Isaiah 12

Chapter 12. Quietness and TrustIn quietness and trust is your strength,but you would have none of it.(Isaiah 30:15)Section I—The Historical SettingThe historical setting of this chapter furnishes the key to its spiritual meaning. In the days of Isaiah, two great empires were contending for the control of the world, Assyria on the east and Egypt on the west. When they met in conflict, the battleground was frequently the Mediterranean coast, and the small states in that region were the chief sufferers in the clash of arms, and were often ground to powder between the two millstones as they came together. The result of all this was a constant diplomacy on the part of these small states, aiming to combine against their formidable oppressors and to join forces with one or the other as it might seem most politic. The kingdom of Judah had suffered much from these alliances. God does not love human politics and His prophets ever protested against these compromises with the arm of flesh. At this time the Jewish politicians were advocating an Egyptian alliance against the increasing power of Assyria, whose invading armies loomed large in the vision and the fears of the people. Isaiah used all the energy and force of his glowing tongue to prevent this move which was both bad politics and bad religion. So far he had failed and already the ambassadors of the court had gone down to Egypt to arrange for an alliance with Pharaoh. The prophet was commanded to hold this up to ridicule and say that Egypt should help in vain. To give more emphasis to his warnings, he had a great sign made and wrote it in the public view as a sort of epigrammatic caricature of Egypt, “Rahab [a mythical sea monster, whose name means ‘storm’] the Do-Noth-ing” (Isaiah 30:7). He told them that the Egyptians would fail them and that the compromise would only bring them into deeper trouble. All this really came to pass. Pharaoh had more than he could do to take care of himself. An Ethiopian invasion came down from the upper Nile, defeated the armies and burned the king alive, and the ambassadors of Judah returned humiliated and disappointed. Meanwhile, the Assyrians, provoked by all this temporizing, as soon as they got through with their eastern troubles, swept down upon the Mediterranean coast and were soon encamped about Jerusalem. All that Isaiah had prophesied had come to pass. How vividly these texts stand out in the light of history. This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’” (Isaiah 30:15-16) They refused to take counsel of God and quietly rest and trust in Him, and they said that they would turn to the cavalry of Egypt. With bitter sarcasm the prophet answers, “We will ride off on swift horses.” Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill. (Isaiah 30:16-17) The help of Egypt was to fail them and the Assyrians were to pursue them until they had learned no longer to lean upon the arm of flesh. But in their distress, God would not forsake them. Beleaguered and besieged by a cruel enemy, His presence would still be with them, comforting, teaching, guiding, cleansing, and at last delivering them. “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” (Isaiah 30:18). How tenderly will He comfort them in the hour of their distress! “How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you” (Isaiah 30:19). And so near will He come to them that they shall learn to know His voice and follow His direction now, instead of their own fleshly counsel and self-sufficient wisdom. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). Better still, their trials shall bring cleansing and righteousness. They will throw away their idols and dishonor their images of silver and gold and their sorrows will be a purifying fire as God intended. Then when all this shall have been accomplished, will come their deliverance. The picture that follows is one of a beleaguered city set free and a land oppressed with invading armies once more bearing its harvests and covered with its waving orchards and feeding flocks in large pastures and undisturbed tranquility. Instead of scant supplies of water, rivers and streams of waters shall flow from hill and valley. Instead of darkness and gloom, “the moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted” (Isaiah 30:26). Then follows the sublime description of the tempest of wrath and judgment with which God shall come down against their enemies. Like the lightning flash and the devouring fire, like the overflowing flood, like the lion defending its young from the foe, like the mother bird fluttering over her nest and guarding her young, and out of the terror of the scene rises at length the joyful sound of praise from a happy and redeemed people. And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people go up with flutes to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. The Lord will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail. The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria; with his scepter he will strike them down. (Isaiah 30:29-31) Isaiah has told us in a later chapter how all this came to pass. In the very height of his pride, as the Assyrian with scorn and blasphemy demanded the surrender of the city, the angel of the Lord came forth and in a single night, by one touch of his awful wing, smote down to death a whole army of 185,000 men. And in the book of Psalms we have the record of the songs they sang. The 46th Psalm no doubt celebrates this great deliverance. Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Isaiah 46:8-11) Section II—The Personal MeaningAll this has a personal meaning for our individual lives. The story of ancient Israel is reenacted in Christian experience still and the lessons of this precious chapter are among the richest and most practical that many of us have ever learned. Our Trials

1. We too are placed in circumstances of difficulty and danger, even as they. But these are not accidents, but divine ordeals intended to test our spiritual character and bring God into our lives. There are no accidents for the children of God; but all things come through a divine plan and a divine permission, and if rightly met “all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). How are we using our trials? Do we become vessels for Him to fill with His larger blessing, or do we let them come in vain and shed the bitter tears of sorrow and find no fruit in compensation? The Arm of the Flesh
