Self Destruction Via Self Deception

The Folly of Trusting in Egypt Instead of the Lord

Amen. Please turn your Bibles to Isaiah 30. We'll continue here in Isaiah 30, still continuing to talk about a people who have trusted in Egypt rather than trusting in the Lord. Now this whole section speaks of the folly of trusting in anything other than the Lord, trusting in nations, trusting in self, trusting in anything other than the Lord.

Well when you have Isaiah 30, please stand for the reading of God's Word. I'll read verses 8 through 14. And now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.

For they are rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers, do not see, and to the prophets, do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant, and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel, that is smashed so ruthlessly, that among its fragments not a shard is found, with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, which gives us truth, which helps us to know who you are, who we ourselves are, this creation around us. God, I pray that we would be a people who knows that truth, and embraces that truth, that we would not be a people deceived, neither deceived by anything else, or even by self-deception.

Lord, I pray that you would direct us the way we ought to go, and that having truth in your Son, having that life, we would have great joy and gladness, and that we would have great peace with you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Self-Deception Is Self-Destructive

So maybe you know someone who is self-deceived. These people here in Isaiah's time were deceived. They had deceived themselves into thinking that Egypt would be able to save them when they would not.

Deceived themselves into thinking that the Lord's plan was not good enough. And they embraced this self-deception because it makes them feel more secure. And that's how self-deception works. Why do we have this term, self-deception?

Why would someone deceive one's own self? Because it feels like a more secure place to be. People don't want to believe some truth, and so they tell themselves lies because it feels safer. But self-deception is necessarily self-destructive.

If you don't know the truth, that something actually is dangerous, that something actually is bad, and you deceive yourself into thinking that it's all right, what happens? Naturally, you encounter great trouble because of this.

If you feel that you're in a place of safety when you are not, you will do what is dangerous, you will do what is harmful to self. And the more and more that you are deceiving yourself, the more and more that you cause harm and bring destruction upon yourself.

You know, just to make one small illustration of that, about that idea that safety, that a false sense of security leads to destruction. Did you know that when football pads were first introduced, that it actually increased, at least coordinate with that, was an increase in the number of serious injuries that happened in football?

People have a sense of security from the pads, and so they tackle harder and end up getting hurt more. It is that way when we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are safe in God's eyes when we are not.

The Holy One of Israel and the Seriousness of Despising His Word

So consider these words that begin here in verse 12. Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel. God is frequently in the book of Isaiah referred to as the Holy One of Israel. He is holy, is one of his attributes, so that he is not only morally pure, but he is of a different class than all the rest of his creation.

He is holy, he is set apart. And this is what Isaiah begins with in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah receives his commission. So the holiness of God. God is there in his throne room, surrounded by angels, angels singing, holy, holy, holy, because God is holy.

And this holiness has a great implication for his people. If he is holy, his people are to be holy. If they are not holy, then they must be destroyed. And so a disconnect between God's holiness and his people's holiness requires some correction.

It requires repentance on the people's behalf, or it requires their destruction. And if they tell themselves that they are fine in their current state, they will indeed be destroyed by the Lord. Consider also how the people have been going about this act of self-deception.

As we looked before, they told the seers, do not see, and to the prophets they said, do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things. Prophesy illusions. Leave the way. Turn aside from the path.

Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel. And how does Isaiah respond in this first part of the verse? Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel. People say, we don't want to hear about the Holy One of Israel.

And so Isaiah says, well if you don't want to hear about the Holy One of Israel, let me tell you about the Holy One of Israel. This is the response to the people. They think they can just ignore the problem.

They think they can just make it go away. No, the more they do that, the more they will hear from the God that they are rejecting. If you don't like the sound of your fire alarm and you turn it off because it's beeping at you too much, what's going to happen?

You're going to have a whole neighborhood filled with smoke alarms beeping at the loudest volume. Turning that off, trying to push it away, it will not bring you the desired result. We must revere God.

