In his sermon titled 'Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt for Advice,' Scott Brown explores the message of Isaiah 30:1-17, focusing on the spiritual dangers of seeking counsel from worldly sources instead of God. The sermon emphasizes the theme of rebellion, warning against the temptation to rely on earthly wisdom and strength, particularly symbolized by 'going down to Egypt.' Brown outlines how this reliance leads to shame, humiliation, and the multiplication of sin, as God's people neglect His guidance in favor of worldly solutions. The sermon urges believers to consult God and His Word for advice, highlighting the spiritual consequences of failing to do so. Brown draws parallels between the historical context of Judah and contemporary decision-making, urging the audience to identify their personal 'Egypts' and to align their plans with the Spirit rather than the flesh. He stresses the importance of repentance, rest, and reliance on God as the true source of wisdom and strength, contrasting it with the hollow promises of worldly counsel. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a return to God's ways and a rejection of self-sufficiency, reminding believers of the mercy and grace available to those who turn back to God, even after seeking advice from 'Egypt.'

Isaiah chapter 30 verses 1 through 17. Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel, but not of me, and who devise plans, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked my advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore, the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation. For his princes were at Zohan, and his ambassadors came to Haneys. They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them or be help or benefit, but a shame and also a reproach.

The burden against the beasts of the south. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from which came the lioness and lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent. They will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit, for the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore I have called her Rahab Hemsibet. Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come, for ever and ever, that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the Lord, who say to the seers, Do not see, and to the prophets, Do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.

Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perversity, and rely on them. Therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. And he shall break it like the breaking of the potter's vessel, which is broken in pieces. He shall not spare, so there shall not be found among its fragments a shard to take fire from the hearth, or to take water from the cistern.

For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. But you would not. And you said, No, for we will flee on horses. Therefore you shall flee, and we will ride on swift horses. Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.

One thousand shall flee at the threat of one. At the threat of five you shall flee till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain and as a banner on a hill. Please pray with me. O gracious Lord, we thank you for your precious word. And we thank you for giving us the truth and the scriptures.

And we thank you now for this time that we have to hear the preaching of the word. And We do pray that you would pour out your spirit upon Mr. Brown as you would give him clarity of mind and ability to speak forth the truth that you would have us to hear. Lord, please give us ears to hear. Lord, help us to consider the words and to take them into our hearts, Lord, to meditate upon them, to believe them, and to do them.

Lord, we pray that you would be lifted up and glorified this day. Amen. It's always true, but maybe seemingly more true this week for me, recognizing how much easier it is to preach about something than to live something out, because What Isaiah is talking about here is what happens in the heart and then finds itself being done with your life, and that is going down to Egypt for advice. Because he's talking about something that happens all the time. At any given moment, you're being challenged to either go down to Egypt or go down to God for the answer that you're going to give, for the way that you're going to think about something.

We're always consulting with something. And so this passage is easier to preach on than it is to apply. And even to be aware of yourself, of where you are going for advice at any given moment. And so it's an extremely important and challenging matter that's here before us. Isaiah is offering an analysis about how we think, how to think when we've turned away from the counsel of God.

When we've not trusted in the Lord with all of our heart. When we've leaned on our own understanding. He's bringing up that whole issue. And The question is, when you have a problem, where do you go for advice? Whether you're trying to understand how to be saved or how to raise your children or how to do your work or how to do anything else, where are you going for advice?

Because it happens all the time. It happens moment by moment in our lives. At any given moment, we're either at the help desk of Egypt or we're at the feet of Jesus Christ with the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit and His Word that gives us access to wisdom. And there really are only two alternatives. You can Google Egypt or you can set your mind on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

And so these are the questions that are in Isaiah 3. The question for Hope Baptist is, who is your Egypt? What is your Egypt? Am I walking by faith or am I walking by sight? And So Isaiah is explaining what it looks like when you place your hope for advice in Egypt, when we trust in the world's solutions.

That's what Egypt is symbolic of. Going to the world as opposed to going to God. And so Isaiah is answering a number of questions in this chapter. Why does it happen? And what happens when it happens?

And then how do you keep from doing it when it happens? And what will God do as a result? He answers all those questions in this chapter and you see the outline that's before you. First of all in the first two verses we learn what this is. It's actually rebellion and then secondly what happens to you and then some of the other implications that are there.

And so that's the whole chapter that we've got here. We're only going to go to verse 17 and then we'll pick up in the second half, which is just a continuation of this disclosure of what it's all about when you go down to Egypt for advice. Now Isaiah gives us some very unflattering analysis about going down to Egypt for advice. We would like to think we're just innocent bystanders going down to Egypt for advice. But verse 1 makes it clear that it's not just innocent bystanderness that gets us there.

