Wednesday, January 14, 2026 PM

Turn to Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah chapter 8 and we're going to begin reading in verse 11 tonight.

For 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 hallow. 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, they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken."

In this passage we have God asserting the superiority of his

Word versus man's Word. God is saying what's going to happen, and this over and against the plans of Ahaz, Pecah, Rezin, Tiglath, Pelazer II, all the kings, no matter what they have said that they are going to do,

God's Word is the one that will come to pass. His people in Judah need to believe that, and they need to believe that what the prophet says in the name of the

Lord is of utmost importance. So God says to Isaiah, I don't want you sounding like this people, you need to sound different than this people.

Their headlines are not going to be your headlines. Their buzzwords are not your buzzwords.

You are going to give them a word from the

Lord, and it's not going to sound like what they expect.

Their ears are attuned to something else. They want to talk about a conspiracy. They want to talk about the political situation in terms that they are familiar with, but rather than that, the

Lord says you're going to use different language. Now the challenge of that, as the prophet, is what happens when he sounds different than what the people sound like?

What happens when he says what you are most concerned about you ought not be concerned about, and in fact you should be thinking differently?

Won't he sound like a part of the conspiracy that they're against? Won't he sound like somebody who is in opposition to what they understand to be the greatest good?

What kind of target gets put on his back? What do they begin to say and grumble against him?

So the Lord says, do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled, because the prophet is going to sound very different, and therefore he is going to be persecuted.

He will not sound like he is for the very same things that they are for, so they will see him as an enemy.

And so the Lord says to him, do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. Now in this,

God is not saying there ought to be no fear whatsoever in your life.

There ought to be a controlling fear in the life of the prophet, and so he talks about that in verse 13.

And this is, of course, in contrast to verse 12. Verse 13, the Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow.

Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. So the focus will be on the

Lord. The prophet is going to put the Lord front and center for Judah.

They ought to be most concerned about him. Rather than getting up in the morning and going to the marketplace and hearing the latest details of a developing conspiracy, they ought to be talking about the

Lord, concerned about the Lord. The Lord should be at the tip of their tongue, to the forefront of their minds.

The Lord should be the motivation for why they get up in the morning and why they go to bed at night. And this is the instructions that he gave them in Deuteronomy 6.

To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. To have his word written on their foreheads and on their hands, on the doorpost of their house.

They should be talking about the Lord when they get up in the morning, when they go to bed at night, when they leave their house, and when they come back into the house.

And so Isaiah is to speak of the Lord, so therefore in Isaiah's life the

Lord should be his fear. The Lord should be his dread. He should hallow the name of the

Lord, the Lord of hosts, rather than being concerned about this people, their threats, and what trouble they could cause him.

Now the words there in verse 13, the fear and the dread, are the very same words in verse 12, the threats and the trouble.

English translates it differently, but it's the same two Hebrew words repeated one verse after the other.

So we're focusing in here on the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth.

Now this is a name for God that we find 225 times in the

Old Testament, from 1st Samuel to Malachi. So that's just part of the

Old Testament, and that's a pretty high rate of occurrence. The Lord of hosts, 225 times from 1st

Samuel to Malachi, 50 of those occurrences are in Isaiah alone. Isaiah is outdone by Jeremiah 70 times in the book of Jeremiah.

What is this saying to us? What is this indicating to us? It's saying that this name of God is an exceptionally important revelation through the prophets, and that Isaiah is particularly burdened to declare this name to the people.

They need to be thinking about the Lord as the Lord of hosts, and I think it makes sense that in the latter days of the judges, which is 1st

Samuel, surrounded by oppressors like the Philistines and the Midianites, that this is the name of God that comes to the fore, that he is the

Lord of hosts. He is the Lord of all created things everywhere, whatever powers there may be, he's in charge of them all.

And likewise, in the days of the latter prophets, as foreign nations grow in great power over Judah and Israel, as the menace encroaches and envelops the people of God, they turn to the

Lord and they say, you are the Lord of hosts, and they cry out to him.

At least that's what the prophets are compelling the people to do, is to turn to the Lord of hosts.

But their repentance, we find, is sporadic at best. I think someone was mentioning to me the other day about how quickly the

Charlie Kirk revival died out. I said, well, were you around for 9 -11?

