“I Said Sit”
[Isaiah 30:1-17]
June 16, 2019, Second Reformed Church
Egypt.
Joseph had ruled under Pharaoh in Egypt. But after he died, we read:
“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves” (Exodus 1:8-14, ESV).
The nation of Israel in Egypt was made into slaves, and for four hundred years, they served Egypt as slaves.
“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (Exodus 2:23-25, ESV).
And when Moses was eighty years old, God sent him to Pharaoh to demand that he set the people of God free. And we will remember the ten plaques, and how Pharaoh finally release Israel, and they walk across the Red Sea and wander in the dessert for forty years due to their sin, but finally, they claim the Promised Land.
While they were still in the wilderness, God gave Israel instructions about having a king, which included these words:
“Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again’” (Deuteronomy 17:16, ESV).
You shall never, never, never, never go to Egypt again.
We may remember back to chapter seven of Isaiah when King Ahaz hears that the Syrians are coming to attack, and the king and all the people shake with fear, but Isaiah says,
“And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, ‘Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,’ thus says the Lord GOD: ‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass’” (7:4-7, ESV).
God tells Israel to do nothing – to sit still and trust God – and especially, do not make an alliance with Assyria and Egypt. He alone is her salvation. But she makes alliances, and God allows her to be carried off into captivity.
Now, first, we are to obey God’s Word.
By chapter thirty, King Hezekiah has heard that the Assyrians are coming to wage war against Jerusalem, and he remembers God says to sit and trust and wait on God, but his advisors go ahead and make an alliance with Egypt. And God is furious and promises that this alliance will leave them humiliated and defeated:
“’Ah, stubborn children,’ declares the LORD, ‘who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.’”
Solomon writes, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psalm 127:1, ESV).
How does the Lord build His house? Through preaching and the proclamation of the Gospel – by you and me telling people about Jesus – why He came and what He did – and then calling them to believe and repent of their sins.
Paul tells the Corinthians:
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“’I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Corinthians 18-25, ESV).
The Word of God – telling others the Gospel – is the means by which God brings people to Him – not by any other means. Not by soft-ball games, not by clown ministry or puppet ministry, not by liturgical dance, not by magic shows, not by rock concerts – and these things may all be fine, but they are not what God said to do – and we are to obey God – especially when it comes to telling others the Gospel.
We are often like Hezekiah’s advisors and think, “well, yes, preaching the Gospel is good, but we need to add to it if we are going to draw people in and keep them.”
Salvation is only through the Word of God Alone, and if we do something in addition to the preaching of the Word of God to try to captivate people, it will be an act of rebellion against God.
Second, seeking salvation in God plus something else is futile.
“An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. Egypt's help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her ‘Rahab who sits still.’”
God tells them that an alliance with Egypt will be one where the Egyptians load up their animals and attempt to cross their harsh land, but they get nowhere – they are no help to Jerusalem. Egypt will not make it out of her own land – her help is worthless and empty – the alliance is futile. And so God calls Egypt, “Rahab who sits still.”
The name, “Rahab,” means “arrogance.” So, Egypt is “arrogance who sits still.”
God told Jerusalem to trust Him for her salvation and to not make an alliance – and Jerusalem makes and alliance with “arrogance who stands still” – what folly.
Whatever we add to God’s Word to make it better – to make it more acceptable – to make it more attractive – is “arrogance standing still.”
We want to add to worship – we want to add to salvation. “If you come to our church, you’ll be healed of the demon of acne and become healthy and wealthy” “Salvation is the free gift of God when you work in the nursery or serve on the Consistory.”
It’s arrogance – it’s nothing – the addition of things takes away from God’s Word and work.
And there is a sense in this part of the text, as well, that they are putting the animals through all this work and stress for nothing – it is a burden and a strain on them that ought not to be happening.
Third, addition to the Word leads to denial of the Word.
“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD; who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’”
God tells Isaiah to write this down so the people can read it and so it will be a witness against them in the future. And God notes that they go from holding to the Word of God and adding an alliance with Egypt to saying they don’t want to hear from God any more. They have had enough of God and His Word. They don’t want to be told to sit when there is an army at their door, so they tell the seers and the prophets to keep the Word of God to themselves – they are going to focus on saving the City of God.
Have you ever been to a worship service where they skip the Word of God and preaching? I have – it is a strange and terrible thing. The skip the Word of God to present reports and programs and things that have been happening in the church….
Would you be happy to have singing and prayer and then drama and reports and dancing, but no Word of God?
Finally, salvation is God’s work alone.
“Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, ‘Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.’
God tells Jerusalem since she has despised God’s Word and trusted in Egypt, God is going to make her like a wall the bulges out and collapses – like a clay pot that is smashed to the ground with such force, it will be dashed to tiny pieces.
Why?
Have they really done something so horrible in trying to protect themselves? Do we really do something so horrible when we seek to attract people to Jesus by other means and tell them that they can’t be saved without their own good works?
“For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’
“What shall we do to be saved?”
“I said sit.”
God wins and applies salvation to His people. We do nothing – we bring nothing to the table of salvation.
Jerusalem had to do nothing, but trust God, and He would have saved her. We do nothing – we are spiritually dead – and God saves us, by applying His Word to us, by changing our hearts, by causing us to believe – and then we confess our heart belief and do good works to bear the fruit of what God has done.
But Jerusalem refused. She believed she needed to “do her part.” She needed to make an alliance with Egypt – “the enemy of your enemy is your friend.”
“But you were unwilling, and you said, ‘No! We will flee upon horses’; therefore you shall flee away; and, ‘We will ride upon swift steeds’; therefore your pursuers shall be swift. A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.”
I say, “sit.” You say, “We will flee on horses.” I say, “you will flee.” You say, “Our horses are swift.” I say, “Your enemies are swift. And Jerusalem will be left like a single flag on a mountain or a single signal on a hill. The people will be killed and taken into captivity.”
One of my college roommates said that he would believe that Jesus is the Savior as long as what he did also contributed to his salvation.
Do we believe that God has saved us without any help or merit or works from us?
When God tells us that His worship is to be of prayers and songs and the reading and preaching of His Word and the sacraments and nothing more – do we hear and believe and obey Him, or do we say, “that’s all well and good, but I have a better idea – a way that will bring them all in.”
Does it matter if God says, “sit,” and we say, “let us give You a hand”?
Yes, it does.
Jerusalem was lost due to her arrogance and disobedience.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, You sent Your Son to be our Savior – and there is no other Savior. Your Word is to be preached and God the Holy Spirit takes it and applies it as He wills, changing hearts and minds as He wills. Ours is to be obedient to what You have said, and we ask that You would help us to trust You and obey You and to sit in peace as we wait on Your Will. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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