I'm going to read God's Word and I'm reading tonight from the
book of Isaiah and Isaiah chapter 17, and we're going to
read the first 11 verses, Isaiah 17.
For those in the Internet, the words have come up on screen.
Prophecy of Isaiah chapter 17. Commence reading at verse one.
Let's hear the word of God, the burden of Damascus.
Behold, Damascus has taken away from being a city, and it shall
be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aror are forsaken.
They shall be for flocks which shall lie down, and none shall
make them afraid. The fortress also shall cease
from Ephraim, and the Kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant
of Syria. They shall be as the glory of
the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
And in that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob
shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax
lean. And it shall be when, as when
the harvest man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with
his arm. And it shall be as he that
gathereth ears in the valley of Raphim, yet gleanings grapes
shall be left in it as the shaking of an olive tree, two or
three berries in the top of the uttermost bow, four or five in
the outmost fruitful branches. Thereof, saith the Lord God of
Israel. At that day shall a man look to
his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of
Israel, and he shall not look to the altars the works of his
hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have
made, either the Groves or the images.
And that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken by, and
an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of
Israel. And there shall be desolation,
because thou has forgotten the God of thy salvation, and has
not been mindful of the rock of thy strength.
Therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shall set
it with strange slips. In the day thereof thou shalt
make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy
seed to flourish. But the harvest shall be a heap
in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Amen. We know God will stamp with His
own approval and blessing this reading of His own precious,
infallible Word. Amen.
My text this evening is taken from Isaiah chapter 17, and I
want to focus on verses 10 and 11.
It reads as follows. Because thou hast forgotten the
God of thy salvation, and has not been mindful of the rock of
thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and
shall set it with strange slips. In the day shalt thou make thy
plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed
to flourish. But the harvest shall be a heap
in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.
Now I've entitled this message The Folly of a Forgetful
harvest. Now this is our harvest
Thanksgiving service in 2025, and in past years I've made you
aware that the word harvest is mentioned in the Bible 53 times.
The first reference, of course, you may be very familiar with is
Genesis chapter 8 and in the verse 22.
While the earth remaineth, seed, time and harvest and cold and
heat, summer and winter and day and night shall not cease.
From the beginning of time. There's always been a harvest.
Don't be afraid about climate change because there always will
be a harvest, and there'll always be a harvest until the
end of days, until Jesus Christ returns.
In power and glory times, the harvest will be a bumper
harvest. Times it will be a bad harvest.
But there's always been a harvest season.
Now, the last reference to the harvest in the Bible is a
reference to the final harvest, Revelation 14 and 15.
And I think in past years we've preached on the subject the
final harvest. Now, in between these two
references, Genesis 822, Revelation 1415, there's another
51 references about the harvest in the Bible.
So preachers can't tell me that they've nothing to preach on at
the harvest season. That usually happens when you
phone up a preacher and ask them to come and preach.
Brother, I don't have any harvest sermons.
Brother, I'm out of harvest sermons.
Now. Our text mentions the word
harvest. I wonder, did you pick it up?
Verse 11. But the harvest shall be a heap
in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
And that's why I've called the sermon The Folly of a Forgetful
Harvest. Now, the context here, and at
times the Bible's hard to understand young people, can be
a difficult book. But the context here is that the
prophet Isaiah, the man of God, is warning Judah and it's king
against enter into an alliance with the city of Damascus.
He is strongly opposed to such an unholy, ungodly alliance.
His reason for doing so was this, that it's not the will of
God. But also he knows that such a
union will bring a disastrous consequence upon Judah and the
city of Jerusalem, namely, this unholy alliance, this
relationship that's being forged will trigger an Insyrian
invasion into the land of Judah and into Jerusalem.
Isaiah's concerns, convictions were well founded.
You see, he knew the principle well from the harvest.
What you sow, you reap, and you reap a lot more than you
actually sow. And that's the law of the
harvest. And he knows that if you reap
sin, sin will cost you more than you want to pay and keep you
longer than you planned to stay. And he knew that Judah's unholy
alliance with Damascus was a saying that it had actually
turned its back in God, and that for some strange reason Judah
and Jerusalem, it's king and court, wanted to be like the
neighbouring nations all around them.
