In Quietness and Rest -- Isaiah 30:1-22 • Geoff Bradford

We're gonna read this morning from Isaiah chapter 30 verses one through 22. This is the word of the Lord.

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, 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 Hannes, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that bring neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.

An oracle on the beasts of the Negev, through the land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry the riches on the back of donkeys, their treasure on the humps of camels to a people that cannot profit them. Egypt's health is worthless and empty. Therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.

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's 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.

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 about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant, and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel, it smashed so ruthlessly, and among its fragments not a shard is found, with which to take fire from the hearth or to dip water out the cistern.

For thus says, the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and in rest shall be you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling and you said, no, we will flee upon horses, therefore you flee away and we will ride upon swift steeds and 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.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you. And therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice, blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion and Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you bread of adversity and water of affliction, yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher. And your ears shall hear the word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, be gone.

— Isaiah 30:1-22

You know when I was a kid, there was a message that would come up on TV at random days, at random times, anytime between 08:30 and sunset, and interrupt the local programming. And it always went like this: "This is a test. This is only a test." And then you'd hear this horrible sound. And the announcer would come back on after the beeping was over and said, "This has been a test of the emergency broadcast system. Broadcasters, in cooperation with the FCC and other authorities, have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency."

Now that came on, and that test always interrupted our ordinary normal programming, and then things went back to normal. Makes me think of where we are right now. I feel like we've been through this test for several months. While we're all hoping this whole coronavirus thing would be over by now, it keeps dragging on.

In March, I read an article by Andy Crouch called "Leading Beyond the Blizzard." He said that many of us want to treat the coronavirus like a blizzard. And you know what you do in a blizzard.

You rush out, you buy supplies, you bring them all home, hunker down for a few days, wait for everything to pass, and life goes back to normal. He said that others will treat the coronavirus like it's a season, let's say winter. You survive the months of winter to make it to spring. You know spring's gonna come. You know, eventually it will be here after just a few months, you can endure. And then he said something profound. He said, but others of us will rightly understand that what's happening to us is like a mini ice age. Not a real ice age, but a mini ice age, a once in a lifetime event that disrupts everything and changes life hereafter.

Those words were written back in March and his words have turned out to be really prophetic. Because COVID-19 has been no blizzard and it's been no season, it's turning out to be what for us is a mini ice age. You who are students, you know that. Your lives are really different from that last year at the same time. And this has meant untold stress, and anxiety, and worry, and uncertainty for so many of us, hasn't it? We long for this test to be over. We long for some announcer to show up and say, this has been a test, it's been only a test, and for our lives to go back to normal.

This morning, I'm gonna wrap up this short series we've done on prayer, as we've looked at the Lord's Prayer. And today I'm gonna shift our attention from the Lord's Prayer back in scripture to Isaiah chapter 30. To a people who are living through at that time what was for them like a mini ice age. And I wanna look to this passage and learn from them what does it mean to trust the Lord. What does it mean to be people of prayer in this moment?

Historical Context

Isaiah is a book that was written in about 700 BC. He was writing as a prophet to the Southern Kingdom, to what is the land of Judah. And you can read the background of this passage in Second Kings 18 and 19, but I'm gonna summarize it for you. This was written at a time when the nation was in great trouble. The superpower of the day was a country called Assyria, which is modern day Northern Iraq. And they were ruthless, and they were empire builders. They had already come through and wiped out the northern kingdoms, what was known as Israel. They wiped out that kingdom and wiped out so many of the lands around Israel and Judah. And now little Judah is left, and it lays in a particularly precarious situation right between what is Assyria up in the North and Egypt down in the South, and Judah is right on the highway between the two.

Hezekiah comes to the throne in about 715 years before the coming of Jesus, and he came to the throne in what's a time that's nearly an impossible situation. How does he keep the nation together from suffering the same fate as the Northern Kingdom and the kingdoms around them?

Fast forward fifteen years, Judah went from being in the frying pan into the fire. And things have only gotten worse. During that time, the Assyrian armies under Sennacherib came and occupied the land of Judah. They occupied all the towns and they surrounded Jerusalem, the capital city, and began to lay siege to it. Nobody could go in and nobody could go out. Nothing could come in, nothing could go out.

And Isaiah comes to the king in the midst of this, tells King Hezekiah, keep calm and carry on. Wait for the salvation of the Lord.

