Isaiah 7 - Standing by faith

So our reading is taken from Isaiah chapter 7, and we're reading the whole chapter. It's on page 692 in the Church Bibles.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

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When Ahaz, son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah, son of Ramalia, king of Israel, marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

Now the house of David was told, Aram has allied itself with Ephraim. So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out, you and your son Sheer-Jabesh, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the launderer's field.

Say to him, Be careful, keep calm, and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smouldering stubs of firewood, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and of the son of Ramalia.

Aram, Ephraim, and Ramalia's son have plotted your ruin, saying, Let us invade Judah. Let us tear it apart, and divide it amongst ourselves, and make the son of Tabil king over it.

Yet, this is what the sovereign Lord says. It will not take place. It will not happen. For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin.

Within 65 years, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Ramalia's son.

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.

Again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz, Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask. I will not put the Lord to the test.

And Isaiah said, Hear now, you house of David. Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also?

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel.

He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.

For before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.

The Lord will bring on you and your people and on the house of your fathers a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah.

He will bring the king of Assyria.

In that day, the Lord will whistle for flies from the Nile Delta in Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria.

They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thorn bushes and at all the water holes.

In that day, the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the river Euphrates, the king of Assyria, to shave your heads and private parts and to cut off your beards also.

In that day, a person will keep alive a young cow and two goats, and because of the abundance of the milk they give, they will be curds to eat.

All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.

In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will only be briars and thorns.

Hunters will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briars and thorns.

As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of briars and thorns.

They will become places where the cattle are turned loose and where sheep run.

Great, thank you, Vanessa.

Before I turn to God's word, Reed and Emily say that they have a few items that they are looking to pass on before they fly out.

So if you need a baby car seat or a guitar to practice on or a keyboard to practice on, you can go and speak to them.

But, you know, go and wish them well as well.

Don't just go, hey, about that car seat.

Yeah, instead, go and wish them well.

Let me pray as we come to God's word.

Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, we want to pray now as we come to your word.

We thank you that you love to speak through your words.

And we pray, please, that you would do that now as we turn to it.

Lord, there are things in our hearts and our minds which would distract us.

We pray, please, that you would help us to set those to one side, that we might think on you and ponder on your word carefully.

Lord, do us good.

Bring yourself glory.

Today, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I have sat in enough sermons and been where you are enough times to know that basically what happens at this point in the service,

if you've got any kind of reasonable sensitivity to the idea that God might address you through his word,

what comes to your mind now is, I wonder what God is going to say about this.

Insert whatever trouble it is that you're facing.

So we're all sat here, aren't we, with a myriad of different things on our minds and our hearts.

Some of us here are worried about work, perhaps the absence of work, or maybe the presence of too much work.

Some of us are worried about different relationships, worried about our children, worried about our parents.

Maybe there's a relationship struggle that we have.

Perhaps we're worried about our health, or our money, or our housing, or our visa.

None of us are sitting here just blank canvases, are we?

None of us are neutral.

It's just not how the human mind works.

But as we come to Isaiah 7 this morning, I think what we will find is, as we are thinking,

I wonder what God has to say about this, whatever this is,

I think as we come to Isaiah 7, we will find something quite surprising,

which is that Isaiah 7 will suggest to us, or better still, God will suggest to us through Isaiah 7,

that this, the thing that's on our mind, whatever that is, might not actually be the real problem.

Your relationship status, your mental health, your financial situation,

might not be directly addressed by God's Word this morning.

Not because God does not care, but rather because Isaiah 7, I think, is going to show us

that the big struggle in our life, that the real issue, the thing that should be on our minds

as we come to God's Word, is something else.

The question really for us this morning is, will we trust the Lord?

That's the question behind all other issues.

Will we?

Whatever it is that we're facing, whoever it is that we are,

whatever our problem or our trouble,

will we exercise faith, confidence, trust in the God who made us?

That's the question behind all questions.

Now, you might think that the best way to ask that question is for it just to be stated in a kind of like survey thing.

So you would hope, you would pick up your Bible this morning, you would open it, and it would say,

do you trust the Lord to tick A for yes, tick no for B, tick C for I require some further information before making such a decision.

But as you open the Bible, you find yourself in a story, true story, but a story nonetheless.

