Isaiah 30
The Promises of God—Grace to Obstinate Children
Beloved,
For those of you who have had children, did you ever have a particularly obstinate child? All of us have strong willed children. In fact, there are far more strong willed children than compliant children. The scariest part of our family is that our most obstinate child is the most compassionate child so far too. Our most obstinate child is the child we think will most likely take care of us in our old age. But have you ever had a child that you couldn’t tell them anything? That they would rarely ever listen to your advice? That’s what God is feeling with his people Judah.
The Lord looks at his people, the people of Judah, and he says, literally “Hoy!” As in “Oy veh!” God is expressing his frustration using that very Hebrew interjection! “Alas! The obstinate children! I can’t tell them anything! Oh yes, the go for advice, but they don’t come to me. They seek a protective covering, but they don’t want it from my Spirit. They go to Egypt, but not because I advised them to do so.”
If you’ve had that obstinate child in your life, then you know the frustration God is feeling as the fear of Assyria has rushed upon the people of Judah. In his commentary, Leupold says that this text was probably written during the time of King Hezekiah, at the end of the eighth century, during the Assyrian Crisis of Judah. Years prior, his father Ahaz had tried to buy the support of the king of Assyria. But then the Lord blessed him in a mighty way, and so Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria. He had re-taken control of the coastal regions of the Philistines. God was blessing his kingdom and his faithfulness to destroy the idolatry of Judah under his father Ahaz.
But Assyria remains a threat. And as Assyria encroaches on the borders of Judah and threatens to start taking the fortified cities of Judah north of Jerusalem, we discover in this section of Isaiah something that neither the author of the Kings or of the Chronicles tells us—Hezekiah agrees with the counsel of his advisors and sends ambassadors to Egypt to the embassy in the Egyptian delta at Zoan where the Pharaoh’s son was governor, and to Hanes, 50 miles north of Cairo, where Pharaoh Shabako himself had his palace, to seek the protection from Pharaoh in person.
This move on Hezekiah’s part was not the wisest. From a human point of view, Pharaoh Shabako was a very weak Pharaoh. History says that this 25th Dynasty of Egypt was one of the weakest in Egyptian history. From a spiritual point of view, God in his Law had forbidden such alliances with anybody. Israel’s alliance was only to be with God. And if Hezekiah and his advisors had sought out the prophets of the Lord, they would have heard the commandment again from the Holy Spirit not to do so, but to trust in Him instead, to live by faith and not by sight.
But if that isn’t enough, think about what it meant for the people of Judah to go back to Egypt to get a covering of protection from the Pharaoh. It’s willingly going back into the slavery from which Israel was once freed. Why would you go to your previous captors for help? You’ve got one potential new captor coming your way. Why would you go back to your old slave master? In all seriousness, God forbade it in Deuteronomy 17:16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again."
Let’s take a moment and ask ourselves, just how obstinate we can be. I mean, let’s be real. There’s a Dutch word for being obstinate. You all know it. What is it? Stifkop, right! And I know that in our culture that’s a very loaded word. That’s a fighting word. That’s a word used in an argument. But that’s exactly how Israel is being in not seeking out the Lord. And that’s exactly how we can be in terms of being spiritually resistant to God. We all have those pet sins we love, and frankly, we’re just not ready or willing to give over to Christ, don’t we? If you don’t have those sins about which we resist the Holy Spirit, then you’re more righteous than I am! But for us, they are, as Jerry Bridges would call them, more “respectable sins”; sins that everyone does, and because of that, “I don’t need to deal with them, thank you, Lord.” All of us have issues where we are spiritual stifkops. All of us have sins that we just don’t want to and refuse to deal with. How much we are like Judah. How often we can be God’s obstinate children.
And to move from preaching to meddling, it’s not enough for us to admit that we can be obstinate. We have to own up to what each of us is obstinate about. What’s that respectable sin that everyone does with which you and I have just refused to deal? For me, it’s kind of obvious. But for many of you, it isn’t. At least, not in Christian company, but maybe your family knows. Maybe your wife and children know all too well and if they told someone it would come crashing down on you.
But as you and I don’t deal with our particular spiritual hard-headedness, we are walking ourselves back into the slavery from which Christ has set us free! As the Apostle Paul said the Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then and do not allow yourselves to be burdened again into a yoke of slavery!” Let me challenge you and me to take some time this week, maybe even today, and own up specifically about which you and I have been spiritually stubborn. We are called to be free. We should not bind ourselves over again to our past slavery.
