Gods Obstinate People – Isaiah 30 — A Christian Growth Message

Subscribe to the ‘Christian Growth’ Podcast

Transcript

You probably know we’re following the great Old Testament prophet called Isaiah, and this is the 7th of 9 looks into the book, and we have, I think, have discovered that he has a very simple message for the people of God, which goes like this – “you have stopped following me and you’ve stopped listening to me, and so I’m going to bring you back the hard way.”

Our great trouble says God is going to come your way. And the trouble is going to be in the form of the Babylonian army, the Babylonian army will come to your doorstep and will bring you to your senses, and the question which Isaiah is asking is what will the people of God do? Will they turn back to God and find their safety, or will they in the end go down this very difficult road?

This question of ‘where do you turn when trouble comes’ is a is a permanently relevant question.

And you’ll know yourself that if you’re having a setback in your life at the moment, you’ll be asking yourself every now and again where do I turn?

And the book of Isaiah raises the question of whether you will look up and not just sideways or inwards, when a health worry comes or some relationship issue or maybe a problem with your business or maybe something makes you afraid or something makes you depressed, where do you turn? Does God feature in your thinking?

It’s possible, of course, that God is at work in his kindness, to bring you to a stronger faith and a stronger trust in him, but the question is, will you turn to him or will you turn away from him?

And I want to say to you as a realist, speaking I think to realists, that it is perfectly natural for us to be doubtful about God. To ask ourselves every now and again whether he really could do anything or would do anything, whether he is of practical help or not, or should we turn to somebody who we can see or to something which will give us the pleasure that we’re looking for, the relief. It is however a supernatural thing to turn to God.

And in the time of difficulty to say to yourself something like this, I’m not going to see God as part of the problem. I’m not going to consider God to be an enemy as things are going wrong. I’m going to see that God is the one person who I really need to help me through this particular time.

So you see Isaiah was facing this question for the people of Israel as a nation.

In the people of Israel are in the second half of the Old Testament. They seem to have lost their devotion to God and they didn’t care too much about God. And God did care and so his method is he’s going to restore them to their senses and bring them back the hard way and the way he’s going to do that as I say is to raise up the looming superpower of Babylon, just as God uses things every now and again to correct us and to retrain us when we drift.

Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by

Now before we turn to chapter 30, which incidentally is on page 1062 in your Bibles, I want to give you three words from Isaiah 28, which I think will interest you, at least I hope they will interest you, three words from Isaiah 28. The first word is in verse 11, where God says to His people, you’re not listening to me and so you’re going to listen to foreigners.

Do you see the logic, you’re not listening to me, says God, so the next thing you’re going to be hearing are foreign accents. The sound of the Babylonians. And they will be on your doorstep and they will bring a new healthy fear into your soul. And my plan, my hope is that this will turn you back to me.

We were talking to a girl in the street this week, she was sitting beside or behind a table selling tickets for supporting the Paralympians and we discovered of course that she was from overseas and so she had this unusual job, and we said to her something like look if you’re a stranger here and you don’t know anybody, let me tell you that there’s a very good church just around the corner which would be very welcoming and friendly and you’ll make good friends.

And there was a bit of a pause and she started to say something like this, well, you know, my parents took me to church when I was a child.

And you could hear the gap was – and I’ve basically had enough and I don’t really have anything to do with church anymore, and we didn’t really say much more to her but as we walked away I thought to myself I wonder if she has believing parents. Who have observed their daughter move on to the other side of the world, to a city like ours where it’s very easy to go downhill, and I wonder how their prayers for their daughter will be answered.

Will their prayers for their daughter be answered the hard way, in other words, she’ll have something that will really turn her around. Or will their prayers be answered the easy way so that she, for example, may say that’s a good idea, I’ll head to the nearest church and find some fellowship, well we don’t know, but that word is foreigners in chapter 28. God will do something using the hard foreigner. Second word in chapter 28 in verse 21, is that God is going to discipline his people but it’s his alien policy.

What a strange word, it’s his alien task to discipline. It has to be done, but it’s not his joy to do it.

He doesn’t like the death of a sinner, he doesn’t like the discipline of his people, it’s his alien task, but it has to be done.

Now you maybe like the great Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, who grew up thinking that God delights to discipline. And if you’re really, really pious, you may be able to squeeze a bit of kindness out of him. And Martin Luther discovered this word alien in Isaiah chapter 28 and had a big impact on him.

