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©Copyright by Bruce Goettsche April 3
There is one thing needed in the world today more than anything else: the world needs to repent and turn to the Lord.
We seem to be moving in the other direction and perhaps that is because even God’s people struggle to trust Him.
We know the right words but putting trust in God in pressure or crisis situations is a much bigger challenge.
We are much more prone to say we trust Him while trying to make things happen on our own.
This is the problem we see in our text in Isaiah 29 today.
The people of Israel (or Judah) were facing a crisis with invading armies.
They saw the size of the armies and panicked rather than trust God.
From chapters 8-36 Isaiah is preaching messages from the Lord which have one main theme: we should trust Him rather than others, or our own devices.
When God is Against You
The people of Judah have continued to respond to God with obstinacy.
They looked for alliances, they schemed, they tried everything, it seemed, except trust Him.
Since they would not turn to Him, God decided to get their attention by becoming their enemy!
God was going to bring the Assyrian army against them.
What they did not realize however was their real enemy was NOT the Assyrian army!
It was the Lord who was using that army to declare His glory and get their attention.
Let’s look at the first 4 verses.
1 “What sorrow awaits Ariel, the City of David.
Year after year you celebrate your feasts.
2 Yet I will bring disaster upon you,
and there will be much weeping and sorrow.
For Jerusalem will become what her name Ariel means—
an altar covered with blood.
3 I will be your enemy,
surrounding Jerusalem and attacking its walls.
I will build siege towers
and destroy it.
4 Then deep from the earth you will speak;
from low in the dust your words will come.
Your voice will whisper from the ground
like a ghost conjured up from the grave.
What I find insightful is this: Israel’s struggle with Assyria was not really about Assyria, it was about their relationship with the Lord.
Repeatedly, God says “I will bring disaster,” “I will be your enemy,” “I will build siege towers.”
Let this simmer here for a few seconds.
What if it is true that every struggle we have (even Satanic assaults) are really about the same thing: our allegiance to Him!
The annoying co-worker, the endless demands by others, the health struggles, the financial stresses, even government gridlock . . .
could they all be God’s way of trying to get us to trust Him and put Him first?
I find this to be an eye-opening thought.
No matter what we face our FIRST step should be to draw close to Him.
If you are like me, that is not usually my first instinct.
First, I try to fix things.
I muster up my discipline, I call on my friends, I purchase something to help me, I come up with a plan.
This is much easier to see on a national level.
As a country, we approach problems by giving out money, passing new laws, starting new programs, or tinkering with our military strength.
Have you ever in recent years, at least, heard anyone say: “Let’s devote ourselves more fully to the Lord and seek Him for an answer to our problems?”
I realize this is more difficult on a national level because the majority of people don’t believe . . .
but what about us?
We say we believe but we ACT like we don’t believe either!
In the case of Israel, since they wouldn’t trust God, they would suffer first.
God would allow the Assyrians to put a siege on Jerusalem.
They would cut off their supply lines and build ramps to scale the walls of the city.
The citizens could only watch in fear.
God, however, was not meaning them harm; on the contrary, He wanted to draw them to Him.
God’s Faithfulness Demonstrated
But even with Judah’s faithlessness, God remained faithful.
When God had their attention, He would do for them what no other alliance could ever do for them.
The opposing forces would just disappear!
And this would happen in such a dramatic way that the people would see that it could have been nothing but the hand of the Lord at work.
5 “But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed
like the finest of dust.
Your many attackers will be driven away
like chaff before the wind.
Suddenly, in an instant,
6 I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire.
7 All the nations fighting against Jerusalem
will vanish like a dream!
Those who are attacking her walls
will vanish like a vision in the night.
8 A hungry person dreams of eating
but wakes up still hungry.
A thirsty person dreams of drinking
but is still faint from thirst when morning comes.
So it will be with your enemies, with those who attack Mount Zion.”
Have you ever had one of these experiences?
Have you ever seen the Lord unmistakably move in a problem area of your life?
Did you have to hit rock bottom before He had your attention?
Too often that is exactly what happens.
We become exhausted, have a breakdown, reach a point of complete despair, and at times even are heard to say, “I give up!”
And then, when we are at that point of surrender, the Lord does something that reminds us of His power and goodness.
The Lord wants us to know Him and trust Him.
He wants to demonstrate His love, but He wants us to be paying attention.
Ray Ortlund believes in the Bible, God is saying, “You won’t always understand me, but you can always trust me.
If I surprise you with trouble, I will also surprise you with the joy I’ll bring out of that trouble.
You may struggle to believe that right now.
But what seems so impossible is the very thing I specialize in.”[1]
The Lessons
God has a point in telling Jerusalem (and us) these things.
He wants us to re-orient our lives.
God desires a good and healthy relationship with us.
This is relationship that is genuine rather than surface; that is transforming rather than annoying.
He wants us to see Him not as someone we have to obey, but as someone we can trust and delight in.
To that end I see three principles we can apply to our lives.
11 All the future events in this vision are like a sealed book to them.
When you give it to those who can read, they will say, “We can’t read it because it is sealed.”
12 When you give it to those who cannot read, they will say, “We don’t know how to read.” 13 And so the Lord says,
“These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
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