In the sermon titled 'Him Shall You Hallow' by Scott Brown, the speaker delves into Isaiah 8:11-22, emphasizing the importance of hallowing the Lord above all else. The central theme is the distinction between fearing God and succumbing to the conspiracies and fears prevalent in society. Brown highlights that whom we exalt or fear significantly impacts our lives. He explains that believers should find refuge in God, who serves as a sanctuary, rather than stumbling over worldly fears. The sermon also discusses the role of culture and the believer's call to critique and transcend societal norms by adhering to God's Word. Brown urges believers to become signs and wonders, showcasing their faith through love and obedience. He concludes by encouraging the congregation to hallow God in all aspects of life, thus becoming free from fear and aligned with divine purpose.

Good morning. Our scripture text for this morning is Isaiah 8 verses 11 through 22. The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Do not say a conspiracy concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. The Lord of hosts, him you shall hollow. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many among them shall stumble, and they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples, and I will wait on the Lord, who hides His face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in Him. Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me. We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion. And when they say to you, Seek those who are medians and wizards, who whisper and mutter, Should not a people seek their God?

Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. They will pass through it hard pressed and hungry, and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God and look upward. Then they will look to the earth and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this section of scripture which you've now providentially placed us in today. Lord, I pray for Scott Brown as he comes to exposit this scripture. Lord, that you would speak to our hearts, teach us from your Word, help us to understand the truths here and to apply them to our lives. We thank you God for the love you have for your people and that you would leave your word for us to study, learn from, be spoken by, to you by you through your word.

Thank you Lord God for this gathering today in the name of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. It's always such a joy to bring words of life out of the Word of God. This passage has so much help, I think, for all of us as a church to help us become the kind of people that God would have us to become. And there's so much here.

I don't really know how to summarize it, but let me just try in a line. And It is this, whom we hallow makes all the difference in the world, whom we exalt. What is big in our lives, what's big in our minds, this is the greatest leverage point in our lives and this passage of Scripture brings this before us. There's something about what happens to you when you believe in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's something that happens inside of you, and there's something outside of you as well that is so helpful.

For one thing, when you believe in the Gospel, a tabernacle, a place of refuge has been built within your heart. Your body actually becomes a tabernacle of the Lord. That's one reference point. The Word of God in your heart, Christ is in you. This is one thing that happens to you.

And then there are also things without you. There's Him who is holy. There's this precious cornerstone or a stone of stumbling. And this is what God has done for us as His people. And in this passage there's an explanation of how this works in everyday life, particularly with the people that Isaiah was speaking to.

But what I want us to just consider, perhaps more than anything this morning as we go through this passage of Scripture, is, whom we hallow makes all the difference in the world. And this is Isaiah's great concern for the people. The people that he's speaking to are in a state of fear. They're shaking like trees. And they're afraid.

They're living in a time of fear, fear on every side. There's a threat wherever they look. There's insecurity no matter where they turn their head. And this is the condition that they're in. And what they are doing is that they are hallowing the conspiracies.

They're hallowing the alliances. They're making those things big. They're baptizing those things as real and important considerations for their lives. They're actually being driven by what they hallow. And they are fearing as a result and hallowing that.

And what Isaiah comes to them and says is, hallow, hallow God. So for us as a congregation, how important is this? That somehow, this morning, we can make progress in this matter of what we are hallowing. What has become so big in our minds that is the threat or the thing that we might fear. The root of the problem is that they have refused the waters of Shiloha, the peaceful waters.

They've really refused the great and precious things of the gospel, the precious cornerstone. And as a result, they're stumbling, which is what always happens to the people of God when they refuse the sweet waters of Shiloh. It's amazing to me how kind God is to bring so much comfort to His people over and over again. This is a passage of Scripture that I think also on the one hand it shows us our infirmities and our misplaced hallowing, but at the same time it shows us the health that's there in the waters of Shiloha. You know, I love the way that Psalm 46 speaks of it, that there are streams that make glad the city of God.

And these streams have been dried up because something else has taken the place of these streams in the minds of the people. And this also is a time of punishment. We're in a context of scripture where Judah is being punished. So is Israel, the northern kingdom, Ephraim. And at the same time, there's this promise that runs throughout this whole section that in spite of the judgment, God is faithful to continue to be a blessing to His remnant.

He will come and bless His people. This chapter that we're in now and the next chapters that follow it up to the end of chapter 12, they're all one continuous discourse, one sermon of Isaiah, which shows the scope of the destruction that's going to come upon them, but also shows them how they ought to navigate their lives in the midst of a time of judgment, because they are in a time of judgment. I know as we've been going through this section of Scripture, we've recognized that there are different ways that we too are in a time of judgment. And many people have fears about the future. You know, there are conspiracy theorists everywhere.

And it's so easy to bend your ear to those and find a deaf ear to the holiness of God, to hallow Him in the midst of all the conspiracies, in the midst of all the threats. You know, we have them in so many different levels. We have fears about ourselves and we listen to the conspiracy theorists in our heart. We have them in our families and we have so much to fear in our family life. A husband fearing perhaps even something going on in his wife or a wife for her husband or children.

