“The Final Judgment”
[Isaiah 34:1-17]
August 18, 2019, Second Reformed Church
Last week we considered the New Zion – the New Jerusalem, and we saw that all of us are sinners and we need God to sovereignly act to save us and change us into the Image of His Son. And we saw that in the New Zion, we will be holy and right and all will be well with us in body, soul, mind, and spirit.
As we turn to our text, this morning, we look at what will happen to those who never repent. Perhaps during their lives, but surely at the Final Judgment on the Last Day.
God tells Isaiah to preach this news – to call out to all of the world – to all of the nations and all of the people and all of the earth and every creature and thing that fills the earth to hear what happens to the person and the nation who denies the Almighty God and the salvation only available through His Son.
“Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.”
And we see, the Lord is supreme in power.
“For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.”
As Isaiah tells us back in chapter six, our God is the Holy, Holy, Holy God. Isaiah was a sinner and he knew it, so the seraphim symbolically placed a burning coal on Isaiah’s lips to purge away his sin – a small reminder that the Son of God was flogged until His skin was in ribbons, and then crucified, suffering the full Wrath of God for the sin of each person who would ever believe throughout time and space – all at once – in the moment when He was forsaken by His Father.
And so, since the Lord has so loved the world and sent His Son to save all those who would believe, God is enraged and furious with them. All those who never believe are under His Wrath of Supreme Power and He devotes them to destruction – to slaughter. (And the language is symbolic, of course, in the sense that to be just, the punishment must be endless.)
“Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.”
The bodies of those who eternally rebel against God will fill the earth and a stench will rise up from them, because there are so many, they cannot decompose or be buried. The blood of the slain will run down the mountains like floodwaters. The slaughter will be massive. The number of those who never believe will be massive.
“All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.”
The sin of humanity has corrupted the entire Creation, so, it will collapse and rot away under its corruption. The Creation will fall apart and die and fall to the ground like a tree losing its leaves. And God will roll up the fallen, sinfull, corrupt Creation – as you roll up a piece of paper for the garbage – and He will cast it down to the ground. A lump of clay made into a pot for dishonorable use, now balled up again to be rethrown and made honorable as the restored Creation.
The Lord is supreme in power, and He has the right and the obligation to bring His Wrath against all those who never believe and against the havoc that our sin has wreaked on the Creation. At the Final Judgment, there will be a cosmic recreation and a massive outpouring of the Wrath of God which will not end.
Second, the Lord will slaughter Edom.
Now, do we remember who Edom was?
Isaac had two sons: the older was Esau, and the younger was Jacob. And we read:
“Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, ‘Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!’ (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, ‘Sell me your birthright now.’ Esau said, ‘I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’ Jacob said, ‘Swear to me now.’ So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright” (Genesis 25:29-34, ESV).
The birthright was normally given to the first-born son. It included being the family priest, inheriting all the authority his father had, as well a double potion of the inheritance (https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/birthright/). Esau, in his hunger, sold his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew. And, thus, he lost his birthright and became the father of the people of Edom – a nation to the southwest of Israel that was usually enemies with Israel.
And so the prophets speak of Edom – the descendants of Esau – as the enemies of God:
Amos says, “Thus says the LORD: ‘For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. So I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah’” (Amos 1:11, ESV).
Edom is the nation that despises the promises of God. Edom is symbolic of all the nations and all the people who despise the salvation God has made through Jesus. And so, Isaiah prophesies about the slaughter of Edom, and has in mind all those, who like Edom reject Jesus and His salvation.
God’s sword will become drunk as He slaughters the people of Edom at the Last Judgment:
“For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction. The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.”
God says that those who refuse Him will be slaughtered and offered up like the lambs and goats and oxen and bulls were offered up as sacrifices to the Lord in the Temple. Adults as well as children, women, as well as men, will be offered up.
God explains how to offer a sacrifice that is acceptable to Him:
“If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the LORD, and Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD” (Leviticus 1:3-9, ESV).
And so, those who never believe will be offered up to God as a sacrifice – their whole selves – body, soul, mind, and spirit – will be given over to slaughter that God would be glorified in acting justly against sin.
For those who do believe, a sacrifice has been made for us, as the author of Hebrews explains:
“For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:11-16, ESV).
The Lord will have His vengeance against all those who sin who have never received the salvation Jesus earned – God will totally devastate everything having to do with Edom and all unrepentant sinners:
“For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.”
And since God is infinitely holy, the punishment for those who despise Him will be infinite as well:
“Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.”
Edom will be given over to the creatures of the wild – no humans will ever have it as their habitation again:
“But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness. Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.”
As Malachi writes:
“’I have loved you,’ says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have you loved us?’ ‘Is not Esau Jacob's brother?’ declares the LORD. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.’ If Edom says, ‘We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,’ the LORD of hosts says, ‘They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called “the wicked country,” and “the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.”’ Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, ‘Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!’” (Malachi 1:2-5, ESV).
Although we see the wicked rise up again and again, on the Last Day, the Lord will slaughter Edom as part of the Last Judgment. All the Wrath that was not poured out against Jesus on the cross will be poured out on all those who never believe for their sin. They will suffer the Wrath of God till full payment has been made.
And let us remember what we saw a few weeks ago: those who believe in Jesus will rejoice and praise God for His Justice against sin and evil, but we will not rejoice to see that Wrath poured out and the suffering of the wicked. We will focus on the Justice of God in His Judgment – which is beautiful.
Third, if God said it, that settles it.
Picture New York City – Manhattan. (Picture it because most of us have been there – not for any other reason.) Remember how it looked when the Twin Towers fell – picture all the buildings of NYC falling to the ground in a cloud of dust. Picture all the people torn apart as with a sword.
The ground bubbles up with tar and absorbs all the building and bodies and everything of NYC into it. NYC is become a wasteland. And the ground cools, and weeds grow up, and the wild animals make their way into the land and claim it for their own.
“Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place. There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.”
Substitute Edom for NYC. The weeds grow over the land. Jackals and ostriches and goats and birds and owls and hawks make the nation their own. There they find their mates and have offspring. But there are no humans in this land – once of wickedness.
Today, this is the southern half of Jordan.
And someone might ask, “Well, if the area of Edom is still inhabited by people, doesn’t that prove this Scripture wrong?”
No. For the same reason that we find people all throughout the world who deny that Jesus is God the Savior: the Final Judgment has not yet come.
Some of us will remember a bumper sticker that was once popular: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” R. C. Sproul has pointed out that the middle clause adds nothing, because, “If God said it, that settles it.” It doesn’t matter whether I believe what God says or not. If the Almighty and Sovereign God has said something will be, it will be. Period.
As God says:
“Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them. He has cast the lot for them; his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.”
Read what God has said – what He has promised. Edom will be flattened and there will be no people in it. God the Holy Spirit will bring jackals and ostriches and goats and birds and owls and hawks into the land – with their mates – and He will give it to them as a place to live and breed.
The day is coming when Jesus will return to judge every person who has ever lived throughout time and space – so God has said, so it will be. Those who have believed in Jesus savingly will be forgiven for their sin – Jesus merited forgiveness for all we who believe – by His life and death. But those who never believe will become sacrifices to the Justice of God and they will receive His Wrath as just punishment for their sin – in particular, the sin of never believing savingly in Jesus. Every sin can be forgiven in Jesus, but not the sin of unbelief.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, help us to better understand what it means that You are the Holy God so we will be more and more repulsed by sin. Enlarge our hearts that we would be passionately concerned about the eternal state of our friends and family. Cause us to pray for them and open our mouths to let them know there is only salvation in Jesus Alone. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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