This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you back to week two, day two of our look at the book of
Isaiah. We're looking at Isaiah chapter five these few days. Yesterday we began
to look at the things that have to change if we're going to live the life that
God made us to live.

Materialism, it has to change. Hedonism, cynicism, those big "ism" words that
are all around me selfishly trying to live my little life that I'm creating
rather than faithfully trusting God, living the huge vision for my life that he
has. These "isms" get me stuck in me instead of helping me to see all that God
wants to do.

And they're all caught up in these woes that Isaiah is sharing in this chapter.
We looked at three of them. The last three start with the number four is woe to
those who call evil good and good evil.

And I'd call this one situational moralism. When you decide whatever is good or
bad just depends on what I think about it, not what God says about it. In verse
20 of Isaiah chapter five, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who
put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and
sweet for bitter.

Very short and simple, he's talking about people who live a lie. It's one thing
to know what you're doing is wrong. That's one kind of woe in our lives, to feel
guilty about it, struggle with it.

It's a greater woe to justify what you know is wrong by calling it right. The
greatest danger is after a while you start to believe yourself. And we can all
see how this happens in our culture.

In fact, these words define any culture down through history without God. Those
who live in darkness without faith in Christ, they can't help but put darkness
for light. They don't have the light of Christ in their lives yet.

And so that leads to hopelessness in any culture where people aren't dedicated,
committing, giving their lives to Jesus Christ. And most cultures have a lot of
people who have not yet become followers of Christ. So you see this in culture
very, very easily.

But the truth is, you can also see it in our lives. You have to start with each
of these in our personal lives, not by looking at other people. So what's God's
go in the face of this woe for our lives?

Well, the go is personal repentance. It's easy to see the struggles that other
people have. What about what's going on in our lives?

When I call my selfishness serving God, the reason I'm doing it is because I
want to get something out of it. And maybe it's just the affirmation that I
need. Maybe it's something monetary that I'm going to get.

I don't know what it is, but I know why I'm really doing it. But I call it
serving God, like I just have a pure heart. All I'm doing is serving God.

Or when I use my anger to accomplish what might be a good thing, but I hurt an
awful lot of people in doing it. You see, we can call evil good and good evil
sometimes as well. When I ignore my family in order to do God's work, so I'm
hurting my kids, my wife, my husband in order to do God's work, change is going
to come into our culture, if it is going to come.

Not primarily by Christians telling the culture that they're wrong, but by you
and I as followers of Christ giving the example of a repentant heart. Here's the
places in my life where I've been acting like what I'm doing is good, but I
really know it's out of an evil motivation. Where I'm using evil means to try to
accomplish God's good in my life.

I repent of that. I come to you God and I say I'm sorry. Out of that, God can do
powerful, powerful things in your life and then in our culture, in your family
and then in our culture.

So that's the fourth woe. The fifth woe is woe to those who are wise in their
own eyes. This is the woe of intellectualism.

Verse 21, "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own
sight. " When you decide that you're pretty wise, that you're awfully clever,
look out. Pride goes before a fall.

And who of us hasn't fallen? Who of us hasn't struggled with pride? The person
who would say I've never struggled with pride is probably the most prideful
person you're ever going to meet.

To go down this road of saying I'm wise in my own eyes, I'm clever in my own
sight without giving acknowledgement to God, that's having no gratitude for the
brain that God gave you. Is the decision that you can do it on your own. When
the truth is we desperately need the wisdom of the Lord.

Because our pride cuts us off from God's power. When you trust in your wisdom
alone, you cut yourself off from God's greater wisdom that you desperately need.
So the go to this one is humility.

The opposite of pride is humility. Paul tells us, as he talks about wisdom, that
there's not many wise amongst us. That those who feel that they are wise, those
who are wise in their own eyes, tend to not come to faith in Christ because they
think they can make life work on their own.

They don't see the need to depend on God. That's the great danger of this. And
James tells us personally, if any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, he'll give you
wisdom.

But in order to ask God to give you wisdom, first of all you have to know that
you lack wisdom. If I think I have all the wisdom that I need, I'm never going
to ask. And I'm cutting myself off from God's wisdom.

If the wisdom you have in your life can't admit that you lack wisdom, then in
the end you're going to have no wisdom at all, because we need God's wisdom
throughout our lives. So the answer to this is the humility, just to admit,
there's many areas in my life, oh so many, where I don't have the wisdom to know
what I should do or how I should act in that circumstance, but God will give me
wisdom. God will work in my life.

Then there's a sixth woe that Isaiah talks to us about. In verse 22 he talks
about the woe that comes to those who are, the phrase he uses as heroes at
drinking wine. This is the woe of populism or popularity without integrity.

Verses 22 to 24, "Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at
mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe but deny justice to the
innocent. Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks
down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like
dust. Therefore they've rejected the law of the Lord Almighty.

They've spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel. " So here's a group of
people who are known for all the wrong things in their life. But they're very
popular, even though they're known for all the wrong things.

And the question behind this is, how much of your integrity are you willing to
give up for the sake of popularity? You see, what starts in high school, we want
to be popular, so we give up our integrity and we go to the party. We give up
our integrity, we get involved in things we really don't want to be involved in,
but it makes us popular.

What starts in high school, you'd think would stop there, but it doesn't. It can
continue in college, and then it makes its way into our offices, into our
neighborhoods, into the group of men or women that you hang out with that you
want to impress, heroes at drinking wine. What do you want to be known for?

What do you want to be a hero at in your life? And the truth is, popularity is
most often built on things that just don't last. How we look, what we drink, the
attacking kind of humor that we use with each other.

And what happens is, the crowd seduces you into building a meaningless life.
Yeah, you're popular, but your life has no meaning, no significance. All you've
got is the popularity.

You may be popular, but you have no purpose. And so that's why Isaiah says, you
burn like stubble, you're like a decaying blossom. The purpose for which you
were created is not being seen in your life.

The answer to this one, God's go for this one, is purpose, God's purpose in our
life. Instead of chasing the crowd, begging for crumbs of affirmation, you start
to live in the abundance of God's purpose for your life. And when you do that,
you may not, in fact, you won't be popular with everyone, but you will be
fulfilled.

You will be fulfilled. These last couple days, we've looked at these woes and
God's answer to them. Let me just remind us of those as we end before we pray
today.

The woe of materialism is answered by the go of giving. The woe of hedonism is
answered by the go of pleasing God. The woe of cynicism is answered by the go of
faith.

The woe of situational moralism is answered by the go of a repentant heart. The
woe of intellectualism and pride is answered by the go of humility, and the woe
of populism is answered by the go of purpose. Let's pray together.

Lord, you know our hearts. Of course, we want to live on the go side of that
equation. We want to live a life of purpose.

We want to live a life of humility. We want to have a repentant heart before
you, a heart of faith. We want to please you.

We want to give to you and others. So Lord, that's what we pray for, the
strength to do. We need your strength.

We need your wisdom. We admit we lack wisdom sometimes. And even these simple
things.

And so we head the wrong direction. We get caught up in the wrong things.
Father, we need your wisdom to live the life that you've given us to live.

And we ask for it today. In your name we ask, amen. Tomorrow we're going to
begin our look at what we learned from the day Isaiah met God in the temple.