We have them in churches. We have them in the state. We have them everywhere. They're conspiracy theorists everywhere. Often we are our greatest conspiracy theorists.

Have you ever listened to the conspiracy theorists from within? The one who's always speaking to you, telling you to do this, telling you to fear that, telling you to run here and run there. The conspiracies are absolutely everywhere. And yet God has set before us this passage of Scripture to help us to understand those conspiracy theorists that live within us, that speak inside of our heads, that yell at us from time to time, and those from without, those prognosticators, those who tell you what's going to happen to you and to others in your life. And so, What we find here in this chapter and the forward-going chapters is this question, whom do we fear?

Are we going to be tossed to and fro by the conspiracy theorists? Or, there's really only one alternative, Hallow the Lord. Let Him be your fear. Let Him be your dread. Let Him be the only one that you care about in anything that you do.

It really brings up the question of why we feel anything, why we do anything. Is it because we are hallowing the Lord, or is it because we're being jerked around by this conspiracy theorist from within and from without? That's the issue that's upon Isaiah's mind here. So we're going to be confronted with this question, who do we hallow? Who do we fear?

And of course, it's a question that I think is helpful for all of us to consider. Do we look to God and His Word for answers? Or do we go to the political sources, the mediums, the wizards of our age who whisper and mutter? Do we go to our own hearts? Do we go to our friends?

You know, this is really about, It's about a whole system of thinking. It's about a whole sort of operating system in the way that we operate in the world. The way that we relate with everything that's coming into us. The inputs from without and the meditations from within. What do we do with those things?

Do we hallow and fear God in the midst of those things, or do we hallow and fear the conspiracy theorists from within and from without? And what is found here is a constant appeal from Isaiah, Don't walk in the way of this people. Him you shall hallow. Him will be your fear. He will be as a sanctuary to you.

So bind up the testimony and follow God. That's really the big question that we find here. And so we find ourselves in this first section. As you can see, I've divided this passage of scripture into three sections. The first section spans from verses 11 through 15 where the Lord speaks to Isaiah and God speaks very personally to the prophet.

And then the second section, beginning in verse 16 to verse 18, Isaiah then speaks. He actually responds. It's a conversation. You notice this in the book of Isaiah, where there's this running conversation going on between God and Isaiah, Isaiah and the people, Isaiah and God, there's this, these are the parties always involved here. And it really speaks of the very personal nature of faith and how true it is that you can know God.

He can speak to you, and you can speak to Him, and you can cry out to Him for the people that have been placed in your realm as well, just like Isaiah. In many ways, Isaiah is a paradigm of all of the Christian life, of where there's a real relationship, there's real speaking and hearing and doing and chastising and comforting and proclaiming. All of these things are taking place in the book of Isaiah and you see that in this conversation. And then finally in the last section in verses 19 through 22, the Lord speaks to Isaiah and the people. The voice that comes in this very last is to Isaiah himself.

And also, it's in the plural. And so he speaks to all the people as well. So you can sort of see the contour of the conversation here. So let's begin here where the Lord speaks to Isaiah in verses 11 through 15. First of all, I want us to notice the way that God spoke to Isaiah.

Because there's a way that God speaks to him and there's a way that God speaks to us that we need to recognize. For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand. It was a voice of strength. The language is interesting. There's kind of a mixed metaphor.

He spoke with a strong hand. Well, that doesn't make sense. How do you speak with a hand? Well, God here comes and He says that he's speaking as with his hand. By the way, in the next four chapters, you'll find this idea of the hand of the Lord.

The hand of the Lord is so important. You find the hand of the Lord doing many things. Here the hand of the Lord speaks somehow. It's as if the hand of the Lord is on Isaiah's head speaking to him. What a blessing that is that he would lay his hand upon you and he would speak to you.

You know, this image of the hand and the speech is found in Scripture. You find fathers blessing their sons. You find it in the fathers of Israel where the hand is placed on the head and the father speaks. It's very much like that. What a blessing it is to know that as a Christian, as a person who's turned his heart toward God, that his hand is upon your head.

Isn't that wonderful? To think that he would place his hand upon you and he would speak to you. And he would speak with strength. This is the authority of the Word of God. There is strength in it, just like in Psalm 1.

You know, the man who meditates on the Word of God day and night. And what is it about him? Well, he's strong, and His leaf does not wither. This is what happens when you hear the voice of God and He lays His hand upon your head and He speaks words to you. What a blessing it is to know that.

This whole idea of the hand of God and the speech that flows from the hand of God. You know, when we get together with our families to read the Word of God, or even when we read here, whenever we do that, Christ is there. Christ's hand is upon your head. You know, the next time you gather for family worship, just Consider this, that the hand of God is upon your head when you open up the Word. Even right now, as we're reading the Word of God, the hand of God is upon your head.

