Isaiah 29b – Church full of hypocrites

A translation and sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, Mar 4, 2007

 

Translation

10 For Jehovah

has poured upon y’all a spirit of sleep,

and has closed your eyes.

The prophets and your heads, the seers, He has covered.

11 And the whole vision is to y’all

like words of the sealed record

which someone shall give to him who knows the record, saying,

“Please call this out,”

and he will say, “I am not able, for it is sealed.”

12 So the book will be given to one who does not know how to read,

 saying, “Please call this out,”

and he will say, I do not know how to read!”

13 So the Lord said, “Because

 this people drew near with its mouth

and with its lips they honored me

yet its heart was far away from me,

and their fear of me has been com­mandments taught by men,

14 Therefore, look at me,

ad­ding to distinguish this peo­ple

a distinction and a wonder,

and wisdom of its wisemen will perish

and the understanding of its understanding men will hide itself.

15 Woe to those who go deep from Jehovah to hide coun­sel;

for it happens that their works are in the dark.

So they said, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”

16 Your perverseness!

Is the potter to be considered like clay?

For a making says to its maker, “He did not make me,”

and a pot said about its potter, “He doesn’t understand.”

Introduction – Church in Odessa, Ukraine trusted God and He saved them

CONTRAST: CHURCHES FULL OF HYPOCRITES. I’ve seen the elder who is a racist, the pastor who abused his daughter, the slob of a husband who blames all his marriage problems on his wife, the women who dress like prostitutes when they come to church, the Sunday School teacher who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but is too proud to admit it, the pretty girl who only comes to church to see her friends, the elder whose eyes follow that pretty girl as she walks across the room, the pastor who was a compulsive liar, the teenagers that sit in the balcony and make out or cut up during the service, and on and on it goes. What do you do with a church full of hypocrites? What do you do when you know you are a hypocrite too and you hate yourself for it? God has a message for all of us.

 

The punishment: spiritual blindness

10 For Jehovah has poured upon y’all a spirit of sleep, and has closed your eyes. The prophets and your heads, the seers, He has covered.

  1. By ritual and heartless lip-service (v.1, 13) and hiding evil deeds, the Jews of Isaiah’s time were blinded . 
  2. God actually caused visions to cease dur­ing
    1. Judges when every man did what was right in his own eyes (I Sam 3:1)
    2. and inter­testametary period (Lam 2:9, Micah 3:6, Luke 7:16).
  3. According to Sjogren, the covering is a merciful pro­tection to shield from the ac­count­ability of stricter judg­­ment. (Mt.13:11ff, James 3:1)
  4. “Poured out”  usually used of drink offerings (alcohol or oil poured on the altar and burned, but Ps. 2 & Prov. 8:26 which refer to anointed leaders. In this sense, God mocks the false prophets and priests by saying their anointing for office was actually a coating that would prevent them from being able to see! GOD did this.
  5. 6:10 - "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes smeared shut, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." I said, “How long?” God answers “Until the land is utterly desolate” – i.e. Babylonian captivity
  6. 28:7 [Resulting in Scoffers in Jerusalem that] reel with wine and with liquor they stagger: Priest & pro­phet reel with liquor; they are swallowed from the wine…. they reel while seeing...
  7. This was still going on in Jesus’ day. Mt. 15:14 Jesus calls Pharisees “blind guides” Mt.13:12-16 “one who has, more will be giv­en… but one who has not, even what he has will be taken…  I speak to them in para­bles… the pro­phecy of Isaiah [6:10] is ful­fil­led…16) Bles­sed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

 

11  And the whole vision is to y’all like words of the sealed record which someone shall give to him who knows the record, saying, “Please call this out,” and he will say, “I am not able, for it is sealed.”

  1. The “whole vision” could be the whole book of Isaiah which is called a “vision” in 1:1, although made up of shorter individual visions like 2:1 & 13:1.
  2. Sealing preserves something for later
    1. Writ­ings seal­ed with imprint­ed wax (1Ki. 21:8; Neh.10:1; Est. 8; Jer. 32), keeping all but the intended recipient from reading it.
    2. 8:16 Isaiah instructed to “seal teaching in disciples.”
    3. Daniel told to seal up pro­phecy until end of time (9:24; 12:4-9)
    4. The real estate purchase record in Jeremiah 32 was seal­ed & stored to prove land own­er­ship to Jeremiah’s heirs after the exile.
    5. Likewise, although parts of Isa. were certainly to be ap­plied in his day, the totality of his pro­phecies would not be under­stood until a future time. We now understand Messianic parts, but not eschato­logi­cal parts.
    6. In 8:16, “sealing” related to wait­ing for the Lord while He hides His face rather than seeking fortune-tel­lers to explain things..
  3. God was unable to endure iniquity on His hol­i­days (1:13; cf. 29:1) so He makes the know­ledgeable men unable to access His word.

