Isaiah Chapter 2: Future Peace or Foolish Pride?
Jerusalem’s future - Andy
Isaiah’s Prophecies concern judgement on sin, but also contain great hope.
God will judge sin on the one hand, but He is also the God of Salvation on the
other!
Chapter 2 begins with Jerusalem’s great hope. Isaiah’s focus is local.
Isaiah 2:1-4
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem.
2
Now it will come about that
In the last days
The mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be established [a]as the chief of the mountains,
And will be raised above the hills;
And all the nations will stream to it.
3
And many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
That He may teach us [b]concerning His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For the [c]law will go forth from Zion
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4
And He will judge between the nations,
And will [d]render decisions for many peoples;
And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they learn war.
The Prophet Micah predicts the exact same scene for the future of Jerusalem.
Micah 4:1-3:
And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be established as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
And the peoples will stream to it.
2
Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
Isaiah Chapter 2 1
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3
And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they train for war.
During Isaiah’s day the city of Jerusalem where he lived was under constant threat
from attack by Nations round about, just as it is today.
But Isaiah spoke a Prophetic Word to the city in these verses which predicted that
things would be different one day when the True King sat on the throne of
Jerusalem!
V1. One day Jerusalem will be the capital city of the whole world! Some
Scholars believe that the earthquake of the second coming will reshape
the landscape, so that the Temple mount is literally raised up above the
surrounding hills as this verse suggests.
V2. People from all Nations will travel to Jerusalem to be taught by the Lord –
as if drawn by a magnet. This verse describes God Himself (Jesus)
teaching in the temple again!
V3. The Lord will be the Judge of Nations, not so much pronouncing sentence
on wrongdoers, but settling disputes, & giving just decisions.
V4. The Lord will bring global peace, and tanks will be turned into tractors!
The realisation of the hope of the ages.
This has never happened before; this is a prophecy which is yet to be fulfilled. How
can we be certain that these words will be fulfilled as they were spoken two and a
half thousand years ago?
Because as we go through the prophecies of Isaiah most of God’s words have been
accurately fulfilled already, particularly concerning Jesus’ first coming. This
gives us confidence to trust that the Prophecies which have not been fulfilled are
not just poetic pictures, but are prophecies yet to be fulfilled!
This is the first of a number of prophecies of what life will be like here on Planet
Earth after Jesus returns as King.
Revelation 20 predicts that Jesus will reign on this literal planet for a thousand
years. He will demonstrate to all what Godly rule is like, just and fair with no
corruption; It will be a time a peace.
So Isaiah was speaking to the Jerusalem of his day and saying, “this will be
your ultimate future. You may be far away from God now, but one day when
the true King arrives you will become the most important city in the world!”
Using the metaphor of the mountain peaks of prophecy – this prophecy relates to
the most distant peak – it’s final fulfilment after Jesus returns, but before the new
heaven and earth are made.
Isaiah Chapter 2 2
Judah and Israel’s present State – Andy
Isaiah 2:5-9
5
Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
6
For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with influences from the east,
And they are soothsayers like the Philistines,
And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.
7
Their land has also been filled with silver and gold
And there is no end to their treasures;
Their land has also been filled with horses
And there is no end to their chariots.
8
Their land has also been filled with idols;
They worship the work of their hands,
That which their fingers have made.
9
So the common man has been humbled
And the man of importance has been abased,
But do not forgive them.
Now Isaiah widens his focus beyond Jerusalem to the rest of Judah and the
northern kingdom of Israel (house of Jacob, not just the single tribe of Judah), to
give them a reality check. He’s no longer speaking of the far distant future, but of
what he can see around him.
Isaiah has just declared what Jerusalem will one day be like; but in his day it was
the exact opposite; rather than gaining protection and provision from the Lord,
they sought it through alliances with other Nations.
Is. 2:5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
Isaiah was saying, “let’s shine God’s light on you now and see how far away you
are from the amazing future I just predicted!”
V6, As Isaiah looked at Jerusalem in his day, he saw that the Lord had abandoned
His people because of their sin in relying on other Nations.
What does God through Isaiah see?
• V6, Superstitions and worldly influences from Eastern Nations.
• V6, Business deals and security deals with pagan Nations.
• V7, Security through their own prosperity.
• V7, Security through their own Military strength. (Too much reliance on
horses & chariots – the war machinery of the time, which God prohibited)
• V8, Idol worship. (Kings Jotham and Ahaz, who reigned during Isaiah’s
lifetime allowed pagan practices to continue in Judah.)
Judah & Israel had become worldly nations just like all the others, and like ours
today. They were supposed to be different, an example of a nation ruled by God.
V9, God was against them because of their sin.
I guess this is a fair description of Jerusalem today, as of all the large cities of the
world, but what will happen to these cities, including Jerusalem, before the King
comes to sit on the throne and usher in a time of peace?
Isaiah Chapter 2 3
Future Tribulation, The “Day of the Lord” when Christ returns! - Jo
Isaiah 2:10-22
10 Enter the rock and hide in the dust
From the terror of the Lord and from the splendour of His majesty.
11 The proud look of man will be abased
And the loftiness of man will be humbled,
And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
12 For the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning
Against everyone who is proud and lofty
And against everyone who is lifted up,
That he may be abased.
13 And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted
up,
Against all the oaks of Bashan,
14 Against all the lofty mountains,
Against all the hills that are lifted up,
15 Against every high tower,
Against every fortified wall,
16 Against all the ships of Tarshish
And against all the beautiful craft.
