The Danger of Success Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Danger of Success Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 2:6-22.

We’ve got to stop trusting in our own righteousness and our religious works. We’ve got to stop trusting in our own efforts to save ourselves. The only way that you and I can be saved is through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I want to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program today. We’re looking forward to sharing God’s word with you as a source of inspiration for your heart, and I hope that you will be rooted in your faith. Now today, we’re going to continue our study in the book of Isaiah chapter 2, and we’ll be looking again at verses 6 through 22, and we’ll study the danger of success.

Join me as we study. And they worshiped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

I know that sometimes we live in this digital age, and we see no need to gather and worship when we can just watch it on YouTube, or we can just watch it digitally, or we can watch it on our phone. And I understand, and I’m grateful for those opportunities, and I see them as a supplement. But nothing can change you like gathering together as a body of believers, and realigning your heart, and refocusing your thoughts and your minds upon Jesus Christ.

Because all throughout the week, what you’re going to spend your time doing is listening to so many voices calling you to follow stuff. To follow idols. To follow other priorities.

When we come back together, God once again focuses our heart and helps us to stay on mission, and to stay together as a team, and to stay together as the people of God. That rather than being full of idols, we want to be full of Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? And the sad commentary.

Verse 6 again. You have forsaken your people. What caused the Lord to forsake his people was that they were empty of God.

They were empty of God’s power. They were empty of a relationship with the Lord. They treasured the things of this world more than they did Jesus Christ.

They exalted themselves before God. And they humbled themselves before their idols. It’s a warning to us this morning, church, to be careful that as you are prospering, as you are blessed, as you are moving forward, as the Lord is providing, as you are rejoicing, that you don’t get your focus on success and forget who is the one who offers any blessing in our life.

It is God. It is God who provides all that we have. It is Jesus Christ who continues to sustain us and pour out grace upon us.

So then, now that they have become so full of things and empty of God, we see the second thing here is that the terror of the Lord has come upon them. Again, this is a picture of things that are happening in the latter days. In the last days, lofty things have become humbled.

And so we’ll kind of just walk through this because it’s going to be difficult to cover every particular verse. But I want you to see that the overarching point of verse 10 through 21 is that God’s holiness is vindicated. And that though there has been this generation of people who have rejected the Lord, that God has vindicated and righted every wrong.

So what do we see here? First of all, the day of the Lord is proclaimed. Look at verse 10, beginning there. Enter into the rock, hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty.

Don’t forget, church, that God will not share His glory. Isaiah will teach us that later, that He does not share His glory. That you may exalt yourselves above God and you may humble yourselves before your idols.

You may bow down before your idols, but God will destroy those idols. Again, in verse 11, the lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down.

And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Look at verse 12. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low.

The day of the Lord. The day of the Lord. What is the day of the Lord? The phrase, the day of the Lord, is identifying the events that will unfold at the end of history.

The day of the Lord is referring to a future day when God will intervene in history and He will judge those who have rejected Him and He will establish His righteous rule in this world. The day of the Lord is the inception of that millennial kingdom. It is the conclusion of the tribulation period that when we as a church are raptured out of here, receiving our rewards in heaven, that while the events are unfolding in that seven-year tribulation and that there’s this final defiance towards God Almighty by the kingdoms of man, that Jesus Christ will crush them at the end of that seven-year tribulation and He will establish His righteous kingdom upon this earth and we will rule and reign with Jesus Christ.

The phrase, the day of the Lord, it is used 19 times in the Old Testament, Isaiah being one of them, other passages of scriptures as well. It is used four times in the New Testament. When you see the phrase, you know that the Lord is proclaiming how things will unfold at the end.

This day of the Lord is not only a time of judgment, but is a time of salvation as God will deliver the remnant of Israel. Remember I told you, why is it that we believe that God would rapture us, the church, before the tribulation period? Remember this, do not forget, because the tribulation period is about the nation of Israel. It is about a nation that has not accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is the coming Messiah.

