1. "Captivity doesn't just imprison your body, it rewrites your identity. And when you've been oppressed long enough, you start to forget who you were before. The oppressor's language becomes your language. Their ways become your ways. Their city becomes your home. Your captivity becomes so familiar that you can't imagine what freedom looks like anymore."

2. "You can't worship a piece of wood and the one who breathed life into dirt. You can't bow to metal and marvel at the majesty of the one who meticulously spoke the world into existence. You can't hold a precious piece of metal in the palm of your hand to predict the future."

3. "God doesn't save us because we're worth saving. He saves us because He is worth glorifying."

4. "The rock bottom foundation of our forgiveness is the commitment of God to his own great and glorious name. His commitment to his own glory becomes the only stable ground for salvation."

5. "God says, if I had refined you the way you refined silver, there'd be nothing left. Everything would be burned up. But here comes the grace: I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. God renewed his choice of them at their worst."

6. "God doesn't give up on them. Instead, he does something remarkable. He documents everything. He's keeping track of all the receipts so that he can do an internal audit of their hearts and his power."

7. "The human heart is not a blank page. It's a manual of pre-assembled step-by-step instructions to ensure that we get our own way at all costs."

8. "He will outwit, outlast, and outplay every empire, ideology and every power that rises against him. There is no competition. Everything that exists in the universe is ordained by his decree. He sits in the heavens and does whatever he pleases."

9. "Are we pursuing God and getting tripped up by sin? Or are we pursuing sin and getting tripped up by God?"

10. "That precious sin that you cling so tightly to is lying to you. A day is coming when you may no longer feel the weight of your sin. When comfortable captivity has so deadened your conscience that repentance sounds unappealing."

Observation Questions

1. In Isaiah 48:1-2, how does God describe the people who "swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel"? What phrase reveals the problem with their worship?

2. According to Isaiah 48:3-5, why did God declare "former things" long before they happened and then fulfill them suddenly? What was He trying to prevent His people from saying?

3. What physical imagery does God use in Isaiah 48:4 to describe His people's spiritual condition, and what do these descriptions (iron sinew, brass forehead) indicate about their responsiveness to Him?

4. In Isaiah 48:9-11, what reasons does God give for deferring His anger and not cutting off His people? How many times does He reference His own name, sake, or glory in these verses?

5. What does God say He would have given His people in Isaiah 48:18-19 if they had paid attention to His commandments? List the specific blessings mentioned.

6. According to Isaiah 48:20-22, what command does God give His people regarding Babylon, and what contrasting statement does He make about "the wicked" at the end of the chapter?

Interpretation Questions

1. In Isaiah 48:10, God says He refined His people "but not as silver" and instead "tried you in the furnace of affliction." What is the significance of this distinction, and what does it reveal about God's purpose in their suffering?

2. Why does God emphasize five times in verses 9-11 that He acts "for my name's sake" and "for my own sake"? How does understanding God's commitment to His own glory actually provide hope for sinful people?

3. The sermon described Israel as having "the appearance of godliness while denying its power." How does the passage in Isaiah 48:1-2 illustrate the dangerous combination of religious credentials and a heart far from God?

4. In verse 16, the speaker shifts and says, "the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit." How does this foreshadow the coming Messiah, and why is this significant in a passage about deliverance from captivity?

5. What is the connection between God's command to "go out from Babylon" (v. 20) and His reminder of how He provided water from the rock during the exodus (v. 21)? What is God teaching His people about trusting Him for a new deliverance?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asked whether we are "pursuing God and getting tripped up by sin" or "pursuing sin and getting tripped up by God." As you honestly evaluate your life this week, which direction more accurately describes your current trajectory, and what specific area reveals this?

2. God described Israel as having an "iron neck" (unable to turn) and "bronze forehead" (unable to feel shame). Is there an area of your life where you have become defensive or dismissive when others try to confront you? How might you invite honest feedback from a trusted friend or family member this week?

3. The Israelites stayed in Babylon because they had built comfortable lives there—Babylonian names, homes, and businesses. What "comfortable captivity" might you be reluctant to leave because of what you've invested or built there (a habit, relationship pattern, career compromise, or lifestyle choice)?

4. God lamented, "Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments" (v. 18). What is one specific way you could more intentionally listen to and obey God's voice this week rather than presuming on His patience and grace?

5. The passage ends with a call to "declare this with a shout of joy" that "the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob." How can you share with someone this week—through your words or changed behavior—the joy of being delivered from sin's captivity through Christ?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Ezekiel 20:1-44 — This passage repeatedly shows God acting "for my name's sake" before the nations, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis that God's commitment to His own glory is the foundation of His people's salvation.

