Following the Lord’s Will
Elder Stephen Chong, 22/03/2009, 0920
This is his first time preaching in SEA Park this year. David Pawson is coming to minister to us on 13 Apr.
The theme for the month is maintaining spiritual health. The focus is to live an obedient life according to the will of God. The topic today is Following the Lord's Will.
Some people call Isaiah little Bible. There are 66 chapters, the same number of books in the Bible. Chapters 1 to 39 parallels Genesis in the discussion of sin and the consequences. The following chapters (up until chapter 45) are on the establishment of the nation. The book of Isaiah speaks of judgement but it also talks about hope. It describes God as a Holy God. The Holiness of God demands punishment of sin. God’s sovereignty is seen here when He used foreign nations to judge Israel. The message of Isaiah is to call Israel to be a holy nation. Israel has enjoyed the blessings of God and yet they fell away from God.
Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel. And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.
(Isa 29:1-3)
Ariel refers to Jerusalem. God’s judgment is imminent.
But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,
(Isa 29:5)
Why did God want to judge a city?
And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
(Isa 29:13)
Because their worship was false!
1. Avoid false worship
Jerusalem was to be the centre of worship. Everyone came to Jerusalem bringing their sacrifices to offer to God. The people came to worship but they did not live a life according to God’s will. They were unjust and unrighteous. They did not believe God to deliver them. False worship is to live outside God’s will and it causes a person to become spiritually insensitive to the Word of God. It’s a hypocritical life.
And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, "Read this," he says, "I cannot, for it is sealed."
(Isa 29:11)
This verse reveals those who are numb and could not read the Word of God. Jesus told the woman at the well that a time would come when the people would worship in spirit and in truth. That simply means worship with integrity and purity. Linda in her testimony shared that true worship is to be obedient. It is doing what God lives. Worship is not to be an empty ritual.
The Word Ariel represents an altar.
We are burned in the stock market and the workplace. Don’t be burned by God. Don’t wait for God to discipline us but rather offer ourselves as living sacrifice.
And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, "Read this," he says, "I cannot, for it is sealed." (Isa 29:11)
2. Acknowledge God’s Sovereignty
Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, "Who sees us? Who knows us?" You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"?
(Isa 29:15-16)
King Hezekiah trusted the Lord. But the leaders were afraid. Assyrians were cruel. When they entered a city, they skinned people. The war strategy involved inculcating fear. The leaders in Jerusalem wanted to form an alliance with Egypt. They did not think God is strong enough to defend them. God is so small in their eyes. They also thought God did not know. They did not recognize the sovereignty of God and His presence in their life. This is caused by false worship. “Who can see us” (v15)
The Word potter in v16 shows that God is the creator and the giver of life. Isa 6:1 to 4 reveals God to be sovereign and full of glory and the angels cried Holy. Isaiah had a vision of God which seated on the throne.
In Genesis, we read the story of Hagar. She was pregnant with Abraham’s child but she was mistreated by Sarai and she ran away. In her misery felling bereft and forgotten, God saved her. Hagar recognized that God saw her in her difficulty. God comforted her.
So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." (Gen 16:13)
3. Ask for His guidance
"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.
(Isa 30:1-3)
The leaders wanted to form an alliance with Egypt. God called them rebellious children. Egypt’s help is tangible to them. To trust is God requires faith. That is intangible. They decide to seek help from a tangible source. When we face problems do we look for tangible help or do we seek God in prayers? There is nothing wrong to ask pastors to pray along with us. Pastors, elders and deacons do not have a secret path to God. We all know the same thing. As children of God, each of us have a direct access to God.
Note that even God called them obstinate and rebellious, God still called them children. Sometimes the battle is not tangible. It is physical. Only God can help us in this case. God used the Assyrians and later on Babylonians to discipline His people. There came a point when God would defeat the Assyrians. It was not by sword or human power.
Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited.
(Isa 31:8)
In the song of Deborah in Judges, God caused rain to fall to make the iron chariots of Israel’s enemy to be trapped in mud.
God can make a way when there seems to be no way. Seek His guidance.
4. Act on His will We Trust
For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand [shall flee] at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill. And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD [is] a God of judgment: blessed [are] all they that wait for him.
(Isa 30:15-18)
The only way to return to God is the return (repent) and rest (don’t struggle) as mentioned in v15. There are three things to do here, to repent, to rest in Him (to cast all our cares upon Him) and put our trust in God.
A simple definition of trust:
To trust someone is to voluntarily make yourself dependent on that person for some outcome or other, or for the result or consequences.
It is a decision / choice we have to make.
God allows us to go through difficulties but we also trust that He will see us through.
When we see enemies as strong as the Assyrians and there is nothing we could do, we depend on God.
God message ends in v18. Blessed are all who wait for Him.
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