And this story is meant to move you to put your faith and your trust in the Lord.

And so what you need to do, you need to exercise a little bit of thought and care this morning

to understand the story that we might hear the message of the story.

So, let's kind of strap in and have a look.

Verse 1, let me try and retell the story to you.

Verse 1 starts,

When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah.

Now that means if you were with us last week,

last week we heard in the year that King Uzziah died, chapter 6, verse 1,

we now have jumped through the reign of King Uzziah's son, that is Jotham,

into the middle of his grandson's reign, which is King Ahaz.

Now, King Ahaz, you might know or you will find out, is not a very good king.

You'll find bits of that in this week's passage, but if you want to read the whole story,

you can turn to 2 Kings 16.

Not now, but another point.

The point here is that King Ahaz is ruling the southern kingdom of Judah

from the city of Jerusalem during a political military crisis of gigantic proportions.

There are seismic shifts in global power going on,

and King Ahaz is about to be blown around by them.

Take a look at the rest of verse 1.

King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Romalia, king of Israel,

marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

Now, those names might not mean much to you, goodness, that was hard to say.

But King Rezin of Aram, which is Syria, and Pekah son of Romalia, king of Israel,

are the rulers of two other small nation states to the north of Judah.

If you don't know the history or geography very well, don't worry,

I've put a map on the screen, and here you can see those three different nations.

You have Judah in the south, Israel in the blue, just north of it,

Aram also called Syria, and then the Assyrian Empire.

Judah is ruled by Ahaz, Israel is ruled by Pekah,

and Aram is ruled by, look down at it, Rezin.

There you go, Steve, you got it right.

Now, what's happening is Assyria has been taken over by a new king

who has great ambitions for the Assyrian Empire.

His name is not mentioned in this passage, but his name is Tiglath Pelzer III,

and he wants to take over the region.

So what do you do?

If you're a smaller nation state and there's a big empire on the march,

what are you going to do?

Well, you're going to gather together to form an alliance,

and that's what Syria and Israel have done, or Aram and Israel have done.

Ephraim, as it's also sometimes called.

They've joined forces in order to stand against the oppression of the Assyrians,

which is coming their way.

It's maybe like a sort of NATO of its time.

Now, unsurprisingly, what does an alliance of two nations want to do

to strengthen their alliance?

They want to become an alliance of three nations.

So they want Judah to join the alliance in order for them to become stronger.

But, for reasons that are not explained in our passage, Judah refuses to join.

And so Syria and Israel decide,

if Judah will not willingly or voluntarily join our alliance,

we will make them join by force.

So they send out their armies to march on Jerusalem

in an attempt to install their own king, if you look down at verse 6,

in Jerusalem, who would support the alliance.

Now, that's the politics, right?

Judah are facing the threat from Syria and Israel

as they try and force them to join an alliance against Syria.

But verse 2 tells you the emotions.

Look at verse 2.

Now, the house of David, that is the king's house,

was told that Aram has allied itself with Ephraim.

That is, Syria has allied itself with Israel.

And so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken

as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.

Now, ancient political struggles might not seem very much to you.

It seems a very long way off and very distant.

But if you try for a second just to think your way into Ahaz's shoes

or the shoes of any citizen of Judah,

it was a massive problem.

Right?

Israel and Judah have been allied.

They were one nation under David and Solomon.

Right?

They are brothers.

They are brothers.

But now what has happened is that the nation of Israel

has turned on the nation of Judah

and has threatened the holy city itself.

Now, this isn't entirely alien, is it, I suppose?

We live in our own times of political upheaval,

nations raging against one another.

We are told, aren't we, on the news that war with Russia

is more likely than not now.

And in subtle ways, it might be happening already, we're told.

The war in Iran is making it more difficult to afford fuel.

The crisis in the Middle East is sending refugees around the Western world.

And all of it is unsettling.

And that's what's going on here in Isaiah 7,

but just like on an even bigger scale.

And the effect then is huge.

Isaiah describes their hearts as like trees in the wind.

It's a vivid description, isn't it?

The house of David and Ahaz are in a flap.

They're just being blown around.

And into Ahaz's flap, the Lord sends Isaiah and his son

to go and speak to him in verse 3.

