This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is week three, day three together of our look through the book of Isaiah.
We're going to look at a big chunk of the book today, actually chapters 13 to
24. These chapters are all about Israel's enemies.

They're all about Israel sometimes as being an enemy of God. They reveal clearly
what's going to happen to these enemies. Just listen to the list of enemies that
are talked about in these chapters.

Babylon, and Assyria, and Philistia, and Moab, and Damascus, and Cush, and
Egypt, and Edom, and Arabia, and Tyre. Little Israel had to feel hopelessly
surrounded at times by these enemies. The truth is we feel surrounded at times
too.

The names aren't Egypt, and Cush, and Philistia. They're worry, and fear, and
depression. We're all in a spiritual battle.

We're all facing spiritual enemies every day of our lives. And that battle is
not just mental, it's not just psychological. It's a real spiritual battle for
our lives with Satan as the captain of the enemy and God as the general of our
victory.

And in these chapters, you get to know the enemy of Israel. But also in these
chapters, it helps us to understand our enemy, the evil that we have to face in
the world today. When you get to know your enemy, it gives you an entirely
different perspective on the battles of life.

And God's vision for change has to include the truth about your enemy. When you
know the truth about your enemy, it gives you hope that you can defeat your
enemy, God's hope. So I'm going to springboard from these chapters about
Israel's national enemy to help us to recognize some things about our personal
enemy that are sprinkled throughout these chapters.

Three truths. First of all, the enemy is finished. God's victory is promised.

The enemy is defeated. God made it clear to all of Israel that all these nations
he's talking about that seem so powerful in their day, they would one day suffer
clear and total defeat. The enemy is finished.

A couple of truths about that. Number one, when you talk about the enemy of evil
in our lives, its power is temporary. It's not going to last.

When you start to believe that the power of evil is permanent, you're going to
lose the battle, the personal battle. The truth is, Satan's power, the power of
evil, it's only temporary. On a global basis, that means that God's kingdom will
one day be restored and endure.

But Isaiah points to the personal impact of this also, that the Lord will give
you relief in the midst of the battle. Isaiah 14, verse three, "On the day the
Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor
that's forced on you, God has promised relief. " And I love the picture in this
one simple verse.

Relief from suffering, relief from turmoil, relief from harsh labor. It's not
going to last. Suffering is not going to last.

God's going to give relief. He gives a measure of relief through his presence
and his grace and his healing on this earth. He gives eternal relief when we get
to heaven.

He gives relief from suffering, from pain of heart and mind and body. That's joy
when he gives that kind of relief. He gives relief from turmoil.

Again, partly on earth by giving the peace of Christ through his spirit, but
eternally in heaven. He gives relief from the confusion of this world. He gives
relief from the turmoil that's involved in making good decisions or facing bad
circumstances.

Relief from turmoil is God's peace in our lives. And he gives relief from harsh
labor. Now, for some people, that relief is not going to come until you get to
heaven.

He gives relief from bondage. He gives relief from that feeling of being
imprisoned. That's the idea of harsh labor here, imprisoned labor, being
trapped.

He gives relief from the sins that bind us. He can give that to you now through
Jesus Christ. He gives relief from the past that binds us.

He gives relief from the feeling of being enslaved to a habit or bound by a
circumstance or imprisoned by others. Relief from bondage is freedom. And he
wants to give a measure of that to you right now, but he wants to give an
eternity of that for you in heaven.

So limited power in our enemy. And also, the enemy, its time is limited.
Beginning in verse 4, Isaiah says this, "You will take up this taunt against the
king of Babylon, how the oppressor has come to an end, how his fury has ended.

The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in
anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows and in fury subdued nations with
relentless aggression. " All the lands are at rest and at peace. They break into
singing.

Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon gloat over you and they say, "Now
that you've been laid low, no one comes to cut us down. " Evil is going to come
to an end. The fury is going to be ended.

Whenever the battle gets you down, remember, things will not always be as they
are now. Don't surrender the day before D-Day because victory is on the way. The
pictures that he gives us here is the rod is broken.

He's talking about Babylon, a specific evil that they faced, but this also goes
to the evil that we face in this world because Babylon is an example of the evil
that we face in the world. In fact, when you get to the book of Revelation, evil
is pictured with the nation of Babylon again and again. Whenever the enemy seems
too strong, remember, God will snap his strength in two.

The rod is broken. He says the lands are at peace. Whenever the battle seems too
long, remember, peace is assured in our lives.

And then he says, "Now that you've been laid low, whenever the growth of evil
seems so wrong, remember that it will one day be laid low. " God's going to
judge all evil. So let me just say this again.