We must revere His holy things. We must have a proper regard for His Word. We must have a proper regard for His worship, for all that He has ordained. You know, for those of you who were able to come to the discussion yesterday, you may get to watch it online.

I feel like this is really what was at the heart of it. You know, you had two people who were discussing, we were discussing whether or not online church is real church. Now, both parties were very happy to have their sermons online.

Both parties were very happy to have their services live-streamed. And both parties also had limits to what they would allow to happen online. They wouldn't do baptisms online. They wouldn't do communion online.

They wouldn't even do membership online. And yet, there was still a disconnect between whether or not they were willing to call it real church. And I think it really comes down to is, do we say that there is something special about the worship of God that it must be considered holy and not mingled with something that's similar but not the same thing?

We must have a special regard for what God has ordained as special. He is holy. Everything that He has ordained is holy. And we must, everything that He was ordained as holy is holy anyway. And we must regard it, therefore, as holy.

It continues on, says, because you despise this Word, because you despise this Word, how have the people despised this Word? And what is the Word? I don't think that the Word is talking about specifically about the oracle from verses 6 and 7, but rather what led to that oracle, that the people have rejected God's offer of Himself, that He would be their protector, that He would be their their Savior as they face their enemy.

And as they have rejected that Word, and as they have gone to something that they find more secure, as they have gone to something that they find more secure, they despise that Word. Now, the word despise in Scripture, I think most people have a definition of the word despise, where they think despising is hating, it's absolutely detesting something.

But the way I see it used in Scripture, just even in the English translations, it's not talking so much of a detesting as it's talking about just thinking very lowly of something. To despise it is to think very low of it.

If you see a law that says you shouldn't jaywalk, and then you go and you jaywalk where there's no signs that pedestrians are supposed to be walking there, you think very lowly of those laws because, you know, they aren't especially important laws.

It's not clear whether or not, who even made those or what. That would be an example of despising something. It's not detesting it, it's thinking very lowly of it. And this is how people treat the Word of God.

It's not necessarily that they detest it, they just don't think much of it at all. And in the process, they have angered a great and holy God. People think that they haven't done anything that great just to just to think lowly of the matter, that they haven't done any great offense.

But to think lowly of something that is high is to conduct a great offense against the Lord. Consider how this has played out. Consider how people treat the Word of God. You know, a lot of times people will be confronted with something God's Word says, and you might be deceived for a moment into thinking that they are taking it seriously because they're wrestling with it some.

But when you realize, oftentimes, they're pitting it against their own experiences and they're pushing it through some practical framework where they're saying, but would that really work out for me? What are they doing?

They're not regarding God's Word as coming from God Himself and who is truth itself. Rather, they're regarding themselves and their own experiences and pragmatism as being that greater thing through which God's Word beneath that must be filtered through.

To despise God's Word, like I said, is not necessarily to detest it, but to consider other things as more fundamental through which that Word must submit. But God's Word submits to no man because God submits to no man.

Consider something else. Children. You know, there's several children here today. I know it's very hard to sit and pay attention during a sermon, but God's Word is great. And if you're in family worship, having Bible time with your family, a lot of times it's easy for you to zone off, for you to grab a toy that's next to you that your parent doesn't realize is there to play with that toy.

That's despising the Word of God. You have to take the Word of God seriously. The Word of God is important because it is true and it comes from God who is truth itself. It cannot be despised. To despise, kids, is to think lowly of something.

Trusting in Oppression, Perverseness, and False Signs

You should not despise the Word of God. Now he continues on, he says, and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them. What does it mean to trust in oppression? How have the people trusted in oppression?

Well, think of who is Egypt and the course of Israel's history. Who is Egypt? They are the great oppressor of the people of Israel. They are the ones who kept the people in bondage for 400 years. Now how does that make sense that the people would then go back to their oppressors?

But this is precisely what people do all the time, rather than trusting in the Lord. They hear the Lord's promise. They do not want to trust the Lord's promise because they see it with eyes of sight rather than with eyes of faith, and they despise that word, and they would choose rather to trust an oppressor.