2. Next, there is the danger of trusting in the arm of the flesh. For us, as well as for them, there is still the danger of going down to Egypt and looking to men instead of God for help. Egypt for us represents the world with its resources, its compromises, its empty promises of aid. God is very jealous of His people’s confidence. He may use second causes as His means and instruments, but He always wants us to look to Him as the great first Cause and commit our way to His hands and then leave Him to deliver with or without the help of man. Quietness and Trust
3. This is the attitude in which we should meet every trouble. “In quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). This is true even in the plane of human reason. It is the man that keeps a cool head and holds himself in tranquil self-command that carries his vessel through the stream and his army through the forlorn hope. It is true in spiritual emergencies. “The one who trusts will never be dismayed” (Isaiah 28:16). The first thing to do when trouble comes is to be calm and look to God before we think a thought or take a step in our own wisdom. Confidence will bring quietness. It is unbelief that makes us restless and leads us to rush to the first expedient that comes to our mind instead of waiting upon the Lord to show us the way and interpose with His help. The Restlessness and Recklessness of Unbelief
4. “But you would have none of it. You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses’” (Isaiah 30:15-16). And so God sometimes lets us have our way. We refuse to leave ourselves in His hand. We rush hither and thither in our great excitement and like them we find that they that pursue are swift. Our expedients fail. Our resources prove unsatisfactory. Our friends are powerless and at last our condition is worse than at the first. God Is Waiting
5. Meanwhile God withdraws and waits till we get through our restlessness and are ready for His help. He does not leave us in our emergency, but He lets us alone to learn our lesson and come to the place where He can really help us and we will let Him. There is nothing more touching than God’s waiting love. When Israel refused to follow Him into the Land of Promise and went back for 40 years to their wretched wandering, God did not leave them to wander alone, but “In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old” (Isaiah 63:9). The way was hard, but it was not the way He chose for them. They had gone, in spite of Him, back to the wilderness; but lovingly He went with them and cheered them and sustained them through all the trials of the way, until another generation had been born that could understand Him better and follow Him in the path of safety and obedience. So still He comes with us through the weary, wasted years that we have brought upon ourselves. It might have been all so different. He had a better way for us, but we chose our own and He went with us through it. Even in our folly and our wandering His promise is still true, “He will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Beloved, is He waiting thus for you? Have you refused to take the better things He meant for you? Have you kept Him waiting until you have learned by experience your folly and your sin and are ready at last to let Him give you what He meant for you at first? And while He waits, He comforts, teaches, guides and sanctifies. He uses our very blunders to show us our folly and bring us to wisdom and righteousness. He turns the curse into a blessing. He teaches us through our troubles and at last he becomes so real to us that we too will know “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). “Thine eyes shall see thy teachers” (Isaiah 30:20). By our teachers God means the trials, the experiences, the providences that have come to us through our failure and disobedience. We are so apt to think when things cross our inclination that what we need is that somebody else or something else be made right, when the truth is that it is ourselves who need to be made right. Until we are right God cannot readjust the things of which we complain. Indeed, they are His file designed to polish and smooth our roughness. A lady went to Mr. Andrew Murray requesting him to speak to her husband about some matters that were greatly grieving her in his conduct toward her and his family. After listening to her complaint, Mr. Murray declined to speak to her husband, but said he would like to talk to her about her own life. She was much surprised when he insisted that the trouble was with her rather than with her husband, and that her first duty was to get her lesson, her blessing, her quietness and peace of mind with the victory over all these things, and when that was accomplished all the rest would easily come about. At first she was offended, but after reflection and prayer, she found he was right and she went to God in humiliation and prayer for her own soul and obtained the quietness and confidence which she needed. A few weeks later she came back to tell her counselor how God had changed all these things in her life and made them so different that everything was harmonious and happy. The question is not what is the matter with somebody else, but what is the matter with me? The promise to the tried one is, “I will be with him in trouble” (Psalms 91:15), and then comes the next promise, “I will deliver him” (Psalms 91:15), but we must first have Him with us in victory and then we shall have His deliverance. “God is within her, she will not fall” (Psalms 46:5), is the first stage. “God will help her at break of day” (Psalms 46:5), is the consummation. Let us learn the first lesson, and when we are able to stand unmoved, then we shall soon find God’s providence working for our deliverance and relief. It is possible to go through the most trying conditions unmoved. It is possible to find amid the storms of sorrow, a quietness and stillness which we never knew when all was calm without, and it is this which glorifies God as no mere outward condition of circumstances could ever do. There is a peace that cometh after sorrow, Of hope surrendered, not of hope fulfilled, That looks not out upon a bright tomorrow, But on a tempest which His hand hath stilled.