The Dam Is Breaking

“THE DAM IS BREAKING”

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Psalms 118:8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. 9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
It is easy to trust in the Lord and jump on the band wagon for God when everybody is doing it but true trust is seen when one stands for the Lord even it if goes against the culture of a country.
In Isaiah 30 we find a man that trusted in the Lord in the midst of a national rebellion. His name was Isaiah.
Here in our church most of you have trusted in the Lord. You come to hear truth taught whether it makes you shout “Amen” or “O me.” You are faithful and to that I say, God bless you, and He will.
The word trust is synonymous with belief, hope, conviction, confidence, dependence but mainly it associated with faith.
“Trust in the Lord” appears nineteen times in the Bible. The significance of the number “nineteen” is the fact that in Biblical numerology “nineteen” speaks of one’s faith.

Isaiah was a mighty prophet of God. Biblical history bears record that Isaiah was fearless of man and favored by God. He stood for truth in the midst of a very stubborn and obstinate people.
The prophets before Isaiah had warned of judgment if God’s people ever turned away from God. Twenty years earlier Isaiah warned Judah and Israel to return and be faithful to the Lord.
But now the dam waters of God’s wrath had risen to the flood stage and very soon the dam would break upon Israel, but why?

The Outline: I – THE NOTICE
II – THE NOTEBOOK
III – THE NEVERENDING STORY

I – THE NOTICE– Isaiah 30:1-7
Read Isaiah 30:1. 1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:
2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
Twenty times Isaiah shouts, “Woe” in his book. Six times he shouts, “Woe” in chapters 30-33. Why? It is a notice from God as you might receive a notice from the electric company that says, “You have not paid your bill. Please send in payment by a certain date or your power will be cut off.”
Well, Israel had rebelled against God. They had refused to give God the honor and love He deserved and Isaiah sends them six notices in three chapters.
The mighty Assyrian Army had threatened Israel and Judah. They said to both of them, join up with us or we will destroy you.
The Assyrians promised Israel that everything would be better in life than before. There would be more food, more fun and more festivity.
Israel engaged in this sweet communion but it wasn’t long before Israel found out that the Assyrians, which were a picture of Satan as well as a picture of the Antichrist, lied to them.

Things didn’t get better, they got worse. There national economy began to crumble due to the tax dollars the Assyrians demanded and then Israel’s families continued to crumble.
How many of you have lived long enough to find out that the devil works the same way? He will say, “Come on rebel against God. You are missing out on living. You are missing out on life. Live it up!”
Then one day you wake up and realize your life is a mess, your family is a mess, your country is a mess and the deviled lied to you.

The king of Israel was Hoshea at this time. He was afraid of Assyria and he wanted out of the pack he made with them. He was making plans to make an alliance to yoke up with Egypt, whom God already said, “Don’t do it, trust me.”
As he attempted to make that deal with Egypt (Isaiah 30:3-7), Shalmaneser, king of Assyria found out and the dam broke.
The flood waters rushed through Israel. The mighty Assyrians came down. Israel was conquered but worse, the land was flooded with people from many nations that brought their culture, their beliefs, their immorality and their gods.
Listen to this! What I am about to say is found in Second Kings 17:24. Because Israel would not trust the Lord, because they played with sin, that sin blinded them.
When the prophet cried for them to repent and turn back to God, they couldn’t. Their eyes were blind. They did not know which direction to walk. Their ears were deaf and they could not hear nor did they believe truth. Their hearts were hardened and justified their actions.
They had wandered to far from truth to know truth when it hit them in the face. And their minds were darkened.
That is what is happening to so many in Bible preaching churches today. They hear truth but don’t heed to it and their hearts get harder and their minds get darker until they no longer care about truth.
Then foreigners overran their country. (Hello America) Israel whose worship was so pitiful anyway accepted the worship of the other ideas of “God” as readily as Americans and many churches have today.
These foreigners set up their gods, they controlled the atmosphere of Samaria and Israel’s children served graven images or false ideas of the true God. And the nation of Israel never returned to the days of glory. Christian friend that is what is happening today in America.
Stop and think: Why did God allow this to happen to Israel? It was because Israel, who claimed to be the people of the true God, no longer lived for God. The professed God but did not trust and obey.
When a dam breaks and the water rushes through a town, the entire town is changed forever. Not only are many drown, but the houses and swept away and the very foundations the houses once sat upon are washed away.
Often entire towns are washed off the face of the map and they are never built again like they once were. This was what happened to Israel.
To this Isaiah was warning Judah that if they walked the same way, it would happen to them. And to this Isaiah preaches to America today, the same thing could happen and is happening in our country.

II – THE NOTE BOOK – Isaiah 30:8-14
Isaiah 30: 8 Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
God tells Isaiah to write down this eternal message. Why would God call what He is about to say, an eternal message?
Because, what is about to happen to Israel would happen again and again if they did not learn to “Trust in the Lord.”

