The Great Realignment
Introduction: The War on Dictionaries
We are living in a time of institutionalized insanity, and the front line of this war is the dictionary. Our culture is engaged in a furious project of lexical vandalism. Words are being systematically stripped of their meaning, hollowed out, and then stuffed with the ideological sawdust of our rebellion. We are told that marriage can be between two men, that a man can be a woman if he feels like it, that tolerance means the enthusiastic celebration of sin, and that justice means state-sanctioned theft and envy. When a society begins to lie on this scale, when it makes a concerted effort to call evil good and good evil, it is a society that is begging for judgment.
But this is not a new rebellion. It is the ancient rebellion, the one that began in the Garden with a simple question intended to unravel the fabric of reality: "Did God really say?" Every sin, at its root, is a refusal to accept God's definitions. We want to be the lexicographers. We want to be the ones who name things, because naming rights are governing rights. He who defines the terms wins the argument, and ultimately, wins the culture.
Into this chaos of redefinition, the prophet Isaiah speaks a word of glorious, clarifying hope. He promises a day when God will send a King who will not just conquer armies, but will conquer the dictionary. He will restore the definitions. He will call things what they are. This passage is a promise of the great realignment, when the moral and verbal universe is snapped back into alignment with the grain of reality that God Himself established. This is a prophecy of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose reign brings not only pardon for our sins, but clarity to our minds and speech.
The Text
Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a weary land. Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of those who hear will pay attention. And the heart of the hasty will discern knowledge, And the tongue of thestammerers will hasten to speak clearly. No longer will the wicked fool be called noble, Or the rogue be spoken of as generous. For a wicked fool speaks wicked folly, And his heart does wickedness: To do ungodliness and to speak error against Yahweh, In order to make the hungry person empty; He even causes the thirsty to lack a drink. As for a rogue, his weapons are evil; He counsels wicked schemes To wreak destruction on the afflicted with lying words, Even though the needy one speaks justly. But the noble man counsels noble plans; And by noble plans he rises up.
(Isaiah 32:1-8 LSB)
The Righteous King and His Government (v. 1-2)
The prophecy begins with the central promise, the lynchpin of all restoration.
"Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a weary land." (Isaiah 32:1-2)
While this had a near-term application to a righteous king like Hezekiah, its ultimate fulfillment is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the King who reigns in righteousness. And notice, His reign is not a solo act. He has princes who rule justly under Him. This is a picture of the kingdom of God, where Christ is the sovereign, and His people, His delegated authorities, whether in the church, the family, or the civil realm, rule justly according to His standard.
And what is the character of this government? Look at the imagery. It is not the oppressive, bureaucratic, soul-crushing nanny state that we see growing all around us. It is a refuge, a shelter, refreshment, and rest. Good government, godly government, protects its people from the storms of chaos and the winds of assault. It provides the stability and security necessary for life to flourish, like streams of water in a desert. It provides relief from the oppressive heat of a fallen world, like the shade of a great rock. This is what Christ's kingdom brings. It is a government of liberty and life, not a government of control and death.
The Internal Reformation (v. 3-4)
This righteous external government produces a corresponding internal transformation in the people.
"Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of those who hear will pay attention. And the heart of the hasty will discern knowledge, And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly." (Isaiah 32:3-4 LSB)
The reign of Christ is a reign of light and truth, and it has a clarifying effect on the human soul. Sin makes us blind, deaf, and dumb. We have eyes, but we do not see. We have ears, but we do not hear. Our hearts are rash and foolish, jumping to conclusions based on our own darkened understanding. Our tongues stammer and stumble, unable to speak the truth plainly.
But when the King comes, He opens our eyes. This is regeneration. As Paul says, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, but God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts (2 Cor. 4:4-6). He unstops our ears so that we can finally hear His Word and pay attention. He gives us a new heart, one that is able to discern knowledge and understand truth. And He loosens our tongues. The stammering confusion of unbelief is replaced by the clear, confident confession of the gospel. The reign of Christ brings about a cognitive and linguistic revival. We are enabled to see, hear, understand, and speak rightly for the first time.
The Great Unmasking (v. 5-7)
Here we come to the heart of the realignment. Under the reign of King Jesus, things are called by their right names.
"No longer will the wicked fool be called noble, Or the rogue be spoken of as generous." (Isaiah 32:5 LSB)
A rebellious world has a vested interest in mislabeling reality. They honor the very people God condemns. Isaiah identifies two such characters. The first is the "wicked fool," in Hebrew, the nabal. This is not a man with a low IQ. This is the practical atheist of Psalm 14:1, the man who says in his heart, "There is no God." He is morally and spiritually corrupt. And what does he do? Verse 6 tells us: he speaks folly, his heart is bent on wickedness, he speaks error against God, and he oppresses the poor and needy. He is a godless, self-serving man. And yet, in a godless culture, this is the man who is called "noble." He is the celebrity, the politician, the titan of industry who is celebrated for his rebellion.
The second character is the "rogue," or the scoundrel. Verse 7 tells us his methods are evil. He is a schemer who uses lies to destroy the poor. He is a manipulator, a con artist. And yet, the world calls him "generous." Why? Because he is the crony capitalist who buys political favor. He is the "philanthropist" who uses his vast, ill-gotten fortune to fund wicked causes, buying himself a reputation for generosity while he destroys the foundations of society. Our world is filled with such men, and our media and universities fall all over themselves to praise them.
The reign of Christ puts an end to this charade. The gospel rips the masks off. It exposes the fool as a fool and the rogue as a rogue. In the kingdom of God, true nobility and true generosity are defined by God's law, not by worldly acclaim or the size of one's bank account.
The Foundation of True Nobility (v. 8)
In stark contrast to the fool and the rogue, Isaiah presents the truly noble man.
"But the noble man counsels noble plans; And by noble plans he rises up." (Isaiah 32:8 LSB)
What makes a man noble? It is not his bloodline, his wealth, or his popularity. A man is noble because he thinks and plans noble things. His character is the source of his conduct. He doesn't stumble into righteousness. He plans it. He devises it. He builds his life, his family, and his work on a foundation of godly, noble principles. And notice the result: "by noble plans he rises up," or "he stands." His life has a stability and an integrity that the fool and the rogue can never possess. They build on the sand of their own lies and wickedness, and their houses will fall. The noble man builds on the rock of God's revealed truth, and he will stand firm.
This is the character that the reign of Christ produces in His people. He makes us noble. He gives us a new heart that desires to devise noble plans, and He gives us His Word as the blueprint for those plans. He calls us to be men and women of substance, whose lives are characterized by a rugged, principled faithfulness.
Conclusion: Living in the Realignment
This prophecy is not about some distant, future kingdom. The King has come. Jesus Christ is reigning right now at the right hand of the Father. The great realignment has begun. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, opening blind eyes, unstopping deaf ears, and loosening stammering tongues. The gospel is going forth, and wherever it takes root, it redefines reality. It calls sin "sin." It calls foolishness "foolishness." It calls Jesus "Lord."
Our task as the church is to be a faithful embassy of this kingdom. We are to be a people who live by the King's dictionary. We must refuse to participate in the linguistic games of the world. We must call the wicked fool a wicked fool, and the rogue a rogue. We must speak the truth plainly and clearly, without apology. And we must, in our own lives, be the kind of noble men and women described here, who devise noble plans and stand firm on them.
The world is a storm of lies and a desert of confusion. But our King is a refuge. His Word is a stream of living water. His rule is the shade of a great rock in a weary land. Let us flee to Him, submit to His reign, and be agents of His great, glorious, and final realignment of all things.