2. Romans 2:1-11 — Paul warns against presuming on God's kindness and storing up wrath through hard and impenitent hearts, directly connecting to the sermon's warning about religious complacency.

3. Romans 3:21-26 — This passage explains how Christ's death vindicated God's righteousness in forgiving sinners, demonstrating how the cross fulfills God's commitment to act for His own glory while securing our salvation.

4. Hebrews 3:7-19 — The writer warns believers not to harden their hearts as Israel did, urging daily exhortation lest anyone be "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin," echoing the sermon's urgent call to wake up.

5. 1 John 1:5-2:6 — John addresses those who claim to know God while walking in darkness, providing the New Testament parallel to Isaiah's confrontation of those with religious credentials but hearts far from God.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Reality of Captivity: How Oppression Rewrites Identity

II. Wake Up to Your Guilt (Isaiah 48:1-8)

III. Wake Up to God's Glory (Isaiah 48:9-11)

IV. Get Out: He Is Able (Isaiah 48:12-16, 20-21)

V. Get Out: Captivity's Promises Are Lies (Isaiah 48:17-19, 22)

VI. The Urgent Call to Flee Babylon and Find Peace in Christ

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Detailed Sermon Outline

If you haven't found your way to Isaiah chapter 48, go ahead and do that now. It's on page 618. Isaiah chapter 48.

My wife is half Korean. Her grandfather grew up in Korea during the Japanese occupation. For decades, Koreans were forced to speak Japanese, take Japanese names, and bow to the emperor. When he was dying, years later after Korea's liberation, something heartbreaking happened.

He could only speak in Japanese. The language of his oppressors had become more native to him than his own mother tongue. And that's what captivity does. It doesn't just imprison your body, it rewrites your identity.

And when you've been oppressed long enough, you start to forget who you were before. The oppressor's language becomes your language. Their ways become your ways. Their city becomes your home. Your captivity becomes so familiar that you can't imagine what freedom looks like anymore.

Isaiah gave this prophecy 150 years before Israel would be exiled.

Babylon was just a small town at the time, not the empire it would become. So chapter 48 is a culmination of chapters 40 to 47 and ends with God confronting His people's stubborn hypocrisy. Their captivity was a consequence for their idolatry, but they've become complacent in their consequences. Their exile has become effortless. Their idolatry, idealistic.

And here's the tragedy: they don't want to leave. When Cyrus freed Israel decades after the exile began, only a remnant returned.

The rest they stayed in Babylon. They had Babylonian names and homes and businesses. I mean, besides, Jerusalem would have to be rebuilt. So God wants to free them from their self-inflicted captivity, captivity to sin, to idolatry, and to Babylon itself. And he wants to do it all for the sake of his name, despite their unbelief and rebellion.

For Christians today, Babylon isn't a city on a map anymore. It's the comfortable cul-de-sacs where we've settled into captivity to the world, our flesh, sin, and the devil. It's all the things that oppose God.

If people who call themselves God's people stay in that captivity and refuse to leave, There will be no peace. So what do a people like that and a people like us need to hear today?

Wake up. Get out. Let's start reading.

Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth are right. For they call themselves after the Holy City and stay themselves on the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts is His name. The former things I declared of old. They went out from my mouth, and I announced them. Then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.

Because I knew, I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead is Brass. I declare them to you from of old. Before they came to pass, I announced them to you, lest you should say, My idol did them. My carved image and my metal image commanded them. You have heard.

Now see all this and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things. Hidden things that you have not known. They are created now, not long ago. Before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.

You have never heard, you have never known. From of old your ear has not been opened, for I knew that you would surely deal treacherously and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, whom I called, I am he.

I am the first and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they shall stand forth together. Assemble all of you and listen. Who among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him. He shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arms shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken and called him. I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. Draw near to me, hear this: From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time it came to be, I have been there, and now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit.

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments. And your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains. Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth and say, the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts. He made water flow for them from the rock. He split the rock and the water gushed out.

There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

This chapter has two movements that give us two urgent commands. First, wake up. It's verses 1 through 11. Wake up. Second, get out.

Verses 12 through 22. Wake up, 1 through 11, get out, 12 through 22.

Wake up. Babylon has fallen. The captives must be liberated and sent home. God confronts his people with a diagnosis. They're stubborn, treacherous, rebellious, and they threw away peace through disobedience.

