Seeking once more the help of
God I'd like you to turn with me to the chapter that we read
together, Isaiah chapter 30 and the text you'll find in verses
20 and 21. Though the Lord give you the
bread of adversity and the water of affliction, Yet shall not
thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine
eyes shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn
to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. A few weeks ago we were in Isaiah
then and we looked at the way in which the Lord works that
he himself may be magnified, his grace and his mercy may be
magnified. And we noticed that sometimes
on a clear night The stars shine brighter against the blackness
of the night. I use the illustration of those
who do cleaning products. and how they show you how dirty
the thing is before showing you how clean the cleaning product
is able to get that thing which was once dirty. And the Lord
reveals to us the extent of the depravity of the people of Israel
and then shows us how merciful and kind he is towards them. And it seems to be like a cycle
in the lives of the people of Israel. As we read through their
history, we see that there is this constant falling away, this
constant backsliding, this constant being drawn aside after other
gods and other ways of doing things away from the true and
living God. And although God has been so
gracious and kind to the people of Israel yet they are so easily
drawn away from him. And this is another account of
which the children of Israel turn their back upon God. Instead
of seeking him, instead of seeking his favour, his guidance, his
blessing, they go down to Egypt. and they ask for help from the
king of Egypt. They want a covering, they want
his protection, they want his help in battle. And the Lord gives them a woe
which is opposite to a blessing. Woe unto the rebellious children,
said 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. And they were really just like
us, just like believers. How often it is that we go in
a cycle of closeness to God and then we drift away or we come
into a lukewarm condition or we come into a cold condition. We begin to neglect counsel,
the counsel of God. We begin to neglect prayer, we
begin to neglect scriptural reading, we begin to neglect meditation
on the word and meditation upon God and Christ and we begin to
neglect godly company and we slowly drift off and we suddenly
find ourselves in an almost worldly condition. We almost find ourselves
so far drifted away from God that he seems unable to be grasped
again and it seems just like the children of Israel. they
were a rebellious people, they knew what they should do, they
knew where they should be going, who they should be looking to,
yet they went down to Egypt to ask for help from the ungodly
nation. Remember when Samuel was coming
to the end of his career or his life as a prophet, And the elders spoke to him and
said that we don't want your sons to rule over us as prophets. They're ungodly. They're not
like you anymore. We want a king to reign over us. We want to
be like the nations round about us and so set us up a king. And sometimes it's like that.
the people of God. We don't want to be different,
we don't want to be separate, we don't want to walk in the
ways of God, we want to be just like the people of the world. And as we read through the historical
accounts of the people of Israel, We see time and time again a
reflection of our own hearts, a reflection of our own nature,
our own behaviour. They were rebellious children.
They took counsel but not of the Lord. They wanted a covering
but not of the Spirit of God and they added sin unto sin. They walk to go down to Egypt
and they have not asked of my mouth. You see when you end up
in this spiral downward of lukewarmness and coldness certain things take
place. As you drift away from God certain
things manifest themselves. And one of them is a lack of
desire to know and to do God's will. A Christian, when they
are walking close with the Lord, has one desire. What is thy will
for me? Which way shall I go? Remember
the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. The Apostle Paul. What will thou
have me to do? And when we come into a backslidden
state we don't care what God wants us to do or not. We don't
ask counsel of him. We do what our thoughts or our
own will is and we begin to neglect and to neglect asking counsel of God
for the way in which he will have us to go. Just like these
children of Israel, they were not interested in the way that
God wanted them to go. They were not interested in standing
still and waiting for the appearing of the Lord. They were more interested
in having protection from Egypt. They were more interested in
having a great army that could assist them in the war against
the Assyrians that were around about them. But you see the battle
that they were in, it was a spiritual battle. It was the Lord who had
brought the Assyrians It was the Lord that had brought them
as a tool, as a rod of judgement and it would be no use for them
running down to Egypt because they would be fighting, as it
were, fighting against God himself. God had brought the Assyrians.
God was the one who was dealing with his people. God was using
the Assyrians as a rod of discipline. What was his desire? His desire
was that they would see their sin, see their shortcomings,
see their backslidden state, see their lukewarm condition.