God tells Isaiah exactly where he'll find Ahaz,

which I imagine is important because I think Ahaz

is probably keeping a low profile right now

because he doesn't want anyone to know where he is.

And in verse 4, God's message is told to him.

He says,

A guy called Alec Mateer, who's written a famous commentary on Isaiah,

paraphrases it like this.

Do not be afraid of these two fag ends, Aram and Israel.

Aram and Israel are just like smoldering cigarettes.

There are nothing to worry about.

They are fiercely angry though.

And God knows what they're planning.

God is not saying,

Hey, listen, don't worry.

Everything's going to be okay.

They're nothing.

What he's saying is,

not that nothing bad or hard is going to happen.

What he's saying is,

even though it is difficult,

you do not need to lose heart.

Do not be terrified.

Keep calm in the midst of it.

The implication here is that Ahaz,

it should be possible for you, Ahaz,

to see these people as these smoldering wicks

because I have some information for you

which will make you see them differently

to how you see them right now.

There is something else going on behind or above,

if you like,

what is seen by you.

So Isaiah continues, verse 7.

This is what the sovereign Lord says.

It will not take place.

It will not happen.

For the head of Aram is Damascus.

The head of Damascus is only resin.

Within 65 years,

Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.

The head of Ephraim is Syria,

and the head of Syria is only Romalia's son.

If you do not stand firm in your faith,

you will not stand at all.

This is it, right?

This is why Ahaz should be calm and unafraid.

It's not because nothing terrible is going to happen

or it's not going to be difficult.

It's because the power of these people

is really only the power of men.

Resin and Pekka are just ordinary blokes.

The real power,

the real place to stand,

the real rock in the world is faith,

not a political alliance.

Promises,

God's promises,

are found by faith,

are the solid ground in a shaky world.

So stay calm.

Let me just try and illustrate it,

just to give you a little break from the story for a moment.

Imagine that I have two buckets of balls at the front,

two buckets of white balls.

One of them is a bucket of ping pong balls,

and the other is a bucket of golf balls.

Which ones are you afraid of me throwing at you, right?

Well, you're afraid of the golf balls, aren't you?

Not the ping pong.

I mean, I could throw a ping pong ball,

but I might be able to hit someone on the front row,

but they probably wouldn't even feel it, right?

If you're sitting on the back row,

no hope at all.

But a golf ball,

I mean, you do some damage with a golf ball.

I could smash windows.

I could probably knock a few people unconscious

with some golf balls.

I'm not really dreaming of doing that,

but imagine I could.

Here is the point, right?

God is saying,

listen, Ahas,

you're worried about ping pong balls,

but you live in a world where golf balls exist.

You should worry about those instead.

That's the point.

Don't worry about resin and Romalia's son.

They only have ping pong balls.

I've got golf balls.

Worry about that instead.

God alone is the real rock,

and it's by faith in him.

It's like when Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 10,

do not be afraid of those who kill the body,

but cannot kill the soul.

Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy

both body and soul in hell.

That's the one you should be afraid of.

And that's Isaiah's message to Ahas.

Do you see what's happening here?

If Ahas was sat in our sermon this morning,

he'd have come in and he'd be going,

okay, I want to hear something about

what to do in this global political crisis.

Please tell me what to do.

Please tell me what to do.

And what he hears is that

the political problem isn't really the problem, Ahas.

The real problem is your faith.

The absence of your faith.

The big question is not,

will the Northern Alliance win?

The big question is,

will you trust the Lord regardless?

of what they do?

Will you believe in God's promise?

Ahas, will you bank on the fact

that God knows what he's doing

and he will keep his covenant with David

even when all looks lost?

Now, if you come back to the story,

you'll find that God is really determined

for Ahas to learn that lesson.

And he's willing to do anything he can

to persuade Ahas to trust in him.

Look down at verse 10.

Again, the Lord spoke to Ahas,

ask the Lord your God for a sign,

whether in the deepest depths or the highest heights.

Do you see what God is saying?

Listen, ask me anything and I will prove this to you.

Ask me anything that this is the real dynamic

of what's going on in the world

and I will move heaven and earth

to persuade you that this is true.

Ahas is not interested.

He tells God that despite the offer,

he doesn't want to put the Lord to the test in verse 12.