The sad reality is that this is the state of Israel before and after captivity. Geography didn't change their hearts. They need to wake up to see their guilt. And we'll see that in the first eight verses. Wake up to see their guilt.

Look at verse 1 again. Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, who come from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess by the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. God's people had the right family name, the right religious vocabulary, and they claimed allegiance to the right God, but that phrase not in truth or right strips away their religious credentials. Verse two shows they call themselves by God's name and rely on him, but only in appearance. They possess the appearance of godliness while denying its power.

These people are duplicitous. They are comfortably numb in their captivity and self-righteous complacency. Well, this isn't new. Isaiah has been saying this throughout his entire book. These descriptions of Israel were used again and again from Sinai to Sennacherib, from Babylon to Bethlehem.

They are becoming like their idols, blind, deaf, and dead. So how does God deal with people this self-deceived? How does he reach hearts this hardened? People who think their religious resume makes them untouchable.

He doesn't give up on them. Instead, he does something remarkable. He documents everything. He's keeping track of all the receipts so that he can do an internal audit of their hearts and his power. Look at verse 3.

The former things I declared of old. They went out from my mouth, and I announced them, then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass.

I declared them to you from of old. Before they came to pass, I announced them to you, lest you should say, 'My idol did them.' My carved image and my metal image commanded them. Verses three through five, God declared former prophecies, his entire track record with Israel and most recently through Assyria. He announced what would happen and fulfilled his predictions suddenly in unexpected ways so that his people couldn't credit their idols.

So God doesn't act according to our plans and preferences, but according to His sovereign, superior, and creative will. God also knows His people are so spiritually deluded that without this level of proof they'll credit worthless idols for what He alone can accomplish. Their problem with idolatry was not periodic, It was perpetual. Obstinate means a stubborn dismissal of any viewpoint but their own. Verse 4 described them as stubborn.

Their neck is iron, unable to turn their forehead brass. That means they're unable to feel shame. Sin doesn't bother them anymore. They should feel ashamed, but they don't. They refused to acknowledge their guilt.

They're dismissive, defensive in reframing the narrative of their idolatry. They preferred their pagan practices to the precious promises of their persistent pursuer. But they should have known that. You can't worship a piece of wood and the one who breathed life into dirt. You can't bow to metal and marvel at the majesty of the one who meticulously spoke the world into existence.

You can't hold a precious piece of metal in the palm of your hand to predict the future. There's only one who sovereignly sits outside of history, orchestrating all things, and He cannot be controlled. That's the disconnect. Now the confrontation continues in verse six. You have heard.

Now see all this. And will you not declare it? God has laid out all he's done for his people to prove that he's superior and asks what should be obvious. Will you not declare it?

Verse 6 introduces something new. God would raise up Cyrus of Persia to free Israel from Babylon. And in coming chapters, he'll announce his servant, the coming Messiah who will ultimately deliver his people from sin and judgment. God has patiently revealed former things to stubborn people who won't listen. Now he's talking about new things they can't imagine, but they're too deaf to hear it.

So why has God withheld these new prophecies until now?

Because he knows their hearts. Verse 7 says, They'd claim omniscience and attribute it to themselves and their idol. And verse 8 drives the verdict home: you:'ve never heard. You've never known from before your ear was not opened, for I knew that you would surely deal treacherously and that from before birth you were called a rebel. Their behavior adds to their detriment, not to the testimony of his faithfulness.

Who are treacherous people? They're dangerously unstable.

Disloyal and deceitful. Rebel before birth shows this isn't just learned behavior, it's their nature. It's a generational trait passed down, rebellion from the start, not just for Israel, but for all of humanity. Romans five says that sin entered the world through one man and death came to all people because all sinned. Our family tree is rooted in sin.

The human heart is not a blank page. It's a manual of pre-assembled step-by-step instructions to ensure that we get our own way at all costs. And in order to escape Babylon, they need to wake up to their guilt. So people who claim to be God's people, in this context, it's Israel. And in our current context, it's Christians.

They claim to have all the right religious credentials, the right vocabulary, attendance to the right services. They serve, they give, and they still have a heart far from Him.

If you've repented of your sin and put your faith in Christ, And we know that our heart is not far from this. We fill the pool, we see the temptation to give people and things credit that should only go to God. And don't you see the temptation to go through the hypocritical motions when hiding sin?

Religious activity and stubborn rebellious hearts are a dangerous combination with eternal consequences.

Don't rely on religious activity, but ignore God's voice. If you're ignoring God's voice in an area where sin has dominion, you're not good with God. Wake up. Take an honest look at your life.