But instead of seeing their own selves, they look for an easy
way out of the situation. Instead of waiting and crying
unto the Lord, they took could say like a bypass meadow. They wanted help from Egypt. And so God leaves them and lets them try their schemes. But he warns them that their
schemes will fail. But that doesn't stop them. And
so he lets them try every avenue that they can until at length
they have tried all avenues and then they try the Lord. How sad
it is, isn't it, that that seems to be the case in our lives. When trouble comes, we try all
avenues to bypass or to shortcut or to
skirt around the problems and the difficulties that come our
way. We try all other means to get
over the problem or to persevere through the problem. And last
of all we cry unto the Lord in our in
our trouble. We run off to Egypt to try and
get help there. We come up with schemes and thoughts
in our mind as to how we can deal with this problem and that
problem or that person and this person. And then when our schemes
have failed we say, oh, maybe I should go to the Lord. And so the Lord allows us to
exhaust our efforts until we come to nothing. The children
of Israel had to exhaust their efforts till they came to nothing. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble. If we look at this chapter, it is almost like the experience
of a Christian coming to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He sets first these earthly schemes
by which we try and satisfy ourselves in our sin. Egypt we know is
like a type of the world, the people of Israel were in chains,
in bonds, in slavery in Egypt and the Lord brought them out
and by our nature we are in the bonds and chains of Satan. Sin
and iniquity are our chains. We go down to Egypt We take counsel
there. We take our security there. But the Lord brings us out. He delivers us. Verse 7 says, the Egyptian shall
help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore have I cried concerning
this their strength is to sit still. There is no help there
in Egypt for the concerned soul. for the one who understands that
they're held in sin and in slavery. There is no help for them and
they seek for a better country. They cry out to the Lord and
they are delivered. They are brought to repentance
over their sin. Get out of the way, turn aside
out of the path and come to the Lord. Therefore this iniquity
shall be to you as a breach, ready to fall, swelling out in
a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly and at an instant. Verse 15 says, For thus saith
the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest
shall you be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength and you would not. And so he tells them of their
sin and their need to come back to him in quietness and in confidence
there to rest and to wait for the Lord. And he says that the
Lord will wait that he may be gracious unto them. Verse 20. And though the Lord
give you the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction,
Yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner anymore
but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. There is that restoration. As they were going down to Egypt
to find help and there is the coming out of Egypt, that realisation
that Egypt can't help. and the bread of adversity that
the Lord gives, that trouble and that difficulty, it is of
a benefit to them. It causes them to seek after
their teachers, the prophets, the prophets that they once rejected
and took no counsel from. The Lord brought them to difficulty
and hardship, an understanding of their sin and their inability to save themselves
and he causes them to return unto
the prophets, unto himself and to listen to those teachers that
they once despised, as they once held in a corner. We only have
to look at the way in which Jeremiah and Isaiah and the other prophets
were treated by the people of Israel, how they held them in
a corner. They said we don't want to listen
to you. We would rather have prophets
that itch our ears and tell us smooth things and deal with us
in a kind way. But when the Lord's discipline
works, when he gives them the bread of affliction, when he
gives them the waters of adversity and he causes them to seek after
that true way, They begin then to search after those that will
tell them the truth, those that will not speak to them lies,
those that will bring about clarity, not hidden away in a corner. They begin to see and they begin
to listen to God. He begins then with a woe unto
the rebellious people. Their ears were deaf to his counsel. Their eyes were blinded to his
leading and direction. Their ears were deaf to his word
and having that desire to wait for him. But then there is a
change that takes place. They see his teachers and they
begin to hear his counsel. One of the evidences that we
have been born again is that we have spiritual eyes that see. We see in the word a beauty that
we never saw before. The Word of God becomes alive
to us. It is a living Word to us. Listening to a testimony yesterday
and the young man said that the Word of God that was once closed
to him became a living Word to him. He could not get enough. the Word of God. His eyes had
been opened, it's like his soul that was once barren and dry
was now being watered by this living Word. And so the people
of Israel, they were blind, they were deaf, they were hard-hearted
to the true and living God, yet after the Lord dealt with them,
He gave them the bread of adversity and the water of affliction and
they sought out the teachers and began to look for them and
to take counsel of them and to listen to the word of the Lord. Their eyes were opened and their
ears were unstopped. They had a desire, a heart to
walk in the ways of the Lord. in Ezekiel. It tells us there of the vision
of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel is presented
by the Lord, a vision. And he sees before him a valley
filled with dry bones and those bones are very dry. And he is
asked the question, can these dry bones live? And the answer
is, thou knowest. As he looks at them, naturally
speaking, was an impossibility. A valley filled with dry bones
And then he's asked, can these live? The answer would be no. You see with God nothing shall
be called impossible. So he is told to prophesy over
these dry bones. He's told to speak the word of
the Lord and as he begins to preach and proclaim God says,
I will cause breath to enter in to you and you shall live
and I will lay sinews upon you and will bring upon flesh upon
you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall
live and you shall know that I am the Lord. And so he prophesies
and he speaks to these dry bones and they begin to come together
and become as a great army, the army of the children of Israel.