He's speaking to you. He speaks through His Word. This is the primary, really, function of the gathered people of God, to gather around His Word so that they would hear His voice. It's the most important thing that we ever do, really, as a people, is to gather to hear the Word of God. And here we find this way that God speaks to Isaiah with his hand.

And then he instructed Isaiah to walk differently in verse 11 and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people. As you can see in your outline before you, there are many things that God was instructing Isaiah in. And I think that we should consider ourselves as sitting at the Lord's feet Now, as Isaiah was before God being instructed, that we should be instructed in these very same things. Is there anyone here that doesn't need to be instructed the way that God instructed Isaiah? I think we all need this.

I know I've needed this, particularly this week, to be instructed this way. I've so needed this instruction for my own soul for the last several weeks especially and he instructed me that I should not walk in the way of his people. So he is being instructed and the term actually indicates sort of almost a chastisement, a teaching that brings forth content of instruction that is for the purpose of correction. You know, How often do we need the correction of the Lord? What a blessing it is to receive the correction of the Lord.

But He's being instructed, He's being brought back. And He's being instructed to walk differently, not in the way, not in the way of the people, not in the way of this people. We all live in the midst of people, and they have a way about them. And here, God is instructing Isaiah not to walk in the way of the people. This is always the greatest challenge that we have.

How do we do that? How do we even figure out how to do that? Because we've grown up with these people. We were born walking in the way of this people. So how do we change that?

The terminology here that is used, Strong's Concordance speaks of it as a journey, a direction, a road, a path, a habit, a course of life, of some kind of moral character. We're always walking in a pathway like that. And Isaiah is being instructed that he should not walk in the ways of the Gentiles. That he should walk in a way that's different from his culture. God desires to change your culture.

He starts with the culture of your heart, then He moves into the culture of your very life, and then He moves into the culture of your family, and then the culture of the way you work. God has designed that the culture should be changed. Over the last few weeks I've been embroiled in a discussion on this whole matter of culture. And one of the issues that's really been raised is can one culture, can people in one culture speak against something that another culture is doing? That's really been a question.

And many have said, No, it's not legitimate for you and your culture to speak a word against something that's happening in another culture. But here what God is saying to Isaiah is don't walk in the way of your culture. Have a different kind of culture. It's legitimate for one culture to speak to another. Here is the culture of heaven, the culture of Almighty God saying, don't walk in that culture, walk in my culture.

That's the whole idea. Matthew Henry said it like this, those whom God loves and owns, He will instruct and enable to swim against the stream of the common corruptions, particularly of common fears. Now, the culture that Isaiah is speaking of specifically is this culture of fear, this conspiratorial fear that's risen up from without. It's so consistent with Jeremiah the prophet in chapter 10 verse 2 where he says, Do not learn the way of the Gentiles. Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them.

For the customs of this people are futile. For one cuts a tree from the forest and the work of hands of the workman with an axe, they decorate it." and he goes on and just talks about their culture. He's saying don't walk in the way of the Gentiles. Don't think like them at all. When a culture deteriorates, what do we do?

Do we follow it? That's the issue. We should always be critiquing our culture, always, because we're progressively being sanctified. And we'll progressively have insights on the culture that we live in. But it is for Christians to critique the culture in the same way that God was critiquing the culture that Isaiah was walking in, and he says, don't walk in their paths.

Don't live life the way that they live. Because Christianity changes culture. The Gospel is actually designed to change culture. And it's a critical matter. And it's not appropriate for the church to leave this battleground, this fundamental intersection between the Word of God and the culture itself.

Christians turn from idols to their God. Christians tear down the high places. And the whole cultural mandate calls it that the people of God will improve the culture. Well, here, this is the issue that Isaiah is dealing with here, that God is coming to him and he's saying, do not walk in their ways. This is a fundamental principle of the people of God.

And when the people of God forget this, then they walk like the Gentiles. They talk like the Gentiles. They live like the Gentiles. They dress like the Gentiles. They think like the Gentiles.

And that's exactly what had happened to the people of Isaiah's day. And that's why the Lord comes to him and he instructs him to walk differently, walk differently than the Gentiles. One last point to make on this, And that is that the Church is always most effective when it is walking contrary to the wicked ways of the Gentiles. And this is true for all of us. There's so many ways of the Gentiles upon us.

You know, there are the ways of the Gentiles upon pastors today. And how long does it take for a pastor to abandon the ways of the Gentiles in his work? I'll just tell you a long time. How long does it take for a father to abandon the ways of the Gentiles? Really, how long?

How long has it taken you? A long time. But the law of God always stands contrary to the society. The third thing here in your outline is that he instructed him to speak differently. In other words, not to say what the people were saying.

You know, it's so easy for us just to be parrots of those who are around us, the conspiracy theorists around us, the conspiracy theorists in our hearts that are speaking to us. He says, and God is saying, do not say a conspiracy concerning all this people, that all that this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. So he's instructing, God is instructing Isaiah to speak differently and not speak about conspiracies the way that the people do. Well, what is a conspiracy? A conspiracy is a secret plan to do harm.