Ahas incredibly thinks he's more spiritual

than even God himself.

And Isaiah is not impressed.

Wonders why Ahas would want to try God's patience

in verse 13 when things are already bad enough.

And so he says God will give him a sign anyway.

Verse 14.

Look down at it.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you,

you there is plural,

he will give the people,

the house of David,

a sign.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son

and will call him Emmanuel.

He will be eating curds and honey.

He will be weaned when he knows enough

to reject the wrong and choose the right.

For before the boy knows enough

to reject the wrong and choose the right,

the land of the two kings you dread

will be laid waste.

It's an amazing promise, isn't it?

God tells the house of David,

don't be afraid.

A young woman, a virgin,

will have a child called Emmanuel.

And before that child reaches maturity,

these two kings will be gone.

They'll last no time at all.

Now we'll think of the bigger implications

of the promise in a moment.

But notice it's not actually all good news for Ahaz.

Because he's not yet willing to trust the Lord,

the big issue of his lack of faith has not gone away.

He's still worried about ping pong balls

in a golf ball world.

He's forgotten, hasn't he,

that he is not subject just to the will of men,

but the will of God.

He's insensitive to this great reality

that his greatest danger is not a military defeat

from the Northern Alliance,

but a spiritual defeat before God.

Because he's not seen that,

so Ahaz's perpetual refusal to trust

then the Lord will bring a worse judgment.

Verse 17,

the Lord will bring on you and your people

and on the house of your father,

a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah,

he will bring the king of Assyria.

Now, you perhaps don't notice here,

but there's a double blow here for Ahaz.

What we find out at other points in the story

is that Ahaz,

because he doesn't want to join with Syria and Israel

to form an alliance against Assyria,

he thinks, because he thinks he's a bit clever,

he goes, I'm going to send some money to Assyria instead.

I'm going to make friends with the superpower,

so I don't need to worry about this alliance,

because I'm going to go right to the very top.

But actually, it turns out that is a terrible move,

and putting his trust in Assyria,

instead of putting his trust in the Lord,

is turned back on him,

so that Assyria becomes the means of God's judgment against him.

God will use their army like a razor in his hand,

shaving Ahaz's head,

legs if you've got an old NIV,

private parts if you've got a new NIV,

because they lost their bashfulness somewhere along the way,

and beard.

In fact, this conquest is so severe

that by the end of the chapter,

there are no longer any crops.

You know, you read that bit about the cows eating curds and honey,

you think, oh, maybe that's okay.

That is because Jerusalem and Judah

have turned into like a kind of wilderness grazing land,

and they're only able to keep cattle,

and they're not able to plant crops,

because there are no young men to keep the fields anymore.

See, here's the point.

If I can try and summarize the point of the story briefly,

Ahaz is worried.

He's terrified of ping-pong balls

in a world ruled by a golf ball god.

And he should feel not threatened,

by the Northern Alliance,

and run to the Lord.

But he runs to Assyria instead.

And Assyria, the place of his trust,

becomes the place of his defeat.

As Assyria not only destroy vast swathes of Judah,

but also destroy the very place of his confidence and hope.

Now that's the story, right?

I hope you've been able to track along with most of the detail.

If it's not all clear, don't worry too much.

But you know, don't you,

that Isaiah 7 is not just there to teach you a history lesson.

It's to speak to you.

Now I want to suggest to you,

you know that, not just in theory,

but you know it in reality,

because verse 14 is not really written directly just to Ahaz, is it?

In verse 14, you are told to look out for a child.

Yeah?

A virgin will be with child,

and you will call him Emmanuel.

A child is going to be a sign.

Now in next week's passage,

we'll find that Isaiah's wife gives birth to a child called Meher Shalal Hashbas.

And before he grows to the age of maturity,

Aram and Israel are defeated by Assyria.

But that's not the only meaning of this verse, is it?

Because Matthew picks up this verse,

and he says,

listen, this baby that Isaiah was telling you to look forward to,

is not actually Meher Shalal Hashbas.

It's not him.

There is another virgin, young woman,

a real virgin this time,

who will be with child,

and the name will not be Hashbas,

the name will be Jesus,

Emmanuel,

God with you.

And so that means that the message of trust and faith

is a message for you and me.