and God breathes and they become living. And so as the children
of Israel, although they're steeped in depravity and a hatred of
God and going down to Egypt and have no concern to listen to
God or to look for God or to know and to do the will of God,
Yet God, it is still stretched out in, his hand is still stretched
out in mercy and concern. And he is the one who is able
to restore those who have been brought into such a low condition. A valley of dry bones, very dry,
without life completely. Yet God, in his mercy, restores
them to a living army. And so he does even today. Although as we look
out round about us we don't see literal dry bones but we see
people who are dead in trespasses and sins. We see Christians who
have backslidden into a very dry and a very despairing condition
and there's still hope. There is still hope that God
is able to revive the backslidden, restore the backslidden. He is able to raise up those
who are dead in trespasses and sins by the power of his Holy
Spirit. No person can be so deprived
that they cannot be restored, so dead in trespasses and sins
that they cannot be saved. God will not lose any that he
gave to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he uses various means by
which to bring them back to himself. And then should it be like it
is here, the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
to cause them to seek after the word of God, to seek after the
Lord's messengers with his message. He will use it. But those who do seek after God, they seek
after God because their hearts have been changed. And what they desire to know is what is God's will for them.
in their lives. Often if you listen to a testimony
you will hear this repeated and repeated. I wanted to do the
right thing. I wanted to know the Lord's will. Is it God's will that I do this?
Is it God's will that I do that? And it's something that they
never had before. They weren't concerned about
God's will before. They only wanted to do their
own will. It was their life and for them
to do what they wanted to do with. But once their hearts have
been changed and they've been given a new nature, a new desire,
their concern was that they did God's will. And so it comes across
in their testimonies, show me now thy way, O Lord. I want to
do the right thing. I want to know what God wants
me to do. Where does he want me to go? Who does he want me
to be with? And it is the same here with
the people of Israel. They went down to Egypt doing
their own thing. As the Lord dealt with them as
individuals, There was that desire to hear and to know what the
Lord wanted them to do. One evidence that you have been
born again is that you want to please God. is that you want
to know what way the Lord wants you to go and then you want to
act upon that knowledge so that your life is pleasing to God. No true Christian, no true born
again person wants to walk in a way that is contrary to the
will of God. There are obvious wills of God
that are laid out in the scriptures. Things that are, he doesn't want
us to walk in sin. We don't need to pray that should
I do this sinful thing or not. There are things that are completely
obvious that God does not want us to do or where he doesn't
want us to go. And when we do sin, the true
Christian is grieved in his spirit, that he has grieved the Holy
Spirit of God, that his saviour that his saviour has been grieved
by his behaviour. The true Christian is sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit
of God and he does not want to grieve his saviour by walking
in error or walking in a way that is displeasing to the Lord. And so they seek the direction They want to know, what is thy
will? What is your will for me? Where
do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? And
it even comes down to small things. You can be with the minibus that
we bought. What is thy will? You know, you
look on eBay, Autotrader and there are hundreds of vehicles.