But as obstinate children, God still wasn’t going to leave the leaders of Judah alone in their hard-headedness. In the midst of executing those plans, God was going to send his prophets to speak to them directly as they walked the road to the Egyptian delta.
Apparently the leaders of Judah weren’t listening to Isaiah and his fellow prophets. And along the road to Zoan, the prophets kept warning the leaders, but the leaders of Judah said to them, “Don’t have visions! Don’t tell us to do the right thing. Tell us smooth things, prophesy lies to us. Get out of our way! Get off the path! Quit putting before us the Holy One of Israel.” In other words, if God can’t bless our plans, then take your warnings from God elsewhere!
And when the warnings from God were being outrightly rejected, God calls it what it is, despising His Word. Okay, everything’s going to come crashing down on you at once. You think that the occupation of the northern kingdom was bad? Wait until the Assyrians start invading you and overthrowing your walled off cities. And Assyria’s going to come at you all at once, and before you know it, Jerusalem will be under threat. If you want this to happen to you, keep walking to Egypt. Go see Pharaoh’s nephew in Zoan. Go see Pharaoh Shabako himself. If you keep walking, Assyria is going to break through on you, and then what will you do?
Beloved, when our stubborn sins go un-dealt-with, when they are exposed, they come crashing down all at once and there’s no way to stop the consequences.
But God does say there’s a way to deal with Israel and with our spiritual stubbornness. Isaiah says for God, “In repentance and rest you will be saved, and in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Even in Israel’s obstinacy, God offered them a way out before the disaster hit. That word repentance in Hebrew always has the meaning of turning back. God was saying through Isaiah, for the emissaries of Judah to turn around on that road to Zoan. Come back to Jerusalem and seek me out, and trust me to work this out.” And even more than that, “in the midst of your trials, don’t be screaming in terror. Have confidence in Me, and that will be your strength!”
Beloved, when we actually deal with our obstinacy, when we relent from our hard-headedness, it will leave within us an emptiness and vacuum of personal control. But at that moment of repentance, God invites us to rest, to be quiet, and to put our confidence back in Him. It’s time for us to put our quiet trust in the One who was the Master of the wind and the waves. It’s time for us to direct our confidence in the One with whom all things are possible.
Child of God, if you and I will have all of it, instead of having none of it, as the leaders of Judah refused to return and rest in God, what spiritual blessings will abound to us in the face of our spiritual enemies!
But child of God, if you and I refuse, if we will have none of it, that will not be the end. As it was not the end for Judah. Yahweh God said to Judah, “Okay, you don’t want to turn around and repent now, I’ll wait for you!” As if God were saying, “If this is what you really want, then I’ll wait until the Assyrians start pouring in on you. When at the sight of one Assyrian soldier a thousand of you start fleeing. And in the sight of five soldiers, you flee until you realize that you’re all alone like a pole on a mountain, like a banner on a hill. I’ll wait until you’re really ready for me.
Apparently, Hezekiah and his advisors found that Egypt was the Rahab-Do-Nothing, realizing that she would be the Rehab that sits idle while Judah would suffer.
And God says, once you cry out in your suffering, I will hear the sound of your cry. When I hear it, I will answer you. And though you make yourself suffer needlessly, though I give you the bread of affliction and the water of adversity, your teachers, my prophets and my priests will stand ready to tell you the Word again, and show you the Way.
So, this morning, beloved child of God, do you and I need to make God wait to be gracious to us? Do we need to suffer spiritually, or worse, for our stubbornness? In this matter, God leaves this choice to His children. We can turn from our individual stubbornness, or we can wait until it all blows up in our face and we realize that we had no real choice but to turn from our sin and turn to Him. Either way, He’ll be there.
He can be there for us now, while there is still time for each of us. Or He will be there for us when our own personal, spiritual stubbornness blows up in our faces and our own sinful plans shatter in a million pieces before our very eyes. As His children, God gave Judah that choice, I’ll be there for you now if you’ll return to me when the enemy is far away, or I can be there for you when you cry out in despair, when the enemy is crashing in your windows and banging down your doors.
And to each one of us his children, God says, “I’ll be ready when you are. I can be there for you today to give you rest and quietness and strength. Or I will be there for you, when your enemies have broken your stubbornness, and you realize that have no choice but to come to me.”
Beloved, God promise today is that He WILL be gracious to us, His obstinate children. He WILL have us! The only question is WHEN? When will we turn from ourselves and from doing what is right in our own eyes, and instead turn to Him, and cry out to Him, because we’ll finally realize His way was right all along?!
God will be gracious to each of us his stubborn children. Just when is it going to be for you and for me!?
