No Internet until Wednesday, sorry!!

11.18.09, Isaiah 37:23-35

²³ Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴ By your messengers
you have heaped insults on the Lord.
And you have said,
‘With my many chariots
I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its pines.
I have reached its remotest heights,
the finest of its forests.

²⁵ I have dug wells in foreign lands ^[c]
and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’

²⁶ “Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities
into piles of stone.

²⁷ Their people, drained of power,
are dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
scorched ^[d] before it grows up.

²⁸ “But I know where you stay
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.

²⁹ Because you rage against me
and because your insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return
by the way you came.

³⁰ “This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:
“This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹ Once more a remnant of the house of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.

³² For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

³³ “Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.

³⁴ By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,”
declares the LORD.

³⁵ “I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!”

Now It’s Personal

As the story continues, Hezekiah pleads urgently to God to save Israel from destruction at the hands of the Assyrians.  And on behalf of God, Isaiah confirms that the Lord will save Israel, and He does so at the end of the chapter, in a miraculous, mysterious way.

But what strikes me about this passage is God’s response to the threats of the Assyrian king – if you remember, the Assyrians threatened the Jews with destruction, and cited their past conquests as proof of their power and resolve.  This seems like a political conflict between two nations, but in verse 23, it seems as if God takes this very personally, that this threat is a threat not against Israel, but ultimately, against the sovereignty of God Himself.  And because He does take this personally, his response is swift and overwhelming.

I think there are two ways to take this passage: as an encouragement, but also as a warning.  First, it is an encouragement to remember that God does take up our causes personally.  It is easy to fall into the mis-perception that God is distant and only works indirectly with us.  But this is not the God we see here, but instead, a God who very personally takes up our causes and our defense. like a Father protecting his children from harm.

But it is a warning as well.  Often, we live our lives our way, doing whatever we think is right without giving thought to God.  And we do this more freely under the mistaken belief that God doesn’t care as long as He’s not directly involved.  ”I’m just living for myself and doing what’s good for me, or what feels good, and that’s not sinning sinning.”  But we should be very careful with this line of reasoning, because like the King of Assyria, we could be very mistaken as to what God is willing to overlook, and what he is not.

Questions

1. What burden are you carrying that you don’t think God cares about?

2. What does it mean or look like when God takes up our causes personally?

3. Is there something that you are doing that seems harmless enough, but may dishonor God more than you think?

11.16.09, Isaiah 36:8-20

⁸ ” ‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! ⁹ How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰ Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the LORD ? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’ “

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹² But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

¹⁶ “Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, ¹⁷until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? ²⁰ Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

The Language of Fear

Another wonderful aspect of narrative is how small occurrences reveal deeper insights to us.  For instance, this messenger from Assyria gives an ultimatum to Israel – “Submit to Assyria, or be destroyed; nothing, not even God, can save you from our might”.  I think all of can imagine being intimidated, and even seriously considering such an offer.

But what is striking about this offer is the language in which it is given – the Jewish leaders ask the Assyrian to speak in Aramaic so as to not intimidate the local people who are listening to them, but the Assyrian goes right ahead and repeats his threats in Hebrew, even promising them mercy and blessings in addition.  He totally does this on purpose in order to heighten the fear of the Israelites, and make it more likely for them to cave into that fear.

I think that even to this day, fear knows how to speak our language, how to assault the weakest sections of our armor.  For those of us who don’t like uncertainty, the fear of unemployment or the future or anything vague and unsettled will have a more damaging effect on us, and make it more likely for us to lose our trust in God and take the easiest way out.  And whatever our fear happens to be, any threat to that particular aspect of our lives is all the more dangerous and effective.

Practically, there are a couple of ways to face and silence our fears.  First, we must know them.  As hard as it may seem, we must know what makes us most afraid, what thoughts makes us quail in terror.  And once we know what our fears are, we have to face those fears in light of the reality of God’s power, his love, and his wisdom.  For when we look at our fears through those lenses, we begin to realize that our fears, no matter how intimidating they might have seemed, are really very small relative to God.

Questions

1. What, when you think about it, are you most afraid of?

2. Why do you think you are most afraid of that particular thought or prospect?

3. How does the character or the power of God as revealed in Scripture affect your fear?

4. How does your personal experience with God affect your fear?

11.13.09, Isaiah 36:1-22

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

¹ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ² Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field, ³ Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.

⁴ The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah,
” ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? ⁵ You say you have strategy and military strength—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? ⁶ Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. ⁷ And if you say to me, “We are depending on the LORD our God”-isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?

