The God Who Tests Motives

Isaiah 10:5-34

But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. It is his intent to destroy and to cut off many nations. (Isa 10:7)

Main Idea: God uses Assyria to punish Israel, then he judges Assyria for doing it. Why? Because of their motives.

1. God’s Surprising Messengers: The Assyrian Army
2. God’s Even More Surprising Message: Woe to Assyria!
3. The Key Issue: “What He Intends” (10:7)
4. Assyria’s Motives Displayed (10:7-14)
5. Assyria’s Judgment Described (10:15-19,24-34)
6. Israel’s Future Foretold: “The Remnant Will Return” (10:20-23).
7. True Deliverance Worked by Christ

One of the most difficult aspects of Christian theology is to understand how God’s eternal plans, made from before the foundation of the world, are carried out to the letter while at the same time God holds all people accountable for their actions. Though the complete solution to this problem will elude us, Isaiah 10 gives us a big piece of the puzzle. In this chapter God raises up the Assyrian army as the rod of his anger to judge his people, Israel. Then God judges Assyria for doing the exact thing that he dispatched them to do! How is it just for God to use evil people to do key aspects of his eternal plan then to judge them for doing the exact thing that he ordained for them to do? The key piece of the puzzle comes in verse 7: What did the Assyrians intend? What was in their hearts during their actions? Isaiah 10 reveals that God judges people for their motives. A faith-filled meditation on Isaiah 10 will result in a far more mature understanding of the way God rules human history and judges the human actors in his play.

God’s Surprising Messengers: The Assyrian Army

In verse 6 God says of Assyria, “I will send him against a godless nation.” This is a doubly surprising statement. First, the “godless nation” is the northern kingdom of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, his chosen friend. They are called “godless” because they have rejected the true God and have embraced idols. Second, God chooses to send Assyria, generally regarded as an even more wicked nation than Israel, to punish his own people. It is so difficult to conceive of the wicked Assyrian nation “on mission” from God, but so they are—unwittingly, however! God calls Assyria “the rod of my anger,” saying that the staff in their hands is his wrath. For God to “send” such an evil nation against his people is so stunning! It teaches us that God is the ruler of all nations, including the most powerful and the most wicked. God sits “enthroned above the circle of the earth; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers” (Isa 40:22). God moves his little finger, and massive nations mobilize. God has a work to do, not only against the northern kingdom of Israel but also against Mount Zion (Jerusalem; 10:12). And that work will be brutal; God is sending the Assyrians against the objects of his rage to trample them and seize plunder. Why? Because both Israel and Judah have broken his covenant and thrown his laws behind their backs (Neh 9:26).

God’s Even More Surprising Message: Woe to Assyria!

But God has an even more shocking message for Assyria, the rod of his anger: Woe to you for doing it! God is going to judge the Assyrians for the very actions he is sending them to do. How could that possibly be just? How we struggle with such questions! But there it is plainly in verse 5: “Woe!” And he is even more plain in the rest of the prophecy: “But when the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, ‘I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes’” (v. 12). Verses 16-19 describe the destruction of Assyria by a terrifying wasting disease. So God uses Assyria, and then he judges them severely for doing the very thing that he ordained.

The Key Issue: “What He Intends”

Isaiah 10:7

The key piece to this timeless theological puzzle is found in verse 7: “But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. It is his intent to destroy and to cut off many nations.” God rightly judges Assyria not for what they did but for their motives behind their actions. They are just as godless in slaughtering Israel as Israel was in their idolatries. The motive of the Assyrians had nothing to do with the glory of God or his righteous rage against the godless nation of Israel. They were not angels of vengeance, swinging the sickle of God’s wrath out of holy zeal for God’s honor, as the angels in the book of Revelation do, for then they would have been guiltless for the exact same actions (cf. Phinehas in Num 25). The Assyrians have no zeal for the glory of God, and therefore God judges them for the very actions he ordains. God searches hearts and minds and gives to each person what he deserves (Rev 2:23). Anything that does not come from faith is sin (Rom 14:23; Heb 11:6).

Assyria’s Motives Displayed

Isaiah 10:7-14

So if the glory of God was not the motive of the Assyrians, what was? In verses 7-14 Isaiah is clearly laying out the mind-set of the Assyrian empire builders: their purpose was to destroy and cut off many nations for their own glory and pleasures. They arrogantly boast that all of their commanders are like kings (v. 8), and Samaria (Israel) is no different than any of the small nations they have already conquered (Calno, Carchemish, Hamath, and Arpad; v. 9). Verse 12 makes plain the arrogance in the hearts of the Assyrian king and his commanders—they have a satanic pride bordering on self-worship. They believe that everything they have accomplished militarily has been done by their own wisdom and strength for their own glory (v. 13), giving no credit to the God who held in his hand their life-breath and all their ways (Dan 5:23). Their arrogance is breathtaking, and God will not allow it to go unpunished.

