9 For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the LORD; 10 who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions. 11 “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” 12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Since you have rejected this word and have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, 13 Therefore this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, A bulge in a high wall, whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,
I think it was Matthew Henry who said somewhere that preachers should also be writers, for it is the written word that will outlive the spoken.
Carrying on with that thought, another benefit of the written word is that those who are not willing to listen now may, if by God’s grace they survive their folly, come to a time and place in their life where they realize their need and come to the written word seeking wisdom.
Now that’s all pretty much common sense and I’ve not said anything new in it. I just wanted to point out that in verse 8 of Isaiah 30, when God told Isaiah, “…go, write it on a tablet before them and inscribe it on a scroll, that it may serve in the time to come as a witness forever”, His purpose may have been more than to document their rebellion as a testimony against them; it may also have been to give them something to read when they came to their senses that would cause repentance and call their hearts back to Him.
After all, we have these verses of accusation and prediction of doom before us, but let’s go into it knowing that in verse 18 the Lord reaffirms His love and His desire to lavish His grace upon them once more.
So whatever application we might make here to ourselves as individuals or the current condition of the church in America or to our country as a nation, let’s remember that behind it all is a God who desires repentance and renewal, not calamity and destruction. He may have to declare the coming of those things, but men bring them upon themselves.
THE SETTING
Let’s look at the historical circumstances Isaiah is addressing here.
Historians place this portion of Isaiah’s writing, between chapters 13 through 32, in the Summer of 714 B.C. I’m not sure how they arrive at a specific season of the year, but I have not studied that history as in depth as those who write the books and I’m sure they have their documentation, and since it does not encroach upon some point of doctrine I am happy to defer to their knowledge on the subject and say it was Summer. If you secretly want it to be Spring or Winter or Fall, you may hold that opinion and I won’t chastise you for it.
So it would be about 8 years after the fall of the Northern Kingdom and its capital city, Samaria, to the Assyrians.
Now Judah, the Southern Kingdom, is threatened and in the beginning of chapter 30 God pronounces woes against Jerusalem’s leaders for sending emissaries down to Egypt in search of help against imminent attack instead of trusting in Him.
They are facing God’s judgment against them for the sin of blatant and prolonged idolatry and unbelief and instead of repenting and turning to Him they are adding sin to their sin by going to Egypt for help. Hence the last line of verse 1, “In order to add sin to sin;”
This is a recurring theme throughout the history of God’s people. We see it repeated through the book of Judges. Their rebellion, then God’s retribution, finally their repentance and His rescue. Then as they settle into their comfort zone and begin to be once more drawn away by the world and the flesh they are soon in rebellion again.
His complaint against them over and over again is that they will not listen to Him, and so it is here in these chapters of Isaiah, and specifically here in chapter 30 verse 9.
FALSE SONS
Notice that He calls them ‘false sons’.
Now I don’t want to try to make some doctrinal statement from this and imply that the application for us is that if we’re rebellious and won’t listen to the Lord then we’re phonies and not really Christians.
Although, there is some truth in that as it reminds us of the declarations of John the Apostle in his first epistle saying that if we say we have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness we lie, (1:6) and the one who practices sin is of the devil (3:8) and so forth.
But the more urgent truth for us to grasp from the content of our text and in application to ourselves as Holy Spirit indwelt believers in Christ, is that while God calls them ‘false sons’, He goes right on to say, ‘sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord’.
So this is not a denial that they are His sons; it is not a rejection by Him of who they are as though He has had enough and He’s sending them packing to fend for themselves.
They are false in their devotion to Him. They act, not as estranged children, but as strangers to Him altogether. He has made promises and He has given assurances of His love and His desire to protect them and lift them up, yet here they are, sending an envoy of mules and camels laden with precious gifts for the Egyptians, to seek their aid against the enemy Assyrians.
And believers, God does not promise protection or blessing on the unbelieving world outside of His offer of salvation through faith in Christ. He offers those things to His church. He pours those blessings out on His church. And therefore the application of this for us in the 21st century is that when we do what we have been doing, such as placing our faith in the strengths of the world and our own resources and the promotional tools and marketing methods of corporate America to expand and build up our physical church organizations, we are acting like false sons! Sons, yes. But sons with stopped ears and rebellious hearts, turning to Egypt. And not even a strong Egypt.
Egypt at this time was weak.
“They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys and their treasures on camels’ humps, to a people who cannot profit them; even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty. Therefore I have called her ‘Rahab who has been exterminated’.”
In Old Testament scripture Rahab is another name for Egypt. It means ‘arrogant’. One commentator said that this last line of verse 7 is most accurately translated, ‘Rahab who will do nothing’.
