Isaiah Part XXX – Michael Bunker Commentary

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CHAPTER 30

Chapter 30 of Isaiah is a continuing exposition of God’s judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, with an explanation of the manifold sins and transgressions that brought such severe judgment from God.  While the prophecy specifically and typically speaks of the invasion of Judah by the Assyrian army, we will see that spiritually the anti-typical fulfillment of the judgment coming upon the professing Church is in view.  Whereas the last chapter gave us word-pictures of God’s judgment falling upon the Church, in this chapter we see the overall case that is brought against the professing Church, and the promise to the very few elect remnant who will spiritually survive and be held up throughout this judgment.

Verses 1-3 - Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion; The nation of Judah, claiming to be the children of God, had forsaken God in ways that most people do not consider.  While these were religious men and women, who had the form of right religion in their everyday lives - they went to Church, sacrificed according to the law, prayed, kept the Lord’s Sabbath, etc. –, they had absolutely forsaken the God of Israel and did not know it.

Egypt is here given as a type of the world cultural and economic system.  Egypt is the world.  The rebellious children were taking counsel, not of God, but of the world.  Now, this is the most rampant and ubiquitous sin chargeable against professing Christians today.  Not one in 10,000 can be said to not take counsel from the world.  Most “christians” today educated their own families in the world’s schools, and absolutely intend to send their own children to the world’s colleges.  Cultural, social and economic advice is taken from the world, and the world system.  So-called “christian” psychologists hand out worldly and New Age advice on so-called “christian” radio stations.  Every manner of living is by the counsel of the world, and not by the counsel of God.  God’s counsel is universally rejected as “un-doable” or impractical today.  The professing Church today walks down to Egypt rather than take counsel from the mouth and Word of God. Their rule is their flesh; their defense is the world.  They care not for the ways of God.  This was the condition of the inhabitants of physical Jerusalem.  Therefore, saith the Lord, the strength and power and defense provided by the world will be your shame.  The trust you have placed in the world and the world system, will be your confusion.  The judgment of God is promised, in these chapters, to those who have made the world system their strength, who refuse Godly counsel and who rely on sight rather than Spirit.  You cannot say that you love God while every single aspect of your life is ruled by your flesh according to the rudiments of the world.  Listen to me if you have ears to hear:

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).

The word “rudiments” used here means “the principles of the world”, and even included, at the time, the carnal sacrificial system of religion that was not spiritual at all, but was physical and typical.  The world’s Christianity is based in worldly philosophy and worldly religious traditions.  It is the world’s way of doing things that spoils man.  The world’s philosophies and ways of thinking are the downfall of the professing Christian.  Paul says here in Colossians that a professing Christian can be spoiled through listening to the world’s way of doing things.  The word “spoiled” here means to be lead away as a prize or as booty by an enemy.  It is a mistake to think you are safe in Christ while the very Apostle of Grace claims that you are at risk of being led away by the enemy.  So long as you are operating according to the principles and philosophies of the world, then you are guilty of seeking counsel and defense from the world.  You are precisely in the position of those in Jerusalem who made covenant with Egypt for counsel, protection, and survival.  In the day that God judges Jerusalem, most of her citizenry will feel that they have served God and have kept God’s laws and ways – not knowing that all along they have been the servants and children of Egypt.

Verses 4-5 - For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach; The princes and ambassadors of Egypt met with the ambassadors of Judah in discussions of an alliance.  The Egyptians were not willing to help Jerusalem against the invading Assyrian.  Jerusalem, in seeking assistance and protection from the world, found that the world could not ally itself with God’s people against God’s enemies.  It is folly to seek the world’s help against God’s enemies, since the world is at enmity with God.  The princes and ambassadors of the Church are the prophets, teachers, preachers and even the people themselves.  Those who have sought protection and comfort in the world, and who have rejected the counsel of God concerning separatism and holiness, will be confounded when they find that the world is ashamed of them, and that the world finds it to be unprofitable to assist them.  The world hates the Church and hates God’s people, but those who profess Christianity continue to live on in the world and according to the rudiments of the world as if they can trust the world to save them in the Day of Judgment.

Verses 6-7 - The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them. For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still; This is the prophecy concerning those who are in the world and who seek after Egypt for protection.  They have laden beasts with their wealth to send it unto Egypt for protection; not realizing that from Egypt are derived the very beasts that seek to consume them as a people.  The religious worldling hides his money in the world’s banks and the world’s markets, and seeks insurance from the world – as if it were not the very same world that hates them and seeks to lead them astray and devour them.  Modern so-called “christians” do not recognize or heed that the world must hate them and despitefully use them, and they feel comfortable utilizing the world’s systems of protection while neglecting the counsel of God.  The help of the Egyptians shall be in vain, and will serve no purpose.  God has cried to His people that it is best that they do nothing and sit in stillness rather than to seek to the world for comfort, aid, and defense.  The wealth of the nominal Christian is stored up in Egyptian bank vaults and in worthless paper, where it will never profit the one who seeks defense and protection therein.

