Isaiah 30-31 - Who Is Waiting for Whom?

welcome to morningstar christian chapel if you're watching on youtube please remember to hit that subscribe button like button and the notification bell so you can find out when we go live or we post a new video and be sure to leave a comment about what god has shown you in this message thanks and enjoy the study all right let's open our bibles this morning to isaiah chapter 30 and 31 but we're going to start in chapter 31. the prophet isaiah was sent by the lord to the southern kingdom of judah where he spoke to them in god's name for the for about 52 years in all during the time that he spoke to the south the northern kingdom of israel was overrun and eventually overthrown by the assyrians in 722 bc and to be honest with you it left everyone terrified with the overthrow of the north syria made their intentions very clear let's go south let's take out jerusalem eventually and then go after cairo after all the assyrians at that time ruled the win of the world nobody thought they could stop them they were they were the most powerful force on the planet for judah in the south it was a time of tremendous testing as you might suspect in the north they had already fallen and now they had their eyes upon you from a historical perspective the assyrians were brutal they didn't kill you they dragged people out of your city and maimed them poke out an eye cut off a hand chop off a foot and then send you back into town tell the people to give up or we're going to do this to them and as you might suspect most people just gave up as you would suspect that that we would unfortunately for judah in the south and jerusalem there were a people that were living together there that did not at all trust or care to trust in the lord who they had turned away from for years they maintained an out form or an outward form i should say of religion they had a really good king hezekiah love the lord they had a true prophet from isaiah that would tell them what god wanted them to hear but under threat from assyria life became very fearful for everyone and as isaiah brought the message the message it was pretty much the same let's trust the lord let's give this to the lord we are after all god's people he's bigger than this and he can certainly deliver us from this overwhelming assyrian advance the book of isaiah in that regard is filled with a lot of encouragements everywhere you turn there is this challenge from the lord to be you know you can trust me and then the examples of trusting him and how god can be faithful and then always you know that that foolishness of trying to forego him as his people like we can do this on our own the backdrop for chapter 31 is this massive march south on the part of this world empire the babylonia sorry the assyrians and their bee line towards jerusalem now this didn't happen overnight the the south fell in i'm sorry the north valley 722 the the south would have a siege be setting the city in 705 and it wasn't until 701 that the lord dealt with the problem 21 years of development if you will but but needless to say over those 21 years every city that was walled between jerusalem and the northern kingdom eventually fell the people were taken and overthrown many would die some were taken captive and with every kind of year that passed the populace in jerusalem realized that things were even worse than they had suspected earlier they they are hid behind jerusalem's walls hezekiah the king felt pressured and politically he was pressured according to what we read in the scriptures to send money to the egyptians and seek to hire them for protection send us your armies they were certainly one of the more powerful nations on the planet if you will at the time we need support we need horses and as the lines of communication open between the south and egypt you know the the the the cry if you will to their neighbor to the south became clear it is the subject of chapter 30 by the way which we'll look at in just a minute all of the while isaiah is crying out to the people to simply trust the lord come on let god handle this he's handled everything before but fear quickly overwhelmed everyone there was just really no way to it seems to turn their heart and with every passing day and week and month and year things went from bad to worse and assyria was drawing close and closer they eventually would lock the city gates no one in no one out and terror reigned and faith was in short supply and 21 year long years of this led to this day of reckoning and isaiah writes it all out for us so that we can learn the lesson of trusting the lord and not ourselves well here's what he said to them in chapter 31 verse 1 woe to those who go down to egypt for help and rely upon their horses or trust in their chariots because they are many or in their horses be horsemen because they are very strong but do not look to the holy one of israel nor seek the lord i think it is a common struggle for all of us and especially for us obviously as believers to have a tendency when we get in trouble or under pressure to turn to things that we are familiar with things that we know work or or believe that they will work and we tend to put our faith and our trust not necessarily in the lord but in the in the devices that we've surrounded ourselves with to kind of you know be comfortable in and unfortunately sometimes as christians we hear people say things like all i can do now is pray as if i've tried everything else guess what i have to let the lord in on this one now and we almost see it as a last resort rather than a a preference because we like to bank on the intel on the tangibles i should say