Now, there was a real conspiracy going on here. The King James Version uses the word confederacy. But it's the whole idea of people who are together in spirit, or people who have a pact together, and they're united to do some kind of harm to someone. And here, you know, Ahaz, the king, was fearful, and all the people were fearful as well. And Isaiah had already come earlier in this speech and said, do not fear.

Do not fear. And because they were overestimating the powers that were, We often overestimate the power of men. We overreact. We overcorrect for our fears. Let me just ask you one question.

Have you ever overcorrected out of fear? Have you ever overreacted? Are you paying dearly even now today because of some fear that you overreacted to? Is it possible? And this is what was happening with the people of God.

And then he instructs him to hallow the Lord of hosts, not just to speak differently, but to hallow the Lord of hosts. Verse 13, the Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. This is, I think this is the heart of the text. It's either that or to the law and to the testimony, it's either that or this, him you shall hallow.

I think they might be the exact same thing, honestly. First of all, he speaks of the Lord of hosts. Again, this term appears all over Isaiah and It speaks of the armies of heaven. It speaks of the innumerable hosts of heaven, the powers of God that exist in the world that you cannot see. His mighty angels.

You know, we're now in the Christmas season where there are all these images of angels. We've said this so many times before, the angels in the Bible are terrifying. They're not fat little babies kissable at all. This is the Lord of hosts, the Lord of the armies, of the angels of heaven. The Angels are armies, by the way.

And there are perhaps millions, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of them, we don't know. But they are created beings. But this is the Lord of hosts. The Lord Himself who is mighty and perfectly sovereign. And all of his hosts, all of those who do his work for him in the world.

You know, we often underestimate how powerful God is, that He is the Lord of hosts. When you're walking out in this world and The threats are upon you, the conspiracy theorists in your heart is talking to you, the conspiracy theorists from without is speaking to you. And do you recognize though, that there are the armies of heaven? Do you recognize that they're the hosts of heaven, that God is in control of all of them, and you're just, you're safe there. You know, we have some men going to Nigeria to go preach the Gospel there in January, January 1st.

Dan Horn and a few men from our church are going to go to Nigeria. It's actually one of the most dangerous countries in the world today for Christians. I've been reading, it seems like every couple weeks the church gets burned down and stuff like that. Are these men going to be any safer here than there? I don't think so.

Not because of the armies of heaven. When you have the armies of heaven around you, it doesn't really matter who else is around you, because God is in control. But this is the Lord of hosts. David says in Psalm 89, Oh, Lord God of hosts, who is mighty like you, O Lord, your faithfulness also surrounds you. You rule the raging of the sea.

When its waves rise, you still them. You have a mighty arm strong as your hand and high as your right hand. Righteousness and judgment is the foundation of your throne. But here Isaiah is being instructed to hallow this one, to hallow the Lord of hosts. That's that's what That's the idea here.

To sanctify, to hallow Him. How do you sanctify God? How do you hallow Him? The Lord Jesus instructed His disciples to pray, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Well, how do you hallow Him?

You place Him on high in all of your thinking. You place Him as the highest in all your thinking. You let everything that you are thinking and feeling and doing being referenced to Him in order to glorify Him. To hallow Him is to see Him as separate and to reference everything that you do off of Him, rather than from your own glory. This is the same word, holy, that Isaiah uses in chapter 6, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of His glory. Isaiah said, I saw the Lord holy, and he's the only one that's holy. So how do you how do you hallow the Lord? Well we know that Ahaz and the people were hallowing the threats that are around them. They were holding up the threats as sovereign.

They were doing what they were doing because of those threats rather than the Lord of hosts. And the question is how much is there that we do because we've hallowed the conspiracy theorist in our heart? How much have we done because we want to exalt ourselves and we're not exalting God? Because really you're either hallowing one person or another in this world. You're either hallowing God, or you're hallowing yourself.

And the people of Israel were struggling because they were hallowing themselves in all their own fears about everything. You know, I've been asking myself that question. What are the things that I've done because I was not hallowing God? It's such an important question. But how freeing it is to know that there is this external force, there's this external being whom we hallow in order to put everything in perspective that we're thinking of doing and think of feeling in our lives.

And then he instructed him to fear the Lord of hosts, not just to hallow him, but to fear the Lord of hosts. Verse 13. Let Him be your fear. Remember, this is a very personal conversation with Isaiah. And God is saying to him, let Him be your fear.

I think God is saying that to all of us today. Let Him be your fear. I know He's saying that to me. Let Him be your fear. Let Him be the object of your fear.

I don't know how many things you fear. If we could calculate all the things that people fear here today, we'd have a really long list. I know the things that I fear. I don't know what you fear. But you have a list too.

And God is coming to you just the same way that he came to Isaiah and said, Let him be your fear. In verse 13. Now, we should be clear about what this means. It has to do with an emotional foreboding or dread of impending distress or misfortune. In other words, having a fear of disobedience, fearing God, fearing what God might do to us, fearing what God might do to us if we do not hallow Him.