Are we pursuing God and getting tripped up by sin?

Or are we pursuing sin and getting tripped up by God? Is there an area that's off limits to correction where you have an iron neck or bronze forehead when others try to confront you?

It'd be a kindness from the Lord if your friends and family and maybe some pastors were honest today when you asked them that question.

Sin is deceitful, hearts are stubborn. God doesn't save us by flattering us, but by opposing us.

Wake up to your guilt. It's the only way you can repent and be saved. It's the only way we can see God's glory. Wake up to God's glory. This is verses nine through 11.

After eight verses of relentless confrontation, we're left with the obvious question, Why doesn't God give up? This is where verse 9 changes everything. For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. Well, here's the shocking answer to our question. God doesn't save us because we're worth saving.

He saves us because He is worth glorifying. Five times in three verses, God hammers home the point, I'm doing this for my name, for my praise, for my glory.

After exposing Israel's stubborn rebellion and hypocrisy in his judgments, God meets them with mercy. God doesn't want to cut them off. He desires to bring them to their senses. He defers his anger. This is God's established pattern throughout redemptive history.

The same phrase appears throughout Scripture. In Ezekiel 20, God reportedly acts for my name's sake.

Before the watching nations. When Moses interceded for Israel after the golden calf, he appealed to God's reputation, don't let Egypt say your power failed. God's very character compels him to show forbearance. Being slow to anger is one of the attributes God revealed to Moses in Exodus. God's name, the summary statement of everything he's revealed about himself, compels him to restrain his anger.

His reputation and what he wants to be known for among the nations makes him hold back judgment. The rock bottom foundation of our forgiveness is the commitment of God to his own great and glorious name.

He's committed to act for his own name's sake. His commitment to his own glory becomes the only stable ground for salvation. God's purpose was to try his people so that through their redemption, his glory might be seen. Look at verse 10.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I've tried you in the furnace of affliction. God says he refined Israel, but not as silver. So here's what that means. In the normal refining process, silver is heated until all the impurities, that's called dross, rises to the top and burns away, leaving only pure silver behind.

Isaiah 1:22 references the same idea, you, silver has become dross.

There was no pure silver in Israel. Their impurities were incessant. So God says, if I had refined you the way you refined silver, there'd be nothing left. Everything would be burned up. Think about that.

The refining process would have annihilated His people.

But here comes the grace. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. Some translations say, you probably have a footnote of this in your Bible, I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

God chose his people in the furnace of affliction. God renewed his choice of them at their worst.

Not because anything good remained after the dross was exposed, not based on their merit or their purity or their progress. How else is an iron neck and bronze forehead softened through the electing furnace of God's grace for His glory?

Isn't God so gracious? God's treatment was designed to be constructive, not destructive. The furnace was a divinely controlled process motivated by love to mount the hardest of hearts to see His glorious grace.

Look at verse 11, For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. How should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

Notice the repetition, for my own sake, for my own sake. This isn't just emphasis, it's insistence. God isn't just acting for his glory in this one case. This is his established practice. He always acts this way.

If God would permit the destruction of his people to whom he had committed himself in covenant, his name would be profaned.

And He would no longer be worthy of being recognized as holy. God's reputation is at stake. If God's covenant people were destroyed or abandoned, what would that say about His power or His faithfulness or His promises?

The nations would say, that God couldn't even keep his own people. He's no different than our gods. If Israel remained captive and eventually dissolved into Babylonian culture, Bel and Nebo that we saw a few chapters earlier, their idols would get the credit. The nations would think Babylon's gods were stronger than the God of Israel.

God will defeat sin and Babylon his glory demands it.

Despite our sin, God will deliver his people so that the world may know the truth.

When every other hope is gone, when all that's left is dross, one hope remains, God's glorious commitment to his name.

And we see this hope in Christ.

Emmanuel, God with us. Romans 3 shows that Christ died to vindicate God's righteousness in forgiving sinners. The cross proves that when God acts for his own glory, he secures our salvation. The infinite became infant. The divine became despised.

The creator was cursed on the tree. Also, God's name would be glorified in our redemption.

Our sin is no match for His glorious grace. He delights to forgive for His name's sake. That's His pattern throughout the book. Isaiah 30, He wants to be gracious and compassionate. Isaiah 43, you,'re precious, you,'re mine.

I love you. Isaiah 55, He abundantly pardons and has Compassion.

Out of his fullness we have received grace upon grace upon grace.