Like a Pop Tart

Now I want you to picture the situation that they're in. We've all been there where your back's up against the wall and there are no options and it looks like this is the end of your rope. In my household my kids love Pop-Tarts. They're sort of a treat in our family. We don't get them all the time. But the other name for Pop-Tart, what it says in the small print underneath it says, toaster pastries. Because Pop-Tarts were designed for the old fashioned two slot toaster. You put the Pop-Tarts in and you push down the little handle and you wait as the little heating elements around your Pop-Tarts heat up and eventually it pops back up and you pull it out once it's hot all the way through.

But if you don't have it set just right for the Pop-Tart, it pops up too soon. It pops up and out and you have to push it back down again so you make sure it's heated all the way through. I think we know what it's like to feel like the Pop-Tart. In a situation we're dropped into the heat, we're dropped into a situation where it is really uncomfortable and we want to pop up and out of there. And it seems like God has purposes in this because he's like, oh no, you're not ready yet, and pushes the little handle back down.

But while God has purposes in that, you and I are like, God, I am done. I'm ready to be out of that. That's exactly where Hezekiah was, in the heat. He's a Pop-Tart if you will.

Judah was in about as bad a circumstance in all of Israelite history as you can come up with. The Northern Kingdom's done, most of Judah is done. This is all that's left, it's time to panic. And the man serving as Hezekiah's Secretary of State, his right hand man, a man named Shebna. He convinces Hezekiah that he's really taken in by this prophet Isaiah and his word about God, and he wants to have nothing to do with it. So he gathers some of the nobles of the kingdom, and they make a deal with Egypt. They actually send money down to Egypt to bribe Egypt to come and help them. And Hezekiah has nothing to do with this.

Here's what Shebna is doing—it makes sense. I mean he's reasoning like we reason. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? So that's why he appeals to Egypt. And even though Egypt has been an enemy in the past, if you go back through the history of Israel, the leaders are ready to do business with them. Why? Because they're at the end of their rope. This is what we pick up in verses one through five. And God says to them, you're a stubborn people. You're carrying out a plan, but it's not my plan. You're making an alliance, but it's not of my spirit. And he talks about the camels and the donkeys going down with gold on their back down to Egypt. He's like, that is not what I told you. And he tells them, you're adding sin to sin. You're not looking to me. You didn't even consult me.

See God speaks very directly to the people there in chapter 30.

Woe to you rebellious children who seek out help from the nation of Egypt, you didn't even consult me. — Isaiah 30:1-2

He tells them, look, you're taking shelter under the care of Egypt. This is a nation under tremendous pressure. And the question was, how are we gonna make it? I mean we know what this feels like.

Three Options Under Hardship

And we see in this passage three options for how we have the options in front of us when we're under tremendous hardship, pressure, anxiety, and worry. And the first one is what we see in verses one through five. The solution the nobles took—they took matters into their own hands. This is my favorite. This is honestly my favorite way of dealing with stress and pressure: hyperactivity. Get in there and do something about it.

When I'm facing a lot of pressure and hardship, I jump into a frenzy of activity. I usually even get sick after the period of stress is over. It's rooted in a belief like I should be able to work it out. I should be able to get it all done. I can make things work. If I can just try harder and push, we can get through this.

Have you ever heard of quicksand? I know quicksand is kind of a trope of cartoons and Gilligan's Island, but it is a real thing. And a person really can drown in quicksand. And you know how you drown in quicksand? By panicking, by moving a lot, by flailing about, struggling. The harder you struggle, the quicker you go down in the sand.

But God is pointing out to them this isn't just like a stress problem, this is a spiritual problem. Look at verses six and seven. He tells them, go on, you're going down to Egypt. You're going through the land of the Negev, down to Egypt with this money. Go on down and just see what happens. Go on and put your bribe money on the back of a camel, go down to Egypt—nothing will come of it.

And God makes a joke in this passage, which is hard for us to see. He said:

Egypt's help is worthless and empty. Therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still. — Isaiah 30:7

Now there is another Rahab in the Bible. There's a Rahab who helped the spies spy out the land of Jericho. This is back in the book of Joshua. But that's not this Rahab. This is a different Rahab. Rahab here is a mythical creature. It's like a dragon. And in ancient Near Eastern mythology, Rahab was like a mythical creature of the ocean, this sea serpent kind of dragon thing.

And this is what God's saying: look, you are trusting in Egypt. And that's like putting your trust in a myth. Putting trust in something that's not even really real. In your head, you've made it up to be this gigantic powerful dragon, but it's a myth and it's not gonna come through for you. This is God making a joke. God has the last laugh. This is why he calls it Rahab who sits still, or other translations say, Rahab who does nothing, Rahab who sits idle.