I told you before that when I sat there with the chief rabbi amongst other pastors, he said, the only difference between us and Christians, meaning Jewish people and Christians, is that you are looking for the second coming of your Messiah and we’re looking for the first coming of our Messiah. But there’s coming a day, the day of the Lord, that during the tribulation and especially at the end of the tribulation, that the Jewish people, according to Zechariah, they will recognize that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah that they’ve been looking for, the one that they have been waiting for. He is the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Isaiah, and in Zechariah, and in Zephaniah.

He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies, as Matthew taught us, and as Luke taught us, that they all align together, and so Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The Bible teaches us that great sorrow will come upon Israel, and they will be very repentant, and they will be very broken, and they will cry out to Jesus Christ for true salvation. Romans 11, verse 26 says, All of Israel will be saved.

Why do we love Israel as Christians? Well, not only because God has given us a promise that you are blessed if you do, if you bless His people, He’ll bless you, but number two, they are the chosen people of God, and He is using the tribulation period to woo them back to Him, to bring them back into a true relationship with Him, and that’s why there is favor, that’s why there is blessings, that’s why we as believers and those who follow Jesus Christ, that we have an affection towards the nation of Israel, and we have a special protection because God called them the apple of His eye. And so we understand that, and we recognize that, and we look forward to that day in which they will truly come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You will note again that in verse 10, that He says to us that we are to enter into the rock and hide in the dust.

This is a reference to what the Bible already teaches us in the book of Revelation, that when the vials are poured out upon this world, when the bowls are poured out, when the trumpets are sounded, these are the things that represent God’s judgment and God’s wrath upon the Antichrist and his man-made kingdom, and the judgment of God upon them. The judgment will be so fierce that people will want to hide in the rocks and the cliffs. Isaiah talks about in verse 12, that the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything that is proud and lofty.

That’s that second coming. That word can be translated host, it can be translated army. Some of your translations probably have that.

It is referring to the armies of angels, the legion of angels that are around the throne of God. In 1 Kings 22 verse 19, the Bible says, and He said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts, or all the armies of heaven, standing by Him on His right hand and on His left, that God with all of His angels, all of His armies, and the people of God, we will come back on white horses.

The book of Revelation teaches us, and we will come back. And Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, He will destroy every man-made kingdom. He will destroy every enemy of God.

And as the judgment of God is coming upon this world, people will be in so much pain and so much terror that they will want to hide in the cliffs and hide in the rocks, the scriptures teach us. Now the day of the Lord is described here by Isaiah. He says, The lofty will be humbled, and the Lord will be exalted.

Look again at verse 12. When the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, it shall be brought low. You and I witness, and we wonder, why do the heathen rage? Why is people getting away with their defiance to God? Listen to me, my friends.

It’s all coming to an end. It’s just not going to come when you want it to, and when I want it to. But God is going to bring everything to a point, and He’s going to finally bring judgment.

And those who exalt themselves above God, He is going to confront them, and He is going to deal with them. Joel 2, verse 31 says, The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Wow.

So we look at verse 13. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful slopes, and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

So the day of the Lord is being described to us. What’s going to happen? People are on their perches, and they are blaspheming God, and they are acting all prideful, and they can do whatever they want, and there’s no accountability. But I tell you, my friends, that every person will give an account to God.

And that’s why you and I do not have to be afraid. You see, if you’ve already humbled yourself before Jesus Christ now, you will not have to humble yourself on the day of the Lord because you will already be with the Lord, and you will be in a relationship with God, receiving your rewards. Now is the time.

The Bible tells us that one day every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess. That day is coming. But how much better it is to bow your knee today and to confess in your heart today that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Do not wait until the terror of the Lord comes upon this world and upon this land. But receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Acknowledge before God Almighty that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior, and accept Him as your Lord.

The house of Jacob, the nation of Israel, they were bragging about their military pride. You see that in verse 16. They were bragging about their trade and their commerce and how prosperous that they had come.

But look at verse 18. But the idols He shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

The lofty things that have been in direct competition with God’s glory are going to be destroyed. Human pride always seeks to exalt itself. We look across this world.

We see world leaders exalting themselves above God. We see politicians who think that they are better than God. They belittle God.

And they think that everything’s because of them. It’s a reminder to me of an incredible story in 1951. We saw this picture occur that the communist era in Eastern Europe came to a close.