Because God will judge, He will punish those who don't fear Him. Another question we might ask is what judgments of God have fallen upon us because we did not fear Him, because we had a dread of something else other than Him. You know the song, Count your fears, name them one by one. Count your fears. Well, this is what we often do.

But here, God comes to Isaiah, and he speaks so helpfully to him. And he says, let him be your fear. Job said, the thing that I fear has come upon me. You know how often we are so afraid. You know, Jesus said, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do, but I will show you whom you shall fear, who you should fear.

Fear him who after he has killed has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear him." You know, people usually like to soften this idea of fear and take away the emotional dread out of it. But I don't think you can do that and be faithful to the word that God used for Isaiah. There's a legitimate healthy fear, where we really fear that God might destroy us. It's healthy.

We know that God will destroy all sin. He will vanquishingly punish all sin. He has punished the sin, our sins. He's laid the punishment that we deserve on His Son. He will punish all sins vanquishingly.

And then He instructs him to dread, not just to fear. He uses a different word, dread. And Let him be your dread. Now this has a little bit different meaning. It has to do with sheer terror.

It has to do with causing you to tremble, to quiver. It means literally to tremble and quiver before Almighty God, to dread Him. To tremble before God. Let Him be your dread. And then After that, after giving these different commands to Isaiah, to walk differently, to speak differently, to hallow the Lord of hosts, to fear the Lord of hosts, to dread the Lord of hosts, then after he does that in verse 13, He reveals the outcomes of whether these are obeyed or not.

And first of all, he tells Isaiah what it will be like if he hallows him. What will happen to him if he fears him and dreads him and hallows him? It says, he will be as a sanctuary. He will be as a sanctuary. So what the Christian does is he trembles, but yet he's found in a sanctuary here, a place set apart, a place of refuge.

This term here is used of the tabernacle, of the temple, and of the promised land. It's also used of heaven. It's used as a rock of refuge and of defense in Psalm 31. In Psalm 31 20, It's about being hidden in a secret place. You shall hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man.

You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. In Psalm 17, it has to do with being hidden under wings. Hide me under the shadow of your wings from the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me. In Deuteronomy 33, the imagery is everlasting arms. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and He will thrust out the enemy before you.

In Exodus 25, it's a tabernacle, And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them according to all that I show you." That is the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its furnishings. Here, the tabernacle is reflective of God being near you. Why did God have the tabernacle built in the wilderness? It was for the nearness of God. It was a picture of the nearness of God, where God would come down and meet with His people.

And in the tabernacle, the twelve tribes of Israel were all around the tabernacle. And the center was the tabernacle. The center was the presence of God. And all of the people of God had one center. As they gathered together, there was one thing that they had.

They had God in the center. He was there. In this tabernacle, this sanctuary, God is near. So yes, while you fear, while you dread, He's near. That's what tempers it all.

In Hebrews chapter 9, we learn that this sanctuary is Christ Himself. In Hebrews chapter 9, verses 8 through 12, how the tabernacle and the sacrifices were pointing to one single person, Jesus Christ Himself. And so if one would hallow, if one would fear, if one would dread, then they would find themselves in a tabernacle, a tabernacle of refuge, a tabernacle of the comfort and the presence of God, a tabernacle of the love of God. And so, it's a tabernacle. Or it's a stone of stumbling, verse 14, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." So he is either a sanctuary of refuge and blessing and the love of God and the presence of God, or he's a stone of stumbling, he's either one or the other.

This is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there are two ways. There's light and there's darkness. There's a tabernacle to live in, or there's a stone of stumbling that you stumble over and you are destroyed. Notice he says for both houses of Israel Isaiah is ministering to the people of both when he says this. The Lord Jesus Christ quotes this passage in Matthew 21 and in Mark 12.

The Apostle Paul quotes it in Romans chapter 9 where he says, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. He's speaking of the power of the gospel and the rejection of the gospel by the Jews. And he says, What happens when you stumble over that stone? Verse 15, and many among them shall stumble, and they shall fall and be broken, be snared, and taken. It says here, there are many who will stumble.

You know, this is like Jesus when he says of the broad road, there are many who go in by it. There are many. Many will stumble. This is definitely a reference to Jesus Christ. And he's speaking here that if you want the world, if you do not want to fear the Lord, if you do not want to hallow Him, if you do not want to walk in His ways, then you will stumble and it will break you.

And you, instead of existing in a sanctuary for healing, you'll be in a pile of brokenness. That's the warning that Isaiah has. And then after God speaks to Isaiah like he has here, then Isaiah speaks. Isaiah picks up. He responds.

Now, He either begins to speak in verse 16 or in verse 17. I think he begins to speak in verse 16. It's an interesting question that there may be, I may be wrong about this one, but I believe he, Isaiah, begins to speak in verse 16, bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I believe he is speaking here because in verse 17, and I will wait on the Lord. And that connects the two verses together.

It's possible that verse 16 goes to what God has said, but I'm taking it that this is what Isaiah is saying. He responds to this and he says to the people, bind up the testimony. Bind it up as a result of these things, as a result of the prospect of either being in a sanctuary or being broken and destroyed on a pile of rubble as a result, then bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples. And Isaiah is speaking personally. He's saying this is what he is going to do.