Consider how often this happens in religion, where people go to some religious asceticism that binds them by all sorts of difficult works that they must do in order to be right, in order to have some condition of peace, and they try to match up to those things and often they can't, and even when they can and whatever religious framework they're working by, ultimately it does not give real peace.

All it does is has bound them to all kinds of oppression that cannot save. People frequently trust in oppression rather than trust in the Lord, who is a kind and gentle master who does not oppress. Now consider how often that happens outside of religion as well, even in secular frameworks.

Now what do people trust in for their salvation? Often they trust in government to care for them, and in the process they often reject the word of the Lord. The Eighth Commandment says that it is wrong to steal, that it says thou shalt not steal.

There is in the Bible a very clear notion of property that property is a right that God has given man, and yet oftentimes governments will take from people. You see in Ahab, he stole Naboth's vineyard, right?

This is a wrong thing to do, but often people will happily, happily encourage the government to oppress people because they think it will make them safer. They happily encourage the government to take more and more and invade into spaces that the government does not have authority in order that they might feel safe.

They're very happy to have the government take over more and more parts of society and more and more parts of what the family is to be doing, what the church is to be doing, because it makes people feel safe.

They would happily accept the mastery of an oppressor rather than trusting in the Lord and what he has said about where property belongs, where authority belongs, either for the family or for the church.

He also describes trusting in perversion and perverseness. You know, why is this perverse? Well, Egypt, what they are known for is their great military might and having many horses and chariots, right?

So the people want these horses and chariots, but what is God referred to often as in Scripture? He is the Lord of hosts. He is the Lord not just of chariots of horses, but chariots of angels, where the angels do not only pull the chariots, but the chariot itself is composed not of wood, but of angels, if you read Ezekiel and other passages that describe this.

If God is the Lord of hosts, if he rides upon angels as chariots, why would the people perversely go to something that is far, far less, where they claim the power of their false gods, their gods made of stone and wood, rather than trusting in the true God who has all power?

It is, it is incredible the way people will take false signs, signs of someone's might, and go and trust in that, rather than trusting in the Lord who has performed every sign and done every good work and has created this whole universe.

There's a passage I'd like to read to you that's a little longer, please turn to 2 Thessalonians 2, and we'll look at 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning in verse 9. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false, in order that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure and unrighteousness. Scripture describes a particular people who have refused to love the truth, they despise the truth, they despise God's Word, and so what does God do?

God deceives them, or God allows them to be deceived with false signs and wonders, so that they may not believe what is true, but rather believe what is false and be condemned by that thing. The one who despises what is true, they will naturally be enraptured with what is false.

Now if you go back a couple years in the sermon archives, you'll see that we preach through this, and I preach through, I don't remember if this passage or if it was the parts earlier in 2nd Thessalonians 2, but I do believe that this refers, that this is prophetically referring to the rise of Roman Catholicism and the false works, the false miracles that happen in Roman Catholicism, and so many people have trusted in various Roman Catholic practices that have synchronistically melded with paganism just based on signs, on false signs and wonders.

It's very frequent that people trust in these perverse things rather than trusting in the Lord, and this is so common that people trust these false signs and wonders. Many different religions have them.

Once again, this is true even in a secular way of thinking. You don't think of non-religious people as being deceived by false signs and wonders, but if you consider what it is that people have their trust in, that they often have this great trust in the power of humanity to solve the world's problems, the power of humanity to save, and why do they think that?

Why do they think that modern-day humanity has so much wisdom and has so much greatness and the pervading moral, I don't know what you would call it, a zeitgeist, a hegemony, the pervading moral ideas are wise because the people are wise as demonstrated by what?

By technology, by false signs and wonders. Now it's not that technology is in itself bad, it's not that it's not, it's incredible, but it is no sign to the power of humanity to solve the world's problems.

Rather, scripture tells us that it speaks of the God who gave it to humanity and ordered that he might discover it. You know, God designed this world so that we would discover things and so that we would create technology, not so that we would feel more and more certain of ourselves and our own wisdom.

