The Pentecostal Foundations of the World Text: Isaiah 32:15-20
Introduction: Until the Spirit
We live in an age of frantic desperation. Our culture is a wilderness of thorns and briers, just as Isaiah describes in the verses leading up to our text. Men look for solutions everywhere except for the only place a solution can be found. They try political engineering, educational reform, technological salvation, and moralistic self-help programs. They rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship and call it progress. But the ship is still going down. The wilderness remains a wilderness, fruitful only in its production of thistles and despair.
Isaiah here gives us the great pivot point of all history. He describes the condition of a land under judgment, a people bereft of hope. And then he provides the great conjunction, the turning point upon which the fate of the world hangs. He says all this will continue "Until." That is a pregnant word. It is a hinge word. All the desolation will remain, all the confusion will continue, all the political bungling will persist, until the Spirit is poured out from on high.
This is not a prophecy about some far-off, ethereal event that has no bearing on our lives. This is the prophecy of Pentecost, and by extension, it is the prophecy of the entire age of the church. What Isaiah saw in part, we have seen in its glorious inauguration. The Spirit has been poured out. This means that the logic of the world has been fundamentally and irrevocably altered. The age of the wilderness is over, and the age of the fruitful orchard has begun. Our task is not to wish for this reality, but to walk in it. Our calling is not to lament the wilderness, but to plant the orchard.
Many Christians today, particularly those of a pessimistic and retreating disposition, read a passage like this and immediately shove it off into the sweet by-and-by. They spiritualize it into an internal reality with no external consequences, or they postpone it until after some great future rupture. But this is to misunderstand the very nature of the gospel. The gospel is not a private religious experience; it is the announcement of a new King and a new kingdom. And that kingdom has a geography. It has a sociology. It has an economy. It has a culture. The outpouring of the Spirit was not intended to create a spiritual ghetto, but to transform the entire world, turning deserts into gardens and gardens into forests.
The Text
Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fruitful orchard, And the fruitful orchard is counted as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, And righteousness will live in the fruitful orchard. And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and security forever. Then my people will live in a peaceful abode, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places; And it will hail when the forest comes down, And the city will be utterly laid low. How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters, Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.
(Isaiah 32:15-20 LSB)
The Great Reversal (v. 15)
We begin with the hinge of history itself.
"Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fruitful orchard, And the fruitful orchard is counted as a forest." (Isaiah 32:15)
The precondition for any genuine transformation is the outpouring of the Spirit. This is not a human work. This is not the result of a committee meeting or a five-year plan. This is a sovereign, top-down invasion of grace. The Spirit is "poured out," which implies abundance, a deluge. This is the language of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18). The new covenant reality begins with this gracious drenching from heaven.
And what is the result? The result is explosive, exponential growth. The "wilderness," the place of desolation and curse, becomes a "fruitful orchard," a Carmel. This is a picture of cultivated, ordered, productive beauty. But it does not stop there. The orchard then becomes a "forest." This is not a regression to chaos; it is a picture of such immense, overflowing fruitfulness that the cultivated garden takes on the scale and grandeur of a mighty forest. It is a picture of the kingdom of God, which starts as a mustard seed and grows into a tree so large that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches (Matt. 13:31-32).
This is the engine of postmillennialism. The Spirit has been poured out. Therefore, the transformation of the wilderness is not a question of if, but when and how. The growth is inevitable because the power is divine. Our secularists see the wilderness of our current cultural moment and assume it is a permanent condition. They are like men standing in the desert in April, scoffing at the idea of a harvest, just moments before the floodgates of heaven open. The Spirit is at work, and the desert will bloom.
The Moral Transformation (v. 16-17)
This transformation is not merely agricultural; it is profoundly ethical. The change in the landscape is a direct result of a change in the moral fabric of the society.
"Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, And righteousness will live in the fruitful orchard. And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and security forever." (Isaiah 32:16-17 LSB)
Notice the progression. First the Spirit, then the fruitful land, and then justice and righteousness take up residence. This is crucial. You cannot have a just and righteous society apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. All secular attempts at utopia are doomed to fail because they try to produce the fruit of righteousness without the root of regeneration. They are trying to build a house with no foundation, and the result is always a tower of Babel, destined for confusion and collapse.
