God's Triumphant Rubble
Introduction: The Tale of Two Cities
History, as the Bible tells it, is the story of a long war between two cities. It is the story of the City of Man, built on pride and rebellion, and the City of God, built on grace and redemption. The City of Man trusts in its own fortifications, its own technology, its own legislation, and its own strength. Its anthem is the song of the ruthless. It is Babel, it is Babylon, it is Rome, and it is the proud secular project of our own day. It is a fortified town, a palace of strangers, and its central political project is to declare its independence from the God who made it.
The modern world is busily engaged in building this city. It is a city that promises safety without submission, meaning without God, and justice without a judge. It builds its walls high with humanistic decrees and paves its streets with godless philosophies. And many Christians, tragically, are intimidated by it. They look at the high walls of the fortified city of secularism and they tremble. They hear the loud song of the ruthless on every media outlet and they think the battle is lost. They have forgotten that our God is a specialist in urban renewal, which is to say, He specializes in turning the proud cities of men into heaps of rubble.
This passage in Isaiah is a song. It is a song of victory, a song of praise, a song to be sung while standing on the ruins of the enemy's stronghold. It is not a lament or a fearful prayer. It is a triumphant declaration of what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do until all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. This is not a description of a far-off, ethereal, post-history cleanup. This is a description of the engine of history itself. God's faithfulness is a divine wrecking ball, and the result of its work is not just destruction, but the glorious conversion of the very people who once shook their fists at heaven.
We must learn to sing this song. We must learn to see the world not as the secularists see it, as a random collection of autonomous powers, but as Isaiah sees it: a world where God's ancient plans are unfolding with perfect faithfulness, where the strongholds of rebellion are destined for the dust heap, and where God Himself is the only true refuge.
The Text
O Yahweh, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Counsels formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness. For You have made a city into a heap, A fortified town into a ruin; A palace of strangers is a city no more, It will never be rebuilt. Therefore a strong people will glorify You; Towns of ruthless nations will fear You. For You have been a strong defense for the poor, A strong defense for the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; For the breath of the ruthless Is like a rain storm against a wall. Like heat in a dry land, You subdue the rumbling of strangers; Like heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the ruthless is silenced.
(Isaiah 25:1-5 LSB)
Personal Praise for an Eternal Plan (v. 1)
The song begins not with a theological treatise, but with heartfelt, personal worship.
"O Yahweh, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Counsels formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness." (Isaiah 25:1)
All true theology is doxology. It must begin and end in praise. Isaiah does not say, "O Yahweh, you are a fascinating subject of study." He says, "You are my God." This is the language of covenant relationship. This is personal. And the immediate response to knowing this God is to exalt Him, to lift Him up, to give thanks to His name, which is to say, His character and reputation.
And why? What is the basis for this praise? It is twofold: God's works and God's words. He has "worked wonders." God is not an abstract principle or a distant, uninvolved landlord. He is a God who acts. He intervenes in history, shatters armies, parts seas, and raises the dead. His wonders are not haphazard. They are the outworking of "counsels formed long ago." God is not making it up as He goes. All of history, from the fall of an empire to the fall of a sparrow, is the meticulous execution of a plan conceived in eternity.
The phrase "perfect faithfulness" is the Hebrew `emunah omen`. It is faithfulness upon faithfulness, rock-solid certainty, absolute dependability. It is an emphatic statement. God's ancient plans are not just good ideas; they are backed by His unshakeable, covenant-keeping character. This is the foundation of Christian confidence. We do not hope that things might turn out all right. We know they will, because the end was written from the beginning by a God whose plans cannot fail and whose promises cannot be broken.
The Glorious Demolition Project (v. 2-3)
Now Isaiah gets specific about the kind of "wonders" God performs. He is a divine demolition expert.
"For You have made a city into a heap, A fortified town into a ruin; A palace of strangers is a city no more, It will never be rebuilt. Therefore a strong people will glorify You; Towns of ruthless nations will fear You." (Isaiah 25:2-3 LSB)
God's faithfulness to His people necessarily means He is a terror to His enemies. The "city" here is the symbol of organized human rebellion. It is man's attempt to create a world without God, a fortress of self-reliance. It is the pride of man rendered in stone and mortar. And God's response to this pride is to turn it into a heap. The fortified town becomes a ruin. The "palace of strangers," the headquarters of those outside the covenant, is un-citied. It ceases to be.
