Who Do You Really Trust?: Isaiah 30:1-7

Who do you really trust?  It seems like a simple question, but when you think about it deeply, who do you trust?  Who would you trust with your money?  Who would you trust with your kids?  Who would you trust to never betray you?  Who would you trust with your life? 

Trust is not easy to come by.  It takes time to develop.  Especially if trust has been betrayed, it may take months or years to be restored, if it ever can be. 

Ultimately, there is only one we can trust fully, and that is God.  How do we know?  God said that he would never leave us or forsake us.  The Bible says God's word is Truth -- therefore, when God says we can trust him, he means it. 

Unfortunately, we don't always believe that.  Our tendency is to look to someone else or to our own strength to solve our problems or to get us through another day.

The people of Jerusalem, to whom Isaiah was speaking, had the same problem.  They were fearful of being attacked by their enemy and rather than turning to God for help, they turned to their neighbor Egypt who had no real intention of helping them.

BACKGROUND

As you will recall from previous studies, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms.  The Kingdom of Israel was in the north and the Kingdom of Judah was in the south.  In 722 B.C. the Kingdom of Israel was taken over by the powerful Assyrians.  They were ruthless and had no mercy on Israel, taking them far away from their homeland.  Judah to the south had not been attacked by Assyria, but they were fearful of them.  Chapter 30 of Isaiah takes place after 722 B.C. when Judah was on high alert.

We can imagine what it would be like to fear an enemy like that.  It would be like The San Joaquin Valley watching Southern California, from L.A. to San Diego, being attacked by an outside force.  Some of us would have family members or friends living there and we would be fearful that we too might be attacked.

That is the setting where we find the Kingdom of Judah and specifically the city of Jerusalem in our passage.

Stubborn, Stubborn, Stubborn!  (Isaiah 30:1)

We can read verses of Israel's stubbornness over 70 times in the Bible.  How can that be?  Israel is God's chosen nation and God promised to bless them.  Look at what God said about Israel in the book of Genesis:

"And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing."  (Gen 12:2)

Their blessing didn't last long.  In fact, God said this about them:

"You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you."  (Deut. 9:24)

One would think that if God chose a nation of people to bless that they would follow him completely:  Especially with the promises that he gave them:

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."  (Gen 12:3)

Nevertheless, the people of Judah chose to be stubborn and rebel against God.  We're told in verse 1 that they began to "Carry out a plan that was not [God's plan].  In other words, they thought they could solve their own problems and didn't need to consult God.  What a mistake.  God said, in verse 1, that by doing this they were just adding sin upon sin.  They weren't getting themselves out of trouble; they were just making their troubles worse.

Don't Go Back to Egypt (Isaiah 30:2)

Judah's problem was that they didn't like asking for directions.  They decided to set out on a course in which they had no idea where it would lead.  They thought they could turn to the protection of the Pharaoh in Egypt.  They had been there as slaves several hundred years before and God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt.  God told them that once they left Egypt, "They should never [go back] again."  (Deuteronomy 17:16)  Therefore, they were fully warned by God but they didn't listen, they didn't obey.  They put their trust in the "Shade" of Egypt, rather than the "Shadow of the Almighty God" (Psalm 91:1).

The Do-Nothing (Isaiah 30:3-7)

What Judah thought would be their protection turned out to be a mirage.  You know what a mirage is: It's an illusion, something without substance, like a beautiful lake observed in the dry desert, only to find out it is only heat waves rising from hot sand. 

That's what the supposed protection turned out to be, a lot of hot air, and God said Judah would be shamed and humiliated because they thought they could trust Egypt to help them.

In verse 6 Isaiah pictures a caravan heading to Egypt from Judah.  The caravan is filled with riches to take to Egypt as payment for their protection.  But it's all in vain because "Egypt's help is worthless and empty."  In fact, God calls Egypt "Rahab who sits still."  Some translations say, "Rahab the Do-nothing."  Rahab was a symbolic name applied to Egypt which meant prideful, insolent or arrogant.  Egypt will just sit still and not help Judah no matter how much money they present to them.  Judah thought they could trust Egypt, but they would be humiliated.  Egypt would just take their money and not help.