 

12 So the book will be given to one who does not know how to read, saying, “Please call this out,” and he will say, I do not know how to read!”

In desperation for know­ledge, they will ask anyone for in­for­mation, even un­qual­i­fied people, all to no avail. We do this when we look to human­ists on TV and magazines to feed us the news.

 

The Cause: Hypocrisy

13 So the Lord said, “Because this people drew near with its mouth and with its lips they honored me yet its heart was far away from me, and their fear of me has been com­mandments taught by men,

draw near - often used of bringing a sacrifice to the altar (Lev. 2:8).

  1. Worship is relational. If God has our heart, He re­veals Himself to us, otherwise He hides Himself.
    1. 32:6a “a fool speaks nonsense, & his heart inclines toward wickedness”
    2. 38:3 God delivered when Hezekiah “walked before You in truth and with a whole heart”
    3. 44:18-20 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. [They worship idols made of the same wood they cook over.] He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray…”
    4. Young-“Although Hezekiah himself was a devout king and earnestly sought to bring about reform, the idols were not completely abolished and hypocrisy ran rampant after him.
    5. Jesus said it also described the Pharisees of His day Matt. 15:7-11 “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doct­rines the command­ments of men.’ He called the people to Him & said to them, ‘Hear & under­stand  it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
  2. command-ESV / precept-KJV / tradition-NAS / rules-NIV           learned from men
    1. 48:17-18 "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your right­eousness like the waves of the sea
    2. 26:9b-10 “experienc­ing Your judgments the inhabitants of the world learn right­eousness. Though the wicked is shown favor, he does not learn righteousness; He deals unjustly in the land of upright­ness, and does not perceive the majesty of the LORD.
    3. Human authority was sufficient for their worship.- People’s fear of God was made up of simply obeying human rules they had learned through the body of oral tra­dition written down after the time of Christ in the Mishnah and Gemara. The people “wor­shipped” God in the way that pleased them but not the way He prescribed. Priests encour­aged this, exhibiting a concern only that he worshipper bring the right sacrifices, but not that he come to the Lord in humble and true devotion.-Young
    4. Mark 7:1-13 details how the Jews observed man-made traditions of washing while ignoring God’s command of honoring parents.
    5. We still do this today:
      • We think we bring the Kingdom of God in by voting and calling our legislators when it is really a matter of relationships with God
      • We build walls around ourselves to insulate our families from bad influences and disobey God’s command to love our neighbor
      • We substitute personal preferences such as music, size of family, or educational style, and church denomination over God’s main agenda for His church
      • And a million other things…

 

Back to The Punishment: Disobed­ience causes blindness.

14 Therefore, look at me, ad­ding to distinguish this peo­ple a distinction and a wonder, and wisdom of its wisemen will perish and the understanding of its understanding men will hide itself.

  1. Result of v. 13 “Because they drew near with the lips but not their heart, I will do a wonder”
  2. Under Ahaz, men thought it would be wise to form an alliance with Assyria to save Judah from Israel and Syria, but this ended up being a bad move. Likewise, later under Hezekiah and his successors, it seemed the best part of wisdom to seek Egypt’s help to save them from the aggression of Assyria. Once more God would expose the folly of looking to human wisdom rather than to God’s wisdom, by having Assyria defeat Egypt and besiege Jerusalem. “The wondrous work of the Lord was to bring the people into such a condit­ion that all confidence in hu­man wisdom would be demon­strated as foolish.” (Young)
  3. God does this by removing wisdom and understanding from His people!
  4. God is the source of all wisdom and understanding
    11:2 the Spirit of the Lord is the source of wisdom & understanding
  5. The people turned and hid from God, the source of wisdom and discernment, and so God hid from them and they had no more understanding…prudent-KJV / discernment-NAS / intelligence-NIV
    1. 28:15-refuge of lies their “hiding place”
    2. 44:24-25 “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb… turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish”
    3. 59:2 “your iniquities have made a separa­tion between you & your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you”
    4. 6:9 understand not
    5. 27:11 a people of no understanding
    6. 28:9 who will understand?
    7. “As it belongs to Him to give eyes to see, and to enlighten minds… so He alone deprives us of all light, when He sees that by a wicked and depraved hatred of the truth we of our own accord wish for dark­ness. Accordingly, when men are blind, and esp. in things so plain & obvious, we perceive His righteous judgment.” Calvin
  6. separate, distinct-YNG / do a marvelous work among-KJV / deal marvelously-NAS / do wonderfl things-ES / astound-NIV / remove-LXX / extraordinary-BDB
    1. 9:6 & 28:29 wonderful counsel
    2. 54:8 "I hid My face from you for a mom­ent, but with ever­lasting lovingkind­ness I will have com­passion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer.
    3. 25:1-3 “I will praise Your name, for you have done wonderful things… making… the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners' palace is a city no more… therefore strong peoples will glorify You & ruthless nations will fear you.
    4. 1Cor 1:18-24 “the word of the cross is folly to the perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will des­troy the wisdom of the wise, & the dis­cernment of the dis­cerning I will thwart.’ … Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”