And then of course he discovered the gospel, the good news in the book of Romans, that God seeks to save, but it’s his alien task to punish, it’s his alien task to discipline.

The third word in chapter 28 is in verse 16, and this is that God has laid down a cornerstone, or we might say a safe foundation where the person who turns will be safe and secure. And it’s been God’s way from Genesis on. To always provide a place of safety for the person who wants to stop running and start returning.

And the cornerstone we discover in the New Testament of course is Jesus Christ. So, if a person is willing to stop running from God and return to God, they will find that there is a cornerstone, a foundation stone called Jesus Christ who will give them the safety and the security they need. What I’m trying to say to you friends is that when we run from God, when a person runs from God, it’s not a harmless game.

In Isaiah’s day, God was actually willing to bring foreigners, to bring his people back, it was his alien task, he would prefer that they were well settled on the cornerstone. But that’s what God was prepared to do in order to bring people back into a close walk with him. Well now we come to Isaiah 30, we discover that God’s people have found a solution to the problem of the Babylonians, but it’s not returning to God, it’s heading down to Egypt.

The leaders in Israel had said to themselves, the Babylonians will be a problem for us and the solution is to go and find another superpower. Let’s go to Egypt, they will be our protector. So we’re going to think about chapter 30 under two quick headings. The first is the wrong place for answers verses 1 to 14, and the second is the right place for answers, verses 15 to 18.

So first of all, the wrong places for answers.

We’re now looking at Isaiah chapter 30 verse 1. Listen to the very sensible words of the prophet Isaiah, he says in verse 1, woe to you, this won’t work. I know what you’re planning, says Isaiah, it won’t work. Verse 1, if you form an alliance with Egypt, says God, it’s contrary to me. In fact, literally he says it’s contrary to my spirit.

If you decide verse 2 that you’ll go down to Egypt for refuge, you won’t find refuge. You may remember if you were here last Sunday that Isaiah said that God, Isaiah 25, is our refuge. And so the, the tragedy of this is that the Israelites are turning away from the refuge to a refuge that won’t work.

And so verse 3 says Isaiah, it will end in disgrace. Verse 4, even though there’s a few Egyptian outposts quite nearby, they’re not the place to go to. Verse 5, they will be useless and you will end up being ashamed.

And in verses 6 and 7 he pictures the journey to Egypt, a dangerous journey with your poor animals carrying all your livelihood on their backs, and you are going down to useless Egypt.

Can I remind you this morning that God brought His people out of Egypt?

That’s what the Exodus was, it was leaving the slavery of Egypt and coming out by a miracle across the Red Sea, through the desert to the promised land, and now the people are planning what we might call an anti-exodus.

One of the most striking verses which I learned when I was a young believer is in 2 Peter 2:22. It’s an easy one to remember. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 22, and I always remember this, it says, talking about the person who goes back to their sins. That these people are like the dog returning to its vomit and the pig returning to the mud, and here are God’s people, the Israelites, going back to their slavery, going back to the non-refuge. Well now you can imagine as Isaiah said all these things to the people, if they were secular people, the leaders of Israel would have said something like this, Isaiah look this is this is all lovely of you to talk about this, but we need more than fairy tales.

We’re talking big political trouble, we’re talking about the Babylonian nation, we don’t have time for your little prayers, you say your little prayers, you go and do your little churchy things, but we are realists. We need a nation to match a nation. So Isaiah, you know you’re a sweet man but you’re just not practical and this of course would have been a very difficult thing for Isaiah to face.

Because he knew perfectly well that God was complete match for any nation at all.

We understand, I think the difference between church and state in this church, we recognise that a state needs an armed force and a police force. And we understand that political alliances make sense, we understand these things, but you see Isaiah is not just talking to political people, he’s talking to the people of God.

He’s talking to the Old Testament church. If anybody should be listening to God, it’s the Israelites, they’re the church. And if there are people in Israel, that is the Church of God in the Old Testament who think that God is small and politics is big, they need their head read. They’ve obviously lost the plot…

When God looks down at the leaders of the world, you can understand this if you’ve ever been in an aeroplane. The leaders of the world are tiny, the nations of the world are tiny. The God who sits on the throne of heaven is perfectly in charge and perfectly capable of doing whatever he’s decided.

A long time ago, there was a man called Benjamin Franklin, whose name you may know, he was one of America’s founding fathers, he was not a Christian at all, but he said this in 1787, in the middle of the assembly of the American leaders, he said, I have lived a long life, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see that God governs the affairs of men. I therefore move that prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning.