Notice the finality: "It will never be rebuilt." When God passes judgment on a system of rebellion, that judgment is ultimate. Men can try to rebuild Babel, and they do, in every generation. But God's wrecking ball is patient and it is thorough. The secular dream is always destined for the ash heap of history.
But look at the result. This is crucial. The demolition is not an end in itself. "Therefore a strong people will glorify You." The display of God's sovereign power in judgment leads to conversion. When the world sees that man's best-laid plans and proudest towers are nothing before the power of Yahweh, the elect among them are brought to their knees, not in terror, but in worship. The "towns of ruthless nations" will not just be afraid; they will "fear" God, which is the beginning of wisdom. This is a postmillennial vision. The gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, is also the dynamite of God that levels the proud fortresses of unbelief. As the city of man crumbles throughout history, the City of God grows, populated by former citizens of the rubble.
The Stronghold of the Helpless (v. 4)
The same God who is a wrecking ball to the proud is a fortress to the humble.
"For You have been a strong defense for the poor, A strong defense for the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; For the breath of the ruthless Is like a rain storm against a wall." (Isaiah 25:4 LSB)
There is a great contrast here. The ruthless trust in their fortified city. The righteous trust in their fortified God. God Himself is our stronghold. Who are the "poor" and "needy"? They are those who have no resources of their own. They are spiritually bankrupt. They are the ones Jesus blessed in the Sermon on the Mount: the poor in spirit, who know they are utterly dependent on God's grace. For them, God is a refuge from the "storm" of persecution and a "shade" from the "heat" of affliction.
And what of the power of the wicked? Isaiah gives us a magnificent image. "The breath of the ruthless is like a rain storm against a wall." Think of it. The angry threats, the political maneuvering, the cultural pressure, the shouting mobs, all of it, is nothing more than bad weather beating against an immovable object. It makes a lot of noise. It can be intimidating if you are standing out in it. But for those who are sheltered in God, it is just the sound of a storm that cannot touch them. The fury of the wicked is impotent against the fortress of God.
The Great Quieting (v. 5)
The song concludes with God silencing the noise of His enemies.
"Like heat in a dry land, You subdue the rumbling of strangers; Like heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the ruthless is silenced." (Isaiah 25:5 LSB)
The rebellion of man is noisy. The "rumbling of strangers" is the clamor of their politics, their philosophies, their wars. The "song of the ruthless" is their cultural anthem of pride and self-worship. It is the soundtrack of the city of man. And God simply subdues it. He turns the volume down.
How does He do it? "Like heat by the shadow of a cloud." The oppressive, scorching heat of pagan culture is relieved by the sovereign intervention of God. His presence is like a passing cloud on a brutal day, bringing immediate and welcome relief. He does not just defeat His enemies; He silences their arrogant songs. He brings their cultural projects to nothing. The rumbling of their threats fades away, and in its place, a new song begins to rise, the song of the redeemed, the song of those who have found their refuge not in a city made with hands, but in the living God.
Conclusion: Singing on the Ruins
This song of Isaiah is the song of the Church. We are living in the time of the great demolition and the great construction. Through the preaching of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ is, right now, making the fortified cities of men into heaps of rubble. The cross was the ultimate judgment on the city of man. There, the prince of this world was judged and cast out. There, the powers and principalities were disarmed. And from the resurrection onward, Christ has been reigning from heaven, extending His kingdom, and bringing the nations to fear His name.
Our task is not to cower inside the walls of the church, hoping the storm will pass. Our task is to stand on the ruins of what God has already overthrown and to sing this song with confidence. The breath of the ruthless is just noise. The song of the ruthless is being silenced. The counsels of God, formed long ago, are being executed with perfect faithfulness.
Therefore, we do not fear the rumbling of strangers. We are citizens of a better city, whose builder and maker is God. And we have the high privilege of inviting the strong and the ruthless to abandon their doomed city and find refuge in ours. For our God is a strong defense for the poor, and His name is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe.