Word of Salvation – January 2025
Consulting God
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Isaiah 8:16-20 & W.C.F. 1:1
Reading: Isaiah 8:5-22, Westminster Confession – art.1:1
Singing: BoW.138 With all my heart I thank You Lord
– BoW.374 A mighty fortress is our God
– BoW.203 Lord, Your word shall guide us
– BoW.072a Jesus shall reign where e’re the sun [1,2,5]
Theme: Consulting (the Word of) God is the only revelation bringing light in a time of God-forsaken darkness.
Introd: Most people would agree that our world is not just imperfect… it’s much worse than that.
In the Ukraine War more than 11,000 are estimated to have been killed – the total casualties 70,000.
We remember the mayhem of the Westfield stabbings in Bondi in April 2024.
And just when we think it’s over there is another senseless school shooting in the US..
Events like that make us particularly aware of the depth of our problems.
Our world is not just imperfect… it’s perverse… it’s bad through and through.
If you doubt that then just consider some of the more “normal” issues of daily life.
It is estimated that Australia now aborts nearly 100,000 babies every year.
Our drug related crimes have now reached more than 52k p.a. (1000 p.w.).
And we’ve all seen Australia’s problems with youth crime in our daily news reports..
So how do we bring about improvement?
What kind of medicine is needed to heal a deadly sick world?
There are plenty of suggested solutions… one suggests this, another something else.
And sometimes we really do see just a little improvement here and there.
But more often than not we are really only dealing with the symptoms of the disease.
And we never really seem to get to the heart of the disease itself.
The prophet Isaiah saw that very clearly during a traumatic period in Israel and Judah’s history.
They faced the real threat of terrorism from Syria, their northern neighbour (nothing new!).
Israel and Judah themselves were nations unravelling at the seams.
Bloodshed and violence were daily problems… injustice was rife.
But Isaiah sees clearly that the source of all this misery is the abandonment of God’s Word.
A] THE BINDING AND SEALING OF GOD’S REVELATION.
- Our text is part of God’s speech to the prophet about their problems.
In vss.11 & 12 God called Isaiah not to evaluate things the way the people do.
Not to call conspiracy what they call conspiracy and not to fear what they fear.
God has a different perspective on life’s problems than the nation at large does.
And then God concludes these words to Isaiah with a surprising message in vs.16.
Bind up the testimony; seal up the teaching among my disciples.
God calls for His message… His testimony… to be tied up and for His law to be sealed away.
God’s Word… His instruction and His message are going to be severely restricted.
It will be limited to those whom the Lord considers His special disciples.
What the Lord is doing here is removing His Word from among the nation of Israel.
Judah will no longer have open access to communication from God.
It will no longer be possible for people to consult God.
Not by checking out what is written in the Law of God;
Nor by asking advice from God through the testimony of His prophets.
That is a very serious message that Isaiah hears directly from the mouth of God.
God actually withdraws from His people.
Isaiah speaks of “God hiding His face from the house of Jacob”.
God – who always promised to be with His people – steps back.
That’s how serious things have become in Israel.
A people so far off track that God takes away His Word and hides His face.
- This is quite clearly an act of God’s judgment.
It’s a judgment on a nation that has not honoured its side of the bargain.
These people have broken the covenant with their God.
This nation has turned its back on God and His Word.
This is not the only place where we read of God taking His Word away from His people.
There are a number of references to that in Scripture. Turn, please to Amos 8.
Because there is a very telling instance in the Prophecies of Amos.
Amos was a contemporary of Isaiah… so he’s probably speaking about the same situation.
In Amos 8 we have some strong imagery about God withdrawing His Word from His people.
<<< Read Amos 8:11 >>>
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro,
seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.
I find it interesting how the Lord so often makes the punishment fit the crime.
Here the nation turns away from the Word of God.
And God punishes them by removing the Word from their midst.
Or to put it another way: God gives them exactly what they want.
They’ve lost all interest in the Word of the Lord… they don’t want God’s Word.
So God removes His Word so that they can no longer even find it.
We have a saying: “If you don’t use it you’ll lose it”. We apply that to all sorts of situations.
People with a physical disability have to keep using their muscles else they waste away.
When we learn a new language we have to keep it up or we will soon forget it.
But that saying: “If you don’t use it you will lose it” takes on a whole new meaning here.
They don’t use the Word of God so they lose it. That’s a warning for us.
It happens to individuals who neglect the Word… it even happens to churches.
The Word of God is neglected… and eventually God takes it away altogether.
- So where does that leave God’s people here in Isaiah 8? Has God totally removed Himself from them?
No… not quite! We know that God’s communication is not limited to speaking in words.
Paul said that people are without excuse because we know God from nature.
The Westminster Confession puts it this way:
”…the works of creation and providence so clearly show God’s goodness, wisdom and power
that human beings have no excuse for not believing in Him.
But God does even more than that here at the time of Isaiah.
He not only speaks with the silent voice of creation.
Because while that’s enough to tell folk about God it cannot tell them about God’s saving love.
So God also leaves a special witness to His grace and goodness.
And that is through the person of Isaiah and through his family.
In vs.18 the prophet says: Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me.
And then he very significantly adds:
We are signs and symbols (wonders) in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mt Zion.
God leaves himself a witness to His grace and love.
Isaiah and his sons are signs to the people of Israel. Their very names speak of God’s love.
Isaiah – that means: salvation is from Yahweh.
Shearjashub (7:3) is his firstborn son – his name means “a remnant will return” (from exile).
Maher-Shalal… (8:1) is his other son – his name spells out judgment on Judah’s enemies.
God reveals His grace in a number of different ways… also in the names of Isaiah and his sons.
B] THE ALTERNATIVE ANSWERS THAT PEOPLE SEEK.
- Our text gives us some good insights into the state of the nation.
The situation is typical of people who turn away from God and His Word.
- K. Chesterton once pointed out:
When people stop believing in God it’s not that they then believe in nothing.
Rather, they will then believe in anything. And we see that this is so true today.
In Isaiah’s day people very clearly move from faith to superstition.
Move away from the God of the Bible… and then anything goes.
So instead of these people consulting their God they consult the mediums and the spiritists.
That’s the trendy thing to do in a culture that has turned away from God.
In that sense there is nothing new about New Age spirituality.
They already had New Age spirituality in the days of Isaiah.
So Isaiah mentions those who encourage Israel in that direction.
He warns about the situation…
When they say to you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter.
That was the trendy thing to do in Isaiah’s days.
Have you got some personal issues and problems you want an answer for?
Go to the psychics… consult the fortune-tellers.
Isaiah could have been talking about Australia in 2024 couldn’t he?
Are you anxious and worried?
Go to the local markets and sit down with a Tarot Card reader.
Are you struggling with relationships?
Phone one of the psychics who advertise in the Personal columns of the local paper.
Do you struggle with a difficult decision?
Read the horoscopes in any of a dozen different magazines in the Newsagents.
- In our text there are two telling condemnations of this practice.
First we read that these mediums and spiritists (necromancers) “whisper and mutter”.
That’s a stinging condemnation of the psychics and fortune tellers.
Isaiah speaks of these mediums as people who whisper.
The Hebrew word literally means the sound of bird noises.
These mediums chirp and chatter like sparrows.
IOW they focus on trivialities. Who listens to the noise of chirping sparrows?
It’s a lot of meaningless chatter that they dish up.
And whenever I’ve read the horoscopes I find that a good description:
A lot of twitter… much ado about nothing…. trivialities.
And when you’ve read one days’ worth you’ve read the lot.
Isaiah also speaks of these psychics as people who mutter.
And you can just about imagine some psychic muttering away in his beard.
These mediums are like people who don’t speak clear good sense.
IOW the advice they give is vague and indecisive.
And isn’t that so true? The horoscopes are deliberately vague.
To be at all meaningful you have to read stuff into them.
Mediums who claim to consult the dead are vague and leave you to jump to conclusions.
You can read into it a whole range of things that might apply to you.
So why should people consult these so called experts who chirp and mutter?
- Secondly – Isaiah challenges this practice as absurd for another reason.
And here he particularly thinks of spiritists and mediums who consult the dead.
He suggests that it is absurd to consult the dead on behalf of the living.
Of course mediums and spiritists – including those we see on the telly…
try to give the impression that the dead are in the know…
that the dead can give us helpful advice that is really relevant.
But that is absurd. They are no longer in the land of the living.
They are removed from the realm in which we live and move and have our being.
They don’t know the issues you are struggling with today.
They are ignorant of the complexities of your circumstances.
So why on earth would anyone want to consult the dead on behalf of the living?
That is also an immense insult to the living God who wants to be consulted.
It is an affront to the God who gave us the Law of Moses.
It is a scandal to the God who gave us the testimony of the prophets.
He, is the Almighty and the all-knowing… He is all-wise and everywhere present.
And yet superstitious human beings bypass God and consult the dead on behalf of the living.
That happened often in Bible times.
Think of King Saul consulting the Witch of Endor.
The shock there was – that God really did send Samuel back with a message for the king.
A much later king, Manasseh, also consulted the mediums.
Today there are still people who want to consult the dead on behalf of the living. (séances!)
The popularity of the psychic columns in the glossy magazines are evidence enough.
They do a roaring trade… just send them your details – complete with credit card number.
(I’m always tempted to call them and tell them they should know my credit card details.)
C] WHY WE NEED THE WISDOM OF THE WORD OF GOD.
- In some ways this is a Bible passage with a number of fairly cryptic sayings and slogans.
Bind up the testimony and seal up the law.
That’s God’s slogan over against the slogan of the people: Consult the mediums and the psychics.
But the most important slogan is the concluding one in vs.20.
To the law (the teachings) and to the testimony…!
Here is God’s call for them to return to Him:
Should not a people consult their God?
Isn’t He the One who has the ultimate answers?
The answers God has for us are not about trivialities. His is not the empty chatter of sparrows.
When we consult God He tells us about eternal matters… about gospel matters.
He advises us on life and death issues that have everlasting consequences.
The answers He has for us are not muttered… there is nothing vague and indefinite about it.
When we consult God He lays it on the line as it really is… He is confronting.
He calls us to repent of our sins and to turn to Jesus in faith and obedience.
Should not a people consult their God?
Okay… but how do we consult God? How do we enquire of Him?
We do it by turning to the law (the torah, the teachings) and to the testimony.
Israel is challenged to consult God by means of the law given thru Moses.
They are called to enquire of God thru the testimony given via the prophets.
- The Lord spells out that this is the standard that all else is to be measured by.
If people are consulted and they don’t speak by that standard then their advice is useless.
Whatever does not conform to the law and the testimony will not remedy society’s problems.
So Judah and Israel are being called back to the Word of God.
The unspoken Word of God in creation is not enough.
The signs and symbols that Isaiah and His sons were in Israel were not enough.
They had to return to what God had spelled out in the law of Moses.
And to what God had to say through the testimony of His servants the prophets.
That was how Israel was to consult its God.
Today nothing has really changed.
The Westminster Confession tells us that we still consult God in the same way.
God communicated through Moses and through the prophets.
Afterwards it pleased God to put his entire revelation into writing
so that the truth might be better preserved and transmitted.
We have God’s Law and God’s Testimony in the pages of the Bible.
Do you see why the Confession concludes by saying: Holy Scripture is absolutely essential.
That’s why Isaiah gives this stinging condemnation in vs.20.
Whatever claimed revelation or advice or insight there may be…
If it does not measure up to God’s Word it will not shed real light on our problems.
If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
- Let me apply all this to the problem I began with – our crazy mixed up world.
In our text the context is Judah under the hammer of the Syrians.
In fact Judah’s brother nation, Israel, is siding with Syria… and against Judah.
Chapter 7:2 spells it out: Israel (called Ephraim) has allied itself with Syria (also called Aram).
On top of that threat of the terror of war they are a nation in disarray.
All because they have turned away from the Word of God.
We today live in a country that wants less and less to do with God’s Word.
More and more the Christian faith is being sidelined in the public arena.
Our nation is turning further and further from its Christian roots.
We live in a world that has little time for God and His Word.
The Westminster Confession is frightfully up to date.
The church is confronted with the corruption of the flesh (meaning our sinful nature)
and the evil purposes of Satan and the world…!
So where do we go for our comfort and for some answers to our problems?
Sadly, the last few verses of Isaiah 8 shows that in Judah the misery will stay (vss.21,22).
The problems will go from bad to worse till these people curse their God and their king.
Because they still decline to consult their God in the Law and the Testimony.
And that’s how it will be for our nation… and for our world.
When God’s Word is effectively removed from society things go from bad to worse.
Today I don’t want to be pessimistic. Isaiah isn’t either.
Because this Bible passage leads into one of the most beautiful promises in Isaiah.
The promise of the coming of the Word made flesh (9:6).
For to us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…!
That is the gospel message of Jesus.
And wherever that message is proclaimed… that’s where the light dawns.
Let’s point people to Jesus so that those who walk in darkness will see the great light.
And so that through Him they will turn back to the law and the testimony.
Amen