Isaiah Chapter 3

ISRAEL: FROM PRIDE TO PENALTY

• God is the Provider and Sustainer, ultimately
• The staff was a support for leaning and a way to guide sheep
• The STAY is of food and water make Him the life-giver as well
• Therefore, the support to walk and the support for basic needs...gone
• The very oppression that they practiced upon others will return upon their own heads
• It is one thing to be humbled by someone greater, but to be humbled by someone lesser is even more so.
• Jesus is the Creator of all of mankind, yet He humbled Himself enough to be subject to and subsequently crucified by His own creation
• Crucifixion was the most humble death available, to be tortured
• "Every one" is repeated here, indicating that this will indeed be universal
• In desperation, people will take another leader-anything but a child will work for them
• Today we say, "I am the judge here; I wear the robes"

The people want the responsibility to be laid upon the ruler they choose to blame for the ruin, instead of themselves.
"If someone else is in charge (no matter who), someone else is to blame for this mess!"

• They lacked the wisdom to choose properly, so they choose improperly, just to shift the blame
• The father will say, "Hey, I am in the same boat as you, don't pin this on me!".
• Actions speak louder than words but, in this case, both actions and words are against their own Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer.......their own God
• Just the look on their faces alone-the prideful look, gives them away
• It is the first of the things listed in God's list of what He hates.
• This is a repeated theme in Scripture: rewards for the just and also the wicked
• The leadership being humbled under women and children is a sign of
• God standing up............not common. This is serious
• This is all part of the oppression, which ruins any country
• The vineyard here being themselves, their country
• Burning the vineyard was something your enemy would do in conquest
• 1 Kings 21 records the stealing by Jezebel of Naboth's vineyard by murdering him, which led to Jezebel being eaten by dog's fulfilling God's prophecy to Elisha
• The very oppression that they practiced upon others will return upon their own heads
• It is one thing to be humbled by someone greater, but to be humbled by someone lesser is even more humbling.
• Jesus is the Creator of all of mankind, yet He humbled Himself enough to be subject to and subsequently crucified by His own creation
• Crucifixion was the most humble death available, to be tortured
• "Every one" is repeated here, indicating that this will indeed be universal
• In desperation, people will take another leader-anything but a child will work for them
• Today we say, "I am the judge here; I wear the robes"
• The people want the responsibility to be laid upon the ruler they choose to blame for the ruin, instead of themselves.
• "If someone else is in charge (no matter who), someone else is to blame for this mess!"
• They lacked the wisdom to choose properly, so they choose improperly, just to shift the blame
• The father will say, "Hey, I am in the same boat as you, don't pin this on me!".
• Actions speak louder than words but, in this case, both actions and words are against their own Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer.......their own God
• Just the look on their faces alone-the prideful look, gives them away
• It is the first of the things listed in God's list of what He hates.
• This is a repeated theme in Scripture: rewards for the just and also the wicked
• The leadership being humbled under women and children is a sign of
• God standing up............not common. This is serious
• This is all part of the oppression, which ruins any country
• The vineyard here being themselves, their country
• Burning the vineyard was something your enemy would do in conquest
• 1 Kings 21 records the stealing by Jezebel of Naboth's vineyard by murdering him, which led to Jezebel being eaten by dog's fulfilling God's prophecy to Elisha
• Oppression can be so brutal as to be like (or even include) physical violence, assault
• These princesses are in their supreme arrogance, thinking that they are better than others
• They were not chosen because they were better than others, better than the Gentiles
• God specifically TOLD them this
• Necks, eyes, feet, for the eyes and the ears
• Women with scabs on their heads......no a pretty sight
• Their privates will also have problems, indicating judgment on their physical relations
• Bravery=showiness