⁸ ” ‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! ⁹ How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰ Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the LORD ? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’ “

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹² But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

¹⁶ “Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, ¹⁷until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? ²⁰ Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

²¹ But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

²² Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

Faith In Context

Now, you might be asking if we are still doing Isaiah because this passage is different from what we’ve read to this point, and the answer is yes!  The book makes a shift from prophecy to narrative, here relating the account of the invasion of the Assyrians – a couple of items of note that we’ll talk about in two different segments:

First, the change in writing is important even in itself.  The prophecies that we have read up to this point have been powerful and evocative, and definitely taught us more about the character of God, and also many of the fallacies that we commonly slip into.  But narrative, as seen in chapter 36 and onwards, is powerful in its own right because it allows us to see theology and principles and faith in context.

It is one thing to be taught in the abstract, and a totally different thing to have to apply that idea in real life.  And so as we enter into the latter half of Isaiah, it’s a good time to remind ourselves that our faith is not matter of ideas and talk, but of action and power, of the ideas of faith lived out in our everyday life.  All things that we learn of God should find some foothold in our lives because our lives are the road upon which the ideas of faith must find their traction.

Questions

1. What were some of the ideas that you learned in Isaiah chapters 1 through 35?

2. Have any of those ideas affected how you live practically?

3. If those ideas have not made an impact, how can you better apply what you learn from the Word to the life that you lead?

11.11.09, Isaiah 34:11-17

A note – the last devotional was incorrectly labeled, and actually came from Isaiah 35:1-10!  I had accidentally skipped the previous passage, Isaiah 34:11-17.  And so I’m going to backtrack and cover the previous passage because I think it’s definitely worth it…sorry for any confusion!

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it;
the great owl and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
the measuring line of chaos
and the plumb line of desolation.

¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
all her princes will vanish away.

¹³ Thorns will overrun her citadels,
nettles and brambles her strongholds.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
a home for owls.

¹⁴ Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and wild goats will bleat to each other;
there the night creatures will also repose
and find for themselves places of rest.

¹⁵ The owl will nest there and lay eggs,
she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings;
there also the falcons will gather,
each with its mate.

¹⁶ Look in the scroll of the LORD and read:
None of these will be missing,
not one will lack her mate.
For it is his mouth that has given the order,
and his Spirit will gather them together.

¹⁷ He allots their portions;
his hand distributes them by measure.
They will possess it forever
and dwell there from generation to generation.

Redemptive Destruction

At the very beginning of this passage, it uses the word herem in verse 2, which means “devoted to the Lord in destruction”.  This was a topic that we looked at in depth when we first started this devotional (over 1 year ago!!).  It is not a very common word, but is hugely important and controversial because it is difficult to comprehend that a loving and just God would will the destruction of anything, especially human beings… And as we found out last year, there is no simple answer to this issue, unfortunately.

But the passage makes a subtle shift in verse 11, that the destruction referenced earlier actually results in new life, that birds and wildlife will retake that which has been destroyed, and find rest there.  And the end of the passage makes it clear that this new life that emerges is no accident, but is part of the order that God had ordained.  And what’s more, when we read on into chapter 35, this destruction from chapter 34 finally results in gladness, rejoicing, and joy! (35:1)

In this, we find another way to understand the concept of herem, when God destroys – that he destroys in order to create new things, or to redeem old ones.  This may seem hopelessly optimistic, but there is a solid logic to it.  Built into the very order of nature is the fact that all life which dies creates room and provides life to the next generation.  Jesus makes reference to this idea in John 12, that a grain has to fall to the earth and die in order to produce an abundance.  And this was a foreshadowing to the most important example of all, how the death of Christ results in new life for all of creation.

So when God destroys, even in our own lives, it is not the whole of the story but only part – He destroys so that He might do something new and better instead.

Questions

1. What has God destroyed in your life?  What new thing is he doing through that act?

2. Sometimes God destroys things that we should have gotten rid of ourselves – is there something in your life which should be destroyed so that God doesn’t have to do it the hard way, like a sin, a grudge, a habit?

3. Even when know of God’s greater purposes, the moment that we lose something is still traumatic – so how can we keep our hearts and minds on the larger things that God might be doing?

11.9.09, Isaiah 35:1-10

Joy of the Redeemed

¹ The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.

³ Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;

⁴ say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”

⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.

⁷ The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

⁸ And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.

⁹ No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,

¹⁰ and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away

All That and More!

A wonderfully encouraging passage, specifically because it addresses so many of the states we find ourselves in – who among us has not at some point felt: feeble, weak-kneed, fearful, blind, deaf, or mute?  But the question of credibility enters our mind at this point, the question of whether God can really address all of these situations and states of life?  It sounds too good to be true, like some kind of spiritual snake-oil (Cures Blindness and Baldness, with just ONE dose!)…

But remember the ministry of Jesus, the feeble that leaped off their mats as he passed by.  Remember how he pulls on the tongue of the mute, and they speak words they had no experience forming.  He puts mud on the eyes of the blind, and they receive sight.  The fearful lepers and prostitutes and unclean find strength and confidence in him.  So can God really address all of these situations, all of these problems in our lives?…yes!  The evidence is Jesus.