I was speaking with a friend several months ago, maybe six months ago, and he had really been gotten into some false ideas about the nature of life, about the nature of just life and death in general, and when I asked him why he was so impressed by this, he told me that it was because this is what more and more people are realizing, and I said, what makes people now so much wiser than people before?

Like, why would you trust people now more than you would trust people before who were spending time thinking about deep philosophical things like this? He says, well, we have flush toilets. Flush toilets.

This is the sign to let this man know that we have better wisdom regarding life and birth and death and all kinds of philosophical things is because we have flush toilets. This is the sign that we have wisdom.

People are easily deceived. They are easily deceived. If they do not love the truth, they will be given over to false signs and wonders, and love what is false. So he says in verses 13 and 14,. Therefore, this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant, and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.

The Wall That Collapses and the Pot That Shatters

So Isaiah makes two analogies. He speaks of a high wall that is bulging and about to collapse. The idea of bulging, you know, if you imagine you've got a wall and you have an enemy that's throwing, I don't know, big projectiles with a trebuchet or something at it, and it hits the wall.

What does the wall do? It has a big bulge in the middle, and that bulge means the wall is no longer stable. It's going to fall as soon as that center of gravity gets off balance. And then he describes it as the breaking of a potter's vessel, just smashed to bits.

And this is what is going to happen to the nation of Egypt as God brings Assyria against them. They are not going to save the people of Israel. Rather, they are going to be destroyed. And then along with that, the people themselves are going to feel that shame of having trusted in this nation of Israel.

And consider the different qualities of this judgment, of this destruction that people bring upon themselves by the self-deception. First of all, it's complete. It's complete. You know, when the wall falls, you can't build up the wall from what remains.

There's really, you've got to start over if you want something structurally sound. The same thing with a pot. How do you repair a pot? You can't do it. You can't just, you know, take some more clay and fuse it into the middle.

It won't be structurally sound anymore. You can't do that. You have to start over. And so the destruction is complete. It's a certain destruction. This is one that will come to pass. As the wall is bulging and about to collapse, what does that let you know?

It's coming down sooner or later. It is certain that it will come down. And it will come down suddenly. You know, people think that because God has been merciful to them for many years, that He will just continue to be merciful to them.

But that is not the case. You know, those who go along and their wicked ways of living, rejecting God's truth, despising His Word, not having trusted in His Son in whom there is forgiveness of sins, what happens?

Suddenly their life is taken away and all of it comes crashing down. There is a bulge in that wall at this moment. It will come crashing down. It will be a great destruction and it will be irreparable.

There will be no way to restore it. Those who stand before God in judgment, there will be no fixing it. There will be no short release upon good behavior like there might be in our justice system. There is no such thing.

There is no way to to get out of it. It's forever and ever and ever. And so it is the case with this destruction that comes upon man. Consider just how, just how destructive it is to reject the Word of the Lord.

Proverbs 29 18 says that where there is no prophetic vision, the people perish. Those people who have said to the prophets, do not prophesy to us what is right, who said to the seers, do not see. That verse in Proverbs that is so frequently misused to speak of just a you know insight or or planning, which is actually speaking of prophetic vision.

Think about what that's saying. If you say do not see the things you're supposed to see, if the people perish without prophetic vision, they're asking they're asking people to cut them off from the very life source that God has for them.

People shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. You cut yourself off from that word, you cut yourself off from the very food that keeps you going, that nourishes you spiritually.

There is no hope for you if you are cut off from this source of life. It is only through God's Word that truth can be found. It is only through God's Word that salvation can be found. It's only through God's Word that we can learn of Christ who gives forgiveness of sins.

The Potter, Psalm 2, and Hope in Christ

Now consider also in connection with the previous chapter this notion of a potter. This is not the first time Isaiah has mentioned it. In verse 16 of chapter 29 he said, you turn things upside down. Shall the potter be regarded as the clay that the thing made should say of its maker he did not make me or the thing formed say of him who formed it he has no understanding.