the things we feel we understand and we are more comfortable looking to those things to help us than to just wait upon god to come through and and show himself strong on our behalf for these backseat black backslidden children of god in israel they're they were far more comfortable and and feeling much more confident in a in a arm of flesh their confidence was in the power of of egypt king david had to learn to trust the lord when he was facing obstacles that seemed to be insurmountable we read psalm 20 this morning it was written in about 1000 bc this was written 300 years later but david says i know that the lord can save his anointed he'll answer from his holy heaven his his saving strength will be his right hand some trust in chariots and some in horses but we will remember the name of the lord our god and they've bowed down and they've fallen but we've stood up and we're we're risen may the lord answer when the king calls david learned that somehow trusting god was far preferable to turning to the arm of flesh if you will the strength of man jeremiah the next prophet in our book was given the unsavory ministry of chronicling the fall of the south and well it started in 606 the babylonians came against the south for the same reasons their lack of dependence upon the lord they took daniel and all these rich kind of young kids as emissaries 700 miles away taught them babylonian language he was going to use them to kind of manage the people that they plan to overthrow in 597 10 years later they came back and and really leaned on jerusalem and and ran into some pretty good resistance from a king who didn't want to pay tribute or taxes and then they came back with all of their army in 582 just leveled the place and jeremiah had to sit down and record as a prophet the people being carried away from jerusalem in tears because they had defied the lord for so long but one of the things that he wrote down in chapter 17 of jerusalem of his book was that the lord spoke to the people as they were leaving and he said to them cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes his flesh his strength whose heart departs from the lord he turns out like a shrub in the desert when he can't even see good coming in a parched land in the wilderness but blessed is the man who trusts the lord and whose hope is in god that was written a hundred years later so but with david at a thousand bc and isaiah writing here in jeremiah following up the message is always the same there is great dissatisfaction and failure waiting if your life is just about trusting in your strength and not his and not turning to him so here the prophet isaiah repeats the warning he'd been sounding for quite some time notice in verse 1 the word woe it's never a good word whoa not a good word not a good word woe to those who whose confidence is in their own worldly trust in this case in this case it was egypt and her armies her chariots her fighting men remember egypt was a type of the world right a place that god brought you out of it's the the best the world has to offer when moses was getting ready to die and and hand over the two and a half million people to joshua to bring them into the land of promise in the book of deuteronomy he said to them when you come into the land that the lord your god is going to give you to possess it and dwell in it and you begin to say to one another and to me i want you to set a king over us like other nations be sure that you choose the king whom god chooses and when you choose that king and set him over you and your brethren make sure that he doesn't go to egypt to gain horses for strength because the lord said i brought you out of there and then he said you should never go that way again that was your old life that was when you didn't have god to look to don't look in that direction and don't rely upon that strength and here it is king hezekiah and that's his hope under this tremendous pressure back in chapter 30 the lord had directed or had spoken i should say directly to judah's representatives these emissaries who were loading up donkeys with money and food and grain for payment heading for egypt in the hopes of making a mutual defense pact and getting help against the assyrians who are coming chapter 30 was written in about 713 bc chapter 31 was written eight years later when the siege began and then four years later god would eliminate the problem but if you just flip back since you're pretty close to chapter 30 of verse one here's similar words that were were spoken by the same prophet eight years earlier to the same people verse 1 of chapter 30 woe to the rebellious children saith the lord who take counsel but not from me and who devised plans but not of my spirit that they might add sin to their sin who who walk to go down to egypt have not asked for my advice to strengthen themselves in the strength of pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of egypt therefore the strength of pharaoh shall be to their shame and trusting in the shadow of egypt will be to their humiliation same warnings same people woe to those who are in rebellion what are they in rebellion of they've decided that they're going to in their dilemma trust in the lord not trust in the lord but trust in egypt trust in egypt's strength trust in the horses and the the cherries and the and the the defense pact and the lord says here are no uncertain terms this is not my spirit this isn't my counsel this will lead to your shame and and to your sorrow to your humiliation the lord through isaiah even addresses those in the caravans read here verse 3 we read these words therefore the strength of the pharaoh will be your shame