Whenever the enemy seems too strong, remember, God will snap his strength in
two. Whenever the battle seems too long, remember, peace is assured. And
whenever the growth of evil seems so wrong, remember that one day it will be
laid low.

He's going to cut it off like a weed eater cuts off a weed. Babylon's power
could not last. We know that from history.

No evil power lasts. And Satan's power will not last. We know that from God's
Word.

The enemy is weak and without the strength to eternally impact your life. So
you've got to get to know your enemy and understand that truth about your enemy.
The enemy is finished.

Second truth about your enemy is the enemy is foolish. The enemy, evil, is
foolish. It's dumb.

It's stupid. If you want to be polite, it's sadly mistaken, tragically mistaken.
The enemy of evil has made the world's greatest mistake.

Beginning in verse 12, chapter 14 again, Isaiah prophesies about that. "How you
have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn. You've been cast down to
the earth, you who once laid low the nations.

You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens. I will raise my throne
above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly on the
utmost heights of Mount Zephon.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most
High. But you were brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the
pit.

Those who see you stare at you. They ponder your fate. Is this the man who shook
the earth and made kingdoms tremble?

The man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not
let the captives go home? " Now Isaiah is talking specifically about Babylon
here, but there's a greater meaning we'll look at in a moment. Babylon makes the
world's greatest mistake.

We saw it right in the middle in verse 14, "I will make myself like God. " Adam
and Eve made that mistake. If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, you will be like God.

And they were banished from the garden. The people at Babel made this mistake.
If we build a tall enough tower, we can be like God.

They saw their dreams crushed and their lives terribly confused as God confused
the languages there. Babylon makes this mistake and its king Nebuchadnezzar
falls into terrible, terrible times because of this attitude that I can be like
God. Satan made this mistake.

You cannot help but see these words about evil Babylon fulfilled in Revelation's
description of Satan. Revelation 12, 9, "The great dragon, Satan, was hurled
down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world
astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him.

" Just like Babylon, before Babylon and leading Babylon into the wrong way,
Satan fell. All of these remind us and this passage echoes for us that the
father of mistakes, Satan himself, is foolish. He literally attempted to ascend
above God and he's forever banished from heaven.

Satan is crafty, he's sneaky, but he's also foolish. He's foolish enough to get
himself kicked out of God's presence. And he understood the glories of God's
presence in ways that we don't.

Foolish enough to give up the glories of heaven for the terrors of hell.
Remember that Satan is an angel originally, created to serve God, but somehow
thought he could ascend above God. Know your enemy.

The enemy is foolish, not just silly foolishness, deadly foolishness. The enemy
is finished, the enemy is foolish, and then finally the enemy is frail. People
may look strong to us.

From God's perspective, the enemy is sick, it's ready to die. Isaiah 14, 9 to
11, "The realm of the dead below is all a stir to meet you at your coming. It
rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you.

All those who were leaders in the world, it makes them rise from their thrones,
all those who were kings over the nations. They will all respond, they will say
to you, 'You have become weak as we are. You have become like us.

' All their pomp has been brought down to the grave. " The enemy is sick from
God's perspective. The grave is a stir to greet you.

One foot in the grave, that's how God sees evil. We don't see it that way. We
see it for its strength in this moment, but God sees all of eternity, all of
history, and he sees one foot in the grave, it's not going to last long.

The enemy is weak. You've become weak as we are. The only power that Satan has
is allowed by God for a brief time, and when God disallows it, it will stop.

The enemy has no power over God, and the enemy is vulnerable. You have become
like us, all the kings of all the nations say. In trying to be like God, the
enemy is shown to be like man.

Paul in the New Testament tells us not to be ignorant of the schemes of Satan.
Why? Why does he say this?

So that you can enjoy the victories of God in your everyday life. Are you
enjoying God's victories? Are you too often succumbing to Satan's attacks?

This picture that Isaiah gives us is crucial for change in our lives, because
our perspective can get warped. It can get twisted to see that maybe evil is
more powerful than the truth of God tells it to be, because all we're seeing is
one moment in time, one circumstance that we're facing right now. The truth is
the enemy is finished.

The enemy is foolish. The enemy is frail, but God is eternal. God is
all-knowing.

God is almighty. He is the one we can trust, so let's trust him right now. Our
Father, we trust you as the almighty, all-knowing, all-powerful one.

What we see of evil sometimes looks to us to be so strong, but we trust what you
say, that it will not last. We trust what you say, that we can count on you to
finish the power of evil and to complete the plan that you have. So today, as we
face an evil circumstance, as we face an evil word, as we face an evil in our
own hearts, I pray that you help us to know our enemy and to know your power, to
know your strength.

We pray it together in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look at how
to move from "Oh my God living" to "You are my God trusting.