Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my forty second episode. In this episode I want to take a look at Isaiah chapter three. As we go through this study, I want you to keep the following three questions in your mind. Are you afraid of being a leader? Why? What are some differences between self-reliance and responsibility? Why does the gender of God matter? Now I’m going to read the chapter to you in its entirety. Please enjoy.
Isaiah 3
Judgment against Judah
3 The Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will take away from Jerusalem and Judah everything they depend on: every bit of bread and every drop of water, 2 all their heroes and soldiers, judges and prophets, fortune-tellers and elders, 3 army officers and high officials, advisers, skilled sorcerers, and astrologers.
4 I will make boys their leaders, and toddlers their rulers. 5 People will oppress each other—man against man, neighbor against neighbor. Young people will insult their elders, and vulgar people will sneer at the honorable.
6 In those days a man will say to his brother, “Since you have a coat, you be our leader! Take charge of this heap of ruins!” 7 But he will reply, “No! I can’t help. I don’t have any extra food or clothes. Don’t put me in charge!”
8 For Jerusalem will stumble, and Judah will fall, because they speak out against the Lord and refuse to obey him. They provoke him to his face. 9 The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don’t even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves.
10 Tell the godly that all will be well for them. They will enjoy the rich reward they have earned! 11 But the wicked are doomed, for they will get exactly what they deserve.
12 Childish leaders oppress my people, and women rule over them. O my people, your leaders mislead you; they send you down the wrong road.
13 The Lord takes his place in court and presents his case against his people.[a] 14 The Lord comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: “You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. 15 How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?” demands the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
A Warning to Jerusalem
16 The Lord says, “Beautiful Zion[b] is haughty: craning her elegant neck, flirting with her eyes, walking with dainty steps, tinkling her ankle bracelets. 17 So the Lord will send scabs on her head; the Lord will make beautiful Zion bald.”
18 On that day of judgment the Lord will strip away everything that makes her beautiful: ornaments, headbands, crescent necklaces, 19 earrings, bracelets, and veils; 20 scarves, ankle bracelets, sashes, perfumes, and charms; 21 rings, jewels, 22 party clothes, gowns, capes, and purses; 23 mirrors, fine linen garments, head ornaments, and shawls.
24 Instead of smelling of sweet perfume, she will stink. She will wear a rope for a sash, and her elegant hair will fall out. She will wear rough burlap instead of rich robes. Shame will replace her beauty.[c] 25 The men of the city will be killed with the sword, and her warriors will die in battle. 26 The gates of Zion will weep and mourn. The city will be like a ravaged woman, huddled on the ground.
Let’s take a look at verses 1-3. Here we see a picture of Jerusalem under siege. Her leaders are destroyed. Isaiah’s prophecy would soon become a reality for these people. Their disobedience would bring serious affliction and great destruction. God lays out a clear warning about this in Deuteronomy 28. God’s law is ubiquitous in the universe. Disobeying God is like trying to disobey gravity – every time the reaction will be the same. We see Isaiah talking about fortune tellers and astrologers in these verses. It’s important to remember that Isaiah is not condoning these mystics. He was showing how far Jerusalem had fallen. Jerusalem’s dependence on mystics is no different than the West’s dependence on human experts today. Let’s be very careful here. I’m not saying we should dispense with experts and that we should avoid the disciplines. We should use advancement for all it can offer us. But we are foolish to become fully dependent on anything or anyone but God. Think of it like this: your tools are very useful to you when you need to repair something. But your tools can’t fix anything without you. In the same way, the disciplines are useful to us when we need to solve problems and navigate this space of life. But the disciplines are useless without God’s law to establish why and what you should use them for. There was a void of leadership in ancient Jerusalem described in this chapter, and I believe there is a void in leadership today. Our secular experts have stepped in to fill that void because the church has failed to lead. For a detailed analysis of this failure, listen to MHB 22.
So this brings us to our first question. Are you afraid of being a leader? Why? First I want to say that I understand there are hierarchies of leadership. Not all of us are called to be leaders of organizations or large groups of people. But all of us are called to be salt and light. To preserve what is good and guide the world. This means that we may find ourselves in situations where there’s no one else to be the Christlike influence. If you end up in a situation like that, it is your responsibility to lead. As for being afraid, I would say that we are encountering two types of fear here. The first type is the self-doubt kind of fear. The fear that tells you not to try because you’ll never be good enough anyway. If you trust Christ, you don’t have to feel that fear. When you lead people by following Jesus, He’s the one who is leading them through you. And God never makes mistakes. The second kind of fear is almost like an acute awareness of your limitations. It’s having the humility to realize that you yourself are not the Messiah. Anything you do well is only possible because God is guiding you in it. This is a good fear to have. It’s like a respect and reverence for God. When it comes to this fear, I am absolutely afraid of being a leader. If there comes a day when I no longer feel that fear, I would be in dangerous territory because that’s not far from totalitarianism. So don’t doubt your abilities, but remember that your greatest abilities are given to you by God for His purposes. Not your own.
So in verses 9-11 we see that the people have become proud of their sins. They were parading them out in the open. These people didn’t realize that sin was destroying them. Today, many people have fallen into the deception that sinful living is glamorous, exciting, and clever. This is a problem of not being able to see more than a few moves ahead. Sin always leads to misery and destruction. God tries to protect us by warning us about the harm we will cause ourselves by sinning. Unfortunately, all of us have suffered consequences to sins we’ve done and the sins others have done. Part of my goal is to minimize this damage as much as is possible in this life. Notice in verse ten how we are given a glimpse of hope. God will not forget about the times you’ve done thankless work, the good things you’ve done that have gone unnoticed. He knows, and He will remember.