Yet those nations were Pagan and heathen before the Lord.
And as I knew the consequences would lead to much distress,
bring tremendous sorrow and disappointment, cause a downward
spiral, bring disaster into the land, so then he uttered these
words in the ears of the courtiers in the land of Judah.
Because that was forgotten the God of thy salvation, and has
not been mindful of the rock of thy strength.
Therefore shalt thy plant pleasant plants, and shall set
it with strange steps. In the day shalt thou make thy
plant the grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed
to flourish. But the harvest shall be a heap
in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Now I'm very conscious of the historical analysis here in this
chapter. I'm very well aware that these
events talked about and prophesied about 2600 years ago.
Yet God's words, a living word, God's Word, has still a personal
and practical application to us in the 21st century.
God's Word, young people, is true.
It's not erroneous. It's not false.
God's Word is certainly not a boring thing to ponder and
consider. God's word should be a lamp unto
our feet and a light onto your path.
We should pray like David, Open thy mine eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of thy luck. God's word is relevant and and
is up to date. Reading here about a prophecy
against Damascus connected to Judah.
That's the context. Now.
Three things that come to mind today.
This was after the 3R time setting with the speed awareness
guy. The charge that is pronounced.
Notice verse 10. Here's the charge that is
pronounced. Because thou has forgotten the
God of thy salvation and has not been mindful of the rock of thy
strength, they will pause there. Notice the word forgotten.
It's used in the King James Bible 46 times, and you know
what it means. It means to let slip away.
Let me illustrate. Think of a captain on a boat,
Captain strong here, and he's nearing the harbour and he's
trying to dock his boat and he throws the rope out of the boat
on to Mark and the quayside. But what does Mark do?
Mark forgets to tie up the boat. And what happens to the boat
that the quayside that's not tied up to the little black
metal thing, but because of the tide, the boat begins to slip
away from the harbour. That's the picture here.
That's the meaning of the word forgotten, because thou has left
slip the God of thy salvation and has not been mindful of the
rock of thy strength. That is the charge that is
pronounced. The children of Judah have let
something slip away. What is it?
It's the God of salvation. Now forgetfulness is an annoying
problem, isn't it? All of us have faced the most
annoying problem of forgetting things.
Forgetting the mobile phone, where did I put it there?
Or forgetting the car keys, I try to put mine in the little
utility room in a little black box so I know that it's there.
What about the TV remote? Or what about this?
Where did I park my car? When you're at the Ulster
Hospital and which floor was it? Was it the first or the 9th?
And you go out there maybe in the 7th floor and there's a row
of white cars and you're trying to fumble your key to make sure
yours is the one that opens. One time I actually went to the
wrong car and was thinking why is this car not opening?
I was going to phone my son James.
James, this car is not opening. Then I realised, you know that's
not my car. It was a Land Rover, it was
white and I just assumed it was Lily but it wasn't mine.
What about the day I forgot my pin number for the bank card?
Three times Sammy and he stood at the bank down in Barclays,
put the number in, refused 3 times and the third time it
wouldn't give me the card back. I'd got the number wrong.
You see, as we get older, yes that's true, we can become more
forgetful. Young people, I say to you, you
know, that's laughable. You can maybe think of us oldies
as good forgetters. We're not great remembers, but
young people remember this, understand this.
There'll come a time when you will also be a good forget her
as well. I know what's most annoying.
That last Sunday morning, whenever Mr and Mr Vicar came,
Jackson and Jean and I knew the face standing in the hall there.
I hadn't seen Jackson Macvicar for almost 40 years.
And I I remembered the face. But, but could I put a name to
it? And you see, it's not true of
all of us. We lament, we get upset.
There's things we should remember.
Forgetting things is annoying. However, there's a more serious
kind of forgetfulness, and that serious kind of forgetfulness is
found here in verse 10. Because thou was forgotten the
God of thy salvation, Now you know it's not a good thing to
forget something that's important.
I want to tell you the most important thing that is
forgotten today is God himself. It's the person of God, it's the
provision of God, and it's the power of God.
Jeremiah the prophet said this in the book of Jeremiah, in
Jeremiah chapter 2 and in the verse 13, My people have
committed 2 evils. They have forsaken me.