Justice will "dwell" in the wilderness, the very place that was once lawless. Righteousness will "live" in the orchard. These are not fleeting visitors; they are permanent residents. The gospel does not produce temporary good behavior; it creates a new and lasting moral order.
And what does this new moral order produce? Verse 17 gives us the glorious consequence. The "work of righteousness will be peace." The Hebrew word is shalom. This is not merely the absence of conflict. Shalom is holistic peace; it is universal flourishing, well-being, and prosperity in every direction. It is the way things ought to be. And the "service of righteousness" results in "quietness and security forever." When a people are righteous, when their lives are ordered according to God's law, the natural byproduct is a society that is calm, confident, and secure. Much of the anxiety, strife, and insecurity that plagues our modern world is the direct and necessary consequence of our rebellion against God's standards of righteousness.
The Secure Habitation (v. 18-19)
The prophet then describes the lived experience of God's people within this transformed world.
"Then my people will live in a peaceful abode, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places; And it will hail when the forest comes down, And the city will be utterly laid low." (Isaiah 32:18-19 LSB)
This is a picture of true security. God's people will dwell in "a peaceful abode." Their homes will be secure. Their rest will be undisturbed. This is the covenantal blessing of obedience. When we build according to God's blueprint, the house stands firm. When we build on the sand of human autonomy, the storms will inevitably wash it away.
But this peace exists in contrast to a great judgment. Verse 19 is a stark warning. While God's people are secure, a destructive hail will come down on "the forest," and "the city will be utterly laid low." Which forest? Which city? This is the forest of man's pride, the towering cedars of Lebanon that represent human arrogance and self-sufficiency. This is the city of man, Babylon the great, the nexus of rebellion against God. Throughout Scripture, the city represents the consolidated, organized power of fallen humanity set up in opposition to the city of God.
The security of God's people is established in the midst of the collapse of God's enemies. The hail of judgment flattens the proud forest, but God's orchard remains. The city of man is brought low, but the peaceful abodes of God's people are secure. This is not a promise that we will be raptured out of trouble, but that we will be kept safe in the midst of trouble. Our security is not in our location, but in our foundation.
The Blessed Work (v. 20)
The passage concludes with a beautiful beatitude, a declaration of blessing on the work of God's people in this new age of the Spirit.
"How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters, Who let out freely the ox and the donkey." (Isaiah 32:20 LSB)
This is a picture of confident, expansive, and fruitful labor. "Sowing beside all waters" means we are to take the seed of the gospel everywhere. There are no "no-go" zones for the kingdom. Every stream, every riverbank, every aspect of human culture is a place for us to sow. We are not called to huddle in a holy corner, but to go out and plant everywhere.
And we are to do this work with freedom and confidence. We "let out freely the ox and the donkey." These are the instruments of our labor. We are not to be timid or hesitant. The Spirit has been poured out. The ground has been made fertile. The victory is assured. Therefore, we can get to work with joy and abandon. We can plow, we can sow, we can build, knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).
This is the great commission in agricultural terms. We are to be tireless sowers, fearless plowers, confident that the Spirit who turns deserts into forests is the same Spirit who goes before us, with us, and after us. The blessing is not in the completion of the task, but in the faithful act of sowing itself. We are blessed as we do the work, trusting God for the growth. And the growth will come. The orchard will become a forest.
Conclusion: The Logic of Pentecost
The logic of Isaiah's prophecy is inescapable. The Spirit has been poured out. Therefore, the world is in the process of being transformed from a wilderness into a forest. Therefore, a true and lasting social order, founded on justice and righteousness, is not a utopian dream but a covenantal promise. Therefore, the work of righteousness will produce peace, quietness, and security.
This is the optimistic, world-conquering faith that turned the Roman Empire upside down. This is the faith that builds civilizations, establishes universities, and creates cultures of liberty and justice. It is a faith that refuses to cower before the chaos of the city of man, because it knows that the city of man is a condemned structure, and the hail is already beginning to fall.
Our task, then, is simple. We are to be those blessed people who sow beside all waters. We are to preach the gospel, teach the nations all that Christ has commanded, build faithful families, establish just businesses, create beautiful art, and do it all with the free and joyful confidence of those who know that the Spirit has been poured out from on high. We are not fighting for victory; we are fighting from victory. The wilderness is doomed. The forest is coming. Let us therefore be about our Father's business, planting trees.