So there is a very sort of distant member, if at all, of the established church, basically saying we are not that great, we need the help of heaven for the deliberations of this assembly, in other words, here is the state we might say respecting God. Just as we who belong to God respect the state.

Well, you’ll see in verse 8, what God suggests for people who are not listening to Him now is that Isaiah write down the words. You’ll recognise, of course, that Isaiah’s ministry was mostly verbal.

Most of the people were not getting their Bibles out and reading Isaiah as he spoke to them, it was a verbal ministry, but now says God to Isaiah, I want you to write down the words, I want you to write them down so that they’ll be a testimony to the people who may turn around and say well you never told us or we were never warned about this, no, says God, write the words down, make it a document, make it a scroll, make it a poster, make it a billboard.

So that we’ll be able to say we told you.

And one of the reasons they weren’t listening, you’ll see verse 10, is that they didn’t like to be told warning. They only liked to be told blessing. They said in verse 10, stop warning us, stop telling us sad things, stop saying things that are unpopular, say something pleasant. They don’t say to Isaiah, we don’t want you to speak, they just say to Isaiah, we want you to say sweet things.

And Isaiah chapter 30 verse 10 must be one of the great texts for the 20th and the 21st century. Where the people say to the church, don’t say negative things, just say what we want to hear. Tell us everything is fine, tell us we can think anything, do anything, go anywhere, practise anything, and it’s fine with God. That’s what we want you to tell us. Don’t tell us to repent. Don’t tell us to change, don’t tell us to turn.

And sadly in every generation, there have been preachers who’ve been completely cooperative. And authors who’ve been completely cooperative. Have said, what does the world want to hear?

My brother-in-law, I think I’ve told you, who’s been working in Canada for a long time, found himself with the bishop of the area basically standing in front of the clergy and saying to them, we’re not listening to the book anymore on this particular topic of marriage. We’re now going to listen to the street. What does the street want? That’s what we will say.

And that of course goes right back to Genesis, where Adam and Eve said, has God really said these things? And throwing doubt on the Word of God.

Well, in chapter 30, verse 12-14, Isaiah uses a brilliant illustration, he says your plan to disobey God is going to be like building a wall with a huge crack in it. In the present, it’s holding, yes, you’ll be OK for a little while, but soon it will completely collapse, and as it collapses, there won’t even be enough of a brick to scrape up something. It’s going to shatter into so many pieces.

And I wonder how many people you know, dear friends, this may be me, this maybe you, this maybe somebody you know. And you’re in the position of compromising with God. You’re mentally telling God, I want you to cooperate with me, I don’t want to cooperate with you. I’m keeping your message at arm’s length, I don’t want it to interfere with my plans, and Isaiah says it’s a cracked wall, it will soon collapse.

Whereas the Word will stand firm.

So remember dear friends as we look at these verses from Isaiah where he’s pleading with the people not to go down to Egypt which will turn out to be a disaster, but to turn back to God. Remember that his warning is not anti-grace, it’s pro grace, he loves these people, God loves these people, but he’s telling them the wrong place for answers.

Now secondly, the right place for answers.

This is 15 to 18, somebody has said that Isaiah chapter 30 verse 15 is pretty well the summary of the whole book.

And I want you to know that when we get to verse 18 in a minute or two, it’s probably or could be my favourite verse in the Bible, but here is God calling on his people to listen to his Word carefully. Tim Keller said once in one of his sermons, I thought this was so helpful, he said:

If you invent a God whose word is optional for you, in other words, the word is a word which where you like it you take it, where you don’t, you reject it, he said you’ll end up with making God into a Stepford wife.

I’ve never seen the movie of the Stepford Wives, but I understand it’s the invention of a kind, a kind of series of wives who are like robots who simply say to you whatever you want to hear, yes sir, no sir, yes sir, no sir, and Tim Keller says if you won’t submit yourself to the Word of God, but only what you like in the Word of God, you’ll end up turning God into a Stepford wife who simply says to you, yes, whatever you want.

Well, Isaiah says in verse 15.

This is his challenge, but it’s a beautiful challenge in repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength.

Anecdotally, these are the words that are on the front page of the autobiography by Bernie Taupin, who wrote the lyrics for Elton John’s songs, and I discovered in his autobiography he has been turned back to the Lord by his Christian wife, and so he’s put Isaiah 30:15 on the front page of his book.