Verses 8-11 - Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us; This people, in seeking to God’s enemies for strength and counsel, do show themselves to be a rebellious people.  Isaiah will write the Word of God down in this book, so that it will be kept forever, and so that it will be a testimony against the so-called “christian”; used against him at his trial at the final judgment throne of God, in order that those who will not hear the law of the Lord, and who will not hear true prophesy from His servants, will have certain and fiery judgment come upon them.  The professing Church will hear the tickling tales of modernist prophets who promise them rapture, riches and heaven, but they will not hear from God’s true prophets who do not speak smooth things, and who do not prophesy deceits.  This is the message of today from God to the people who claim to be His.  If you seek a message that is peaceable and smooth and that fits into your comfort zone, then you are the one judged in these passages.  If you cannot begin your exodus from the world because you are too entrapped in it, then you are called here a “lying” child who will not hear the law of the Lord.  Hundreds upon hundreds separate from any teacher who will not prophesy unto them smooth things.  They create their own rationalizations and reasoning, and complain that God would only have them “spiritually” separate from harlotry, but that He cannot expect them to actually physically be separate.  They say to the seers, “see not, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits”.  These are the same ones who abandon a Godly ministry, concocting reasons that cannot be substantiated, only to satiate a bruised conscience.  They say to the prophet: “Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us”.   Now these people will not admit as much with their lips, but their hearts do tell the tale.  Just as they were said to have lips and tongues that were close to God, while their hearts were far from Him – their hearts and actions do expose the lies that come from their lips.

Verses 12-15 - Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit. 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; Despising the word of God’s prophets is the harbinger of sure doom.  Those who remain in covenant with the world do trust in oppression and perverseness.  They are said to “stay thereon”, which is to say that their foundation and stability is based on the oppression and perverseness of the world.  How much more of a conviction against modern Christianity can there be?  Who can look upon the modernist professing “christian” and say that they are stayed on anything but the promises and principles of the world?  Only the most profound and expert liar can defend the corporate Church of today, and most of the individuals calling themselves Christians against this damning charge.  The sin of resting on the world is compared to a breach in a high wall of defense, which swells out and is ready to collapse.  The collapse of that false defense will come in an instant, when it is most dreadfully needed.  The whole structure will be useless for its purpose, as if a potter’s vessel were shattered and no piece was left that was useful even for the most necessary and minor of tasks.  God has promised that those who will return to Him (to return to Him is to exit the world system and be set apart) will be the saved.  In separation and faith we who are separate may rest on Him and be satisfied with His providence and sovereignty over our future.  We who claim to believe in His overall providence and sovereignty have been called to come out from the world, to separate from the principles of the world system, and to rest fully on Him.  We are quiet and peaceful under His benevolent reign, and we accept His decisions concerning us peacefully and without complaint, and in doing so, we show ourselves to be the saved and regenerated of God.  So many millions among the professing Church (and even among those who believe themselves to have come out from the apostate Church system) believe themselves to be God’s children, while their hearts (evidenced by their desires and actions) prove them to be the children of Egypt.  They rest on Egypt alone for their salvation and protection, while convinced in their minds and hearts that they belong to God.  In separation and reliance upon God alone, they were promised rest, but they would not.

Verses 16-17 - 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; Jerusalem has refused God’s gracious offer of rest.  Instead they have convinced themselves that they will have safety in the day of trouble.  They will flee upon horses if needs be, in order to outdistance their attackers.  Therefore God has promised that the enemy will be swift and will pursue the deceived of Jerusalem and destroy them.  The promise of God in Leviticus will be reversed.  In Leviticus God promises His faithful:

“And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. Leviticus” (Lev. 26:7-8).

How sad is it that God, who promised to make the enemies of His children fly from their faces, now promises that they will fly in like manner from the face of their enemies?  Where God had once promised that 5 of His elect will put a hundred to flight, He now promises that 5 of the enemy will put 100 children of Jerusalem to flight.  Whereas the promise was that 1000 of the enemy would flee at the rebuke of one, now the reverse is promised – to the eternal shame of those who claim the name of God.

And this is the curse that has gone out over the professing Church, who are warned through the typology of Judah and Jerusalem that their pride and rebellion cannot stand.  God is the judge of all matters concerning the heart; the heart stayed on the world will not stand in the Day of Judgment, for its strength is in untrustworthy Egypt, and it has refused the counsel of the Almighty.

The remainder of this chapter contains a promise to the few elect who are still in Jerusalem; the seven-thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal, and who are separated unto God from the world (Romans 11:4).  We see the hint of this elect in the second half of the 17^th verse here in Isaiah 30, till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill; So few will survive this invasion of apostasy and cowardice that they will be as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, or an ensign on a hill.  The terminology here is a word picture of the warning signs left after a vicious army has passed through.  The elect will be alone and solitary like a signpost left in the wilderness or upon a mountain to warn those who do not heed the words of God.  This prophecy is so profound that God relates to us the warning within the warning.  The verse here promises that the fulfillment of the typology (of the several destructions of Jerusalem) will be designed so that God can hide ensigns (or signs) of His promise as warnings to the Church of the last days.  The destructions and apostasy of the invasions of false doctrine and false ideas in the “church” have been so devastating and complete, that there be very few elect left in the land – who stand as ensigns or beacons to serve as rallying points for the elect, and warnings to all those who similarly go down to destruction.  The final Roman invasion of the Church rages around us, but it seems that so many are so spiritually blind and deceived by the world that they cannot see what is in front of them.  Truly the elect will be as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill – proof to the world of their separate status and converted state.  This four chapter book of warning to the Church of the end times will culminate with the promise of the Messiah who will deliver His elect; but no promise of deliverance is made to those who rely on Egypt, and who refuse to hear the call of separation when it is plainly delivered unto them.  In the second half of this great chapter, we will read the beautiful promises made to the truly separated, elect of God… promises that are made specifically to the Church in our own age.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

 
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