 

The root of hypocrisy: Rebellion

15 Woe to those who go deep from Jehovah to hide coun­sel; for it happens that their works are in the dark. So they said, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”

  1. Their habitual practice is to try to go deep to escape the seeing eye of God - to try to hide from Him,
    1. Their rebellion is against GOD
    2. You can’t hide from God! It is absurd for them to think they can! God is omniscient!
      Jer 23:24  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.
    3. God is in the deep-Ps.92:5,Isa 7:11 – so you can’t hide there!
  2. “will be darkness” 3 explanations for this meaning
    1. Young says the people’s work (plur­al) is the subject of this (singular) verb (i.e. “their works will be darkness”),
    2. but this phrase could be given as a rea­son for believing their work is secret (It will be in the dark so who will see us?)
    3. or it could be a consequence of their revolt (They go deep, far from God and as a result God removes light from them and they find that it is dark.)
      59:7-9 “Their feet run to evil… therefore judgment is far from us, we wait for light but behold darkness”
  3. Who sees? God sees!
    57:17-18 “Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry… I have seen his ways, but I will heal him…” He is merciful!
  4. Who knows? God knows!
    37:28 “I know your sitting down and your going out and your coming in and your raging against Me.”
    50:10     “who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord”
  5. God calls rebels to trust in Him and be healed!

 

God Exposes the Absurdity of Rebellion and Humanism

16 Your perverseness! Is the potter to be considered like clay? For a making says to its maker, “He did not make me,” and a pot said about its potter, “He doesn’t understand.”

A)    absurdity, contrary perverseness-YNG / your turning things upside down-KJV / you turn things upside down-ES,NI / you turn things around-NAS / KJV compares turning truth on its ear to turning of potter’s wheel

B)    Clay is not on the same level of exist­ence as a potter, just as humans are not on the same level of existence as God is!

C)    formed…former-NAS,ESV / pot…potter-NIV

D)    45:9 "Woe to him who strives with his Potter, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to its potter 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?

E)     “It is an overturning of the true relationship b/w God & man, elevating man above the Creator; for man thinks that he can fool the One who made him… between the potter & clay is a pro­found abyss, just as also b/w the Creator & the creature… Man did not make himself… the denial of this lies at the basis of much mod­ern thought and action.” (Yng)

F)     ILLUSTRATION: Anti-God poster at Staples “There is nothing more powerful on this earth than a man rising to succeed.”

G)    ALSO movies that create imaginary worlds where God does not exist.

 

What can we do?

  1. Start with yourself
  2. v.16 Confess to God the ways in which you have turned things upside down. Plead with God to grant you mercifully the ability to see and act uprightly.
  3. Submit to God and His work – You are the potter and I am the clay; I will not criticize what You are doing.
  4. Run to God instead of away from Him. “Woe to those who go deep from God” v.15; “look at Me” v.14
  5. Run to accountability, walk in the light and let your parents and authorities see and know what you are doing rather than hide from them.
  6. Ask people to let you know if they see blind spots and welcome their criticism. How much better than having your eyes pasted shut and becoming blind!
  7. v.13 Draw near with your whole heart to worship God and honor Him
  8. Familiarize yourself with God’s word directly rather than just following what some spiritual teacher tells you. (v.13) This can help guard you against traditions of men that have nothing to do with the fear of God taught in the Bible.
  9. Respond to the truth you do know – don’t worry about everything else you haven’t learned yet.
  10. If you are earnestly trying to see and act in a right-side-up manner as God sees things, rejoice, take courage, be hopeful,
    Col 1:21-23  And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet Jesus has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach-- if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard…
  11. Only then can you address the hypocrisy in others as you communicate the Good news that Jesus died for sinners, the good news that turns the world upside down (Acts 17:6).