Here was what Isaiah wrote down in a note book.
1 - Verse 9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Today, when someone is called rebellious, we often think of a child that throws a temper-tantrum in public but that is not what the word “rebellious” means. It simply means a people that are disobedient to the Word of God. They hear it but won’t obey it.
Lying Children - Anyone who rebels against truth lives a lie.
If a lie is lived long enough it darkens a persons senses so when God’s word is preach they can’t hear God’s spirit nor perceive truth.
Picture a mother in the front room of her house looking out the window as her children playing in the front yard. One of them begins to chase a butterfly into the street. The mother sees a car speeding down the street and she yells a warning to her child, but the window and walls muffle her sound. The child never heard mother’s warning.
That is what rebellion in ones heart will ultimately come to. A person can’t hear God’s spirit crying to them. The heart is rebellious.
They turn away from God and they often chase the butterflies of life to their death.

2 - Verse 10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
The seer was one who could predict the future. Israel said, “Come on preacher, don’t preach so hard. Don’t tell us the truth. Don’t tell us how to live. We want to live as we please. If you don’t mind just deceive us, just entertain us. Just preach positive, just preach half the Bible and we’ll be happy.
Paul gave this same warning 1900 years ago in Second Timothy 4:
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
How do you know a false preacher? Let me give you seven ways:
1 - False teachers are men-pleasers (Gal. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:1-4).
2 - False teachers are notable in casting dirt (Korah – Numbers 16:3; 2 Cor. 10:10). They speak against those who preach truth.
3 - False teachers are inventers of the devices and visions of their own heads and hearts (Jer 23:16; 14:14) They speak of things not in the Bible. They make who their own doctrines.
4 – They major on the minors and minor on the major teachings of the Bible. (Matt. 23:2,3) Today we need to reach people’s heart first.
5 – They sugar coat the message enough rather than preaching straight truth. 2 Cor. 11:13-15
6 – They strive to win men by their opinions rather than by God’s word. They speak to better man’s mind and not man’s heart. (Matthew 24:17).
7 – They are out to make merchandise of you. They want your money. (2 Peter 2:1-3). Be careful of TV preachers asking for your money!
3 - Verse 11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
They didn’t want to hear about the Holy God of Israel. Many churches today says, “Let’s just get together on Sunday evening and fellowship and have coffee and chips and chat.” And Wednesday evening has turned into children time rather than prayer meeting and preaching.
4 - Verse 12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
Israel rejected truth. They trusted man’s philosophy. They trusted in the lies of the world like “I’m saved by grace; I can live any way I please.” But, they did not trust in the Word of the Living God.
THE ROCK WALL
Then Isaiah describes their down fall as a man walking by a rock wall and it suddenly, without warning falls on that man and crushes him to death.
Verse 13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
THE BROKEN VESSEL
Then he describes God’s judgment as a potter who has worked with a piece of clay over and over and when he placed the lovely vessel of clay in the fire, it came out distorted. The potter would take that clay pot and throw it against the rocks because it was a true picture of the potter’s heart.
6 - Verse 14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
All of this was written in a book (the book of Isaiah) to warn God’s people to never wander away again.
In that NOTEBOOK is found prophecy.
Now, I believe verses 15-18 are prophetic scriptures.
God says in verse 15, “I’ve ask you to return to me. I asked you to find your rest in me but you would not, you refused.”
After Israel’s fall, God sent Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus said to them “Repent” but they refused.
Verse 16, they said, “No.” “We will ride our way swiftly away from you.” God said then you will be pursued (v 17) and you will die like flies.
Isaiah 30:17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
I believe this scripture to be prophetic by Isaiah. It is not a compliment of what is going to happen it is a disgrace. What would happen here will be remembered by Israel for thousands of years.
This prophecy would come to pass 800 years later. It would transpire after Jesus came and after the Jewish people had rejected Christ as we just read.
MASADA
History tells us an amazing story of a battle on top of a mountain called Masada in Israel. After Titus conquered Jerusalem in 70 A.D a group of Jews fled to the mountain of Masada. It was a natural fortress with cliffs straight up that stood more than a thousand feet in the sky (East side 1300 feet and west side 300 feet), with only one small road carved out of the rock to the top. An army of fifty could hold off an army of ten thousand.
The Roman Ruler, Titus commanded the Roman governor, Silva to destroy the 960 zealots on top of Masada. It would take Silva two years but Silva began building a massive road using 2,000 Jewish slaves to hall rock and dirt.
When the 960 Jews saw the road near completion and that soon the Romans would conquer them, they decided they would rather die than become Roman slaves.
They chose ten men to take the lives of all the rest. This was done. Then of the ten, one was chosen to take the lives of the nine men and the final man committed suicide. Two women who hid away told the story to the Romans.
To the Jewish people this was an ensign on a hill, a symbol of Jewish heroism and determination to live as a free and sovereign people.
According to God’s word there was nothing heroic about it. Why? If God’s people will not serve Him, He will turn them over to taskmasters. He did it in Egypt. He did it in Babylon. He did it in Rome.
And He does it today. God’s people (Christians) can as God’s sons, serve their Father or in time they will become slaves to the governments of this world.
III – THE NEVER-ENDING STORY – Isaiah 30:19-33
Isaiah 30:19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
The message that Isaiah delivered was so bleak and discouraging that the Holy Spirit leads him to end with the great promise of the never-ending story that God gives His people and that is, “There is a Great Day coming.”
The Jewish people have a lot of sad memories in history but one day the sovereign God of Israel will show his mighty grace again.
Though they rejected the Messiah, He will give tham another chance.
Then they will hear and understand (21).
They will destroy their false images (22).
They will see and behold the beauty of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Their land will blossom with plenty (23).
And God will bring a healing to their land (v 26).