And so personally, it is good to remember that there is not one situation you find yourselves in from which God cannot save, which is beyond his purview or his power.  We do not have to be overly selective in deciding which situations we bring before the Lord, because Christ revealed that he has power, and is the answer, to them all.

Questions

1. Is there one situation where you honestly don’t think God has any control?  Why does that one situation stand out?

2. Do you remember Jesus addressing a situation similar to yours?

3. What would it look like to, as stated above, to bring that situation to God to address?

11.6.09, Isaiah 34:1-12

Judgment Against the Nations

¹ Come near, you nations, and listen;
pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
the world, and all that comes out of it!

² The LORD is angry with all nations;
his wrath is upon all their armies.
He will totally destroy them,
he will give them over to slaughter.

³ Their slain will be thrown out,
their dead bodies will send up a stench;
the mountains will be soaked with their blood.

⁴ All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved
and the sky rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

⁵ My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
see, it descends in judgment on Edom,
the people I have totally destroyed.

⁶ The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood,
it is covered with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
fat from the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in Edom.

⁷ And the wild oxen will fall with them,
the bull calves and the great bulls.
Their land will be drenched with blood,
and the dust will be soaked with fat.

⁸ For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.

⁹ Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
her dust into burning sulfur;
her land will become blazing pitch!

¹⁰ It will not be quenched night and day;
its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
no one will ever pass through it again.

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it;
the great owl and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
the measuring line of chaos
and the plumb line of desolation.

¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
all her princes will vanish away.

A Glimpse

Whew, some tough words here.  What makes this passage even more difficult to comprehend is its stark contrast to the God of the New Testament, a God of such mercy and love.  If you feel this way, you wouldn’t be the first.  A lot of people have struggled with these contrasting images of God, and some have, in an attempt to make sense of the discrepancy, decided that the Old Testament must be irrelevant, or created edited versions of the Bible that make more sense to them.  But we don’t have to go that far, because there is another way to interpret such a passage:

That it is a glimpse of an alternative reality.

No, I haven’t lost my mind.  Stay with me here.

For a moment, assume that Jesus never came.  Assume that God did the logical thing, and allowed us to reap the consequences of our own sin, allowed us to be justly punished for our collective guilt.  We would be punished for the millions who died in gas chambers, innocents killed in war, for women raped, for children abandoned, in every century, in every corner of the world.  Every sin punished justly.  As terrible as that sounds, let’s pretend.

That judgment would look much like Isaiah 34 – a day of bloody reckoning on a universal scale, poured out on all nations.  You see then, that Isaiah 34 is a glimpse of an alternative reality, a glimpse into what judgment would have looked like for us without the intercession of Jesus Christ.  We catch a glimpse of what Jesus saved us from.

The practical ramification is that this glimpse helps us fully appreciate the work of the gospel, and what it really accomplished.  The depiction of the thought of God’s judgment should help us appreciate the reality of God’s mercy.  We know more fully what Paul means when he says that we were meant to be objects of wrath, and can more fully rejoice with him when we realize that we are instead objects of mercy.  The ultimate lesson of Isaiah 34 is, “Whew!  Thank God that Christ came!”

Questions

1. Sometimes it is easy to forget that we are sinners who deserve judgment – why do you think it is so easy to fall into this mentality?

2. Have you come into contact with other passages that gave a very contrasting depiction of God?  How did you come to understand that passage?

11.3.09, Isaiah 33:10-17

¹⁰ “Now will I arise,” says the LORD.
“Now will I be exalted;
now will I be lifted up.

¹¹ You conceive chaff,
you give birth to straw;
your breath is a fire that consumes you.

¹² The peoples will be burned as if to lime;
like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.”

¹³ You who are far away, hear what I have done;
you who are near, acknowledge my power!

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are terrified;
trembling grips the godless:
“Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?”

¹⁵ He who walks righteously
and speaks what is right,
who rejects gain from extortion
and keeps his hand from accepting bribes,
who stops his ears against plots of murder
and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil-

¹⁶ this is the man who will dwell on the heights,
whose refuge will be the mountain fortress.
His bread will be supplied,
and water will not fail him.

¹⁷ Your eyes will see the king in his beauty
and view a land that stretches afar.

The Good Man Who Does Good

The last devotional highlighted that internal change, on the level of our very identity, needs to occur if we want to change our behavior in any lasting way.  And consequently, we sometimes have to take stock of our identity if we want to alter our actions.