The communists exalted themselves above God. And they belittled God. They refused to let anyone believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You remember in downtown Budapest in the Hungarian Communist Party had erected a monument to the great communist leader Stalin. It was completed in 1951 of December. It was a gift to Joseph Stalin saying that he was above God.

It was torn down on October 23, 1956 during a revolution. The statue was 75 feet high and the people pulled it down with rope around the neck and they began to torch it and to burn it. And I thought, you know what, that’s exactly what’s happening.

We see it all across America. We see these leaders claiming that they’re God or that you’re to worship them and they tell you not to believe in God but to only believe in them. And then what do we see? Their kingdoms crumble.

Their statues fall. Why? Because there’s only one true God, Jesus Christ. And I’m going to tell you at the end of the day of the Lord God is going to take care of all those who’ve exalted themselves against God.

He will destroy all those who challenge His supremacy. Now I want you to see the result. What is the result of this day of the Lord? Well, verse 19, they’re going to go into holes.

They’re going to go into caves. Why? From the terror of the Lord and the glory of the majesty when He arrives and shakes the earth mightily, in that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which have made each for himself to worship to the moles and to bats. God is warning that His wrath is coming and this wrath will come upon people who reject Him.

Revelation 6.16 says, The people cried out to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us, hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. When Jesus comes that second time, He’s not coming like He did the first time. He came as a Lamb, as a sacrifice for our sins.

But the second time He’s coming as a King and He will destroy all those who reject Him and the terror of the Lord will be upon this world and they will long to hide from the terror of the Lord and the glory of God. They will so despise and hate God Almighty and want nothing to do with Him that they will want to run into the caves and be hidden from the face of the One who sits on the throne. So I want us to look at these last two verses.

You say, Mike, what’s that mean to me? Well, this is the invitation that God gives to us in verse 21 and 22. Notice what He says in verse 21. To go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shaken the earth mightily, sever yourself from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils for of what account is he? There’s three things that God wants us to do and I want you to learn this and that is first we got to stop trusting in ourselves, our wealth, our own self-sufficiency.

We’ve got to stop trusting in our own righteousness and our religious works. We got to stop trusting in our own efforts to save ourselves. The only way that you and I can be saved is through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Any effort to save ourselves, to be more religious than the next guy so you’re accepted before God is futile. It is vain. Turn to Jesus Christ and believe in Him for your righteousness because your righteousness, my righteousness, is as filthy rags.

Let us turn to Jesus Christ and stop trusting in ourselves. I would say as a nation, though America spends lavishly lavishly on its military expenditures and though Americans have much wealth, gold and silver and possessions and investments and though Americans have trusted in all the things of this world, this is a nation that needs to humble itself before Jesus Christ and they need to exalt the Lord and quit exalting idols in their hearts. Now listen.

One of the ways that we worship idols as a nation is that we pursue the pleasures of this world with more passion than we do pursue God. We pursue entertainment, sports, music, movies, social media, material pleasures. These are all clamoring for our heart’s throne.

They all desire. Are they all evil? No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying anything you put before God can become an idol in your heart.

Your own children can become an idol. So many people say to me, well, I’m not going to go to church because I want to spend time with my children. Don’t say that.

We need to remember that Jesus Christ is number one and when you make Jesus Christ number one in your life, everything else will fall into place as it should and give honor and glory to God. We use different things that sometimes are good in and of themselves, but we put them before Jesus Christ. We put them before our relationship with God.

I think about parents who will drive their children all over this state for sports, but they never take their children to Sunday school. They never take them to Awana. They never take them to church and then their kids grow up and want nothing to do with church and you say, what happened? I’ll tell you.

You bowed down to the idol of sports. Hey, I went through that phase. We loved sports, but sports never kept us away from the house of the Lord and there were many temptations and there were many people pushing for it, but we stood up and said, no, and if I can do it, I know you can do it.

I love sports too, but sports not more important than my relationship with Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? That’s right. Some of you, you put family before.

You say, well, we got this family thing and that’s more important. You need to make a decision. Is Jesus Christ number one? Is he premier in your heart? Is he preeminent in your heart? And if he is not, then you need to ask the Lord to forgive you and stop trusting in the wrong things.