Which is the right one for us? You seek guidance, even in the
small matters of life, that you make the right choice, that you
don't mess things up, that you don't do your own will, that
you're guided to a suitable vehicle, you're guided to a suitable house,
or you're guided to a suitable husband or wife, or you're guided
even to a suitable holiday. You want to know, is this the
right thing? Is this where the Lord wants
me to go? Is this the right way in which I should be spending
my money? Is this the right choices that
I am making? And we're seeking to determine
the will of God in our lives and we have that desire. What do you want me to do? As I was listening to this testimony
yesterday of Henry and Millie as they're hoping to go to Kenya,
that was their desire. Is it God's will or is it my
will? Have I some ulterior motive in
my life as to why I want to run away from England and go to Kenya? And so it was a self-examination. They wanted to know, was it my
will? Was it their will? Or was it
God's will? And so they sought the law to
for guidance, they sought the Lord for a word, they sought
the Lord for an encouragement and they were concerned, why
are we so willing? Or is it that we are, as I said,
running away from something? And then they realised, or they
were blessed by a hymn, that the Lord had made them willing. So that's what he does. He makes
his people willing to do his will. And as people look on from
the outside, they wonder, well, how are they maybe so cheerful? How are they able to walk in
such a way? But the Lord has made them willing. They had a desire. What is the
Lord's will for me? They've abandoned their own will
and their desire is to do the will of God. And like Isaiah
says, and who would go for us? Here am I. Send me an abandonment
of one's own will to do the will of God. That the will of God
is your will. They're so knitted together like
Christ. Not my will, but thy will be
done. And this is a sign of a transformed
heart. is to know what does the Lord
want me to do, to have a sensitivity to discerning the will of God
in our lives. In Ezra chapter 8, Ezra had this concern. Ezra was leading some of the
people of Israel from Babylon going back to Jerusalem. He was doing the Lord's will.
The Lord had chosen him and set him apart for this work, yet
he wanted to know This was the right way. He wanted to be led by the right
way and so he sought the Lord in prayer as to the way in which
the Lord had wanted him to go. You know our destination is heaven. The destination of the Christian
is to go to be with Christ yet we have to walk there and our
lives are made up of decisions that we make. along the way and
those decisions can be contrary to the Lord's will we can make
bad decisions and mess up but God is merciful and we can be
brought back and walked in step with the Lord and Ezra wanted
to know the right way He knew where he was going but he wanted
to walk out that way in accordance with the Lord. He wanted to know
when to go left, when to go right, when to go forward or when to
wait and so he sought the Lord in prayer as to the Lord's will
for them. It's like Henry and Millie. They believe that they're called
to Kenya. But they want to know how are they going to get there?
What do they have to do? How do we get rid of our car?
How do we sell a house? Do we rent it? Do we do this?
Do we do that? And all the arrangements that
have to be made. And so there's a seeking of the Lord's will. And it's the right way for a
Christian to live. To commit our way unto the Lord
daily, to seek guidance and direction because we can easily make mistakes. Look at Lot. He was a man vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked. He made a decision based upon
what he saw. And that decision affected his
family, himself, his walk with the Lord. And so we as Christians
we can make wrong decisions that affect our families and ourselves
and our walk with the Lord. He didn't ask counsel of God
like Ezra. Ezra 8, 21. Then I proclaimed
a fast there at the river of Ahava that we might afflict ourselves
before the Lord. to seek of him a right way for
us and for our little ones and for our substance. That was his desire. He wanted
to know what is the right way for us. With him was a great
company. He was the leader and he had
a concern for those around about him and so he wanted to know
which is the right way. which is the way that the Lord
wants us to go, which is going to be the safe pathway forward. The wilderness journey was a
dangerous journey and he didn't want to be attacked. He didn't
want to ask the king for a band of soldiers. So he committed
himself under the arms of the Almighty God and he sought God.
He sought God so that God ought to be with
him. Our text says, and thine ears
shall hear a word behind thee saying, this is the way, walk
ye in it when you turn to the right hand and when you turn
to the left. The Christian life is a journey. The Christian has been made alive. by the Spirit of God. They are
indwelt with the Spirit of God. They've been given a conscience
that is sensitive. The law of God is written upon
their hearts. So they desire then to walk in
this way. And sometimes the Lord enables
us to go on as it were before him. Although Christ has gone
before his people as a good shepherd, yet sometimes we are caused to
walk as it were alone. like the Lord is watching on
to see how we will react to certain situations, to see how we will
walk. As a toddler walks, so his parents
walk behind him seeking how he goes. whether he goes off to
the right or to the left, they are there to catch him. And it
has this picture of this believer walking, as it were, with the
Lord behind them. This is the way. Walk in it. This is the way that I want you
to go. Walk it out. And if you turn to the left,
then you'll hear the voice of the Lord. This is the way. Guiding
you back onto the right path. If you turn to the right, you'll
hear the voice again. No, this is the way. Just keep
going forward. And you will hear. You will hear. One thing in life. I find difficult
is discerning the will of God. As a Christian I desire to know
what the will of God is in my life and there are things that
I have done which are naturally speaking big steps. To take a
family from England to Kenya is a big step and to know that
that is the will of God is essential And so there are things that
I did, I put in place to know whether it was God's will or
not. When we were there, we sought
to know the Lord's will. Coming back, we sought to know
the Lord's will. And even in these past two years,
we sought to know the Lord's will. There are times when we thought
we knew the will of God and we went forward and we found that
the door was shut so you come back. You go forward again, you
try this door and the door is shut and you come back. You know the Christian life because
we're walking by faith There are times when you may feel like
you have made mistakes. You have tried a door, you've
pushed open a door. But you know the Lord is always
there to have you back. His arm is stretched out in mercy. You can always turn around and
come back. Don't continue walking down a
pathway that is wrong just because you feel that you shouldn't turn
around. You hear the voice behind you.