and the shadow will be your humiliation verse 4 but for his princes will be at zoan his ambassadors will come to to haines they shall or they they they were all ashamed as a people who did not benefit them or be a help or could benefit they were a shame and a reproach and so the lord spoke to these these folks that were heading south these caravans and he said the the burden against the beasts of the south through a land of trouble and anguish from which came the lioness and the lion the viper and the fiery fire flying serpent they were they will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people who shall not profit for the egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose that therefore i've called them rahab hem shabbat or literally rahab just sitting around they're really not helping at all so the lord speaks even to the to the guys with the with the money right to the deal makers if you will this isn't going to help verse 8 the lord says to isaiah so go and write it for them on a tablet note it on a scroll that it may be for a time to come forever and ever that this is a rebellious people lying children children who will not hear the law of the lord who say to the seers don't see to the prophets don't prophesy to us right things speak speak to us smooth things prophesied deceit get out of the way turn away from the path cause the holy one of israel to cease from being before us so the lord tells isaiah walk around with a sign and write this down so that in the times that come they can look back and be convinced that god was right that this whole planning without the lord looking to the flesh wasn't going to work it would be a warning to them notice that the people in isaiah's day they didn't want prophets they didn't want preaching what they wanted were soothing words to make them feel good tell me nice things quit with the gloom and doom these silly calls for faith that's what they wanted to hear smooth things easy things blessing things and the lord says write it down both their warning and their refusal and then the lord just declared in verse 12 because you despise this word and trust in oppression and in perversity and rely on them therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall a bulge in a high wall which breaks comes suddenly in an instant he shall break in like the breaking into the parlor vessel which is broken in pieces he will not spare and there will be found no fragments a shard even to take fire from the hearth or to take water from the sister the lord says to the nation egypt is not going to help in fact your disappointment with them is going to come almost in an instant the collapse will be sudden it will turn on you and by the way historically the next few years would prove that to be so when the syrians arrived and they began their attack and and israel went where's egypt egypt what yeah they're tougher than we thought we're not coming and they absolutely turned away and egypt did nothing out of fear and they broke every promise they made and the lord said it'd be kind of like a potter that throws down a pot that he destroyed somehow it didn't make and he wanted to break and it would shatter into so many little pieces that you couldn't even pick up a piece large enough to pick up fire from the hearth and carried to another place you get some water out of a well it would be worthless there's nothing there to help you or to to support you they're crackpots basically right and verse 15 the lord goes on and he says to them the holy one of israel in returning and rest you shall be saved and in quietness and in confidence will be your strength but you would not god had called them to return to him to trust him to rely upon him to let him handle the impossible but no amount of striving or or planning or relying on their own ideas would help and that's what we should learn as well god is going to be the one who could deliver you that's it he's the one you could depend upon the people of god calling upon their god turning to their god would be the solution but they would not and so we read verse 16 you said no we'll flee on horses yes you'll flee you'll get on swift horses and those who pursue will also be swift and a thousand will will flee at the threat of one and that the threat of five you'll flee till your left as they pull in the middle of a mountain or as a banner upon a hill the leaders had hoped hey if this gets bad we can just bail well yeah you'll run all right but not fast enough and the egyptians did not hold up their end of the bargain in 2000 no no i sure said 2 000. in 713 bc the dark clouds of invasion began to brew even though they were still eight years off and the lord was waiting for the people to turn to him but they did not so we read this verse verse 18 i think is the key verse where we read this therefore the lord will wait that he might be gracious to you and therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the god for the lord is a god of justice blessed is he who waits for him great verse it is an awesome picture of god's goodness he will wait for his people to come around and he did he waited until the money was sent to egypt and the deals were made he waited while the assyrians deliberately came in their direction planning a catastrophic overthrow he waited while god's people had fear that now turned to desperation he waited while hezekiah in a little while would even send money to the assyrians say please just go away can we just buy our freedom they took the money kept coming nothing worked and then we read verse 18 god waited for his people to begin to wait upon him god waited for his people to wise up sometimes the