God is the potter. The people have rejected him and they think of themselves as the potter. They turn things upside down. They think they will be able to repair anything that happens to them but this is not the case for God is the potter.

And so it is with everyone who rejects the truth. You know just some more examples of self-deception for you to consider. Those who get involved in some kind of pyramid scheme, they really want to think this thing is going to work out for them.

When they start realizing that something is wrong, what do they do? They just suppress that truth. When their friends tell them, hey this multi-level marketing thing, that is a pyramid scheme, they get offended.

They reject it and so they invest themselves further and further into it until they're destroying themselves more and more. Self-deception necessarily leads to self-destruction. And consider how that exists in our era where people have rejected what God's Word says about his image and that he made man male and female in his image.

And so as they reject this, as they reject binary sexuality, what does this lead to? It leads to self-mutilation and self destruction. As people reject what God has said about his blessing on mankind that mankind should be fruitful and multiply and they reject that and they have for decades been saying that actually increasing the population is going to destroy the world when God has said that it's actually going to bless the world that there be more mankind in the earth.

And so people reject this and what do you see? Now people are worried as birth rates fall you can't maintain the older generation because there's no younger generation to take care of them. And then that ends up leading to things like euthanasia.

There's just all sorts of horrible destructive things that come when you start embracing lies, when you start engaging in a self-deception, telling yourself that God's Word is low and needs to be filtered through some other lens of pragmatism, through the statistics that we understand.

No, God's Word is true regardless of what everything else around you says. I'd like us to also consider Proverbs 2, or excuse me not Proverbs 2, Psalm 2, because it also speaks of a pot being smashed.

And it does seem to be that there's an allusion to this here. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. You know that was a similar phrase to what Isaiah was using earlier in this section in Isaiah, right?

The people take counsel together in the dark. And against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. What are God's cords? What are his bonds?

It's his law. It's his law. The people have despised his law. They reject it. They don't like it. Let us cast it away. But he who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

This is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is above all. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Jesus Christ is the one who will smash every last enemy. All those who have not come to him and trusted in him, he will smash every last one.

But consider what it says as it continues on. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. This message of curse, verse after verse after verse, ends with this one line of blessing. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. How do you take refuge in him?

By coming and kissing the Son, trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. There is forgiveness in him. There is salvation from being smashed because you have placed the pot above the potter.

And how does Jesus accomplish this? Through his death, burial, and resurrection. Isaiah 53 says that it pleased the Lord to crush him. Jesus Christ was crushed. He became an earthen pot like us. He was smashed himself.

Though he will be the one smashing all the others, it pleased the Lord to crush him in our place. We who deserve this, who trust in him, who come to him in faith. There is an escape for this wrath. We who have engaged in self-deception, every last one of us who have believed lies, who have despised God's Word, there is hope.

And that hope is found in Jesus Christ, who himself became one of these earthen vessels and himself was smashed by the Lord. And then on the third day, rose again with the perfect glorious body to bring all of us into the same condition on that great and glorious day.

And Isaiah ends in Isaiah 64 8 with that statement, with that acknowledgement that God indeed is the potter. We acknowledge that you are the potter and we are the clay. And so Christ has not only provided forgiveness for us that we may escape such things, not only has he done that and provided that we have this future beautiful perfection awaiting for us, but he has given us his spirit that we might make that confession with him, acknowledging that God is above all and that we are just the clay.

You know, truth is like, it's like screws in a table. If you take out enough screws, it's just going to all collapse. It's like the wall that has the bulge in it, it will collapse eventually. It is like the pot that is about to be smashed by the one who is angry, but if you come and you kiss the Son, if you come to Jesus Christ in faith, he will transform you so that you are able to acknowledge God as the potter and he will preserve you as a vessel for his glory.

Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. We thank you that he has died for his people, being crushed, that we might have this new life, that we might be spared the crushing that is owed to us, that he has given us his spirit, that we might confess him as Lord, that we might confess that the potter is above us, and that transformation by which we can even come to him in faith, kissing the Son.

We thank you for this incredible salvation. In Jesus' name, amen.