See God is making fun of them for this response, this hyperactive response for dealing with their situation, with their stress. And God actually says here, it's idolatry. It's a self-saving technique. It's trying to make life work on your own terms.

You know, the antithesis—a lot of people don't understand this—but the antithesis of belief isn't doubt. It's not doubt.

We see in book of John where Jesus deals with Thomas and his doubts in such a gentle way. The antithesis of belief—what is it? It's self sufficiency. It's trying to save yourself. It's trying to be your own God. See, it's believing "I can fix it. I can make this happen."

Egypt was a well beaten path for the people of Israel and Judah. I don't have a space here to go into all these passages, but the people of God had regularly used Egypt as a way to deal with their problems. Just read Genesis for a short version of this. It's a well worn path of God's people down to Egypt as a savior for God's people—a small "s" savior. But God says that is a do nothing solution.

This begs the question for us, for you and me: What is your well worn path? What are the things that you go to instead of going to the Lord as ways to fix your life? What ways do you deal with your stress and your worry and your anxiety? What are your false rescuers?

A hyperactive response to pressure has two lies underneath it. One is that you don't really think that the world is broken, and two, you think you could fix it. And such confidence is like putting your hope squarely in a myth. With Rahab, the do nothing—it can't deliver.

Look at verses eight through 11. The people, God says now to Isaiah, "Now go write before them. Write it down on a tablet. Write it in a book so they can understand. This is a witness against them. They are a rebellious people, lying children, and children unwilling to hear. And they keep telling the seers, 'Do not see.' They say to the prophets, 'Do not prophecy what is right.'"

What he's describing there is the people saying, "I don't wanna hear any more words from the prophet. I don't wanna hear anything more from God." This is the second possible response to pressure and worry and stress—paralysis. Not hyperactivity, but passive inactivity. It's pitying despair. It's "I don't even wanna get out of bed. I am done."

In times of pressure, we think somehow that God is cursing us. Our strategies for making life work on our terms don't work. We say things like, "I can never win. I'm always behind the eight ball." That's why many of us curse under our breath. We're cursing our circumstances that God has put us in. And we believe nothing is working out for me because God is against me.

Why don't the people of Israel or Judah wanna hear from God this moment? Maybe I can put it this way. Let me give you four different equations.

If you have a good plus sovereign plus purposeful God, that equals our God. That's the real God. But when you begin to take out those words—for example, if you have not a good, but a sovereign and a purposeful God, what do you get? That equals a mean God. If you have a good and a purposeful God, but not sovereign, you have an inept God—a God who maybe feels good things about you, but can't do anything. And finally, if you have good plus sovereign, but you don't have purposeful, you have a random God—a God who's sort of in and out of your life.

Let's shift our junk food analogies from pop tarts to mozzarella cheese sticks. If you have ever tried to heat up mozzarella cheese sticks in the microwave on high, what happens? Over time as they heat up, the gooey stuff finds a little hole or a weak spot in the breading on the outside. And all the gooey goodness, all the mozzarella comes pouring out onto the plate and oozing out. I think that's just like us. In the heat, what's inside of us—our functional theology, what we really believe God is like—comes oozing out of us in the heat of a situation.

This is why the people of Judah don't wanna hear any more words from their God. They don't wanna hear any more from the word at this moment because they're done. Their formula was bad math. Their equation—something was missing. Either goodness, or sovereignty, or purposefulness. Something was missing.

When things are not going right in our lives, many of us hit despair, hopelessness, paralysis, and we often have a theology that backs that up. We have a mean God—God who doesn't love me. Or we have an inept God—a God who loves me and is purposeful, but is not sovereign, is not involved in my world. Or we have a random God.

What formula do you have working in your life right now? What picture do you have of your God? But listen, there's a third option given to us in this passage.

Look at verses 15 through 17. For thus says the Lord God, the holy one of Israel, "In returning and in rest, you shall be saved."

In quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling, and you said, no, we will flee upon horses, therefore you will flee away and we will ride upon swift steeds, therefore your pursuers will be swift. A thousand shall flee at the hand of one, and at the threat of five you shall flee. To your left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

I love this passage. I love this section. This image that God gives his people in verse 17 of a flagpole on top of a mountain. God says that no matter what, even if you don't trust me, I'm still gonna be faithful to you. You will still be like the flagpole on top of the mountain.