And that's why we read in verse 1, who devised plans, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked my advice." Now, the first thing that I recognize here about this is this is the fourth woe that Isaiah is bringing from beginning in chapter 28. And the six woes that he delivers that go from 28 to 33 diagnose the spiritual diseases of Judah and he's telling them what has gone wrong with their lives. And of course the first woe speaks about pride, woe to the crown of pride. That's in chapter 28 verse 1. And then in chapter 29 verse 1, woe to Ariel.

This woe here has to do with spiritual fraud. You know, going on and on in your spiritual life, doing all the things, going to church, doing your routines, but there's no real heart for God. And the third woe is found in chapter 29 verse 15, And it's a warning about secret sin. And then now we come to chapter 30. And it's a warning about seeking advice from the world.

In the next chapter, it's about seeking help from Egypt. This is chapter 30 is about advice from Egypt and chapter 31 is about help from Egypt. So we'll get there in time. But you notice that he calls it something that we don't want to call. He calls it rebellion.

He says, woe to the rebellious children. We might want to call it misapplying things or ignoring the best options. But God actually calls this rebellion. It's a dangerous thing to go down to Egypt for advice He calls it rebellion in another place God says that rebellion is as is as witchcraft So it's it's a it's a big deal to go down to Egypt for advice. In Psalm 104, the psalmist says, the wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God.

God is in none of his thoughts. His ways are always prospering. Your judgments are far above, out of his sight. So it's the wicked and the proud that don't seek advice from the Lord. That's why Isaiah earlier on said, stop regarding man.

His breath is in his nostrils. And so he speaks of this matter of rebellion. It's not consulting the Lord is rebellion. Now remember, he's talking about the nation. There's a nation that's not seeking the Lord for its activities.

And we live in a nation now where it's really not legal to seek the Lord for the activities that go on in the nation. We have a separation of church and state. And it's rebellion. It's rebellion when you don't bring the counsel of God into the state. It's rebellion when you don't bring the counsel of God into your work or your marriage or the way you're educating or the way that you do your church.

It's rebellion when we do that. Isaiah has spoken about this already in chapter 8 where he says, him you shall hallow, let him be your fear. In that same chapter he says, you're going down to the mediums. You're asking advice in the wrong places. And so the question really is, I mean, who is your Egypt?

Or where? Where is your Egypt? And then he says that it's about counsel. Who take counsel, he says, from others, but not of the Lord. They seek counsel.

So it's not, the problem is not that they're not seeking counsel. They're seeking counsel. They have a need, right, and they're trying to fulfill it. So they're going after counsel. So that's not the problem.

The problem is not that they desire something better than what they have. The problem is the place to which they go to get it. And they're not going to the right source. And they're not going to the Lord. Now, the people of Judah had put their trust in Egypt for advice.

They were Perhaps a very powerful consulting company. Maybe you've worked with consulting companies before. And you usually like to go to the ones that have a lot of resources that can do a lot of different things. They have a lot of horsepower. They can deal with a multitude of issues.

They have the strength. They have the financial capacity. And they have the staff to do it. Well, I think Egypt was like that. They had a lot of resources, they had a lot of ways to analyze problems, and probably when Judah went down there, they had a lot of different analysts out there who were going to do their work as a result of the tribute that Judah was going to pay them.

And so they went down there to a powerful consultant. Now God had already forbade them to go back to Egypt. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, He said, do not go back down to Egypt again. He said, do not go back that way again in Deuteronomy 17, verses 16 and 17. Exodus 34, God warned them as well not to make covenants with the inhabitants of other lands because they'd play the harlot with them.

Well they were doing exactly that, they were violating what God had already told them. So it wasn't just counsel, it was also plans. He says, who devised plans? So you have counsel and plans. Those are two really critical things.

Two indispensable things that you need for life, right? You need counsel and you need plans. Counsel without plans equals failure. Wrong counsel with plans equals failure. So The matter here is devising plans.

I think what we should recognize here is God is not only concerned about your beliefs, He's also concerned about your plans, what you're doing with those beliefs. And here, he says that the plans are devised but not by his spirit. So there are plans that are devised by the work of the spirit, and there are plans that are devised by the work of the flesh. You always have to be very careful when you're planning to recognize where those plans are just coming from the flesh. I'm a planner.

I like to plan things. I like to write down the steps toward the things that are going, that I, in the directions I want to go in the coming days and I make lists, I write them down. I found it's very dangerous for me to write something down because I'm going to go in that direction. And so I have to be very careful. And I don't think I'm always as careful as I ought to be or as aware as I ought to be as to where these plans are coming from.

