Isaiah’s call to discipleship (7) – Look to God (Sermon 15/9/19(

⁵ The Lord spoke to me again: ⁶ “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoice over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, ⁷ therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River,^[c] mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks, ⁸ and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.”

⁹ Be broken,^[d] you peoples, and be shattered;^[e]
    give ear, all you far countries;
strap on your armor and be shattered;
    strap on your armor and be shattered.
¹⁰ Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
    speak a word, but it will not stand,
    for God is with us.^[f]

¹¹ For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: ¹² “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. ¹³ But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. ¹⁴ And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁵ And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”

¹⁶ Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching^[g] among my disciples. ¹⁷ I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. ¹⁸ Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. ¹⁹ And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰ To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. ²¹ They will pass through the land,^[h] greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against^[i] their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. ²² And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

Introduction

The background to this passage is that, around 735BC, the northern kingdom of Israel under King Pekah son of Remaliah and the kingdom of Syria under King Rezin (7:1) had allied together to attack the Southern kingdom of Judah under King Ahaz. We read in 2 Kings 16 that their combined armies besieged Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people were terrified of the threat posed by this alliance. This was a time of national crisis. The very existence of Judah was under threat,

Into this situation Isaiah speaks to Ahaz and the people of Judah. He asks them to do 3 related things:

1. Trust only the Lord: a call to dependence
2. Fear only the Lord: a call to reverence
3. Hope only in the Lord: a call to patience.  

1. Trust only the Lord (v. 5-10)
We heard 2 weeks ago that Ahaz hypocritically despised God’s offer of a miraculous sign (7:10-14) to indicate God’s presence with him (“Immanuel”).  Instead, he went to Tigath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and offered to become a vassal state of Assyria to come under its protection. The people had refused the waters of Shiloah (v.5) – the stream from the spring that fed Jerusalem, symbolizing God’s provision for Jerusalem, the city He had chosen. Instead, they chose to seek the help of a foreign power and a king who was not in the line of David. They chose the mighty waters of the Euphrates river (Assyria, v.7) instead of the little stream God provided. They abandoned faith in the seeming weakness of God for the obvious power of man. The Assyrians happily agreed, conquering Damascus in 732BC and Samaria in 722BC. In the short term, this solved Judah’s problem, but would eventually lead to the Assyrians attacking all of Judah as well, and nearly conquering Jerusalem in 701BC in the reign of Ahaz’s son Hezekiah. So Isaiah warns God’s unbelieving people that their apparently successful effort to find a solution for their problems will in fact result in disaster. God’s judgement comes through the choices of His faithless people. They wanted their way, and they got it. We heard Ps Daniel say that ““What we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us”

It’s easy to look at the pages of Scripture and say that king Ahaz and the people of Judah were foolish and faithless. Yet the tendency to find our own easy, partial solutions and disregard the clear teaching of God’s Word is something all of us are tempted to do.  Our solutions appear more ‘concrete’ and practical, but they are temporary. As we shall see, they lead only to disappointment, regret and anger. Every time we live our lives as if God did not exist we show that we do not trust God. It Every time we face difficulty and we engage in plans and methods that leave God out of the equation, we prove our lack of trust. So Isaiah will warn God’s people later in the book:

⁰ Who among you fears the Lord    and obeys the voice of his servant?
Let him who walks in darkness    and has no light
trust in the name of the Lord    and rely on his God.
¹¹ Behold, all you who kindle a fire,    who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire,    and by the torches that you have kindled!
This you have from my hand:    you shall lie down in torment. (Is 50:10-11)

Rom 1:18-32 (three times: “God gave them up”)

The worst thing that can happen to us is when we rebel and God lets us go our own way. This is a sign that He has given up on us. He has disowned us. “What we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us because God lets it”

God does not command us to trust Him without reason. God’s commands always come with God’s reasons. Isaiah invites us to trust because

1. Immanuel suffers with us (v.8)
2. Immanuel is sovereign over us (v. 10)

This is a God who identifies with us in all we go through, and who works with infinite power to help us. He is worth trusting.


