout the earth. It was through the things that happened in Tyre that the world was made or broken and changed from one hand to another.
But Tyre was conquered – and the time that is spoken of here is likely the conquest by Sennacherib of Assyria in 701 B.C. We will remember that God sends an angel to slaughter Sennacherib’s army when he tries to attack Jerusalem, but here, God approves and uses Sennacherib to punish the people of Tyre.
Verse nine, “The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.”
The people of Tyre generally committed the sin of pride – they considered themselves too good, too amazing, too honorable, too worthwhile – like the average American.
And God tells them they will have nowhere to run from His Wrath – if they go to Egypt or Turkey or Canaan or Cyprus – all the nations will be in an uproar over their fall to the Assyrians, and they will join with the Assyrians against them.
God tells them to look at the Chaldeans – the Babylonians, and how the Assyrians have put them down – knocked down their towers, stripped their palaces, ruined her land, and given it to the wild beasts. (Of course, we know that Babylon rises again.)
So, for her arrogance – her pride – her willingness to let anything and everything be freely and equally, God punishes Tyre.
Verses fifteen through eighteen tell of the restoration of Tyre – but it is not the restoration one would hope for.
For seventy years, Tyre remains in captivity. But in 630 B.C., the people return out of captivity and take up their business as though a day hasn’t gone by. The inhabitants of Tyre return to their street corners like an old prostitute come home, still willing to do anything for cash.
“Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.”
She learned nothing. Nothing changed about what she thought or how she acted.
God said, “At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.”
Seventy years taught her nothing. She did not repent. She did not change. She returned to her whoring for money. Everything she did was “all about the Benjamins.”
And then we have this final statement in our text which may seem very strange at first glance after what we have just concluded:
“Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.”
God sent Tyre home around 630 B.C., and she went back to trading and being the cosmopolitan port that she had been before God punished her by the Assyrians.
About 445 B.C., King Artaxerxes of Persia sent Nehemiah back to Jerusalem to be governor and to make sure that the Persian promise of the rebuilding of Judah and Jerusalem – especially her Temple, was completed.
When Cyrus the Mede of Persia initially sent back any who wanted to return to Jerusalem, he instructed all of the neighboring countries to supply everything that Judah needed to rebuild the city and the Temple.
And we read,
“When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening. And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required, and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid. So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 3:1-7, ESV).
God will be glorified through all things and all people – even through the unrepentant old prostitute, Tyre, and her sister, Sidon, who, in response to the grant they received from King Cyrus, arrange the delivery of cedar from Lebanon for the rebuilding of the Temple and the city.
These prideful, unrepentant people, who were cosmopolitan and wealthy, and would do anything for the right amount of money, came together for the good of the people of God, and brought the cedar that was necessary for the rebuilding of the city and the Temple.
My first job after college was working in a Christian bookstore, and I had bought a suit that was made by a cult called, “Deva.” And one of the patrons of the bookstore recognized the distinctive suit and asked if I didn’t “feel” something having the label in the clothing that said it was made by this cult. I said, “no.”
The point being, as the singer, Steve Taylor sings, Christians don’t have to “drink milk from a Christian cow.”
God uses an evil, unrepentant people for His glory and the good of His people. Now, that does not mean that we are allowed to engage in sin. Just as Paul rebuked the Corinthian Church for engaging in the sins of her city, we are not to engage in the sins of the world.
But, we are to understand that God is bringing all things together for the glory of Himself and for the good of His people. So, there is nothing wrong with eating a sandwich at a deli that was prepared by a Muslim or a Republican. There is nothing wrong with hiring a carpenter who is an atheist or a Jew. Christians are to use their gifts to the best of their abilities for the good of their neighbors and to the glory of God, but we are also to engage the people who will do whatever job we need done best – we are not obligated to only hire Christians. (There are exceptions; of course, we should only sit under the preaching of a believer.)
God will glorify Himself through every type of person – believer and nonbeliever – and He will bring all things together for the good of His people. And so He used Tyre.
But that is not the end of the story – and the story doesn’t end for anyone except by death or the return of Jesus.
Because, we see something happen during the ministry of Jesus:
“Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’ And he strictly ordered them not to make him known” (Mark 3:7-12, ESV).
About five hundred years after supplying cedar for the Temple, when Jesus goes through the nation and even to the outlying nations, people flock to Him, and as He heals more and more people, more and more people start following Him and pressing against Him – including people from Tyre and Sidon.
Within thirty years of this, we read:
“And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo. And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home” (Acts 21:1-6, ESV).
Within thirty years, there were many disciples with wives and children in Tyre. There was a distinct Christian presence in Tyre.
God will be glorified in every human being – whether believer or not – and in all of Creation. And God will bring all things together for the good of His people – for we who love Him and are called and elected to be His and follow after Him.
And so, we dare not ever consider anyone a lost cause – especially insofar as salvation is concerned. We have no idea who God has elected to salvation. We may know of an evil family who – generation after generation – exploits her workers and acts like a prostitute for money in her business dealings – but it may just be that God cause some to tire of their family ways, and when we open our mouths and speak the Gospel – Who Jesus is and what He has done to secure salvation for the people of God – some of them may believe and become our brothers and sisters. And if you are unsure of that – if you think it might be a waste of time – consider the city of Tyre.
And even if you are right, even if all your efforts never produce one person in a family or a city that profess the Name of Jesus, you have glorified God in your obedience and God has brought all these things together for your good. Amen?
So, don’t lose hope. Don’t give up. Recognize that God is sovereignly moving through nations and cities and peoples to accomplish His will and glorify Himself. And all our efforts are worthwhile – surely they are – Christ died for us – and God will bring all things together for our good.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You are Sovereign and will not allow sin to foil Your plans, but already have every sin worked into Your plan to bring all things together for the good of Your people and to Your glory. Use us to Your glory. Increase Your glory in this place. Keep us from fear. Help us to go forward in the power of the Holy Spirit in faith and obedience, striving after holiness and proclaiming Your Gospel. Open our eyes to see Your Hand. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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