But you can make plans of the Spirit or you can make plans of the flesh. Here's a question we should be asking here at our church. What plans have I made that are of the Spirit or are they of the flesh? We see things around us and we see other people. We want to be like them, have what they have, and we make plans.

And often those plans just are nothing but results of the flesh and not the Spirit at all. So when we're planning, cry out to God for the Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit is a planner, by the way. The Holy Spirit performs many functions for the believer that work into this whole matter of planning. The Spirit moves us as we learn in 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 21.

The Spirit teaches us in John 14 26. The spirit convicts of sin and that should move us in John 15 18 the spirit guides into all truth John 16 13 the spirit comforts us as in Acts 9 31 The Spirit empowers us as in Acts 1-8. The Spirit helps us as John 16 5-15 says. The Spirit moves us. The Spirit is a planner.

It puts us into play. And so here he says, who devised plans but not of my Spirit. And you know how important it is that when we are planning, that we're not just acting independently. We're really crying out to God that our plans would be of the Spirit. It's one thing to say, well, I would like to do this and have that in two years, five years, ten years.

Where do you want to be in ten years? Did that plan to get you there come from the Spirit? Or did it come from pride, self exaltation, some kind of desire, greed, whatever it might be to be thought of so well. There are so many ways that our plans can be conceived. But here, this is the devising of plans not by the Spirit.

And then he tells us what it is. It's adding sin to sin. This is the cumulative multiplying effect of sin. Sin leads to more sin. This is why sin is such a problem.

It builds upon itself. And then once sin upon sin has been multiplied, then the options are always horrible. Have you ever been in a place like that? Where you sinned, you walked away from God, and now all the options are underweight. That's what happens when you add sin to sin.

Now God doesn't abandon his people when they add sin to sin, as we'll find out later in this chapter. But it is a problem. He says that they walk down, woe to those who walk to go down to Egypt. I like that. There's this deliberate action.

It's slow. It's a trajectory. It's walking down to Egypt. And that's usually how it happens. It's a process.

It's a direction. And it's sometimes slow. And then its purpose is declared why? To seek strength in verse 2. To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt.

So they're making plans and they're seeking counsel wrongly and they're doing it in order to get strength, to borrow strength from Egypt. When you borrow strength from Egypt, it looks like strength and it feels like strength, but it's only a shadow. It's the shadow of Egypt. The shadow is used in scripture. There's the shadow of Egypt.

There's also the shadow of his wings. Which shadow do you want to be living under? Under the shadow of the wings of God. Which arms do you want carrying you, the arm of the flesh or the everlasting arms who carry you through the promised land? But here, This objective is to gain strength.

These things were all written for us as an example. And Here are a few issues that I think this brings up. How about when you get trigger happy for outside counsel? You get trigger happy for outside counsel. Something difficult happens, and you're restlessly desperately trying to figure out what to do.

And this was the situation with Judah. This was Judah's pattern. She was trigger happy. And she kept moving from one source of counsel and security after another. And I'll give you three examples.

First of all, when Judah was threatened by Israel, when the southern kingdom was threatened by the northern kingdom, or brothers, they sought outside help from Syria. You can read about that in 2 Chronicles 16 verse 2. Secondly, when they were threatened by Syria and Israel, they sought help from Assyria. And then thirdly, when they were later threatened by Assyria, that's the occasion we're dealing with now, they sought help from Egypt. And so this is the example that's before us here.

And I think we should be asking, How am I like Judah, trigger happy for counsel? Something happens and I'm going to go somewhere. I'm going to go outside somewhere. Here's something that I've learned after being a pastor for a few decades. When people want a certain kind of counsel, they'll be able to find it.

When you want to do something that you want to do, you can find somebody to affirm it. You can get any kind of counsel you want. You just have to keep moving. Just keep moving until you can find the person that said what you wanted to hear. And then you can say, well, I sought counsel.

And some people live their whole lives like that. And they default on the counsel that they've been given. But the truth is, they've wickedly sought the counsel they wanted so that they would have a testimony and an excuse for why they did what they did. Anybody who's been a pastor longer than a few months knows that. So they sought counsel, but we jumped the gun.

We rush out, we want to go our own way, we're desperate, we're hurting, and we've got to get some relief. That's what was happening here. And we rush out and you know Isaiah 8, they even went to mediums to go get their counsel. You know they were afraid of the conspiracies and God says, Him you shall hallow. Don't say it's a conspiracy.

It's me. I'm doing it. You're regarding the conspiracy as holy and you're running your whole life on the conspiracy. Forget the conspiracy. Trust me.