The fountain of living waters and few demote cisterns, broken
cisterns that hold no water. The grievous sin that the
children of Israel committed, the children of Judah, was not
only did they forget God, but having forgotten him and let him
slip as far as his person and provision and power was
concerned, then they forsook him and young people, One of the
most grievous sins today that's manifest in our society is
forgetting God. And not just any God, the God of
thy salvation. There's a comedian one time
stopped by the police. He was over the speed limit.
He said to the police officer, well, I forgot to look at the
say at one time. He then talked about being late
for work and he told the boss I forgot to set the alarm.
The tax man contacted him one time and he says to the tax man,
I forgot to pay my taxes. Now that's not a good excuse.
That is absurd by simply saying I forgot.
But I want to tell you there's nothing funny about forgetting
God, especially the God of thy salvation.
You see, this forgetting is wellford and deliberate.
Let let me put it this way. Think about a captain of the
ship again. He's out in the high seas and he
expects storms, he expects wind, he expects to be tossed about in
the high seas. But suppose that captain is
drunken, and that captain is told by members of the crew that
there's Breakers ahead captain, and that captain forgets to
change course in his drunken stupor.
He holds the course. There's a loss of the vessel,
there's a loss of the crew himself.
Who's to blame? Nobody to blame but him.
The captain brought the destruction of his vessel and
crew upon his head. You would have to say to captain
a ship under the influence of alcohol as an act of sheer
madness and folly. Can you imagine the headlines?
Drunken captain crashes ship. Who's to blame?
The drunken captain? We'll change it, right?
Think of a banker. He works for a large bank.
There's lots of money. He needs money.
Maybe he's a gambling problem or some other addiction, and he
steals the money from the bank. The bank, of course, starts an
investigation. The Bible has told him thy shall
not steal, but he has chosen to steal.
He commits forgery, commits embezzlement.
He tries to covers his tracks, but he's detected because Sid
will always find you out. He's charged sentence.
He ends up in gaol. Who's responsible?
Who's to blame? There's one simple answer.
The banker himself. We can't blame his environment,
but I was working in a fancy bank.
He can't blame the bank and say, well, it it had too much money
anyway and and I'm against capitalism, down with
capitalism. No, no, he has to take
responsibility for himself. You see, we often times in the
journey of life forget that our sinful choices can have serious
consequences. Sin pays wages, and that's true
in 1001 areas. But here's the chief sin of
Judah at this time. As they forged this alliance
with Damascus, they forgot the God of their salvation, and
that's God's indictment upon them.
You see, God's the planner of salvation because salvation is
of the Lord. God's the executioner of
salvation, because the cent has only begotten Son into the
world, that whosoever believeth an end should not perish, but
have everlasting life. God's the revealer of that
salvation because He's the one that comes by a spirit to open
our eyes, our ears, our hearts. He's the maintainer of that
salvation. We're kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation. Did you notice in the text it's
not only the God of thy salvation and has not been
mindful of the rock of thy strength?
The rocks are reference to Christ.
That's his identity. Christ is the rock of Aegis.
The rock here speaks of stability.
A rock has of course got a solid foundation.
You can stand on the rock. It speaks here of immensity.
It speaks of security. It's not going to be easily
moved. Jesus said upon this rock, I'll
build my church in the gates of Hells and not be really against
it. That that rock, of course, was
Christ. You see, what I'm trying to
point out is this. This is no ordinary brand of
forgetfulness. This is not insignificant.
This is not just something that's annoying and a wee bit
upsetting. This is serious stuff.
This is willful and deliberate. Thou hast forgotten you've let
slip, You forgot the glory of God's person.
You forgot the goodness of God in his provision.
You forgot the greatness of God in his power.
You forgot the grace of God in his purpose.
And I want to tell you tonight, this is not just a mere
historical phenomena. True of Judah, yes.
True of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, yes, but not just the
nation of Israel, not just the 10 tribes in the northern
Kingdom. But it's bang up the date in the
book of Psalms. The psalmist said this serious
verse, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations
that forget God. You think of the rich, the poor,
the educated, the uneducated, the high born and the low born,
millions of souls in the United Kingdom, they're living out
their lives. God has been good because God
has given them physical life and health and strength.