In verse 14 we see that the elders and rulers were responsible to help the people, but instead they stole from the poor. Because they were unjust, Isaiah said the leaders would be the first to receive God’s judgment. Leaders will be held accountable. If you are in a position of leadership, you must lead according to God’s just commands. Put the needs of others before your own. Fulfill the purpose God intended. Don’t seek your own advantage. Corruption will bring God’s wrath, especially if others follow your example.
This brings us to our next question. What are some differences between self-reliance and responsibility? I believe that self-reliance is the starting point for corruption. But I also believe that all of us are called to be responsible. I don’t believe that you can find sustainable meaning in your life if you’re sitting back and hoping that God will do it for you. I think the major difference between self-reliance and responsibility is that responsibility seeks to achieve God’s purpose for you, while self-reliance seeks to create your own purpose for yourself. The problem is that many of our most responsible people are also self-reliant. I believe we can do a lot to fix this problem by adopting maximum responsibility within the church and within the world.
Verse 14 also talks a bit about justice. Why is justice so important in the Bible? There are a few reasons we can look at. First is that justice is part of God’s nature; it is the way he runs the universe. We can create stability and accomplish feats of amazing prediction because God upholds the universe in a physical constant. Second is that justice is a natural desire in every person. Even if you claim you don’t believe in God, you still want justice for yourself. You recognize the concept of justice because you are made in His image. Third is that when government and church leaders are unjust, the poor and powerless are usually the ones to suffer. Thus, they are hindered from worshiping God. God holds the poor in high regard because they are the ones who are most likely to turn to him for help and comfort.
In verses 16-26 we see that the women of Judah had placed their emphasis on clothing and jewelry rather than on God. They dressed to be noticed, to gain approval and to be fashionable. Yet they ignored the real purpose for their lives. Instead of being concerned about the oppression around them, they were self-serving and self-centered. People who abuse their possessions will end up with nothing. These verses are not an indictment against clothing and jewelry, but a judgment on those who use them lavishly while remaining blind to the needs of others. When God blesses you with money or position, don’t flaunt it. Use what you have to help others, not impress them.
So now I want to take on the final question. Why does the gender of God matter? Lately there has been a push to make God gender neutral. I believe this debate is caused by third wave feminism and the doctrine of equality of outcome. In order to understand third wave feminism, we should review first and second wave feminism. First wave feminism started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. First wave feminism involved advances in legal matters like women’s suffrage. First wave feminism was very good for our culture. In the ’60s and ’70s we saw a push to provide equal opportunity in the workplace for women. This was second wave feminism. I would argue that second wave feminism was also good, although you could make a case that losing the maternal presence in the home when both parents become career oriented is unhealthy for the development of children.
Today, modern feminists have commandeered equality of opportunity and perverted it into equality of outcome. When I say modern feminists I don’t necessarily mean women. In fact, the two major philosophers who provided the engine for third wave feminism are men. Their names are Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. These guys and their following in the universities have conceptualized the world as a zero sum struggle for power between victims and victimizers. In this worldview, all interpersonal relations are characterized as a transaction of oppression. Even sex is nothing but one partner exerting power over the other. So, equality of opportunity has turned into equality of outcome. To understand equality of outcome, I want you to imagine ten runners in a race. Equality of opportunity is recognizing that one of the runners has a handicap and giving him a head start. Equality of outcome is forming a mob around the fastest runner and cutting off his legs. Equality of outcome seeks to punish competence. This has led to the false doctrine of toxic masculinity and white privilege. Toxic masculinity tells us that any man who is competent must also be an oppressor of those around him. Men all over have been subjected to this indictment and have become emasculated in the process. Emasculated men are bad for the world and very bad for women in their relationships. Imagine a man and his wife are walking down the street. Someone attacks them and the man runs and hides while his wife gets attacked. All people, radical feminists included, would be disgusted at that guy’s decision to throw his wife into danger. That’s because masculinity and the admiration of masculinity is structured into our biology.
In order to achieve equality of outcome, you will always need to strip the freedom from your people. For example, the Scandinavian countries have the most egalitarian legislature in the world. This means the Scandinavian countries are the best place in the world for leveling the playing field between men and women. The third wave feminists thought that egalitarianism would lead to men and women becoming more similar to each other. The opposite happened. Men and women make choices with even a larger margin of difference in the Scandinavian countries than they do in places where women can’t choose. This is because women are different from men and men are different from women.
All of this is behind the push to make God gender neutral. God is not gender neutral. But God is supra sexual. This means that he is not a sexual being. I believe God has chosen to reveal himself as the Father and incarnate as a male in Jesus Christ because of what are called masculine traits. Strength, protection, provision, order, things like that. I want to be careful to point out that there is overlap here when it comes to the average man or the average woman. For example, you can find plenty of women who are more aggressive than men and plenty of men who are more nurturing than women. But if you found the ten most aggressive people on the planet, all of them would be men. Likewise, if you found the ten most nurturing people on the planet, all of them would be women. C.S. Lewis thought that when compared to God, all of us would be more feminine than him. He thought this was why the Bible refers to all believers, both men and women, as the bride of Christ.
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