If you are one of the Lord's people he's given you a conscience,
a sensitive conscience. And that conscience speaks to you. You can do something
as a Christian and your conscience has been made sensitive and you're
able to determine that the Lord is not pleased with what I am
doing. You don't necessarily have to
have a word directly from the scriptures. Your conscience can
be sensitive enough to know that you've grieved the Spirit of
God by acting in a wrong way. God makes you aware and if you
have that sensitivity or if you have that conscience pricking
you don't continue pressing on turn around even if it means
shaming yourself making yourself look foolish it is better to
walk in the right way and to walk in a pathway of error. There's
a story of a harbour in Italy and this harbour is surrounded
by rocks that are dangerous and if you get the course wrong your
ship can be shipwrecked. And so there are three lights
that are set up so that when the ship comes in from the ocean
he is to line up these three lights and he'll find safe passage.
It's been described like that for a Christian. The three lights. The Word of God. How do we determine
the will of God? The Word of God. The Word of
God guides and directs the Lord's people. The Lord will never tell
a Christian to do something that is contrary to his holy word. God cannot lie. He will not cause
people to go into sin. You cannot say, well, yet the
Lord led me to commit this adulterous relationship or the Lord led
me to steal. It was the will of God. God can't go against his own
word and his Holy Spirit will not lead his people into sin. And so we have the word of God.
It is evident what God's revealed will is for his people, that
they walk in holiness and love and unity one with another, not
in busybodying and gossiping and hatred. That is God's revealed
will. That's the first light. The second light is his spirit,
the Holy Spirit, which works on our conscience and mind. He
will guide us and direct us in all truth. Then there is providence. You
see, if God wants you to do something, He will make sure that He makes
a way for you to do it. Providence, the things in life. If he wants you to go to Kenya
and you don't have any money, he will make sure you get the
money to go there. Nothing shall be called impossible
with God. If he doesn't want you to go
somewhere, will hedge up your way to stop you from going. Yes you may kick down the hedges,
yes you may kick down the door but you'll be walking contrary
to the will of God and you will have to about turn and come back. If the Lord wants you to do something,
he will make a way for you to do it. And these three lights
will line up. He won't tell you to do something
that is contrary to the word of God. He won't tell you to
do something that is contrary to your own conscience. And he
will make a way for you to do what he wants you to do. Sometimes we have to walk out
in faith. And we do hear a voice behind
us saying, this is the way, walk in it. Sometimes you have to
take that step and the Lord builds the path as you walk. But sometimes he makes things
so clear that you are without a doubt walking in the will of
God. May the Lord help us then to
discern what his will is for us as individuals. That when
we come to make decisions in life that we seek, like Ezra,
the will of God, to seek the right way for us. That we line
up those three lights, the word, the spirit and providence And
then we're able to go safely through the rocky, safely through
the rocks of error and walk in a way that is according to the
will of God. And thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen. Let's conclude the morning service
with hymn number 551. 551. Jesus Christ, the sinner's
friend, loves his people to the end, and that they may safe abide,
he's the rock in which they hide. 551, tune 515. God's great name unto the earth,
and the fame we send abroad. It's the God with which the The track of his stripes to me,
I am saved. May the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God the Father, the fellowship and the
communion of the Holy Spirit to be with us each now and forevermore.
Amen.