Think about the flagpole on the mountain. The flag itself attached to the flagpole can blow all kinds of different directions and flap in the breeze. But the flagstaff, the pole itself is secure. It remains strong. The flag may feel it's moving a lot, flapping around, but it's unmoved even in the strongest winds.

God is inviting his people to another way. Not hyperactivity, running around trying to make your life work. Not passivity, like despair, but active passivity. A deep rest in God, even in the midst of storms.

Listen to the invitation to you and your stresses and pressures:

In returning and in rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust shall be your strength.

I want to look at those really closely. This is Hebrew poetry, which means that the two phrases mean the same thing and they're repeated so that we get it. The writer here is combining together returning and trust, rest and quietness.

First: returning and trust. This is a definition of repentance. This is what repentance looks like. Turning away from self-saving strategies, self-pitying despair, and turning to God.

This is how God describes idolatry. In verse 22:

When you see my kindness, you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver, your gold-plated metal images. You'll scatter them, those unclean things, you'll say to them, be gone.

To compare to God, those other things that you look to to save yourself—He's like, those are gonna be worthless. You're gonna cast them aside.

God calls us in the same way to get rid of our idols, to get rid of our false saviors. The myth that your problems, your pressures are gonna cease because of either your effort or because your passivity—that's false. Take your hope off of making life work on your terms. Turn your hope away from making life work your ways. Turn back to God.

Hezekiah's Example

Hezekiah, when faced with this incredible situation, this incredible pressure cooker—this is what we know about him. He was one of the very few righteous kings in the history of Judah. When he was pressed, he turned toward God. We read this in Second Kings 18. Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, he surrounds Jerusalem. They're trapped in the city, like a bird in a cage. And yet, verse 30, this is what Hezekiah says:

The Lord will surely deliver us. The city will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

Many of you know I'm a cyclist, which means bicycle by the way, not motorcycle. When we go on vacation to the beach, I always take my bike. I love cycling at the beach. Cycling at the beach is fun on those flat roads, as long as you're going one direction.

It's often the case when you go cycling at the beach that there's a wind. Riding against the wind, riding into the wind is so difficult. It feels like you're pedaling through sand. It feels like the whole wind is conspiring to hold you back and to keep you from going. It's resisting you.

But when you turn that bike around and you go with the wind, I mean you feel like an Olympic cyclist. You can ride so fast.

Many of us I think are struggling right now because we're riding against the wind. We're trying to make life work on our terms, in our wisdom, with our plans and schemes. We're like those Israelites who trust in Egypt, who do nothing. Egypt who sits still.

But God's invitation to you and to me is this: turn around. In returning, you shall be saved. Repent. Ride in the right direction—the direction God's leading you. Turn away from your idols to the living God.

In Quietness and in Rest

In quietness and in rest. Why was Hezekiah so sure, so confident of God's ability to help him in the midst of the situation? It's because he knew the Lord. He knew the Lord.

This is what Hezekiah knew about his God. Verses 18 through 21:

The Lord waits to be gracious to you. Therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. The Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him. A people will dwell in Zion and Jerusalem, you shall weep no more.

He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord has given you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see him, your teacher. Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. When you turn to the right and when you turn to the left.

When you hear the hope in those words, the encouragement for us to rest in the Lord in those words. — Isaiah 30:19-21

The Boy on the Airplane

A little boy was riding on an airplane as an unaccompanied minor, sitting in a seat under the care of the airline. As the flight progressed, turbulence began to kick up. The fastened seat belt sign comes on, the turbulence gets worse, drinks are beginning to spill, the plane's going up and down, being really kicked around the sky.

The woman sitting next to this little boy is really afraid. She's gripping the chair rests, the handrails on the side of her chair. Yet she's watching this little boy in the midst of all this turbulence keep on playing. He seems completely unaware of what's going on around him.

Finally, when it gets worse and worse, she says to him, "How can you play like at a time like this?"

The little boy reached up and put his hand on the woman's hand and said, "Lady, my daddy is the pilot. We're gonna be okay."

When your daddy is the pilot, you can handle turbulence because you know he's in control. You know who's got you. That's not passivity. Look at Hezekiah. Hezekiah knew God. He is in the middle of a situation that's not just turbulence—it is life threatening, it is annihilation of his kingdom threatening—and yet he turns toward the Lord in rest and in trust.

