Dan Herold | Isaiah 8:19-19:4 | 1/22/2017
When you buy that new piece of furniture or toy for your children and it says on the box, “some assembly required,” how do you start the assembly process? If you said, “read the directions,” try again and be honest this time. We like to dig into that package, lay out all the pieces, find that little bag with all the hardware in it that’s wrapped in 10 layers of tape, and then when that’s all done we are left with that mysterious booklet that comes in those sort of packages. In big letters it says “Instructions,” across the top and is printed in at least 5 different languages so that just about anyone would be able to read the information contained in that booklet. Then we promptly grasp that booklet in our hands, and we toss it to the side near the other pieces destined for the trashcan.
Does that sound familiar? That’s how I learned how to assemble things like that growing up. From time to time, though, we hit roadblocks. Pieces don’t fit together how we think they should. A screw isn’t long enough for where we think it should go. Then what? Then, and only then, we hang our heads and go search for those instructions we threw in the trash pile.
That doesn’t just happen putting things together, it happens in everyday life too. There is a book of instructions for life, but it also is usually the last place we look for help. The last several Sundays we’ve been talking about how God reveals himself to us. We talked about what God the Father tells us about his Son, Jesus. We talked about Jesus and what he tells us about himself. Today, we are going to see that God tells us where to find all the things he reveals about himself and about this world he has created. Today in our lesson from Isaiah we are going to learn how to find the answers we are searching for.
The reason we need to hear this lesson is because we tend to look for answers in the wrong places. We like to put a lot of trust in our own intelligence and sometimes our trust in ourselves blinds us from seeing how foolish we are acting. That’s what makes Satan such a fierce enemy. He deals in lies and tricks and as soon as you buy into his first lie that makes it easier for him to sell his second lie and so on. Unless the pattern is broken Satan and sin build up these walls of lies around us that are so high and so thick that it gets very difficult to see anything other than the lies and tricks.
Now, there are many ways that plays itself out practically speaking, but Isaiah addresses one way which was common at his time and still is around today. In 8:19 Isaiah wrote,
“When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?”
We’ve talked before about how by nature our minds don’t like the unknown so we try to find answers for questions we have. A temptation when you are looking for answers is to seek the advice of a person that claims to have special knowledge you don’t have. In this case, Isaiah is talking about fortune tellers—psychics, card readers, horoscopes, and all those sorts of things.
All of those sorts of people claim to be able to tell you what the future will hold or they claim that they can give you important advice for your life. Well, it just so happens that there is someone else who claims that he can tell you about the future and give you advice for your life as well. This someone else, though, speaks with much more authority and clarity than any fortune teller could ever hope to speak. This someone else is God! He has promised to give us guidance and advice for our lives and he has also given us sure promises for our future.
Knowing even just the basics about life and death logically make seeking the help of a psychic or fortune teller makes very little sense. Earthly death is permanent—there’s no crossing back and forth between life and death (at least until Jesus returns). So, why do we try to ask questions of those who are unable to answer? Isaiah says it makes no sense! If we are alive then we ought to ask for help from someone living—from God.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Well, I read the horoscope page in the newspaper for fun sometimes, and sometimes I think fortune cookies are pretty funny, but I’ve never called the psychic hotline or went to tarot card reader! I must be doing alright.” And it certainly is to your credit to not put your trust in those things, but is God’s word the first place you turn for help or is it a last resort? When you face uncertainty or a difficult decision is your Bible the first place you look for answers or is it like that instruction manual you have to go dig out of the trash pile? I have to admit that sometimes I feel a little ashamed that the binding in my Bible is still holding together so well.
Isaiah isn’t just warning us against the dangers of the occult. That’s a component of his message, but he is warning us against the basic sinful desire to look anywhere other than to God for the things that only God can give. Isaiah’s book was originally addressed to a nation of people who were doing just that. Isaiah wrote to the Israelites right before they were taken into captivity as punishment for their sins. He was writing to people who were angry, frustrated, and confused. They had brought that condition on themselves because they had thrown away the instructions—they ignored the way in which God revealed himself and his answers and they were looking for answers where there were none.
This is what Isaiah says awaits anyone who doesn’t seek God’s answers. He says,
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“Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.”
Doesn’t sound very cheerful, does it? But, you know it to be true. Whether you have experienced it yourself or seen others go through this torment, this is exactly the result of not going to God for what only God can give.
When that wall of lies and tricks is being built around you it’s like you are hungry. You’re hungry for something pure and true and you just can’t seem to find it. After a while that hunger grows and grows and you start to get frustrated. Eventually you get so frustrated that you get angry. But the thing is, it is nobody’s fault but your own. It isn’t God’s fault, it isn’t the world’s fault, and it isn’t Satan’s fault. It is our fault. A life apart from God is best described as a downward spiral. It keeps getting worse and worse—darker and darker—and we do it to ourselves simply by not turning to God’s word.
Isaiah says that is the solution—the way to avoid that self-inflicted downward spiral.
“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.”
The only way to escape the darkness of sin is God’s light. Isaiah says to turn to where God reveals himself to find that light—to the law and to the testimony…God’s written word.
Isaiah points us to God’s written word because that’s where we hear about the one who brings us light and life. In God’s word we hear about the one who breaks the darkness and rescues us. We hear about our Savior who walks alongside us in all of our troubles and promises to bring us safely to heaven.
Isaiah wrote,
“There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress… The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.”
If you had two paths laid out before you, one leading to peace and joy the other leading to a life of frustration and anger, which would you choose? The choice seems obvious, but sin clouds our judgment and tricks us into pursuing the path that leads to frustration and self-destruction. We need something to break that pattern. We need to be made to see the truth. We need to hear the prophet Isaiah, and all of God’s representatives as well, preach the Law and tell us the truth about Satan’s lies. When we are on that downward spiral of sin we need to hear about it! Then, we need to hear the only solution which exists—God’s solution—which is Jesus, our Savior.
God doesn’t hide from his people. In fact he’s pretty easy to find. He has revealed himself to us and the surefire place to look for what God as revealed is in his word—the Bible. That’s the place where we can go to find the comfort and guidance that we long for. If we look anywhere else it is only going to frustrate us. Look to God alone for the things which only God can give.
That seems like a simple idea, but it takes a daily and lifelong battle to put it into practice. When you find yourself feeling like you have nowhere to turn to remember Isaiah’s urgent instructions.
“To the Law and to the testimony!”
That is where you will find your light and your life.
AMEN.