This is why he says in chapter 2 verse 22, sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils for what account is he? You know what it was? They were refusing the waters of Shiloha. If you look at chapter 8 verse 5, you'll see that's exactly what he's talking about here. They were rejoicing in resin, in other words, this Syrian help, and in Ramali's son.

He says, now therefore, behold, the Lord brings over them the waters of the river strong. And he says, You've refused the waters of Shiloh and you went to Syria for help. They wanted the Council of Egypt. So that's the first thing. They were rebellious.

That's the first thing we learn about going down to Egypt. It's worse than you thought it was. It's rebellion. And then secondly, there's this word ashamed there as a second point in your outline. Because this is what happens.

You become ashamed. You become ashamed of that which you trusted in. Therefore the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation. For his princes were at Zoan and his ambassadors came to Hainis. They were all ashamed of the people who could not benefit them, or be help or benefit, but ashamed and also reproached.

You know, they went down to Egypt. They wanted strength. They wanted the adulation that would come by being so smart, by getting such good advice from these people with all their great, high-powered, high-dollar consultants, which they paid dearly for. And what did they get? Instead of the adulation, they were ashamed.

Instead of exaltation, they got humiliation. The thing you trust in, if it's from Egypt, you'll be ashamed of it at some point. They will humiliate you. And he gives these examples here, verse 4, for his princes were at Zohan and his ambassadors came to Hainis. Now, so this is a picture of, you know, the entourage from Judah goes down to Egypt and they're in Hainis, they're in Zohan, and they're consulting with everybody there, They're going to the great places where the council is.

And there they are. And they're kind of remembering this, what it was like to be there. These locations were in Egypt. And I think this historical moment has already happened. And it says in verse 5, they were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them.

So those princes who went down to Haines and Zohan, they came back and after they realized what had happened to them, how they had been ripped off, how the devil didn't perform on his promises, They were ashamed. And they thought back at what it was like to be down in Zolan and Haines. Have you ever had a moment like that where you remember a moment so well and it flashes back into your mind and you are ashamed of that moment? And they're flashing back at this moment of remembering what happened down in Zolan and Hades. Second Kings 18 verse 21 records why they would be ashamed.

You speak of having plans and power for war, but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust that you rebel against me? Now look, you are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh the king of Egypt and all who trust in him." You know, They were warned that if they leaned their weight on Egypt, it would be unprofitable for them. And if you trusted anything but the Lord, you'll end up ashamed of the thing that you trusted in.

In verses 3 and 5 and 6, you find the same idea of how unprofitable, how unworkable, how unhelpful Egypt was. It says, she'll be your shame and then could not benefit them or be help or benefit. That's verse 3, verse 5, and verse 6. Now, here's what I want to drive at here. If you go down to Egypt for advice, you'll be taken down by her advice.

And when the strength of Egypt is your glory, your glory becomes your shame. And Isaiah says, what will you do with your glory? Well, Egypt will always disappoint. The benefits that we wanted weren't there. You know, we all live in Egypt.

We've all been affected by Egypt. You know, one of the things that has so affected our family was a time when we went down to Egypt for help. My wife Deborah was in her late 20s. And after having multiple miscarriages and tubal pregnancies, it was a really, really disappointing time. And we ended up in the hospital after probably the worst one of them.

And the doctors there just insisted that Deborah get a hysterectomy, that if she did not get a hysterectomy, she would die. That was their sales pitch. And so after some point, we came back and got that hysterectomy. And their assessment that we received and accepted was going down to Egypt for help. And we'd been swimming in Egypt for so long, we didn't really recognize how hard that advice would be and what the cost would be, really.

I mean, for the last eight years, Deborah hasn't been able to sleep for more than one hour in a segment at night because she's woken up because of the terrible chemical imbalances that were the result of this hysterectomy. It's been hard. It really has. We went down to Egypt for advice. I mean it wasn't proactive rebellion.

I mean we weren't trying to run away from God. It was rebellion against God. You might call it an unintentional sin, but it definitely was rejecting the counsel of God. But not self-consciously. And that happens to us all the time.

We live in Egypt and we do all kinds of things. We're down in Egypt getting advice all the time, and sometimes we don't even know it. But you know, God is so kind, even for those who go down to Egypt for advice. He is. Jet down to verse 18.

Because in verse 18, you'll find this word, therefore. And the therefore is there for those who went down to Egypt for help, for advice. Therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you. And therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all those who wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, he will answer you." Well this is God's mercy toward those who find themselves down in Egypt for advice and have had some effects from it.

My guess is probably a lot of us have a lot of effects of going down to Egypt for advice like that. You know, it's amazing to me how God used, how God was gracious to us even in the midst of that. And I think about the children that God has given us as a result of that. What a massive blessing for our own stupidity and ignorance. Isn't God amazing?