Wake up to your guilt, but don't stay there. Wake up to his glory. Wake up to his sovereign and electing choice of you at your worst so you can turn from your guilt and experience his mercy through repentance. And when you wake up to that glory, you can't stay where you are. God is calling His people to get out of captivity, to leave the ease of their exile.

Get out, verses 12 through 22, get out.

In order to flee, they must believe truths about their Redeemer. He's able and captivity's promises are lies.

He's able. This is verses 12 through 16 and 20 to 21. He's able. 12 through 16, 20 to 21. When God commands, get out from Babylon in verse 20, his people hesitate.

Can He really deliver? Will He provide? Is what we're leaving behind worth what we'll have to rebuild? And every doubt is answered in one declaration: He's able. Look at verses 12 and 13.

Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, whom I called. I am he. I am the first and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth and my right hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand forth together.

He's able because he is the first and the last. Listen to what this means. It means he will outwit, outlast, and outplay every empire, ideology and every power that rises against him, there is no competition. Everything that exists in the universe is ordained by his decree. He sits in the heavens and does whatever he pleases.

He governs the governments and establishes kings. He presides over parliaments, presidents, and priests. He has no advisors, no cabinet, no council, because He doesn't need them. He is the definition of perfect wisdom and truth because He is the author of wisdom and truth. This is the God who calls us out of captivity, infinite in being and perfection, immutable.

That means He never changes. Eternal, most holy, working all things according to the counsel of His own will for His glory, most loving, most gracious, most merciful, long suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.

This is the God who chose you at your worst, who moved towards you in love while you were still his enemy. He confronts you in your guilt, not to crush you, because he crushed his son, but to redeem you. Verse 17, I am the Lord your God, your Redeemer. Verse 20, the Lord has redeemed his servant.

He's able, not because of anything in you, but because of everything he is. And on this side of the cross, if God be for us, who can be against us? If He's called us out of captivity, He will give us what we need to flee, even when it's terrifying, even when it seems like it will cost us everything.

God doesn't just point to His character, He points to His proven faithfulness and His provision. Look at verse 14.

Assemble all of you and listen. Who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arms shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. So God assembles his people and asks, Who among the idols can determine, dictate, and declare the future?

Nobody.

Verse 14, God is saying that he set his purposes, his favor on Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, to deliver his people from Babylon. God's taking delight in using this king to reveal his power in sending his people home. And then in verse 16, the speaker shifts. Draw near to me, hear this. From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret.

From the time I came to be, I have been there. And now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit. This appears to be a foreshadowing of God's servant who will come in chapter 49. We'll hear about that in a couple weeks.

That's the ultimate provision for the ultimate captivity. God provides Isaiah to warn the people of their sin and point to their savior. He's able to provide not just a servant, but his own son to accomplish what we can't. His ultimate demonstration that he's able comes in Christ. Immanuel, God is with us.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The one who did what we could not do. We're too sinful to bridge the gap to God. So God came down in the form of man. He took all that kept us captive, sin, death, and shame, and took our place on the cross.

Christ, the newborn king veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail incarnate deity, he is able.

Because of Christ, He's given us His Spirit as a guarantee that in the end we will be with Him for eternity. But our complacency blinds us to the joy that awaits when we actually leave.

Listen to how God frames His calling in verse 20. Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout, of joy. Proclaim it. Send it out to the end of the earth. Say, the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.

Joy and grace await those who hear God's voice calling them to flee Babylon. If you believe God's promise of salvation through Christ, he will save you. God calls stubborn, rebellious, half-hearted, religious hypocrites to leave their comfortable captivity and find true life and redemption if they would trust in His atoning sacrifice for their sins.

Look at verse 21. They didn't thirst when He led them through the deserts. He made water flow for them from the rock. He split the rock and the water gushed out.

God's reminding them of the exodus from Egypt, his faithfulness in providing for them while he delivered them. Even in their self-inflicted wanderings for their unbelief, he's still provided. He's able because he's proven to be able. He's provided in their past rescue from Egypt. He's providing now for their return from Babylon, and He will provide future and ultimate rescue from sin and death through His servant.

So when God calls you to flee that computer, or that conversation riddled with gossip, your self-sitterness, pride, or some other enslaving addiction to sin that feels impossible to defeat. You know, the one that's masked by religious activity.

You need to know one thing.

He is able.

You can flee captivity. You can put sin to death.

Because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. He has called you and He will sustain you. Our Redeemer is able. Get out. He's the first, He's the last, and He's able.