God has blessed them with loads of material provision and yet
Despite that life that God has given the very breath that they
breathe as they get from him, food for their belly and clothes
on their back and and an abundance of material
possessions, yet deliberately, habitually and wilfully they've
chosen to forget God. God is not in all their
thoughts. The reality is they do not know
Him, They don't love him, they don't serve Him.
The bottom line is they don't want him in their life.
The majority live as if there's no God.
The Bible says the fool have said in his heart there is no
God. Psalm 14 verse one.
But it's not just an atheistic mindset.
The word there is in the King James Bible are in italics.
They were added by the translators to give us a sense.
But the real sense is not atheism.
The real sense is 1 of rebellion.
The fool have said in his heart, no God, it's a wicked, wilful
mindset. So I asked tonight, conscious of
time, do you know him? Do you testify that He is the
God of my salvation? Is Jesus Christ to you, the Rock
of Ages? Or are you guilty of this most
serious wilful sin? Only you can answer.
You have to make a choice. This is a serious matter.
Don't be guilty of this gross treachery.
Don't forget the God who made you, the God who give you life.
The God has blessed you with so many blessings.
I was thinking tonight we should be singing Count your blessings.
Name them one by one, and that will surprise you what God have
done. An abundance of physical
blessings, material blessing. And we'll add in spiritual
blessings and we'll add in national blessings, days of
revival and days of deliverance from God's hand whenever prayer
was sought, when the enemy was at the gate.
And yet God has come time and time again with so many
blessings, and yet the vast majority of our people live
without Him and do not want Him in their life.
And His call tonight is this Isaiah 4522.
Look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth.
Not look to the church. Good to go to church.
Very important. But it's not the church that
saves, not even this church. It's not look to the preacher.
I can't save anyone. I can help people.
It's not looking to your good works.
The works of your hands mentioned was made here at that
day shall a man. This is Speaking of a tiny
remnant of people in Judah look to his Maker and his eyes shall
respect to the holy wonder of Israel, and he shall not look
here's the negative to the altars.
The works of his hands, neither shall respect that which his
fingers have made, either the Groves or the images.
Look to Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh the way, the Son of
the world, the one who said I am the way, the truth, the life.
No man comes unto the Father but by me.
That's how we can know God. And I want to tell you this, the
greatest knowledge in the world that you can have is the
knowledge of God. And if you have a true knowledge
of God, you have a true knowledge of self.
And that was one of the reformers, I quote John Kelvin,
so that there is the charge that was pronounced.
I want you to think very quickly of the consequence that is
pictured. It says, And if you look again
at our text, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and
shall set it with strange slips. In the day shalt thou make thy
plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed
to flourish. See, the picture here is is of
horticulture. The picture here is of a
gardener taking his pleasant plants and setting them with
strange slips. The present plants is a picture
pictorial of Judah, the strange slips as Damascus, Syria, and
the Assyrians, and you're joining them together.
And initially all seems good, because it says in the day that
thou shall make thy plants to grow, and in the morning shalt
thou make thy seed to flourish. In other words, you'll be happy.
But once there's a forgetting to God, sadly, there's a looking in
the other direction for help and blessing.
And the enemy is so subtle. And initially, of course,
there's tremendous pleasure and plenty.
All is good, Things go well, things look well, there's a
great appeal and a greater attraction.
But the enemy is subtle, and the enemy of our souls knows this,
that if God is not in the throne of our life, if Jesus Christ is
not King of kings, Lord of Lords, then other objects will
take over the life. And he knows that we'll enjoy
temporary success, but that temporary success will not last.
It will lead to pain, it will lead to poverty.
You see, many live without God and they live in pleasure, They
live in planting. That's true of the individual.
Let me tell you this very quickly.
I remember being in Donega D1 day, knocking on a man's door
and I was giving out little invitations to the Donega D
church. And he'd come out and he, he put
his hand at his glass door, He put his hand up.
It was letting me know he was there.
And he walked back in again and he thought, where's this boy
going? And he came back out with a
biscuit tin and he opened the door and he said to me, have a
biscuit. Do you know what they were?