Assyria’s Judgment Described

Isaiah 10:15-19,24-34

God makes it plain in verse 15 how offensive Assyria’s pride is in his sight. Assyria is merely a tool in God’s omnipotent hand, like an ax he’s using to chop down a tree. How, then, can the ax boast against the one wielding it? How ridiculous is human pride, when apart from God we can’t even take a single breath! We are merely like a wooden rod in his hand; he is the true actor in history. So God speaks his verdict against arrogant Assyria: they will die by a wasting disease; all their powerful warriors will burn up by fever and die in a single day (vv. 16-18). Later, in Isaiah 37, we will have the fulfillment of this judgment. But it is this passage that tells us why a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians died in one night at the hand of the angel of the Lord. The result of that wasting and burning disease will be that Assyria’s “forest” (warriors) will be so few that a child could count them (v. 19). This is something God will do out of zeal for his own glory (v. 17).

God then comforts the remnant of his people in verses 24-34 with details of Assyria’s defeat. He tells them not to be afraid of the Assyrians because God will deal with them in the end (vv. 24-25). God’s anger against his people will abate, and his wrath will then turn to the destruction of Assyria. On the day that God deals with Assyria, the yoke of Assyrian tyranny will fall from their necks. Verses 28-32 give a travelogue of the impending invasion of Judah, as step by step the Assyrian juggernaut gets closer and closer to Jerusalem. But all they will be able to do to that protected city will be to shake their fist at it (v. 32). God will slaughter them before the very walls of Jerusalem as a forest is laid low by an ax.

Israel’s Future Foretold: “The Remnant Will Return”

Isaiah 10:20-23

By contrast, God will preserve a remnant of his people. The word remnant appears in each of verses 20, 21, and 22. The remnant is chosen by God’s grace (Rom 11:5), and it is for their benefit that God does all of this. After the Assyrian invasion, the godly remnant will have learned never again to trust in the power of human armies. By the eternal plan and sovereign power of almighty God, a remnant would return to the Lord (v. 21). Tragically, though the physical descendants of Abraham were as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant would return because God had decreed an overwhelming and righteous destruction.

These words are incredibly significant in redemptive history. The apostle Paul quotes them in Romans 9:27-28 to explain why only some Jews were believing in Jesus. Throughout Israel’s history, only a small portion of the nation were genuine believers. Unbelieving physical descendants of Abraham have always been as “godless” as the Assyrians and all the other pagans. And in Isaiah 10 God makes it plain that he will wipe out both the godless Hebrews and the godless Gentiles alike. But in Christ there is a remnant chosen by grace from both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 11:5; see also 9:24). That remnant will return to a genuine and lasting trust in the Lord and will dwell in the perfect and final “promised land”: the new heaven and new earth.

True Deliverance Worked by Christ

The Old Testament context of this chapter can obscure how timeless these themes are. Every single day, the sovereign plan of God is unfolding. In God’s mind, that plan has been worked out down to the smallest detail, even before the foundation of the world. It involves many evil people doing things that are contrary to his laws, but all of them part of God’s wise and complex plan. The most evil thing that has ever happened on earth is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many evil people did many evil things to bring about Christ’s death—all of them were planned by almighty God before he created the universe. Isaiah 10 tells us quite plainly how God could ordain that Judas Iscariot could betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, and yet he could condemn Judas for such an act. Jesus said concerning Judas, “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!” (Matt 26:24). How could that be just? How could Judas act in the preordained way (“just as it is written”) and still have the “woe” stated over him, having it be said by Jesus, “It would have been better for him if he had not been born”? According to Isaiah 10:7, it all has to do with Judas’s motive: love for money (John 12:6). God judged him for his motives, just as he will do to every person who ever lived. Our biggest problem is that we cannot survive such scrutiny. Our motives naturally are no better than those of the “godless” Jews or the vicious Assyrians or the money-loving Judas.

The greatest yoke of bondage (v. 27) in human history is sin. In Christ alone can that yoke be broken and fall from our necks. Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead is the true deliverance that he works for the remnant chosen by grace. Amazingly, God will then judge the remnant based on Christ’s motives and actions (not ours), his perfect righteousness imputed to us by faith.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How is the problem of divine sovereignty and human responsibility addressed in this chapter?
2. What are the two surprising aspects of God’s statement that he will “send” Assyria against a “godless nation”?
3. Why is it frequently troubling to people that God uses wicked men to achieve holy ends?
4. On what basis does God say he will judge Assyria for doing the very thing he sent them to do?
5. Why is God so concerned about the motives of our hearts?
6. What is ultimately the only proper motive for every action (1 Cor 10:31)?
7. How does the arrogance of the Assyrians get exposed in this chapter? How do we struggle with similar attitudes of pride as are displayed in verse 13? Why does God hate such pride?
8. How should this chapter humble us?
9. How does this chapter relate to the statement Jesus makes about Judas in Matthew 26:24? Specifically, how does the question of motive raised in Isaiah 10:7 help us understand how God could judge Judas for doing the very thing he had ordained Judas to do?
10. How does verse 27 point to the deliverance worked by Christ?