He's going to bind it up. In other words, He's not going to tamper with it. He's going to take it for what it is. He's going to accept it. He's going to be satisfied with it.

It's another way of saying he's going to believe that the Word of God is sufficient, that it's all that he needs. He's going to bind it up, not tamper with it, regard it as perfect and holy, and everything that he needs. He finds himself here as a humble and satisfied disciple, satisfied with the Word of God, not wanting to do something different, but to bind it up. This term also has to do with narrowing, kind of a narrowing, a restricting. You know, A follower of Christ, he's bound within boundaries.

He limits himself. Yes, he does narrow down. In one way, Christians are narrow-minded. They absolutely are. They've narrowed themselves down.

To walk not in the ways of the Gentiles, not in the ways of the people, but to narrow down and walk in the ways of God. To walk on the narrow path. This is the fundamental principle of Christianity. It's interesting, when you become a Christian, you're so broad-minded, aren't you? And yet, the more you grow, the more narrow-minded you become.

Because God shows you the sin in all of your broad-mindedness. Year after year, He shows you how you thought was so magnanimous, so just, so loving, so wise, wasn't really at all. Your broad-mindedness was actually worldly-mindedness, and you were thinking like the people of the world. And year by year you realized in your progressive sanctification that you are narrowing down because you are thinking more like God. And He's saying, bind up the testimony because there's a narrowing that happens.

Paul spoke to Timothy about this in 2nd Timothy 1 when he said, follow the pattern of sound words that you heard from me in the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. Guard the good deposit entrusted to you." In other words, there is this deposit, there's this testimony, there's this thing that is bound up and it is narrow. Matthew Henry says, as a testimony, it directs our faith. As a law, it directs our practice. And then he speaks of the law.

Seal up the law among his disciples. That's verse 16. He's speaking of not adding to it. Don't add to it. Seal it up.

Contain it. The law is the Torah. The term law can mean a number of things in the Bible. It can mean the Torah itself. It can mean the entire testimony of Scripture.

I take it to mean the Torah and the entire testimony of Scripture. And the seal, the sealing is making it sure. It's a picture of steadiness. It's fixing it in your own mind. And then he speaks of his disciples.

He says, seal the law among my disciples. Well, Only the disciples will do this. Only true disciples will love his Law so much as to be limited by it and to seal it up. Proverbs says, he who despises the law praises the wicked. But disciples actually follow the law.

Jesus said it would not pass away. This is the only occurrence of the English word disciple in the Old Testament, that it refers to the same thing that the Greek word, disciple, refers to, and that is a learner. And when he says, seal the law among my disciples, he's speaking about the learners, the ones who are truly following Jesus. If you want to be a disciple, then it means that you've become a learner. And he's speaking of that very same thing here.

You know, we want to be so popular with the world that we're willing to follow the ways of the world and to be everyone's friend. But the truth is the world will hate us for the Gospel because the Gospel is a stumbling block. And then he says he will wait for him. He will first bind up the testimony and then he will seal the law among his disciples. This is what true followers of Jesus do.

This is the power of the Gospel at work in a person's life, where he loves the law of God and then he walks in it. And then he waits on him in verse 17. Isaiah says, and I will wait on the Lord. I love the way this is phrased. Do you see that?

And, verse 17, And I will wait on the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Israel. In other words, God is hiding his face from Israel, But Isaiah knows God and loves God such that he will wait, even in a time of calamity and judgment. Even when things look so dark, even when the conspiracy theorists are raging, Even so, Isaiah says, no, I will wait on the Lord. Yes, the signs look bad. Yes, the conspiracy is real.

They are real kings. They are real results. They are real people getting killed. Thousands have been killed so far. There's famine in the land.

The land is being destroyed. There are real problems. But Isaiah says, but I will wait on the Lord. I will wait. I will wait it out.

I know my God is in heaven. I know my Redeemer lives. That's Isaiah's perspective. The heart of the Christian says, I will wait on Him. You know, For many years I've sung songs to my children in the night about waiting on the Lord.

I love to sing the songs about waiting on the Lord. And what's interesting to me is when I sing those songs, every time I sing them I recognize that it doesn't matter how little they are, they still understand what it means to have to wait on the Lord. It's been a happiness to me to sing those songs. Wait on the Lord. Listen to His voice.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Wait on the Lord. Let His Spirit move. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is peace." That's the words of one of the songs that I've been singing to them for many, many years since they were babies. It's so important that you know that you can wait on the Lord.

Because there will be times when all the signs and all the conspiracy theorists are raging and screaming at you from within and from without. And what will you do? Be steady, wait on the Lord, know that He is in control. He is the Lord of hosts. He will perform everything that He has spoken.

And you can wait on Him. And then he says, and I will hope in him, in verse 17. Do you see the faith of Isaiah? You know, it would be an interesting thing just to go through Isaiah and look at the faith of Isaiah. You remember back in chapter 5, he says, I will sing a song to my beloved.