APPLICATION FOR TODAY

When we read passages like Isaiah 30, we wonder if we can gain any insight for our lives.  God says we can.  The New Testament book of 2nd Timothy says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."  In the New Testament, whenever the writer uses the word "Scripture", he is referring to the Old Testament Scripture since the New Testament Scriptures had not been completed.  Today, when we read the word "Scripture" it means the entire Bible.  So, the entire Bible, both the Old and New Testaments are profitable for us and so is Isaiah 30:1-7.

1.  We are chosen by God.  We're not chosen as a nation like Israel, but we are chosen as individuals.  If you are reading this today and have a conviction in your heart that Jesus is God, then you have been chosen by God.  Here is what Jesus said:

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."  (John 15:16)

Being chosen by God comes with some responsibilities.  As God's chosen people we are to be holy, compassionate, kind, humble, meek and patient (Colossians 3:12).

The Israelites in our passage forgot that God had chosen them.  We're told not to do that.  In Colossians 1:21-23 we read that Jesus will present us holy and blameless before God if we "continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven..." 

2. like Israel, we try to carry out our own plans.  How easy it is to forget God.  We forget God and attempt to trust our own instincts instead.  Why do we do that?  We forget God because we are weak and frail people.  We can barely see as far as our hand in front of our faces.  We have no perception of God's perfect plan. 

The prophet Habakkuk felt the same way.  In his book he wrote,

"O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?  Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?  Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.  For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted." (Habakkuk 1:1-4)

But God says, no Habakkuk, that's not true.  You can't see the big picture and even if you did, you wouldn't believe it; "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded.  For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told." (Habakkuk 1:5)

Remember the verse in Isaiah 55 we looked at last week?  "God's ways are not our ways"?  We fail to trust God because we don't have the patience to wait and see what he will do.  God does not always act in our timing and if he told us what his timing was, we wouldn't believe it (See also Acts 13:41).

So, we trust ourselves rather than God.

3.  We sit under the wrong shade tree. The Israelites thought they could seek shelter in the shade of Egypt.  Rather than trusting God, they trusted an alliance with a foreign nation.  Who do you trust?  Your friends?  Your family?  Your job?  Who or what will get you out of the jam you are in?  Alcohol?  Drugs?  Sex?  Gambling? More things?  God says when you trust in these things you are just piling up "sin upon sin." 

When you become a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to "consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11-12).  When you let sin have control over your body it takes charge and becomes your master -- it makes you obey its passions and you sink deeper and deeper into the pit of despair.

Do you want to be free from despair?  Then put all of your trust in God.  Sit under the shade of his shadow.  Look at what King David said in the book of Psalms:

"How precious is your steadfast love, O God!  The Children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings" (Psalm 36:7).

4.  We tend to trust the worthless, empty things of the world.  John Oswalt, in his commentary on Isaiah, said, "It is appropriate to place a certain degree of trust in other people.  We trust our spouse; we trust our employer; we trust our pastor.  But if those are the ultimate places where we seek shelter from the world, to the point that we exclude God from the picture, we are in for a terrible disappointment, for even the best of humans will fail us."

I remember as a young man getting a job as a youth pastor in a large church in Southern California.  Pastor John Raymond, was my boss.  As he spoke to me about the job he said, "Keep your eyes on the Lord.  The people and staff of this church will let you down, but the Lord will never let you down."  And it was true; people did let me down from time to time. I saw their weaknesses and sins.  Everyone has weaknesses and sins and if we focus on people we will be devastated.  Instead, we should keep our eyes focused on Christ, the One who is high and lifted up. 

Likewise, it is never good to put anyone on a pedestal.  Sometimes people in churches put pastors on a pedestal.  They think the pastor is perfect and can do no wrong.  That is asking too much of anyone.  While the Bible says the pastor should be respected (Hebrews 4:17), he is not to be revered (looked upon with awe).   There are certainly several qualifications that a pastor must have (See 2 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-10).  A pastor, while called by God, can never take the place of God.

God should always be the object of our trust.  God is the "Hope (or trust) of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas." (Psalm 65:5).

This week:  Identify who or what you trust.  Do you trust this person or thing over God?  If so, repent and ask God to give you the confidence to trust in him.  Make an effort this week to stop sinning.  Remember, a good definition of sin is this: Knowing what is right, but doing what is wrong. 

Study Questions:

1.  What does it mean to be chosen by God?

2.  Do you think God has a plan for your life, or does everything happen by chance?  Explain.

3.  Tell of a time when you put your trust in God.