And this brings me to wonder at the current bandwagon going about in evangelical Christianity that calls us to jump on board, gazing with wonder and awe at men supposedly successful in ministry, cranking out their books, many of which are saying nothing helpful at all and none of which are saying anything new; and the programs and concerts and conferences and catch phrases they strut by us like calliopes making all sorts of clanging, banging, twanging sounds but nothing resembling music at all… and isn’t a great deal of it like going down to Egypt instead of stopping, shutting up, looking up, and waiting on God to lead and move and build His church by His Spirit?
Who does this stuff? Who? Rebellious people. False sons. Sons, maybe, but unwilling to listen to the instruction of the Lord.
And I’ll tell you largely why they are unwilling to listen. Because they’re caving. They are listening instead to those who are saying, ‘Don’t tell us the truth’.
TELL ME LIES, TELL ME LIES…
The truly ‘hip’ will remember a song from about 1988 by Fleetwood Mac named ‘Little Lies’. The chorus went, “Tell me lies, tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies’.
According to the song the person speaking didn’t want to face the reality of their relationship going down the tubes.
In the case of the people of Judah in Isaiah’s time they just didn’t want to be accountable to God and they didn’t even want to hear what the consequences would be of ignoring His instruction. They didn’t want relationship at all.
Just let us get some strong horses and some help from the Egyptians. Let’s just trust in politics and purchased allies. Then when this present unpleasant situation is passed and the Assyrians have decided to leave us alone because we’re ready for a fight, then we can go our merry way and live the way we want to live.
The Holy one of Israel; He wants too much. He demands unreasonably.
In those days the terms ‘prophet’ and ‘seer’ were interchangeable.
“Who say to the seers, ‘you must not see visions’. And to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right’.”
Did you hear that? They weren’t calling the prophets liars. They weren’t claiming the seers didn’t know what they were talking about. They were openly rejecting truth and righteousness! “Don’t tell us what is right!”
“Tell us sweet little lies!” “Prophecy illusions”. In other words, make something up that sounds nice and good and comfortable and then let’s just get on with life!
In chapter 29 God said this about them:
“Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,..” Isa 29:13
Does THAT sound at all familiar to you? Where and when in the history of the church have you seen people steeped in tradition, repeating the same vain words over and over again, performing the same religious acts and rituals they could do with their eyes closed and even asleep, falling back on the same programs and techniques over and over because that’s the way they’ve always done it, but on any clear, sun shiny day in the park nothing about them would expose them as a Christian? In fact in some cases you wish they’d keep quiet about being a Christian for the sake of the consciences of the non-Christians around them.
And do they want to hear the truth from God’s Word on any given Sunday? No! No they do not! And they might insist that they do, but even if it is presented to them they don’t even realize it’s for them!
And please believe me when I tell you that I’ve had occasions in the past to preach warning and exhortation to congregations, knowing precisely those in those meetings who were the guilty parties and needed to own up to their need and repent and let God change their hearts so He could use them again in true spiritual service, and as I talked I felt like I was seeing dead people!
In some cases I probably was.
People, there is something terribly wrong; something horribly amiss in the church in our day, when people on a very large scale simply are not hungry for sound and clear exposition of God’s Word to their ears and minds and hearts
They think they’re ok, but they are not. They want ear candy and if we won’t give it to them they’ll go someplace where they can get it… and as sad as it is to say, it’s being offered to them. It’s easier to find than a good movie.
“Don’t make me think. Don’t tell me there’s anything wrong with me. Don’t tell me about a God who wants to be the most significant thing in my life because then I have to travel the path He leads in rather than the path I choose. Sunday meetings are nice, especially if there are activities for the kids and the chairs are padded. But all I want is a pretty sounding text in the most modern translation you can read from and three Reader’s Digest illustrations and 2.5 jokes and then let me go home, because Monday through Saturday are really the important days of the week and frankly, Sunday has nothing at all to do with them.”
Friends and family, let’s not wonder at the pathetic condition of the church in our nation in A.D. 2006 when we know that they are getting precisely what they’re asking for.
STANDING UNDER THE WALL
12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Since you have rejected this word and have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, 13 therefore this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant, 14 whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar, so ruthlessly shattered that a sherd will not be found among its pieces to take fire from a hearth or to scoop water from a cistern.”
Notice the ironic tone in these verses. They say, ‘Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel’, and in response they hear from the Holy One of Israel.
First, the charges:
1. They have rejected God’s Word
2. They have trusted and relied on oppression and guile.
How have they relied on oppression? Hadn’t the Egyptians oppressed their fathers? And what about guile? That word has to do with being devious; going down a wrong path, being perverse.
So rather than trusting and relying on God they are turning down a twisted path and going down to those who God actually delivered their fathers from in the first place, and asking them for help.
In verse 13 God announces that it’s their own iniquity that will come down on their heads like a collapsing wall. Let’s slow down and get this picture.