Isn't He kind? Isn't he kind? Going down to Egypt for advice is like rejecting the sufficiency of God and the sufficiency of Christ, which is the sufficiency of Scripture. Devising plans not of Him is rebellion. And so we ought to diligently seek Him with all of our hearts every moment.

Because there's probably not a moment in the day when we're not collaborating either with Egypt or with the Holy Spirit. The road to Egypt is always before us. It's a matter of the heart. And so when an issue arises or a problem in our minds comes, we just run. We seek the database that's there from our own wisdom.

This is why it's so important to fill your mind up with the knowledge of the will of God, so that when your mind is running across the database of all the things you've poured into it, you're landing on heavenly wisdom. And you don't land on the worldly wisdom that you acquired that you still have in your thinking. And we all have it, don't we? We all, we run to and fro in our mind, what should I do? What should I do?

And often what we find there is not from God. It's from us. This is why Isaiah said, stop trusting in man whose breath is in his nostrils. Trust in God. Fill your mind up with the knowledge of his will.

Keep seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This is why you should not listen to the filthy songs and the filthy movies and the things around you should not do because it is coming into you and it's part of what is counseling you. You know, why do we go down for advice and we end up in Egypt? And we don't even know how we got there, but the reason we got there is because we filled our minds with Egypt. You know, that's a problem with living in Egypt, right?

You live in Egypt and Egypt lives in you. That's a big problem. We all have it. But you know when someone asks you a question or brings you a problem where there's a decision to be made, there's a conflict to be resolved, there's a need to be met. There's a tough child raising issue, there's a problem in your marriage.

What do you do? Where do you go for that? You know, where are we going for our problems? That's a big issue. Judah had a really, really big problem.

And so there's this shame. You look back and you're ashamed. That's what will happen to you when you trust in Egypt for advice. There'll be a day out there when you'll be ashamed of Egypt and what Egypt told you. I know I am.

And then we find that there's this burden that takes place. This is part of the judgment. Verses 6 and 7, the burden against the beasts of the south. Now this is actually, a burden is a song. It's like a song about those sorry animals that had to go down there and experience all this absolutely unnecessary effort to go down to Egypt for help.

You know, God has compassion on the animals, so now here's the burden. There's a song for the animals. Even the animals were affected. It says they went through a land of trouble and anguish from which came the lioness and the lion, the viper and the fiery serpent. You know these animals going down there, they've got the riches on their back.

They're donkeys. The treasures are between the humps of the camels. And they're going down there. And there are vipers on the road. There's lions out there on the road to come and devour those animals and there's a fiery serpents there to afflict the animals.

What are the fiery serpents? You know Cicero and Herodotus speak about this. Moses speaks about it in Deuteronomy as well. I think they're extinct now. Fiery flying animals that come and bite you.

Probably leftovers from the dinosaur times. But it was a dangerous trip. And the camels are loaded with treasure. This is a song or a sermon of pity for the animals for this exhausting, dangerous journey that they had to engage in. And he's saying, When you go down to Egypt, it's going to cost you something.

The money spent, the time invested, the hopes rested, the miles traveled, the people. He saw that the howling wilderness of Canaan, between Canaan and Egypt. When you go down to Egypt for advice, it's going to cost you money, it's going to cost you time, it's going to wrap you up. And what Isaiah is saying here is that, you know, feel sorry for the animals, how Wrapped up they were. You know, how much wasted effort has there been in your life because you went down to Egypt for advice?

For hours, hours upon hours, sitting in front of a computer trying to find the advice of Egypt or getting it. How many rainbows do you have to chase? How many hours do you have to spend that are really of no eternal profit? How many self-health programs do you need? Is it going down to Egypt for advice?

I'm not against going down and getting help, but you have to be really discerning where you get it. You know, those animals, here's what Isaiah's saying, Those animals could have just stayed home, because God was going to protect His people. They didn't have to load up all those camels and donkeys, and burden them, and threaten them with lions, and fiery serpents, and vipers. It was all totally unnecessary. Verse 7.

There's the word Rahab. The word Rahab is used three times for Egypt in the Bible. And the word really is Rahab the do nothing. All that effort and all you get is Egypt to do nothing. You don't get anything back from it.

Egypt is all talk and no action. Nothing comes of it. It's all investment and no return. How do you like to just invest all the time and get no return? That's easy to do, easy enough to do, right?

And that's what it's like to trust in Egypt. There's a lot of activity, but there's not a lot of good return from it. The curse of trusting in Egypt is found in numerous places. Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 5, curse it as the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. You know, I think a parallel passage here is Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which brings forth its fruit and its season. There are always and only two places to go for advice. One of them is really exhausting and really harmful. That would be Egypt. And then there is this action that Isaiah calls for in verses 8 through 11.