So let me give you two applications as we finish.

The first one is this.

God moved heaven and earth for you to trust in him.

You know, you and I might be sitting here

hoping that God would move heaven and earth

to help me find a new job,

or a new partner,

or bail me out of financial trouble.

And when he doesn't,

you might assume God doesn't really care.

But here we find that God is moving heaven and earth

for a different purpose for you,

which is that you might see who he is

and what he is doing.

So literally, right, in that promise,

God the Son,

who is of one essence with the Father and the Spirit,

puts on human flesh,

is born as a baby through the power of the Spirit

in the womb of the Virgin Mary,

and literally becomes Emmanuel,

God with us.

So that in the midst of our trouble,

whatever that trouble might be,

not only is God not distant or divorced or disinterested,

but God is with us and for us,

knowing and seeing and understanding.

And also,

in his humanity,

achieving something for us

that goes way beyond problem solving.

He comes and goes,

I will live the life that you should have lived,

but did not live.

I will die the death that you deserve,

so that you can be forgiven.

Just think of the enormity of this for a moment.

You know,

this Christian claim is so huge

that our Muslim friends don't imagine

that it could even possibly be true.

It's so extraordinary,

it seems ridiculous to them.

But here it is,

in Isaiah 7,

in writing,

God intends to dwell with his people.

Not simply just to save us or to bless us,

but to literally be God with us.

And he moves heaven and earth to do that,

to show you that,

to invite you to believe that,

to give you a taste of it

in the first coming of Christ,

and then to live through the chaos of this world,

trusting in him

that you might be with him eternally.

I wonder if you can imagine

that Ahaz comes to see you

for a counseling session.

He comes into your office

or your front room

or you sit down with him

in a coffee shop.

And he sits down,

he says,

I've observed something

over the last few days.

My Apple Watch has been telling me

I've had terrible night's sleep.

Constantly.

I'm getting those pings from my watch

that tell me that my heart

is all over the place.

I'm really worried.

I think I might be sick.

And he regales the story to you

of the Northern Alliance

and all that sort of stuff.

And you're down with that

because you know that

you've understood all that, right?

And he says at the end,

what should I do?

What should I do?

Please tell me what I need to do.

And you say to him,

listen,

this is what you need to do, Ahaz.

Get a pen and piece of paper out

because this is going to be complicated.

You need to write this down.

If you're going to remember what to do,

you need to write it down.

So he gets a pen and paper

out of his pocket,

ready to write it down.

And he says,

listen,

what is it?

Just tell me what is it?

What do I need to do?

He says,

here it is.

This is what you need to do, Ahaz.

Nothing.

Nothing.

That's what you've got to do.

What do you mean I've got to do nothing?

Nothing.

That's what you've got to do.

Nothing.

Nothing.

You have to trust the Lord.

Maybe I could put it this way to you.

What if,

for you and for me,

the struggles and the difficulties that we face

are not designed to destroy us,

but are designed by God to walk us towards

what is most important,

which is that we might trust in him,

put our faith in him,

that we might have fellowship with him.

You know,

what if God is allowing the Northern Alliance

to lob their ping-pong balls of poor health

or financial insecurity or loneliness

to bring you to the solid realities

of who he is and what he is doing?

You know,

what if God wants to address the trouble in our hearts,

in our minds that we've come here thinking of?

What if he wants to fix that,

not so much by directly changing it,

but by eclipsing it with something

that is bigger and grander and greater

than any trouble that you're facing?

He wants you to be with him eternally.

And he wants you to have a taste of that

in the man Emmanuel,

God with us,

Jesus Christ.

Paul,

in Romans 8,

writes a sort of theological statement

of what Isaiah 7 is telling us,

doesn't he?

He writes,

Romans 8 verse 31,

Romans 8:31

what shall we say

in response to these things?

If God is for us,

who can be against us?

He's not saying there,

is he,

that nothing will be against you?

No,

what he's saying is,

if God is for you,

everyone against you

is just throwing ping-pong balls.

He who did not spare his own son

but gave him up for us all,

how will he not also along with him

graciously give us all things?

God has moved heaven and earth

that you might trust in him,

that you might do nothing.

Secondly,

finally,

if you will not stand by faith,

you will not stand at all.