He gives us this picture of a broken wall about to fall down, and then again of a misshapen wall; one that was not built properly in the first place or has been eroded by time and weather and lack of maintenance and is therefore in imminent probability of collapse.
Now I have to ask you; if you saw a large stone wall in that condition, would you be inclined to stand under it for the shade it offers?
Yet in their blindness, in their iniquity and their turning from God, that is exactly what they have done. They’ve put themselves in a position of having the consequences of their sin and rebellion come crashing down on their heads.
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, armed with duct tape and ‘Shoe Goo’ won’t be able to help them in the end.
Beloved I am not a prophet in the sense that Isaiah was. There isn’t one today. The Prophet (capital ‘P’) has come and we have His Word and His Spirit. But preachers are supposed to be prophets in the sense that they tell forth God’s Word, rightly expounding its truth so that the Holy Spirit will use it to touch the hearts of men and accomplish God’s work.
So I’m not trying to speak prophetically in the sense that I’m foretelling events, but I am speaking prophetically in the sense that there is something all Spirit-filled believers should be able to recognize and it’s my job to shed light on it. It is this.
The church in 21st century America, at least, if not around the world today, is standing under a bulge in a high wall.
People are not wanting to hear the truth and for the sake of popularity and monetary gain and for the sake of so-called tolerance and political correctness, those they are going to are not telling them what they should hear.
And I fear that the time is much nearer than we can know that the wall is going to come down on our heads and break the church in so many pieces there won’t be a useful chunk left in our society to pass the bread of the Word or the water of the Spirit to anyone at all.
Let me reiterate that I’m not trying to wax prophetic in the sense of predicting the future. Also let me make clear that I’m not saying what comes next because we’re a house church and I have some unhealthy aversion to church structures. There is still a place for the traditional church and very many of them are still doing the work of the Kingdom so this is not an appeal to knock down the buildings and go back to Acts 2.
In just the past half a year or so I have become increasingly aware of the rapidly growing house church movement, not only in our country but all over the world. There are books being written by those in house church ministries talking about the expanding house church movement. George Barna, in his new book called ‘Revolution’ spoke of many who, having become disenchanted with the traditional church in our culture have left it altogether and have been worshiping in their own homes with just their family or with a few friends and neighbors.
It was after the Lord led us back to our home to conduct our worship and study, not being aware of why He did it but knowing His hand was in it, that I began receiving these bites of information and being made aware of this growing tendency toward small group and home worship.
And in light of the observations I’ve been making today, and looking back at times in history where mainly in hindsight we’ve been able to see how God’s providence was working to prepare His people for unseen events, I am caused to wonder if the rapidly expanding popularity of home worship and small group ministry is not a preparation for a soon-coming time when we will no longer be free to gather publicly or openly for worship.
Our nation has turned its back on God. Ridicule of God and His people has become not only acceptable but in many cases applauded openly in the media and other public forums.
Christians, I’ll not go further with this thought here because I don’t want to begin pressing that line between forth-telling and foretelling, but I do want this to be a word of both warning and encouragement to you today.
When the wall comes down, be ready. Be steeped in God’s Word and ask Him frequently to renew your hunger and your desire for it. Seek daily to be filled afresh with His Spirit and be ever on your guard against the drift of the natural man in you back toward Egypt.
Don’t accept a message of peace when there is no peace, and prosperity when prosperity itself is being worshiped.
When the bulge collapses it will be those who have remained true to God, putting their trust and reliance on Him, feeding on His unadulterated Word and living according to His Holy Spirit’s enabling and guidance who will be around to continue His work and lead people to Jesus.
Well, a fellow named E. Eugene Williams said “Blessed is the preacher whose train of thought has a caboose”. So here it is.
THE LORD WAITS
If you jump all the way down to verse 18 you’ll see that even then it was not too late, and God wanted His people to know He would not abandon them forever.
18 Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.
“Therefore”.
No wonder Newton called God’s grace ‘amazing’.
He has just pronounced all this destruction and calamity that is about to come on them for their iniquity; their humiliation and their imminent ruin; but He’s not saying it as one who wants to bring it, He is saying it as one who sees them bringing it on themselves, so He says, ‘therefore’.
“Therefore”. Since all of this is coming, since this wall is about to burst and crumble you to pieces, therefore, I wait. I wait on my high and holy mountain for the time I can be gracious to you once more; pour out My compassion on you once more”.
What does He wait for? Repentance. Turning. A sincere desire for the Holy One of Israel and a hunger for righteousness.
It’s not too late for our nation, believers, and it’s not too late for the church.
It may be soon if first the church of Jesus Christ and then the American people do not turn to God in repentance.
But you have to know today that He waits. And even if the wall comes down He will still wait. Because:
“His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,"
(Annie Flint"
And blessed are all those who long for Him (vs 18).