Now go down, write it before them on a tablet." So their sin is going to be exposed. He's saying, broadcast this, put it up on the internet, let everybody know what happened here. Make sure everybody knows what happened to Judah. Now go down, write it before them on a tablet, and note it on a scroll that it may be for time to come, forever and ever. So you write it on a tablet, you know, that would be a rock so that it can be seen for a long time and also on a scroll, probably so that it could be transported around and posted.

Publish it, Don't forget it. Why? That it may be for time to come forever and ever. This is an appeal to be thoughtful about what has been and what should have been. To identify the ways of Egypt, then you've got to name them.

And I think that's what he's saying here. Identify the ways you've gone down to Egypt for advice. Now, don't put it out on the internet. But write it down. Understand it.

Understand what it looks like for you to go down to Egypt. Document it. Don't just live your life repeating the same old Egyptian journey one after another. Understand what it meant to go there and stop going down there so that when there's another opportunity to go there you say nope that's Egypt. Write it down.

He's going to make it a public and a private record. The public record is the stone. The private record is probably the scroll. And don't let the lesson be lost on future generations. I mean, I think it's appropriate for parents to talk to their children about their mistakes.

To say, that was Egypt, that was bad. Don't go down to Egypt like we did. It's appropriate for parents to say that. When we were at a Bible study on Tuesday, somebody pointed out this was like church discipline, you know. If they won't listen, make it public.

Tell the whole church. Notice that he begins by saying, make it public, and then he discloses what it is. He says, it's lies. He says, lying children. Second, it was a refusal to hear the law.

Children who will not hear the law of the Lord. And thirdly, he is diagnosing what was happening. They were telling the seers to stop with their insights, who say to the seers, do not see. And to the prophets, do not prophesy to us right things, but speak to us smooth things. Prophesy deceits.

Get out of the way. Turn aside from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. In other words, expose what this really is. It's just a desire to hear what you want to hear.

To just be covered up with smooth words. They wanted a God that would let them do whatever they wanted to do. They wanted a God who would just leave them alone. They wanted to hear smooth words and nice things. This is always a temptation of pastors to tell congregations smooth things.

Here's what everybody knows, smooth works. Smooth can pack out your building, you know. And the people want smooth. Give them smooth. And they'll show up.

That's what he's talking about here. Last week a story hit the news that George Barna had done a two-year study. He studies the church and he just finished this study on why modern-day pastors are so silent on political issues. Why don't they talk about things like that? That's the question.

And he says that 90% of the pastors in the survey say God absolutely has definitive things to say about the political realm. He does. 90% of them believe that, but only 10% are willing to talk about it. And in his analysis, I mean basically 90% of America's pastors say they absolutely know that the Bible speaks about these issues, but they're deliberately not teaching about them. Intentionally and deliberately neglecting them.

And Barnas says this, I'm going to quote him, there are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to when asked that question. In other words, why they don't speak about them. Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, square footage. Those are the answers from the pastors. That's why they, That's why 90% know the Bible speaks about these issues, only 10% talk about it because of those reasons.

Because you get in trouble. The smooth works better. They choose success over faithfulness. And Barna boiled it down to fear over losing their IRS 501c3 tax-exempt status. That has shut the mouths of pastors.

That's what Lyndon Johnson wanted to do, by the way, when he brought this about back in the 1960s. He convinced churches that if you had a corporate status, 501C3, then you'd be protected from lawsuits. And you could have tax deductibility. That's what, Lyndon Johnson hated the church. He wanted to muzzle the church because the church hated Lyndon Johnson.

The church was speaking against Lyndon Johnson. He didn't like it and he wanted to muzzle the church. So he created this 501C3 trick and Almost every church in America bought it. Now you go around here today, almost every church, they don't feel like they're a real church unless they're a 5-1-C-3. And they think they have to have it for tax deductibility.

That's a lie. The church never needed it for tax deductibility. But The devil wants to shut them out of the church, and he does that by shutting the mouths of the pastors. And they come in with smooth, smooth work, so good. You know the song, right?

Just as I am, I still will be. I wish that God would let me be. And if you tell me what I should be, I surely will not come. I'll run." That's the song. That's the song of smooth.

And Isaiah is talking about that. Now notice this. They didn't necessarily want the preaching to stop. They just wanted something less demanding. They wanted smooth.

They didn't want to stop of the preaching. Of the preaching. They wanted to get away from God. And then we learn what happens as a result of this. Verses 12 through 14, broken, broken.