Chocolate digestive. That's my favourite and I said I
will. He said take another one.
I said that's great, thanks very much.
And I was about to open my mouth to say something else and he
says now stop. If you're here to preach to me
about God, I don't want it. He says, look around you, do you
see that boat right there? That's my boat.
You see those cars there? I own in those cars.
One of them's a BMW. You know, we see that B flat
there to the side of our house. That's a granny flat that my
mother-in-law lives in there. See this house and this garden,
this is all mine. And he says, now you have the
cheek to come to my door and tell me that I need God.
I have everything I need. And I said to him as I walked
away, Sir, you might be rich in this world's goods, but you're
not rich toward God. And it'll all come to poverty,
it'll all come to pain. See, the bottom line is that is
true of the individual. It's also true of a church, but
it's also true of a nation. The consequences that is
pictured. I wanted to apply that in so
many areas, but I'm not. I want you to think, thirdly, as
we finish the crops, that is perished.
If you look at the text that says but the harvest shall be in
heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
The harvest is a heap in the day of grief.
What does that mean? Literally in the Hebrew it means
but the harvest shall be removed in the day of inheritance.
It's not just the harvest is destroyed, The harvest
completely disappears expecting a bountiful harvest, but at the
last there's nothing but despair, decay, and destruction.
A blighted harvest leads to better, better disappointment.
And that's true of Judah because it ended up going into captivity
under the Babylonians in six O 9, 597.
And of course in 586 BC. Three times King Nebuchadnezzar
came and eventually in the last time, Jude and Jerusalem was
completely destroyed. And at that point in history, at
that point in history, Jerusalem and Judah and the territory that
we know to this day as Israel was under Gentile occupation,
and it remains so until 1948 in the Balfour Declaration and the
state of Israel was reborn. I believe that was God's
prophetic input in that time. But the crops that were perished
were a St Remember what Isaiah the prophet went on to say.
And I'd wrap this up now. And Isaiah chapter 55, we read
this in verse 8, verse 7. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return on
to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God,
for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heaven are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
You see, Judah did what was right in it's own eyes.
And that was like the time of the judges.
They also did that which is right in their own eyes.
And they had hoped for a great day.
They, they, they had high hopes for plenty and promotion and
provision. But it was a day of grief.
It was a day of sadness. And that was true for Judah when
they were carried away captive into another land.
But I want to finish. Let me go back to the Psalm that
I mentioned to you, Psalm 9, verse 17.
The wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget
God. You see, that peels into
insignificance that that was a a, a, a, a real judgement.
But we could really say in a sense it was a temporal
judgement, even though it lasted almost 2000 years for Judah.
But it peels into insignificance in light of the day of judgement
to come. See, God is holy, God is just,
God is true, God is love. God has made the greatest
provision of all, not just for food for our bellies and clothes
for our back. His greatest provision of all
was his salvation, the salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. And the Bible calls us to
repent, be sorry enough for our sins to come and confess them to
God and, and, and ask God to forgive us on the ground of the
Saviour's blood. And, and, and we're urged be
reconciled to God because we're strangers to God.
We don't know God, we don't love God, we don't serve God, we
don't obey God until we're brought into your right
relationship with him. And that's our greatest need.
And then we're to receive God's salvation.
How do we receive it? That just shall live by faith.
That was something that was rediscovered in Reformation time
but preached by Paul. We're not just see it by faith,
but the whole of the Christian life is by faith.
And what is faith for seeking all.
I trust him. That's what the word believeth
means. He that believeth hath
everlasting life. The word believeth means to
trust in. Have you trusted in Christ,
adhered to Christ and and they'd rely on them TAR the tower.
Think of the the tower in the road.
It sticks. The crops that perished were a
sign of God's displeasure and judgement, but it peels into
insignificance in that last day of judgement.
When we stand before God, every one of us will give an account
of himself to God. And imagine God saying to anyone
from Northern Ireland, church goer, non church goer, I never
knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity and
everlasting fire. The falling of forgetting God
has serious consequences. May you take this charge to
heart. May you think about the
consequence as pictured. May you think about the crops
that perished. The Lord bless you tonight.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for listening.