But lest we take this too far, I think the arrow actually goes both ways – yes, identity will powerfully shape our actions.  But at the same time, our actions have a role in shaping who we are, and transforming our identities in turn.  After all, if all of our actions simply unconsciously overflowed out of us, why would ever need obedience?  Because obedience necessitates that there will be moments when we do not want to do what is right, but do so because we know we should.

And so in verse 15, when Isaiah describes the type of man who can stand in God’s presence, it is important to see this catalog as both descriptive, as well as prescriptive.  God doesn’t reveal these actions merely so we could know if we are righteous or not, but so that we could imitate them, and in so doing, encourage the process of becoming more like Christ.  I think many of us can testify to times where we did not want to do the right thing, but were changed through the process of doing that right thing.

In the end, action and identity are not distinct from one another, but affect one another in turn: it is our identity as God’s children that creates a desire within us to obey our Father, and our obedience that marks us as belonging to Him (John 14:15).

Questions:

Read the following passages prescriptively: what does it mean to imitate these passages in your life?

1. Micah 6:-8

2. Matthew 5:1-12

11.1.09, Isaiah 32:1-8

The Kingdom of Righteousness

¹ See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.

² Each man will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

³ Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.

⁴ The mind of the rash will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

⁵ No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

⁶ For the fool speaks folly,
his mind is busy with evil:
He practices ungodliness
and spreads error concerning the LORD;
the hungry he leaves empty
and from the thirsty he withholds water.

⁷ The scoundrel’s methods are wicked,
he makes up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.

⁸ But the noble man makes noble plans,
and by noble deeds he stands.

Who We Do

This passage references a lot of identities, doesn’t it?  The rash, the fool, the scoundrel, the noble.  And more than this, it also connects each of these identities to certain actions, and some of these identities will change, while others will remain the same.  What an important issue this is for all of us, for whom among us doesn’t want to change our behavior at some point in time?  How do we accomplish such changes?

Verse 8 is a great insight into this issue of identity and action, where it states that a noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.  There is a type of order to this, that a noble person (identity) will make noble plans (thought), which leads to noble deeds (action).  But first in this process is the identity of this person, that they are a noble person who then does noble deeds.

I think this resonates with what Christ teaches and reveals in his ministry.  Jesus teaches in Luke 6 that the words we speak don’t come out of a vacuum, but are the overflow of our heart.  And so if we speak curses and anger at others, we simply cannot deny, as much as we would like, that we must have anger and hatred in our hearts.  So when it comes to changing our behavior, it is helpful not just to focus on the actions that we perform, but the identity out of which these actions overflowed.

Too often, we spend a majority of our time and effort fruitlessly trying to change behavior, when in the end, deeper and harder questions of identity must be addressed.  But we take heart and courage in knowing that the blood of Christ answered the deepest questions of identity by making us sons and daughters of God.

Questions:

1. If you have a problem with lust, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

2. If you have a problem with pride, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

3. If you have a problem with jealousy, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

4. If you have a problem with anger, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

10.30.09, Isaiah 31:1-3

Woe to Those Who Rely on Egypt

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

² Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against the house of the wicked,
against those who help evildoers.

³ But the Egyptians are men and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
he who helps will stumble,
he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.

The Best Foolishness Available

Some context is helpful in this passage, as it is in every passage!  Here Isaiah talks about the chariots of Egypt, which strikes us today as a prosaic bit of imagery.  But in that time period, the chariots of Egypt were the most advanced war machines of the time: fast, inventive, complete with built-in quivers for arrows – they were the best war technology that was available.  If we put it today’s terms, it’s like Isaiah references the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced and dominant jet fighter in the US Air Force.

And perhaps this context helps us more clearly understand this teaching.  It’s not as if the Israelites were making alliances with some neighbors with pointy sticks – they were looking for help from one of the most powerful and advanced cultures in the world.  And for the leaders of Israel, this must have seemed like a sure bet, a wise and prudent decision.  After all, who could be more powerful than Egypt?  Who could better protect us?

I think we all know the answer to that…

This applies very much to our own lives, because we have our own “sure bets”, wise investments that are supposed to be failsafe in their ability to protect us.  Ivy League education.  Great wealth.  Investments.  But there is no such thing as failsafe, no such thing as bulletproof, nothing that cannot fail.  This is not to say that these things are evil in themselves – there is no indication in this passage that God hates the Egyptians.  Rather, it is important to recognize that the very best that humankind has to offer is nothing compared the best that God has for us.

Questions

1. What is your “sure bet”, something that is supposed to absolutely protect or provide for you?

2. Has anything that was a sure bet ever failed you?  A job, a girlfriend, anything?

3. What are some of the sure bets that God provides us instead?