17 The pride of man will be humbled
And the loftiness of men will be abased;
And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
18 But the idols will completely vanish.
19 Men will go into caves of the rocks
And into holes of the ground
Before the terror of the Lord
And the splendour of His majesty,
When He arises to make the earth tremble.
20 In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats
Their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
Which they made for themselves to worship,
21 In order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs
Before the terror of the Lord and the splendour of His majesty,
When He arises to make the earth tremble.
22 Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils;
For why should he be esteemed?
Final section of chapter the focus seems to be even wider (v12), encompassing all
who are proud and lofty and raise themselves against God.
Some of these prophetic elements could relate to what Judah witnessed as the
Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, but not all of them. Isaiah could well have been
seeing the two prophetic mountains standing one in front of the other: in the
Isaiah Chapter 2 4
foreground, he sees the Babylonian trouble coming in 100 or so years to
Jerusalem, prefiguring the last great time of worldwide trouble beyond this.
The judgement predicted in these verses is so severe that we believe that it is
speaking about the Day of the Lord. This is the moment at the end of the great
tribulation, immediately before Jesus comes back to planet Earth. Isaiah and other
Old Testament prophets often refer to it
• Sometimes call it the Day of the Lord or the Day or Reckoning as in v12
• sometimes they just say “on that day”
When you read the words “that day” in the OT prophets, it’s a signal that the
prophet is talking about the day of the lord. It will be:
• The most wonderful day to those of us In Christ
• a great shock to those who have rejected Jesus and lived for themselves
They will all actually see Him. Rev 1:7 says “BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE
CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him”
Church Members who studied through Revelation with Pastor Andy from Nov 2019-
May 2020, probably found this chapter very familiar since John had the same
prophetic vision many years later.
Revelation 6:12-17,
I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake;
and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon
became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree
casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart
like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved
out of their places. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the
[a]commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man
hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and
they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from
the [b]presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to
stand?”
John in Revelation shows that the day of the Lord begins with a massive earthquake
– it is this I believe will raise up Mount Zion and flatten out the hills and valleys
around it, preparing the way for Jesus.
Both Isaiah and John describe how Godless people will feel when they finally realise
that everything they thought was nonsense is in fact true! They are going to feel
the terror of the LORD and see the splendour of His majesty.”
V10. Isaiah repeats this phrase 3 times (v10, 19 & 21) to emphasise the human
reaction – run and hide
V11. summary of what the Day of the Lord will accomplish: Humanism brought
low and God exalted
V12. God hates pride – this day will bring them all down. Revelation points out
the ‘great’ men are cowering among the rocks – kings, commanders, rich,
Isaiah Chapter 2 5
strong – along with everyone else. We see those who were proudly ruling the
Nations of the World and had no time for God in their pursuit of power and
pleasure now hiding in caves in fear of His presence.
V13. Cedars/Oaks – both strong upright trees – symbols of strength
V14. Mountains/hills – Judah’s ‘high places’ were the centres of pagan worship
V15. High tower/fortified wall - man’s collective pride ever since the “Tower of
Babel” in Genesis 11:4 “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose
top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name,” these are
designed to show off our accomplishments – the prestige of having a
penthouse office in the Shard! Or the international competition to be the city
with the tallest tower in the world, signifies the pinnacle of human
achievement – God will bring down these symbols of pre-eminence and
pride. Babel became Babylon – not yet a superpower in Isaiah’s day, but on
the rise. High towers are a statement that men don’t need God! Yet what is
most vulnerable in an earthquake?
We look at our Godless World Empires today, we look at the power, the
achievements, the technological advancements, the prosperity.
It’s the same spirit, “Greatness without God!”
But on this day the world will realise it has been wrong all along!
V16. Ships and beautiful craft – remember the Twin Towers – World Trade
Centre? Their crash signified the wane of America’s power. But every
symbol of wealth will fall before God in the day of His power
V17. Repeat of v 11
V18-22, During the tribulation, little by little people from all around the globe will
realise that their false religions are useless and not able to save them. Every false
religion and idol will be discarded as people come to the uncomfortable realisation
that they have been wrong all along.
V21, repeat of 10 & 19 - you can’t miss this point!
People will realise that “The Lord God Almighty, the only true God” is shaking
everything and those who have not believed in Jesus will crawl into caves to hide
from His gaze in complete fear as He comes to rule and reign!
Once He has brought down all worldly empires in the Day of Reckoning, that’s
when God will establish Jerusalem as the city of the great King, and the vision of
verses 1-5 will come to pass.
We will be there too.
Rev. 20:6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over
these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ
and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
Application
What should we learn from this graphic picture?
• The history of this world will end with a wonderful time of peace – no wars
and no weapons – everyone subject to the gracious rule of Christ.
Isaiah Chapter 2 6
• Before that – God will punish the wicked and bring down the proud
Those who trust in their own strength, abilities, possessions or position have no
place in God’s kingdom. If you want to join Jesus when He rules the earth, you
need to humble yourself and make time for Him now.
Two key verses in this chapter:
Isaiah 2:5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
We’re not in the biological house of Jacob, but according to the New Testament,
we’re in the spiritual house of Jacob! Ask God to shine His light on our hearts, and
show up anything which would keep us out of His renewed Jerusalem. Then ask
Him help us to deal with it.
Isaiah 2:22 Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why
should he be esteemed?
In other words: “Stop looking to other humans and trust only in God, who alone is
worthy.” Then you won’t be one of those hiding in the rocks, you’ll be walking
into Jerusalem with Jesus, Palm Sunday all over again, but much, much greater!
Isaiah Chapter 2 7