If the first point is about

what God will do

or has done

so that you might put

your faith in him,

this second application

is really the warning

of the passage,

is what will happen

if you refuse?

And that's the end of verse 9

that we were looking at

with the children.

If you do not stand firm

in your faith,

you will not stand at all.

This is the point,

isn't it?

Isaiah's point

is that standing by faith

in God,

in the God who is with us,

Emmanuel,

that is actually

the only way

to stand in this world.

You know,

if you live another way,

if you seek to stand

on something else

or someone else,

you will not stand at all.

This is the warning

to Ahaz,

isn't it?

You, Ahaz,

you could line up

all the political alliances

that you wanted.

You could be the most savvy

political operator

in the world.

You could sign

all the right political treaties,

but you will not stand

if you're not standing

by faith in me.

And so it's true

for you and me.

You know,

if you and I assume,

you know,

even if you would call yourself

a Christian this morning,

you assume that,

you know,

our faith in Christ,

that's like a kind of

sweet addition

to the edge of my life.

I like,

I've got quite,

I've got most things down

and I kind of,

Jesus is kind of a nice

thing to have on there.

It's nice to have something

to do on a Sunday.

It's quite nice to come

to a church on a Sunday

and meet other people.

I like the songs,

you know,

the preaching's not

all that dull sometimes.

And so,

you know,

I don't mind doing it.

If that's what you think

the Christian life is,

you have misunderstood

it completely.

Because actually,

what we really need to see

is if we're standing

on career or family

or the need for justice

or whatever it is,

we haven't really understood

that faith is the only

place to stand.

It's the only way

to stand in this world.

It's the only solid ground.

Everything else

and everyone else

will abandon you

in the end,

if only in your final breath.

It's interesting,

isn't it,

the way that God

teaches this to Ahaz

over time

is that actually

he takes the thing

that he was trusting in,

Assyria,

and he turns it on him.

And so that actually

the place of his confidence

and his hope

became the means

of his justice

and his punishments.

It's so often the way,

isn't it?

If you lean

and trust in your career

or your family

or your friendships

or your money,

what often the Lord

will do to teach you

that that is a dumb way

to live your life

and certainly a dumb way

to face eternity

is who will turn it on you.

I was thinking this week

our sister Joan

who's not with us

on Sunday mornings anymore

is living in a lovely

nursing home

in Hampstead

that is full of people

who used to be

a big deal.

They all had great jobs,

great careers,

and no use to them now.

Confused, many of them.

sitting in the same chair

all day.

You know,

if your standing is that,

there's no place to stand.

If your standing is your husband

or your wife

or your parents

or your children,

what you need to understand

is that they are mere men

or women

and they will let you down.

You know,

I think you and I,

we've been so trained,

haven't we?

And I think someone else

could probably tell me

why,

why,

but we've been so trained

in kind of Western thought

to think that it is

only our five senses

that really are any

kind of reliable

resource of things

that we can trust in.

Yeah?

If I try to list them,

I might miss one hour

and get confused.

So you know what they are,

right?

So we are used to thinking

that faith,

because it exists

outside of those,

is therefore by necessity

flimsy

and weak

and unsolid.

Faith is the kind of thing

that certain people have,

but it's a bit,

you can't really,

you know,

it's like nailing jelly

to a wall,

you can't really be sure.

But actually Isaiah 7

says exactly the opposite,

right?

It says faith is the solid

because God is the solid reality

and he is the one

who we are made for

and the one whom we will face.

He is the only solid ground,

not those other things.

And because that's true,

what does that mean for you?

It means you need to do

something really important

as you leave here.

Well,

you need to do it now.

You might want to write it down,

okay,

because it's really complicated.

Here it is.

This is what you need to do.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Trust the Lord.

He loves you.

He is for you in Christ

and will keep you

until the day

that you see him face to face.

Let me pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Heavenly Father,

the most difficult thing

is to do nothing

and to trust in you.

but we know from this story,

we know from your word,

we know that you alone

are the solid reality

in this world.

and so we put our faith

and our trust in you.

We say that we're sorry

that we trust in other flimsy,

hopeless things

and we don't trust in you.

Please forgive us

and show us mercy.

And please help us

to leave here

and do nothing,

trusting in you

to do all things well.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.