But, Israel must understand something as you do and that is this; this is a never-ending story till Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire.
Verses 27-33 retell the same historical story I just told you.
It is a repeat of what happened 3700 years ago.
1) 3700 years ago Isaiah warned Israel to hear and obey God. They rebelled and the Assyrians fell upon them and took them captive.
2) Seven-hundred and twenty-two-years later when Christ came, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Disciples again cried out for Israel to “Believe God.” They rejected God’s Word again and the Romans fell upon them and they made their final stand at Masada.
3) Now for 2,000 years the Church which was predominately Jewish in the beginning and now mostly Gentile but never the less, Jew or Gentile, it is the Bride of Christ, has preached Jesus for 2,000 years and yet the Jewish people as a whole still live in rebellion of God’s Word as well as most Gentile nations today.
And, one day a great a mighty nation, like the Assyrians will fall on Israel again, and not only them but the whole world, only this time the nation will be the nation of the Antichrist during the tribulation period (27-33).
Look at the last thought in this passage.
1) Isaiah 30:27-28 deal with the Tribulation time.
Compare Isaiah 30:27 with Revelation 19:15:
Isaiah 30:27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
Revelation 19: 15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
When Christ returns he will return in judgment to smite and destroy the rebels of this earth whether they are Jew or Gentile. They will be defeated and cast into an eternal hell because they had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
Compare Isaiah 30:28 and Revelation 16:11:
Isaiah 30:28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.
Revelation 16: 11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
The pride of man will blaspheme God. God will thus herd them up like cattle and bring them to the valley of Mediggo to the battle of Armageddon where the stream of blood from this great slaughter will flow the horses bridle and man neck.

2) Then Isaiah turns to the Millennium to give encouragement to Israel and the world that would be saved:
29 Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the LORD, to the mighty One of Israel.
Joy will return to Israel one day. He will reign from Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem. His voice will be heard but he must first destroy the rebels (look at verse 30). So he goes back to the tribulation time.
30 And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.
Now Isaiah reveals a prophetic blessing in verse 31 to Judah. This prophecy will not take place for about eight years after Israel’s fall.
But, Isaiah tells Judah that God will smite the Assyrians for them. This will take place in Isaiah 36.
31 For through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod.
32 And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the LORD shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it.
But, understand this is also prophetic of the Antichrist. He will wage a mighty war against Israel and many will die.
But, the Lord will wage war against the Antichrist and this world. Why and when? Did Isaiah give us a hint or a piece of evidence or a symbol of something that transpiring when Israel fell to the Assyrians that shall take place again in the last days?
He does. In verse 33 Isaiah reveals this truth to all the world.
33 For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
Tophet comes from the Hebrew words means drums and burning. The kings of Israel and Judah had fallen so far from God that outside Mount Zion on the south-side was a valley called the valley of Hinnon.
It was here that Israel and Judah made child sacrifices to the Canaanite god, Moleck.
It would be yet another ninety years before Judah would destroy Toheth and do away with the worship of this Canaanite god. Did you understand that? Judah even in the days of Isaiah and under his fiery preaching kept the temple of Moleck in the valley of Hinnon where child sacrifices could still take place.
We read in Second Kings 23:10, And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Not until Josiah became king did he in 640 B.C. (ninety years later) put a stop to this wicked practice. But too much water had already flushed over the dam. Judgment was coming.
How does that relate to the world today? What is the character trait today? One might say, “Nobody but heathens in the darkest jungles make such sacrifices.”
To that I must disagree for all over the world from China to America, from England to France, from Russia to Germany and on and on, by the law of the governments of all theses lands babies are offered as sacrifices to the god of conveniences.
It was legalized in America in 1973. You know it as abortion.
And the number one reason women give for having an abortion is it will interfere with their life style.
The Notice is clear. Turn back to God. The Notebook is clear. Don’t rebel any longer. The Never-ending story is clear.
If you are saved, you are on the winning side. Your job and mine as believers should be to flood God’s altar every chance we get and cry out to God to change our hearts or to change our family or to change our country.
Will you be a Christians that will Cry Out To God!