I'm going to sing of my beloved. He loves God. His heart is tended toward God. Now, he says, I will wait on him. I will hope in him.

In verse 17. His hope is in the Lord, not in the conspiracy theorist, Not in what he can do to promote himself. Not in anything, but in the Lord himself. What a free man Isaiah was in the midst of the generation that he lived in. Oh, his soul was free.

I would expect him to be a happy man because his hope was in the Lord. You know, where is your hope? What are you hoping in? You know, it's easy to try to place all your hope in your husband, all your hope in your children, all your hope in your job. Forget that.

All your hope in your friends. Misplaced hope. Isaiah says, I will hope in Him. Where is your hope? And then he says, Here am I, in verse 17, and the children whom the Lord has given me, we are for signs and wonders.

He says, he's declaring that he will be a sign and a wonder. He's declaring that he's going to stand in his society as a sign and a wonder in that society. Isaiah knew who he was. He knew his role in the world to be a sign and a wonder. Do you understand that God has put his people in the world to be signs and wonders?

I mean, even we have gathered people. We are supposed to be as signs and wonders. Signs and wonders because we don't walk in the way of the Gentiles, because we do hallow Him, because we do put our fear in Him, because we too put our dread in Him. We hope in Him. And as a result, we are signs and wonders.

This language is so amazing. Here am I. He said that in chapter 6, remember? He said, here am I. Send me.

Now he says, here am I and the children. Here am I and the children, your disciples, those who we follow the Lord together. We are for signs and wonders. I mean, my question for us is, how much of a sign and wonder could we be in this community that we've been given to live in now? We've been placed here by sovereign work of God, and we've been placed here to be a sign and a wonder that the way we love one another, the way we live, the way we talk, the way we walk, what's dear to our hearts, whom we fear, whom we dread, whom we hallow.

All of this is a sign and wonder. You know, God has put us together as a people here in this church. And his purpose is that we be a sign and a wonder among the people. You know, it means that we have so much responsibility toward one another, to love one another. I can't think of a more prominent, important thing as signs and wonders than to be signs and wonders of love.

He says, here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me. We are for signs and wonders in Israel. I don't know if you've noticed the different signs that are in Isaiah so far. There's the sign of Emmanuel. There's the sign of the sons, Maher, Shalal, Hashba.

There's the sign of the book, the open scroll. There are all these signs that are in Isaiah. And the signs are a common theme in Scripture. God speaks of signs quite regularly. In Genesis chapter 1, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day.

Let them be for signs and seasons. They're markers. God places the celestial bodies as signs. Signs and wonders to mark seasons, to declare the glory of God, because the whole heavens declare the glory of God. There are signs really everywhere.

It begins in the signs of creation. The wonders that You see in Exodus, the first time this term wonders is used, is first used in the snake in the hand of the magicians, in the days of Moses when he confronted Pharaoh and his magicians. These were signs and wonders. In Deuteronomy 6 we read, And the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household, when He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in and give us the land which He swore to our fathers. Signs and wonders.

There are so many signs and wonders from the heavens to the people of God walking in the world. In the New Testament, signs and wonders authenticate the message of the Gospel. And yet, The writer of Hebrews quotes this very text in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 13. I will put my trust in him and again, here am I, The children whom the Lord has given me inasmuch, then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and released those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed, he does not give aid to angels, but he does give aid to the seed of Abraham.

Therefore, in all these he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. And the writer of Hebrews is saying that what Isaiah said is fulfilled in his day, that the children who have had their sins paid for are now signs and wonders in the era of the New Covenant. And so this whole matter of signs and wonders is before us. He sees himself as a sign and a wonder in the world. All that we would be such signs and wonders, such better signs and wonders as a church together.

How would it be? We're on the dawning of a new year here. In just a few days it will be a new year. And I wonder what will be the signs and wonders from us. What will it be?

We should really commit to prayer how we might be such signs and wonders, not in our own flesh, but as obedient sons and daughters of the Lord. It happens because we hallow Him. When we hallow Him and we don't fear man, we become signs and wonders. When we fear Him and not man, we become signs and wonders. When He is our dread, we become signs and wonders.

And we in the sanctuary and the refuge Of His house, we are signs and wonders in the world. Also notice in verse 18, the next point in your outline, He sees Himself as from the Lord. He sees himself as from the Lord, from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion. He sees himself and the other children as signs sent from the Lord, coming from the Lord, everything coming out of the Lord. And then finally in this third section, the Lord speaks to Isaiah and the people.

So The Lord speaks to Isaiah first and then Isaiah responds. He responds with such a heart of a Christian. And then now the Lord speaks to Isaiah and all the people. I say that because it's in the plural. And when they say to you, that's you plural, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God." Now there's this inevitable confrontation with the world that takes place.

And the Lord is saying, watch out, this will happen, watch out. They will compel you to seek mediums. They will compel you. They will say to you, seek those who are the mediums. That's the voice of the world.

