BaptistWay Bible Series for May 13: Misplaced trust

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Fleeing in the face of overwhelming pressure is a common choice people make. Judah, like people today, frequently faced overwhelming pressures it had no strength or resources to resist. The recurrent choice was to flee to Egypt.

From God’s point of view, however, there were two problems. First, the people were not relying on God’s strength to answer their overwhelming situations. Second, God delivered his people from Egypt. Therefore, he rejected any asylum in or dependence upon Egypt.

This lesson focuses on the spiritual error of misplacing trust in the face of overwhelming pressures. The stress caused by overwhelming pressures often causes people to seek worldly solutions for relief. God, however, uses such moments to win his people’s trust.

John wrote, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). John spoke of “them,” the deceptive voices of the world. God is greater than the forces of the world. He consistently has destroyed oppressive powers like Egypt, Assyria, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein. He also can handle any overwhelming issue in any person’s life.

Verses 1-5 deliver a woe to the people of Judah who, acting like children, fashioned their own escape from the approaching Assyrians. Judah’s attention turned to Egypt, the fearless and mighty superpower that had never faced significant defeat. Judah desired alliance with Egypt (v. 1) and even safe haven (v. 2) there.

The unrealized secondary problem was that Egypt no longer was safe. Egypt was concerned with the ominous advance of Assyria. A series of military clashes over several years drew Assyria into the Promised Land and later into Egypt. Never in history had a Mesopotamian power conquered Egypt, so Isaiah’s day Judah felt secure in trusting Egypt for protection.

The primary problem was that God refused to allow Judah to turn to Egypt for help. Throughout the Old Testament, God reminded his people that he powerfully delivered them from Egypt. He meant for them to stay delivered. Therefore he refused to let them return to Egypt. Jeremiah 42:19 most plainly states this point. Ezekiel 29:3 further states, “I am against you, Pharaoh.”

In the century after Isaiah’s ministry, the world witnessed Egypt’s numerous defeats and permanent dismantling as a world power. It is not hard to understand that God broke Egypt’s power to keep his people from relying upon it. Thus, the shame and disgrace of relying on Egypt (v. 5) was fulfilled through Egypt’s destruction.

Verses 8-11 describe Judah’s obstinate (see v. 1) response to Isaiah’s message. Compare these verses to Isaiah 6:9-10. The people are described as rebellious, deceitful and unwilling to listen. Thus their ears become “dull” (Isaiah 6:10). The people do not want prophetic visions of righteousness. Thus they closed their eyes (Isaiah 6:10). They want no further confrontation about Israel’s Holy One. Thus their hearts become calloused (Isaiah 6:10)

The trouble approaching Judah is described in verses 12-14. The Holy One of Israel, from whom the people have turned, will allow Judah’s trifold wickedness (oppression, deceit, sin) to burst forth and destroy the nation. The destruction will be like a retaining wall completely shattered by the forces it sought to restrain.

This is the picture of sin’s accumulation in a person’s life: Eventually sin destroys. Jesus said in John 3:17 that he did not come to condemn but to save. John 3:18 adds the point behind these verses in Isaiah: Sin condemns, thus destroys, but God desires to save his people from destruction. If God does not step into the picture, people would be destroyed by their own sin.

God’s answer for the devastation of sinfulness in proclaimed in verses 15-18. The Lord, again described as the Holy One, that is, the one Judah ignores (see v. 11), offers Judah salvation. Repentance is turning from sin to God. Rest is not sleep, but ceasing to strive with God. Quietness is peace, or the lack of strife before God. Trust is the way of the repentant heart, that is, relying upon the Lord for life and provision.

Judah heard confrontation and condemnation, and thereby missed God’s offer of salvation. Instead, the wise action seemed to be to flee the coming trouble, but the trouble will overtake Judah’s swift transportation. Judah’s courage also will fail so that the merest threat by the enemy will result in mass hysteria. All that will remain are the flagstaffs that once stood at the center of a proud people. Those people were reduced by sinfulness to cowardice and unwise reliance upon a doomed earthly power. Such action is condemned again in Isaiah 31:1.

Verse 18 declares the Lord’s desire to be gracious to his people. The Lord’s blessing comes to those who wait for him. Waiting involves listening to the Lord’s full message, trusting in him, and allowing him room to work his salvation into the present circumstances.

Misplaced trust always devastates. The tragedy of misplaced trust is the insistence on following a doomed course. Secular examples abound, but spiritual examples rarely are recognized. God’s salvation is not the way of laborious and mindless adherence to an impersonal and mystical system. God’s salvation is the way of grace, mercy, forgiveness and rightness before God. Those who trust God for salvation experience rest, peace, strength for living and joy.