And captivity's promises are a lie. Captivity's promises are a lie. This is verses 17 through 19 and verse 22.

Captivity's promises are a lie. 17 through 19 and verse 22. Let's look at verse 17. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: 'I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains.

Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

Captivity whispered its lies: Stay here. You're established now. You have security, stability, a place in society. Why risk the dangerous journey home? Why abandon what you've built?

But they couldn't see what they were losing. They needed someone to wake them up. After all God's warnings, all His effort to teach them, He now laments, oh, that you would have paid attention.

Do you feel the loving weight of those words? It's not frustration, it's grief. The God who is their Redeemer, their God who has chosen them, laments what they've lost. We see Jesus do the same thing in Luke 19 as he weeps over Jerusalem. Would that you, even you had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

Here's the tragedy, they had enough knowledge.

God had taught them what to believe, how to live, what would bring blessing. They had His words.

Prophet after prophet declared these truths, but they presumed on God's promises where His people were safe even while their hearts were far from Him.

Everything captivity promised, God would give them in abundance. Your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea, unending, unstoppable, an offspring like the sand. But they chose the lie. They trusted Babylon's thin comforts over God's infinite provision. What blinded them?

Pious pride.

They had the temple. They had the covenant. They knew they were chosen. And that very knowledge made them complacent, stubborn, and proud in their religious practices.

They thought they had a religious license to drive under the influence of sin. Their minds ran circles around their justification of sin.

Same thing happens today.

It's possible to be a Christian and become complacent. You know you're forgiven, you know God is patient, and slowly, subtly, you start to presume on it. You become careless with sin, you start to love it, justify it, cherish it, you become defensive when confronted, and eventually you become numb to it all.

God warned them about this exact pattern.

Your heart gets drawn away to worship other gods while your mouth says all the right words. Religious things. You still identify as one of God's people.

But God sees your heart. He knows what you really love. He knows what you're really trusting in for security, for peace, for joy.

So God draws a line in verse 22.

There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

There is no peace for the wicked.

After the command to leave, after the reminder of what could have been, God makes it clear there is no middle ground. You can either leave and find peace with God or you can stay and discover that captivity's peace was always death wearing a mask.

The wicked, those who refuse to leave, get separation from God forever.

The astonishing news is that it's God providing for us in Christ what we can never provide for ourselves. We can never have enough righteousness to earn God's favor. God gives it to us freely if we will stop depending on ourselves and start trusting in Him. God delivers men and women through Christ. He redeems wicked people who are His enemies so they can become His children and experience the forgiveness of sin and the love of God.

Wake up.

That precious sin that you cling so tightly to is lying to you. A day is coming when you may no longer feel the weight of your sin.

When comfortable captivity has so deadened your conscience that repentance sounds unappealing.

There is no peace for those who persist in stubborn, unrepentant, sin and refuse to turn to Christ.

First John says, if you claim to know God but live in unrepentant sin, you're a liar walking in darkness while claiming the light. It's self-deception that leads to destruction.

Some people think their religious credentials guarantee safety. Paul calls that presumption, pious pride storing up wrath. Paul warns us in Romans 2, Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself.

God's kindness is coming to all of us today through His word, warning us to wake up and get out of whatever sin is deceiving us to stay in captivity. His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, not to stay in bondage.

Persisting in sin under the veil of religious activity is rejecting God and refusing His grace.

Hebrews 3 warns, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. If you're hearing this and realizing that you've been living in stubborn, unrepentant sin, maybe for years, don't despair. The same God who confronted Israel's stubbornness offers grace to the stubborn still. Come to Christ.

Confess your sins. He is able and faithful to forgive and cleanse. The journey out of Babylon begins with a single step of repentance toward the Christ who already paid the price for your freedom. God's kindness and mercy is meeting you this morning by waking you up to get out.

And that's why we gather every week, to exhort each other, to stir each other.

But there are times where we need to shake each other awake, to not believe the lies of Babylon and get out. Today is one of those days.

God confronts his stubborn people for his glory.

Comfortable captivity or Christ's peace? You can't have both. His glory demands he tell the truth.

Captivity's promises are lies.

Wake up.

And get out. Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee.

Let's pray.

Oh, the depth of your riches, Lord.

And the wisdom and your knowledge. Oh Father, how unsearchable are your judgments and how inscrutable your ways. We cannot wrap our minds around your glorious grace and patience towards us.

Rescue those of us from unrepentant sin. Sustain your people to flee sin and shout for joy that our God has redeemed us.

It's for your name, for your sake, and for your glory. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.