Repent from your idols and follow the true God. The second thing is that we are to come. Let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Walk in the light. Go back to verse five. Remember what we were told? Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Let us walk in his glory. Let us walk in his joy. Let us walk in his perfect plan and will for our life.

Let’s walk in the light of Jesus Christ. None of these things of this world will satisfy you, church. The things of this world will not satisfy you.

Some of you are jumping from relationship to relationship only to find that they’re dead ends. The only true relationship that will satisfy you is Jesus Christ. And if you are married, the only way that your relationship will ever be meaningful and make a difference in your heart is if it is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Your marriage must be built upon Christ. Jesus must be at the center of your marriage. He must be at the center of all your relationships.

He must be at the center of everything that you do in this life. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. He deserves all praise.

Amen, church. Don’t be enamored by human glory. Don’t be enamored by the achievements of others.

Don’t be pulled away by the razzle dazzle. Some of you, honestly, you’re more passionate about politics than you are Jesus. You come to me and you talk to me about this.

I had this guy was up preaching somewhere and wasn’t here, so relax and calm down. But this guy came up to me and he’s handing me Donald Trump money. And I said, buddy, I don’t need Donald Trump money.

I trust in the Lord. He’s a Christian. He’s all bent out of shape because I said I trust in the Lord.

I’m gonna tell you, no politician gonna save this country. Only Jesus Christ will save this country. And I know that makes some of you angry because you’ve exalted politicians.

You’ve exalted them and you’ve made them your passion. You’ll put a yard sign out, but you’ll never put a yard sign out for Jesus Christ. You’ll never hand out a track to a lost person.

You’ll never invite somebody to a special day, but you’ll certainly invite them to come and vote. That’s when we have exalted politics above our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You hand out all these signs.

You walk around with your fancy buttons, but you never wear a button that says, I love Jesus. You never walk around. You come to the church and you wanna try to recruit people to be a part of your political movement.

And why don’t you recruit people to be a part of your prayer movement? Why don’t you recruit people to be a part of your soul winning movement? Why don’t you be a part of those things? Because let me tell you something, friends, politicians will go the way of the world. I’ve already told you, church, the Republican Party took pro-life out of their platform. The Republican Party took out traditional marriage out of their platform.

They are no difference. Do you wanna die slow or quickly? That’s how you vote. And I’m saying that what we need to do as a nation is get back to the Lord Jesus Christ and we need to exalt Him.

We need to surrender to King Jesus and we need to worship Him and we need to follow Him and we need to walk in the light of Jesus Christ. I know I’ve made some people mad, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

Somebody needed to tell you because it’s getting out of hand. It happens every political season. I want you to stop being enamored with human glory.

How can any human achievement compare to what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross for us? Nothing can compare to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, can it? Nothing can compare to it. So what do we do? We need to follow Jesus Christ. Stop these things of the world and come to Christ and walk in His light.

Are we in the last days, church? Oh, we’ve been in the last days and we are in the last of the last days and what is going to be the turning point for your family? What is going to be the turning point for this nation? It is going to be, are we going to be all in, fully devoted followers of Christ? Are we just going to fiddle faddle with church, dabble in it a little bit, get a little bit of religion to make me feel good? Are we going to be sold out for the Lord Jesus Christ? He’s coming. The signs are all around us. He tells us what it’s going to be like.

I want to be a part of that group that’s raptured out of here and I want to be in the presence of God. I don’t want to have to endure the terror of the Lord and I don’t want the wrath of God to come upon me. I want to be in the safety of the old gospel ship of Jesus Christ.

God’s word is sure and God’s word is steadfast and it is reliable. And when we come to the Bible and we see those warning passages, they are not for us to run or overlook or even to neglect, but rather to see them as God speaking to us and we take the time to make sure that we don’t fall into these traps, that we’re alert to these potential dangers. And so I hope today the message and last week’s message has come together and given you not only some hope, but also some courage as you strive to honor Christ in your life.

Now, I want to remind you that we are on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and want to encourage you to check us out there. Go to Facebook, like our page, and you can keep up with us and you can send us messages and all that kind of wonderful stuff. If you have a prayer request, let us know and we’ll be glad to pray with and for you.

And this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.