But this is God’s wisdom to Israel, Egypt will fail you. In fact, he says in chapter 36, it’ll be like a broken reed, it’ll be like a broken walking stick, but the living God will not fail you, therefore, in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. What’s he talking about? What does repent mean? Repent means that you leave the path of sin and you come home to God like the prodigal son.

What does rest mean? Rest means that you find your peace with him. Because nobody can still the heart like God and provide inward peace, whatever the outward circumstances, the gift of inward peace. What does quietness mean? It means that you’re not going to panic. You’re not just going to throw yourself into endless activity, but you’re going to place yourself like a child into the lap of God.

And then what does trust mean? It means that you’ll hand things over to him and you’ll wait. And you’ll watch to see how he works. So this repenting and trusting is the way you get saved.

Turn, trust, turn to Christ. Trust him and this is the way you grow as a Christian, because you keep turning back to him because we of course drift easily and you keep trusting him because we mistrust easily.

I read once that behaviour actually leads to allegiance. You can understand, can’t you, that if you’ve got allegiance to somebody like a spouse, your behaviour follows. But in this particular phrase, the writer said that behaviour strengthens allegiance, and it’s so obvious, if you behave by dabbling in sin, it strengthens your allegiance to sin and weakens your allegiance to God.

But where you bring your behaviour back to him and surrender it to him, it strengthens your allegiance with him.

Well, are the Israelites going to listen to this, look at verse 16 and 17. No, they’re not going to listen, they say we’re going to flee. We’re going to race to Egypt, we’re going to ride as fast as we can to the goal of Egypt, and Isaiah says, well you will run, uh, you will ride quickly, but you’ll be caught. The enemy will catch you.

So do you remember the words I mentioned back in chapter 28, the foreigners will come even though it’s God’s alien task to bring them, and he wishes that you would uh establish yourself on his cornerstone.

Well friends, if you know yourself well, you’ll know that we won’t be sitting here this morning looking at the Israelites and saying, aren’t they hopeless and aren’t we great? We won’t be sitting here smirking this morning as if we’re incapable of this sort of behaviour because we are. It’s perfectly possible, isn’t it, for me, and I think it is for you too, to sit in church and to be listening to the logic of Christianity, but in your plans for the day or for the week, you’re actually going to go through with certain sin and nobody’s going to stop you. That’s what we’re capable of.

And so as the Israelites say, we don’t care what you say, we’re going here. We need to recognise that we desperately need a saviour.

Somebody who will not only forgive us but also will change us and reach into our hearts and turn us so that we actually begin to love the way of God.

And to doubt and dislike the way of sin, and that’s the person we find in the Lord Jesus.

He’s able to forgive us, he’s able to help us, he’s able to strengthen us, he’s able to transform us.

And it brings us to Isaiah 30:18, which, as I say, maybe my favourite verse in the scriptures, and if we saw that it was the alien task of God, chapter 28 verse 21, to discipline, we now discover that it’s the deep longing of God, chapter 30, verse 18, to be gracious and to show compassion. It’s intrinsic to God to be compassionate. It’s deep down in his heart to be gracious.

I could take an hour this morning to tell you how the alien word in chapter 28 and the longing word in chapter 30 changed my life. And changed my ministry.

But I simply want to say to you, on the basis of Isaiah 30, please know, that when we decide to take a departure from God, It’s a dark road. It’s dishonouring to God. And in the end it fails to bring what we’re looking for. But when we turn back to him, we discover that he actually holds the treasures and the resources that the heart is looking for. And we treat him as he deserves, and we find ourselves in the harbour of Him that we little boats were made for.

If you continue to think that walking away from God’s will is the best way to go, preach 30:18 to yourself.

No, he longs to be gracious. He rises to show compassion. Blessed is the one who waits for him, and if you have any doubts that it is God’s character to be gracious, just ask yourself what’s going on at the cross, what’s going on when Jesus dies, if that is not proof, that God longs to be gracious, rises to show compassion.

It’s written in our Bibles, it’s written in blood in our Bibles. The Lord longs to be gracious, rises to show compassion.

Therefore, in repentance and trust is your salvation and your peace.

Let’s pray, let’s bow heads.

We thank you, our gracious God for this very precious chapter. We pray again that you will incline our hearts to you.

That you will open our minds to your word.

That you’ll unite our wills with your will, and that you’ll satisfy our souls with yourself, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Feature image: CanvaPro