only way to learn a lesson once and for all is to learn it the hard way it's not really the way god would prefer i suspect his parents not really the way you'd want your kids to learn but if they're going to learn one way or another they're going to have to learn we read and we read and we re read read read we read and you can read in psalm 32 verse 8 that the lord would rather guide you with his eye he'd rather give you one of these right than than make life hard for you my dad used to have a look that at dinner if i wasn't behaving somewhere one look and somehow i behaved he had the look i think the lord has a look you can just keep an eye on him he'll guide and direct you but look if if you don't want to learn that way there is a hard way to learn and the lesson is so valuable that we're not going to be able to avoid it because god wants you to live by faith when we insist on our solutions when we're convinced that our ideas are right that his word maybe isn't so right that we look for counsel apart from what he's already told us all right god will wait you'll just sit back and wait why well we read in verse 18 because god wants to be gracious to you and be and be the lord and and bless you blessed are those who wait upon him but until then he'll wait on you he could easily wipe us out in our defiance that's not the issue but he wants us to grow up and rely on his grace and eventually you're going to see it his way trust me on that you are going to see it his way eventually how patient is god how good is god how foolish for us to take the path of flesh time and again just to learn that god's ways work god's waits for them as he waits for us he waits for you while things got worse he waits for you and things backfire he waits for you while things fall apart it's not easy for a loving father to sit back and not act but it's for your own good so you read in verse 15 in the midst of all these warnings in returning and you'll find rest and be saved in quietness and in confidence and you'll find strength but it's just that we would not and if you want it's our move it's your move and the question becomes is god waiting on you this morning as you struggle along and try to make things work together but like the days of hezekiah you know you have a you have a religious practice but you may not have a lot of confidence in the lord maybe little faith in him but that's got to change but it's hard because the natural tendency is just grab on to what we know we have friends that we can call people that can counsel us resources that we can rely upon friends and plans that we can attack the problem with what happens verse 18 god just sits and waits just slits and waits eventually it's going to unravel and you're going to have to come looking to him in desperation and finally he'll be able to say i've been waiting for you and by the way i never ask you to fix anything all i ask you to do is look to me i always think about the guardian angel in the life of the person who doesn't really want to trust the lord who is told to stand down i'll i'll help him lord no no let the wheels fall off as he shakes his head in disbelief that we are so slow to learn but for the next dozen years between these two chapters in the life of the life of judah god sat and god waited well you're in chapter 30 let's go back to where we started in chapter 31 verse 2. where he continues on in this warning of looking to egypt and he says in verse 2 he yet he also is wise and will bring disaster and will not call back his words but will arise against the house of evildoers and against the help of those who work iniquity now the egyptians are men they're not god and their horses are flesh they're not spirit and when the lord stretches out his hands both he who helps will fall and he he who is helped will foul down they will perish together they will fall together the lord continues here and he said look i am wiser than they are more powerful than there my words are more powerful they will fall they'll you'll fall those who help you will fall the whole thing will be disastrous because it's flesh built he goes on and he says in verse 4 thus saith the lord who has spoken to me as a lion roars and as a young lion over his prey when a multitude of shepherds is summoned against him he'll not be afraid of their voices nor disturbed by their noise so the lord of hosts will come down to fight for zion and for its hill like a bird flies about so the lord of hosts will defend jerusalem defending he will deliver it passing over it he will preserved it in other words god's not afraid at the side of the size of their army you know so often it is our our the largest of our difficulty that seems to cause us to turn to someone and something other than the lord oh but it's such a big deal but look at this this was the this was a an army that ruled the world and poor little jerusalem sitting there with little army and yet the lord says to them here just like a lion can roar because he is the king of the jungle and even a multitude of shepherds were coming out to scare it away yelling screaming make a noise they the lion could care less he'll eat three of you instead of one of you i mean he's more powerful than you are but that's how the lord is he's not disturbed by the noise he's not he's not moved by the size of your problem it doesn't frighten him that you have a lot of things that you have to deal with he's able to to see you through it all and deliver you from it the lord like a bird will fly over his city to defend its people but verse 9 6 return to him against whom the children of israel have deeply revolted for in that day every man shall throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold those things that have been made with his own hands and then a series shall fall by a sword but not of man a sword not of mankind shall devour him but he shall flee from the sword his young men shall become forced in their labor he shall cross over to a stronghold in fear his princes shall be afraid of the banner saith the lord whose fire is in zion and whose furnace is in jerusalem the people have to turn back to the one they'd revolted against in their hearts for so long and when they do says isaiah the prophet they can expect to find victory but until then verse 18 back in the last chapter he will wait and god did wait he waited for all of those years until they looked to him now you can go and read on your own what and how this all worked out when the people ran out of ideas ran out of food ran out of hope stopped trying when their schemes didn't work out and their dependencies were failing them when the nations that they sent money and emissaries to turn their backs on them eventually the people and even king hezekiah along with ever faithful isaiah went to the temple fell before the lord and cried out you got to help us don't know what to do anymore don't know where to turn where to rely upon we only have you you can read this full story in second kings 17 18 and 19. but just to spoil it for you in one night the lord sent one angel who de destroyed killed laid low 185 000 assyrians you can read that in isaiah chapter 37 verse 2 isaiah 37 36 and it will declare that to you but but but look go back to chapter 30 verse 18 and and and think about making verse 18 your memory verse learn that it is better to be found waiting on the lord than to have the lord be waiting upon you because he'll wait the lesson is too important your life is too dear to him he won't turn away just because it's difficult this is the lesson god would have you to learn and then he'll be exalted our flesh will always resist the idea of waiting upon god yet by refusing to do so we'll still learn the lessons we'll just learn them the hard way you can write across these two chapters these words who's waiting upon who if you're not waiting upon god then he has no choice but to sit back and wait for you wait for you while you gather riches in this life wait for you while you make a name for yourself wait for you while you make a case to everyone that you can't really make too many sacrifices he's just going to wait for you to come in from the world but he'll wait because he wants to be gracious to you and he wants you to learn that he's the lord of justice that he will be exalted that he can extend his mercy you're only blessed when he finds you waiting upon him that's when the changes take place that's when life becomes exciting let me read to you again what we read this morning in that context out of psalm 20. where david wrote this may the lord answer you in the day of trouble and may the name of the god of jacob defend you may he send his help to you from the sanctuary strength out of zion as he remembers your offerings and your sacrifices may he grant you according to your heart's desire and fulfill all of your purposes he'll rejoice in your salvation and in the name of god we'll set up our banners may the lord fulfill all of your petitions i know that the lord saves his anointed he will answer him from his holy heaven with a saving strength of his right hand some do trust in chariots and some in horses but we will remember the name of the lord our god they've fallen and bowed down we have risen and stand upright saved lord and may the king answer us when we call if god is waiting upon you this morning that's not a good place to be if you're waiting upon him this morning i would get very excited because god can do great things and his promises are always ones of doing for you the very things you expect god will be there for you but don't have him waiting on you too long and for some of you he's been waiting a long time shall we pray father we thank you this morning for such a clear lesson from the prophet's life and the life of the southern kingdom that lord there is certainly a temptation even as we watch around us your hand of judgment to assume that we're going to escape it we're not going to have to rely upon you we have other ideas but as we watch your people here in jerusalem for over 20 years looking to the north and seeing the trouble headed their way nothing really until it became real close caused them to fall down and say god we we trust you and so you sat and waited so you could be gracious to your people i can't imagine how hard it is for you to not step in to deliver us but but you value the lesson more important than the short-term ease which maybe deliverance would bring so lord we we we take to heart verse 18 that either you're waiting on us or we're waiting on you and we read in verse 15 you would not so lord we know that the ball's in our court that you are more than willing to help if we're more than willing to quit going to egypt and looking to the horses and to the chariots and to the strength of the armies and to whatever it is that we're coming up with these days to help us out or to help you out you'll just bring us back to that place of just waiting upon the lord letting god be god and and answering our needs and directing our steps may you wait upon the lord the end of verse 18 says blessed are those who wait upon the lord you couldn't find yourself in a better spot let the lord be the lord in your life shall we stand

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Length: 34min 19sec (2059 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021