No, but the 9 -11 revival died out fast, too. There was a great surge of, oh, we should be thinking about God and going to church and thinking

Bible thoughts. And it happened for a little bit, and then it all kind of died down.

Of course, that's not the only times that happens. We can notice in our own lives, or in the lives of relatives, and the ebb and flow of society, that a great moment of trouble often excites some kind of change.

People begin to make efforts to turn their lives around to God. There was a young man once upon a time who came and visited our church for one service, and we were very surprised to find him there because of his normal reputation and hanging out with friends, and I was like, wow, that was very strange that he came to church that day.

Thankfully, he heard the gospel before he left, and we find out later that he was charged with a serious crime.

Things get bad in life, instinct is maybe turn to God and see if maybe something will work out.

But it seems that many times the excitement just wears off, that repentance is sporadic, that worship is just an episode, and then you move on.

Why? Why is it because the fear goes away? The fear that drives the person to make these changes, whatever that fear was, just kind of melts away.

It no longer is at the forefront of their mind, so the changes go away along with the fear. The fear doesn't remain.

A fear of man, or a fear of death, a fear of conspiracies, perhaps. But when the fear goes away, those alterations also go away.

What ensures genuine repentance and true worship is the right kind of fear, a saving grace called the fear of the

Lord. Fear of the Lord. And so the focus is on this name, the

Lord of hosts. And if you're going to ask why this name, we begin with the first part of the name, the

Lord. The Lord is the one who revealed himself to Moses, to Israel, to Pharaoh in Egypt through many signs and wonders.

This is the name that captivated the people of God from Exodus on. They were very focused on this name, the

Lord. When God commissioned Moses to go down to Egypt to be the shepherd of his people, to lead them out by ten plagues,

God says to him in Exodus chapter 6, therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the

Lord. This is verse 6. Say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord. Now listen to the way that God describes himself, and count how many times he says,

I will. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the

Egyptians. I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

I will take you as my people, and I will be your God, and then you shall know that I am the

Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land which

I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Lord. How many times?

Seven times. A seven -fold expression of what does it mean that the

Lord is the Lord, because I will do all this. That's really good news for the children of Israel, but you know, you'll notice, and remember in the story, it was not often well accepted due to all the trouble it brought them.

When God says, I will do this and I will do that, well, he sure disrupted the status quo, didn't he?

He made life very uncomfortable for the Egyptians, and the Egyptians made life very uncomfortable for the Israelites, and all the things that were the norm that everyone had gotten used to begins to be an upheaval, and there was lots of complaints against Moses and the

Lord for messing up everything. But nevertheless, God reveals himself to Israel by his word through his prophet.

Israel is to know the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How? They will know him as the

Lord. What God's name means is thoroughly connected to what God does.

I will, I will, seven -fold. He tells them, I am, the meaning of Yahweh, I am that I am.

His I am, and you shall know that I am based on all that I will. See how that works?

I am the I am, and you will know who I am by all that I will, and I will do it all.

That's a pretty good definition for God, and this reminds us that the good news for mankind who are made in God's image is nothing other than the person and work of God, the

I am and the I will. A revelation made in its fitting supremacy in Jesus Christ, the

God -man who said of himself before Abraham was, I am, and he came to do the will of his father, revealing

God to us. So what is it that fearful men need to know to be confronted with?

Well, how about a burning bush? You know what Moses needed?

How about a burning bush? How about a word unsurpassed that is set aflame by the

Spirit of God, ever -burning, never consumed? Shall we not turn aside and see this sight?

To the law and to the testimony, Isaiah says in a moment, in the same passage.

Shall we not come in reverence to this sign and wonder with dread upon holy ground, to hear from our

Maker as our Master of the meaning of our lives and the mission that he has for us? Turn aside and see this sight.

That's what happened to Moses. He was confronted by the terror and the dread of the Lord, was he not, at the burning bush?

And he was given a mission, and he was overwhelmed by that mission. Oh, that's too much, can't do it. What's the solution for Moses in the moment?

Is it to focus more on Pharaoh? And what a terrible thing that's going to be to have to confront Pharaoh?