Don't listen to God. Don't bind up the testimony. Don't seal up the law. Seek the other voices. You know, the worldlings have good things to say too.

You know, someone was talking to you about this whole idea of plundering the Egyptians, you know taking the best ideas of the Egyptians What he says is there will be people who will tell you go find the ways of the world Go use the wisdom of the wise Uses two words here medium medium which is a channel of communication from the spirit world or it's often called a familiar spirit, a voice from the dead. You know, people are always looking for supernatural knowledge and wisdom. They want help from outside themselves, but not from God. Not from the hallowed one, but from the one from hell. This is the tension that's placed here before us.

Then there's the word wizards, very similar. But it's the idea of going and looking to other powers, other powers than God. In other words, rejecting that God is sufficient, that Scripture is sufficient. It's a rejection of the whole idea of binding up the law and sealing up the testimony. And he says, they have no light in them.

They have no dawn. There's no sunrise. There's no escape. There's no refreshment. They're just locked in their own treadmill.

How often do we consult the wizards? How often do we listen to the pundits? How Often do we listen to the conspiracy theorists in our hearts and those from without, and we do what they say, rather than to hallow Him. We look to every other voice, every other counselor, than the Lord, except the Lord. And we so often forget who controls everything.

God controls everything. You know, what's amazing to me is how often the theorists are wrong, how the consultants are so wrong. Let me just give you two examples. How often is the weatherman wrong? How often are the stock pickers wrong?

It's because they do not control the world. God does. God controls the stock market. God controls everything. And so God says, don't seek the mediums and the wizards, but you will be compelled to seek them, to utter their mantras, to go into their trances, and to think their thoughts after them.

And God cries out in verse 19, he says, should not a people seek their God? Doesn't it make sense to seek God? Does it make sense to seek God? Does it make sense to seek the dead on behalf of the living? And then he repeats that phrase that Isaiah spoke, to the law and to the testimony.

Here Now God is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah had just said it, and now God repeats this critical principle of life. If they do not speak according to His Word, it is because they have no light in them. And then there's this terrible result of rejecting God and His Word in verses 21 and 22. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry, and it shall happen when they are hungry that they will be enraged and curse their king and their god and look upward.

Then they will look to the earth and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness. This is the tragedy of the human heart that does not hallow the Lord, that does not fear Him, but that fears all the conspiracy theorists that surround. This is what happens. What do you get? You get a restless life.

You get a wandering life. You never find the satisfaction you hoped for, and you're always doing what will never satisfy. I'm so amazed at the language that Isaiah uses here. Hard-pressed. Hard-pressed.

It's so graphic. Hungry. Enraged. Curse. Trouble.

Darkness. Gloom of anguish. You can just Feel the sorrows of the soul when God is not hallowed. When you fear everything else, what happens to you? Anguish.

Anguish and fear. And you're driven to do things that only cause more anguish. And then anguish builds upon anguish and causes more trouble and destruction. Driven into darkness. The contrasts are so amazing.

The contrasts are so amazing. And it really, it just speaks of those who bind up the testimony and those who just love their own testimony. God's Word is always black and white, to the law and to the testimony, to the light in the midst of the darkness, to the reality of what happens to people that seek help apart from God, how the deception deepens and the bitterness grows, and you end up hating the very thing that you actually hallowed. Okay. So there it is.

Isaiah 8, 11 through 22. Isaiah 8, 11 through 22. Now, there are, in this next section here that we're in, There are two sons of Isaiah. There's the son of faith and there's the son of destruction. And there's speed to the spoil, hasten the booty, or there's the remnant.

These are the two sons. And there really are only two ways of responding. There are those who love the soft waters of Shiloha, and there are those who have the gloom of darkness upon them. There are those who hallow the Lord and reference everything apart, everything from the Lord. And there are those who fear all the pundits and all the conspiracy theorists within.

Now, it matters, it matters whom you hallow, everything hinges upon whom you fear. Everything in your life is a reference point on what is big and what is small in your life. Here's what I've thought about this whole passage of Scripture as I go forward in life. Everything that I do, everything that I write, everything that I say, it ought to have one single center, one, to hallow the Lord. And this made me think back at how many ways there are in my life where what I've done was to exalt myself rather than to hallow the Lord.

And this passage of Scripture, I think, should help us to find the center of everything good. That God would make us into a people who care nothing except for the holiness of God, the exaltation of God, that everything that we would do and say, everything that we would write, every piece of work that we do would have only one single objective, to hallow the Lord. You know, in our work, we're so tempted to try to exalt ourselves, to make ourselves look so good, because we think the world really is all about us. And that's true of every part of our lives. And my appeal to my own soul, and my appeal to every soul here, is Let us hallow the Lord, and let us forget about ourselves.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, Lord, that You would drive these things home in our hearts. That You would show us when we are exalting ourselves, that You would take us up short, that You would remind us, that Your Holy Spirit would speak to us. Oh God, I pray that You would come and do that for us, that you would favor us in this, that we would hallow you. And Lord, that you would make us signs and wonders in this community until the time you come home, you take us home.

Amen.