This is the result of trusting Egypt, the dangers of going down to Egypt. Therefore thus says the Lord, says the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perversity and rely on them, therefore This iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. Now, let's unpack this for a minute. Notice they're trusting in oppression and perversity. Now, the way I take that, and this may not be exactly right, but I think you go down to Egypt for advice.

Egypt figures out how to put pressure, how to oppress others, and they make threats. Egypt makes threats. They throw out lawsuits to make threats, right? You go down to Egypt, Egypt is going to threaten all the people that are against you. And you want Egypt to do that, right?

That's verse 12. And they rely on the threats that they're going to work. Egypt tells us here, you cross that border, here's what we're going to do to you. It's like a lawsuit threat, that's what it is. And they're trusting in that.

They think that's going to work for them. They're trusting in this system. But verse 13, he tells them how ridiculous this is. Therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant." That's the first illustration. A bulge in a wall.

You know, you build a wall, it looks good for a while, And then you see this little bulge in it. And you go by it, and you say, well, it's probably going to be OK. And then you come by another week, and you think it's a little further. You're not sure if it's a little further out or not. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Not really isn't. But it actually was. And then you go by it again, and it's really bulging. And then it just gives way, and everybody underneath it dies. That's the picture.

And then he gives another picture, and that's of the potter's vessel in verse 14. He shall break it like the breaking of a potter's vessel which is broken in pieces. This is this is a picture of just the potter just absolutely useless for even the most simple function. It's not helpful to anything. It's maybe, you know, just a shard to take fire from the hearth.

It's almost worthless. So you build up a wall of lies, you rest on the lies, the wall is going to come down. You trust in Egypt, you trust in a worldly means to get you safe. Don't think that that works at all. You know, it's interesting, the wall moves slowly and then it finally gives away.

You know, Isaiah is making it really clear like he has so many times in this book. Outward professions of faith are just useless if there's no genuine trust in God. The trust didn't go down to the bottom of their soul. They were outwardly professing, but they were inwardly rebellious. It shows you what independence and autonomy will get you.

It'll get you somewhere. It'll get you somewhere for sure. It'll get you under a wall that breaks out in a sudden torrent. It also shows you something about common sense. God doesn't always counsel you toward common sense.

Was it common sense to just sit there and wait for a seerie to come over the wall? I mean most people think, no, common sense would be go get some horsepower, you know, to deal with this. God doesn't always counsel you with common sense, your sense of common sense. His sense of common sense is different than ours. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

So a lot of times, his counsel might not sound like common sense to you or your friends. I think it also tells us that walking by faith is not just the same thing as winging it on your own intuition. Because he says here that this is tied to rejecting the law of the Lord. Now, it's walking by faith isn't just saying, I'm walking by faith in some spiritual state of being. Walking by Faith has to do with believing what God has said in His Word.

That's what walking by faith is. And if there's a problem, then do the things that God has told you to do. You have a problem in your own life, in your family, in your church. Do the things that God told you you should do. You should pray.

You should fast because Some of the most pernicious problems don't come out except by prayer and fasting. Administer the Word of God. Call the elders of the church and anoint with oil. Protect, walk, help the weak, sing, bring the truth of God, comfort, rebuke, exhort, do the things that God told you to do. Trust those things.

A lot of times those are the second tier things that we do. We try everything else, you know. We try every other remedy except the remedy. Then in verse 15 is the solution. In returning in rest, you shall be saved.

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. That's the remedy to the trigger happy. There are four things here. Return. That's repentance.

You know, I don't know if Isaiah was, you know, by a turn or phrase meaning come back from Egypt. Come on back. Load up the camels. Saddle up the donkeys. Come on back.

Return. That's what repentance is. You've been going in one direction, and you come, and you turn around, and go the other way. That is repentance. And then he says rest.

That has to do with trusting. Submission. You know, it's like what the psalmist said, I've stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child on its mother. You have to still and quiet your soul, to get your finger off the trigger, and stop being so trigger happy for the Council of Egypt. And rest.

Wait. Cry out to God. Do the things that He's commanded you to do for sure. And then quietness. Be calm.

Slow down. Chill out. Don't worry. Worry's not going to get you anywhere. Quietness.

Wait. Now, this whole sermon could have been about waiting on God, really. But he says, wait. Matthew Henry says it like this. We must retire into ourselves with a holy quietness, suppressing all turbulent and tumultuous passions and keeping the peace in our own minds, and we must rely upon God with a holy confidence that he can do what he will and will do what is best for his people.

I think that's equivalent to, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. And then in verse 16 and 17, there's the word but, and it's a tragic word, but. In other words, he says, come, come and trust me, rest upon me, but you would not." Those four words, but you would not. And you said no, for we will flee on horses.