No. To exhaust the meaning of Israel and to think about that this people will be too great for him to lead?

No. But to have one's mind and heart full of God, captivated and captivated by the name of God.

This is Exodus 3 verses 13 through 15, that Moses said to God, indeed when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the

God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who

I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord, right,

Yahweh, the I am, the God, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations, and that includes Isaiah's generation.

What was the problem in chapter 1? They had forgotten God. Their minds were full of conspiracies.

And so God says to his prophet, you are not going to be having your mouth full of conspiracies, you are going to have the

Lord as your fear and as your dread, and you're going to preach to them of my name, the Lord of hosts.

So the Lord of hosts places the sacred covenantal name of God, Yahweh, and he puts it right next to this word hosts,

Lord of hosts. And so that means that he has all power as the self -sufficient, self -existent

God. God doesn't need anybody else to exist, he's dependent upon no one else, and so his inherent power is made plenteous, his transcendent existence has been brought close by this term hosts.

This word means all sorts of, without exception. The Lord of power, he has all sorts of power, without exception he has all power.

That kind of God. God is the Lord whose power and resources are unbounded.

His power is manifest in the fullness of his sovereign control over all creatures in his creation.

You may recall R .C. Sproul saying there's not a rogue molecule in the entire universe.

So there's no category of creature, no swath of creation over which God is not sovereign. All the hosts are at God's beck and call.

Remember the context of Isaiah, he whistles for the flies of Egypt and the bees of Assyria and they come.

That's the Lord of hosts. He made the stars, he numbered them and named them, they shined at his pleasure, and all that mystifies us about space, time, light, and gravity is but a simple pun in the mind of God.

So, why fear man? Why invest our hearts into the woes of conspiracies?

Rather than hallow the personalities and conspiracies of men, we ought to hallow the Lord of hosts.

Lord of hosts, this is the name Samuel introduced when the priesthood was dim and the

Philistines were strong. The Lord of hosts, that's the name that David hurled at Goliath before he let the stone loose.

The Lord of hosts is the name that Nathan spoke over David when God made his covenant with him.

The Lord of hosts is the name invoked by Elijah and Elisha as they invade against the idols of Israel.

The Lord of hosts is the name that graces the Psalms and is remembered a total of 12 times in the little two -chapter book of Haggai.

The Lord of hosts is a name that belongs to none other than our

Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus quotes, or John quotes,

Isaiah 610 and quotes Isaiah 53 verse 1, and in John chapter 12 verse 41,

John says, These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory, the glory of Christ, and spoke of him.

The Lord of hosts of Isaiah is the same glory that was in Christ.

Lord of hosts is the name that should have our attention and hold our affection. It is the name which captivated the fear and the dread of John when he beheld the glory of Christ on the

Isle of Patmos. He saw the Lord of hosts. It's the name that Isaiah knows and beholds

God upon the throne. Remember Isaiah 6 1, in the year that King Uzziah died,

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Verse 5, what did

Isaiah have to say about that? Woe is me, for I am undone, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of hosts. He's seen the Lord of hosts. So this is the same

Lord of hosts, worthy of all of our worship, who is to have the preeminence in all things, and thus our worship belongs to him.

And the proper worship which God himself prescribes to Isaiah is this, him you shall hallow, let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

Now we'll leave those three ideas, hallowing and letting

God be our fear, and even letting God be our dread, we'll leave those three to consider next time together.

But if you've ever wondered about the Lord's Prayer, our

Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, right? It's a somewhat familiar word then, because of the

Lord's Prayer, the model prayer. What does it mean to hallow? Well, notice the parallels that it is placed in here in Isaiah, as the

Lord himself, the Lord of hosts, instructs his prophet Isaiah, here's how you are to worship.

Hallow the Lord of hosts, which means what? Let him be your fear, which means what?

Let him be your dread. Let's give that some thought, and we'll examine it more next time.

Now let's close with the Word of Prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time in your Word, we thank you that you have shown us who you are by your

Son Jesus Christ, and you have given us your name throughout your Word, and that you are to be glorified and worshipped, and your name indeed is to be hallowed as the

Lord of hosts. We thank you that you are powerful, and that you are strong, and that you are always good and right, and we pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.