Becoming People of Active Passivity

Here's my question for us this morning: How can you become a person of active passivity, of rest in the Lord, of trust in the Lord like Hezekiah? How can you be a person who takes God's word, what he's promised, and puts it in the center of your life so that it catches fire, so it's like an anchor for your soul?

This is what I want to point us to this morning: to become people who meditate on God's word.

Now I know you probably think, "Wait, what just happened? We just turned a sermon about trusting God into having a quiet time, having a devotional time, reading your Bible and praying." But I want to say this is something much different. It's different from just reading your Bible, or getting through your CBR journal, or saying some prayers on the way to work or right before dinner.

This is taking what God says and pushing it down into the depths of who you are until it catches fire, until it becomes an anchor.

The Practice of Meditation

Traditionally, meditation has been a middle practice between Bible reading and prayer. It's the descent of the mind with truth into the heart until our whole being yearns for God. If you do a word study on meditation in the Bible, you will find that the word is the same root for gnawing, like a lion gnawing on a piece of meat.

John Owen gave instruction on how to meditate. He said three steps:

First, take the actual truths of Scripture, a passage. Fix your mind on it, think on it, read over all the words.

Next, incline all the affections of yourself toward that passage. Understand so that you begin to cleave to those spiritual truths. You make yourself engage them.

And finally, come to relish and savor the sweetness and the satisfaction. He says this: "We taste then by experience that God is gracious. The love of Christ is better than wine."

If we settle for mere speculations and mental notions about Christ as doctrine, we'll find no power in that. But when under the conduct of spiritual life our affections cleave to him with a full purpose of our heart, our minds fill up with thoughts and delight in him, we will find unspeakable joy in his glory.

I want to call you to be people who meditate, meditate on his word, take it into you.

For eighteen weeks during the coronavirus, I got on social media every day and read a passage and modeled how we meditate on God's word. I showed you five minutes every day how you take this into yourself. And here's the thing: it's your turn now. It's your turn. Will you try this? Will you meditate on his word? To become people like a flagpole on a mountain, unmoved.

But listen to this caution in verse 15:

But be careful, because you were unwilling. You would have none of it. — Isaiah 30:15

You know the mathematician Blaise Pascal, he died at age 39, made all kinds of contributions to the realms of physics and mathematics. But one of my greatest appreciation is what he said about the spiritual life. He said this: "All of humanity's problems stem from a person's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

I think that's profound. I love that statement.

We don't know how to be still. We don't know how to be still in the presence of the Lord, in the midst of trouble, and stress, and trial. It's much more normal for us to run to hyperactivity or to despair. Why would we have none of it? Because we're allergic to being weak. We're allergic to coming to God in weakness and trusting his power to pull us through.

But I want to encourage you with the end of this story. You know what happens at the end of the story? Sennacherib, the Assyrian leader, after capturing all the rest of the cities of Judah, invades Egypt. And he sends his generals with a large army from there back up to Jerusalem to finish up the siege. Hezekiah was shut up like a bird in a cage—a city completely surrounded. Nothing could go in, nothing could go out. Hezekiah had a tunnel dug through solid rock many feet down in order to find water underground and create a well there for the people.

As the siege of Jerusalem wore on and the news came that no help was coming from Egypt, Shebna—remember the Secretary of State—he led the other nobles to abandon the city in order to save themselves. And as soon as they left the city, they were caught by the Assyrians, and ironically were the only people from Jerusalem to go to Assyrian captivity as a result of the siege.

But God, through the prophet Isaiah, told Hezekiah to wait. He himself would deliver the city. And this is what we read in Second Kings 19:

That night, the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. — 2 Kings 19

The city was never taken. And did you know, seven hundred years later, Jesus would—this is in John 7—go to that very same well that Hezekiah had dug so they could get through the siege. He showed up there on the greatest day of the feast, and he puts a pitcher down into some water and pours it out. And he says this:

If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. — John 7

Brothers and sisters, you may know those words very well, but that's not just an empty promise about God saving you from your sins and bringing you into his kingdom. That's an ongoing picture of what the Lord Jesus wants to do in your life—of bringing living waters up out of your life. He doesn't want to just give you salvation. He wants to give you himself, living water flowing in you.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word, where there's nothing like your word. Lord, thank you for this promise to us, the invitation to come in rest and trust and quietness. Father, turn away from self-saving strategies and from despair and turn again to the living God. Lord, we pray that we would believe these words, that we would take them into us. Father, we pray that we would become people who meditate, people who daily go to you and find strength and power that comes from your Spirit in us. And that living waters would overflow from our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.