2. Fear only the Lord (v. 11-15)
Isaiah introduces this section in the most emphatic terms: “The LORD spoke...with his strong hand upon me”. It is as if the weight of the revelation almost crushes Isaiah. In this section we read of 2 ‘ways’. One is the “way of this people”. Those that follow this way fear certain things and call certain things ‘conspiracy’ (internal treason). They are in dread of certain things. In contrast, the other way is the way of the Lord – we fear and are in dread of Him alone.

We must look beyond our surface fears and rightly discern the true fears of our hearts. What makes our hearts tremble? We are to live unshaken by the world, trembling only at God’s word (Is 66:1-2 Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,    and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,    and what is the place of my rest?
² All these things my hand has made,    and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit    and trembles at my word.)

• People who seek control fear uncertainty
• People who seek power fear humiliation
• People who seek approval fear rejection
• People who seek comfort fear suffering

We must not get caught up in foolish theories and stories that are not founded in truth. We think we know the ‘inside story’ or the ‘real situation’ or we have a window on what the future holds. If this knowledge does not come from God, it makes us unsure and timid when we should be decisive and bold for God.

What does it mean to fear God? The phrase “love God” or “love the Lord” occurs in the Bible 16 times, but the phrase “fear God” or “fear the Lord” occurs 54 times.
Honour him as holy (v.13). Isaiah is calling us to see the God he saw in Isaiah 6: the awesome, Holy One - worthy of reverence. The one who breaks us (undone). We think Jesus is a nice guy who carries sheep and little children in His arms. Sometimes we think of Him broken and bloody on the cross but our Lord is also the Alpha and Omega, the living God -the one before whom his closest disciple can fall down before like dead. He demands to be taken seriously when he demands to have our full allegiance. The teaching that we can be saved without being discipled falls flat before this Jesus. Fear of God is not a choice or a polite suggestion. Come in reverence to worship on Sundays.

If we follow the way of the Lord, will find Him a sanctuary - where we rest in His holy presence as forgiven sinners. If we follow the way of the people, we will find God a stumbling stone (the people ignore Him and trip over him) and a rock of offence (He sets Himself against them). Paul takes this image up in Rom 9:33, and Peter in 1 Pet 2:6-7. So Jesus is the one we are to fear and honour as holy. When we do this, He is our sanctuary in the midst of political, societal and personal collapse.

3. Hope only in the Lord (v.16-22)
Biblical hope is not based on uncertainty (“I hope to...”) It is a firm conviction of what will certainly come. It is faith in the future grace of God towards us. We need to hope when God hides Himself (v.17) and does not move according to our desires and our plans

At times like these we want to know the next step ahead. We long for clarity. We want certainty of success and avoidance of failure or disaster. That’s why people examine horoscopes and visit fortune tellers and mediums (v.19) who claim to have ‘inside knowledge’. But Isaiah tells us that God has given everything His people needs to know the truth and the way forward - “the teaching and the testimony” (v.20). To reject this is to feel hopeless and to be hopeless.

There are 2 concrete expressions of hope in this section of Isaiah 8.

• To hope is to look forward to His action in His time – waiting. This is to trust in God’s promises when we do not have His presence.
• To hope is to be able stand as a testimony and a sign to others of God’s reality and presence. Isaiah’s naming of his children Shear-jashub (“a remnant shall remain” 7:3) and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (“quick to the plunder” sp8:3) was intentional: proclaiming both God’s grace on His true chosen people as well as His judgements and sovereignty over world events.
  
  Hope in the Lord, or you will have no hope. God is your delight. Or your damnation (v.22 cf. Mt 8:12, 22:13, 25:30) “outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
  
  
  

Conclusion
Isaiah challenges us with the figure of Christ our true Immanuel, our loving Saviour and awesome Lord. Let us see His glory, unlike the Jewish leaders of whom John said:

“He has blinded their eyes    and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,    nor understand with their hearts,
    nor turn—and I would heal them.”
^“41 Isaiah said these things because he saw (Jesus’) glory and spoke of him.” (Jn 12:41)

May we see the glory – the visible beauty – of Christ’s perfections. In times of trouble, trust Him only. In dangerous times, fear Him only. And in times when God’s face is hidden, hope in Him only. Look to him. Receive Him wholeheartedly, surrender your all to  Him, and find in Him fullness of life. 


Audio here