Therefore you shall flee, and we will ride on swift horses." And then God says, therefore those who pursue you shall be swift. You know, first Isaiah tells them where they ended up, but you would not. They would not stop going down to Egypt and Then God recounts what they said. They said no That's the boastful Independence of pride. I can't think of three more tragic words than, you said no.

You said no. Is there anything that you're aware of in your life that you're saying no to the Lord. Just understand what that means. He's told us what it means. And then the Lord recounts how they brag.

They said, no, we're going to ride on swift horses. But the Lord doesn't allow them to remain in their pride. He says, okay, you have fast horses, here's what you need to know. Those who pursue you will be fast. And then he says, one thousand shall flee at the thread of one and the thread of five.

At the thread of five you shall flee. So you have fast horses, God has faster horses. You have some people, you have a lot of people, it doesn't matter. You're going to flee because of just a few. You know, this is the reverse of Leviticus 26 verse 8 where it says, I'll set my face against you and, and, and, or it's, it's, it's the same as you shall defeat, be defeated by your enemies and you shall flee when no one pursues you.

You know this is a sign of weakness, you know how how weak are you? You know Our strength gets so small that one enemy could chase a thousand of us. That's how weak you can get. When you trust in Egypt, you just get weaker and weaker and weaker. You feel weaker, and you are weaker.

Rejecting God is one of the most damaging things to your psyche and your physical being. It makes you weak. People are weak and they wonder why they're weak. You know, Paul Carrington, I were talking to some women yesterday at the abortion clinic and he mentioned Robin Williams' suicide and three of them just locked into it. They wanted to talk about that.

And they said, we're just like that. We have that same depression and one of them said one of them said the problem is that our neuro receptors are not functioning right yeah and and I think Paul said well how come we're the most medicated society in the world? Are everybody's neuroreceptors malfunctioning? Yes. Why did that happen?

Well, we don't know. And You know, one of these was a psychology major at one of the universities here locally. And we told her, we thought we knew why her neuroreceptors weren't working that good. Sin doesn't make sure neuroreceptors not work, whatever that is. She told us to go look it up on Wikipedia, which we did.

But you get weak. You get weak in a lot of ways when you go down to Egypt for advice. Sometimes people are depressed because they went down to Egypt for advice and they kept singing the songs of Egypt. And they just got weaker and weaker and weaker. How much has our independence and self-confidence and self-sufficiency gone awry?

There's a parallel passage in Deuteronomy 28. We won't read it, But if you want to see how this works, I recognize that Moses told the children of Israel about this hundreds of years before in about 1400 BC. Now we're at 700 BC and they did not listen to Moses. That's Deuteronomy 28. Now what's amazing to me about this is that therefore in verse 18, it's shocking.

You have people who have gone down to Egypt for advice. They've trusted in the counselors down there, the threats that were going to come out of there. And God has mercy. And you see the transforming grace of God in verse 18. Therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you.

We're going to talk about that next week. That's really the focus of next week's message. But God's mercy flows even when your troubles have come from your disobedience. I'm going to say that again. The mercy of God flows even in the troubles that your own disobedience has cost you.

Everybody here in this room has some troubles because of previous disobedience. Everybody does. Some may be more prominent than others. But here's what you need to recognize. God has mercy on sinners who come back from Egypt, who return.

Hosea said, Come let us return to the Lord, for He has torn but He will heal us. He has stricken but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us. On the third day, He will raise us up." And that is the message for everybody who's ever gone down to Egypt for advice. Trust in Jesus Christ, trust in the shed blood of Christ who has taken the punishment for all of your sins, for every single time you went down to Egypt for advice, for the 500 times a day your mind went down to Egypt for advice.

Jesus Christ suffered and died for that. To make you a people of quietness and confidence, the peace that comes from trusting in the Lord. To make us a people ready. To make us a people who trust in the Lord. To make us a people who do not lean on our own understanding, but in all of our ways acknowledge Him.

To make us a people who do not trust in man for the breath of life is in his nostrils. To Make us a people who do not trust in man for the breath of life is in his nostrils. To make us a people who do not go down to Egypt for advice. There is so much blessing in coming out of Egypt and turning your mind to the advice of God. Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for giving us language to help us to understand our malities, our sins, our rebellion, our troubles, and your mercy. Oh Lord, we thank you. I pray that you would help us as a church to help each one of us individually to identify how we've gone down to Egypt. I pray Lord for our our church, our corporate life together, that you would help us to see any ways that we have gone down to Egypt as a church and that we would turn around and load up our donkeys and head north to Mount Zion. Amen.