1. Continuance in a place; abode for a time indefinite; as, you make a short stay in this city.
   Embrace the hero, and his stay implore.
2. Stand; stop; cessation of motion or progression.
   Affairs of state See md rather to stand at a stay. [But in this sense, we now use stand; to be at a stand.]
3. Stop; obstruction; hinderance from progress.
   Grieved with each step, tormented with each stay.
4. Restraint of passion; moderation; caution; steadiness; sobriety.
   With prudent stay, he long deferred the rough contention.
5. A fixed state.
   Alas, what stay is there in human state!
6. Prop; support.
   Trees serve as so many stays for their vines. My only strength and stay! The Lord is my stay. Psa 18.
7. 
   The stay and the staff, the means of supporting and preserving life. Isa 3.
8. Steadiness of conduct.
9. In the rigging of a ship, a large strong rope employed to support the mast, by being extended from its upper end to the stem of the ship. The fore-stay reaches from the foremast head towards the bow sprit end; the main-stay extends to the ships stem; the mizzen-stay is stretched to a collar on the main-mast, above the quarter deck, _c.
10. Stays, in seamanship, implies the operation of going about or changing the course of a ship, with a shifting of the sails. To be in stays, is to lie with the head to the wind, and the sails so arranged as to check her progress.
    To miss stays, to fail in the attempt to go about.

1. A stick carried in the hand for support or defense by a person walking; hence, a support; that which props or upholds. Bread is the proverbially called the staff of life.
2. The boy was the very staff of my age.
3. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Psa 23.
4. A stick or club used as a weapon.
5. With forks and staves the felon they pursue.
6. A long piece of wood; a stick; the long handle of an instrument; a pole or stick, used for many purposes.
7. The five lines and the spaces on which music is written.
8. An ensign of authority; a badge of office; as a constables staff.
9. The round of a ladder.
10. A pole erected in a ship to hoist and display a flag; called a flag-staff. There is also a jack-staff, and an ensign-staff.
11. In military affairs, an establishment of officers in various departments, attached to an army. The staff includes officers not of the line, as adjutants, quarter-masters, chaplain, surgeon, _c. The staff is the medium of communication from the commander in chief to every department of an army.
12. A stanza; a series of verses so disposed that when it is concluded, the same order begins again.
13. Cowley found out that no kind of staff is proper for a heroic poem, as being all too lyrical.
14. Stave and staves, plu. of staff. [See Stave.]

• The tough guy, the military man, the judicial system, the religious system, the careful, the old, the wise, the leaders, the artists and the political speakers
• All of the "elite people", the "good people", the "pretty people", the "well groomed", the "well heeled", the "cream of the crop" in any society
• This vacuum (famine) of leadership is another judgment
• They went, as the old saying goes, from "having wooden ships and iron leaders, to having iron ships and paper leaders"
• The immature over the older, barely more mature
• Had they acted mature, they could have rightly led
• The military, the judicial, the religious, the careful, the old, the wise, the artist and the politician/speaker
• The immature over the older, barely more mature
• Had they acted mature, they could have rightly led

• Having disrespectful children rule over you is humbling........and a curse
• They lacked experiential, adult wisdom, as will their new leaders
• They were adult children, mentally, spiritually, emotionally
• These are "juvenile adults"
• This leadership issue is what brings down Israel and any nation

• The child rulers will oppress them, disrespectfully
• It is a reversal of roles, honourable are now abased, humbled; humbled and abased lifted, risen up.
• This is also the disease of America today, age-ism, class warfare, radicalism since the 1960s.

• When God is not the ruler of the heart, anyone will do for getting the job done
• Knowing society was on the way down, they did not want to "be responsible" for it, so placing the blame elsewhere is a universal attitude, there then and here today

• Now that the stay and the staff are gone, we have to find someone else to blame for it, just not our sin
• Whoever is in charge when everything falls is the one to blame, not the people who originated the downfall
• Knowing this, no one wants to be blamed when it all comes crashing down

• This all happened while they imagined that everything is hunky dory.
• The reason for the ruin and fall is clear-"because their words and actions are against the LORD"
• They did this specifically "to provoke", in haughty, obstinate arrogance

Genesis 19:4-9
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

• They no longer even cared who saw them sin
• They, at that point, no longer considered what they were doing was sin anyways
• The comparison to Sodom is there because it is evil, public, blatant, haughty, s shown in the Genesis 19 context above

• They will sow what they reap
• The righteous remnant is still there, as always
• The unrighteous will also get their reward

THE REWARDS