Dealing With Discipline

Receiving God’s Discipline with Silence, Mourning, and Counsel

In your copy of the Word of God to Isaiah chapter 36 we're going to be reading the last two verses of Isaiah 36 and then going into the first four verses of Isaiah 37. When you have that you can stand for the reading of God's Word say 37 beginning in verse 21.

But they were silent and answered him not a word for the king's command was do not answer him. Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was over the household and Shebna the secretary and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabbi Sheka.

As soon as King Hezekiah heard it he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And He sent Eliakim who was over the household and Shebna the secretary and the senior priest covered with sackcloth to the Prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.

They said to him thus says Hezekiah. This day is a day of distress of rebuke and of disgrace. Children have come to the point of birth and there's no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabbi Sheka whom his Master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the Living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard.

Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your words. We thank you For this narrative which tells us not only of what happened then but things which apply to us even now.

We pray that you would help us to understand these things that you would open our eyes and hearts and ears that we would not be Hardened to your word that but that we would be receptive of it and that we would be a people who are able to be corrected.

As we see with these people in Israel who received your correction as you brought against them your hand of discipline In Jesus name. Amen. So this passage speaks of the people's response the leaders response after Sennacherib the king of Assyria has sent the Rabbi Sheka his messenger along with a message.

Telling them that they must Abandon their hope they must surrender. Go with them to Assyria and become captives because God is not strong enough to save them. And so they have to answer the question are we going to continue trusting in other nations.

Trusting in Egypt before they had a trust they had trusted in Assyria and Assyria is now turned on them. Are they going to continue trusting in other nations like Egypt or will they turn to the Living God.

And Here we see the response and Because God has brought Assyria against the people in discipline. It's right for us to consider this with discipline in our own lives times when God brings consequences about because of our sin and our receptivity to him Correcting us in order that we might be transformed in order that we might be changed Through his correction and not hardened and not unreceptive to it Rejecting it.

So as you look at this passage consider the the importance of Receiving God's Word of receiving his correction of receiving those those painful consequences of sin in order that we might Respond as we ought to and so the first thing you see here is that these people Respond with silence.

Because they have been commanded to respond with silence. You also see that they mourn for their sin and then you see they seek counsel with God. So they are silent. They mourn their sin and they seek counsel with God.

And these are things that we should be doing now. There's more to this context that lets us know that this is what this passage is about. It's not just the obvious that God has brought Assyria against them and discipline.

And now he and now they have to respond to it. There's more to this context that if you've been going through Isaiah. You may realize especially given that I've mentioned before the significance of Shebna and Eliakim.

The Oracle Against Shebna and the Replacement of Officials

Interestingly before earlier in this chapter. They were mentioned with the third man. Joah. You see Eliakim Shebna and Joah speaking with the Rabshakeh. Here, however in chapter 37 you see that it's only Shebna and Eliakim.

Who are named as being ones who are to go speak to Isaiah about their situation. Now, why is that? Is it just brevity? Is there nothing really more to this? Is Joah not sent for a reason? Is he sent but then not mentioned because of brevity?

What would be the reason for this? I think there's at least one reason. That we have that Isaiah would at least frame it this way. If it's not the case that that all three of them were in deep sin. And that is because earlier Shebna and Eliakim were particular figures that Isaiah 22 had addressed.

I'd like you to turn there. We're going to be looking at Isaiah 22 a number of times because it provides substantial context for this. And as you're turning to Isaiah 22 This chapter is known as the oracle of the valley of vision if you've ever seen the Prayer book called valley of vision.

This is what it's named after. It's named after this chapter. I'd like to begin just by reading verses 15 through 21 in this chapter. Thus says Lord God of hosts. Come go to the steward to Shebna who is over the whole household and say to him What have you to do here and whom have you here that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself.

You cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock behold The Lord will hurl you away violently. Oh You strong man. He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you around and around and throw you like a ball into a wide land.

There you shall die and there shall be your glorious chariots you shame of your master's house. I will thrust you from your office and you'll be pulled down from your station in that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and I will clothe him with your robe and will bind your sash on him and Will commit your authority to his hand and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

And so we've observed before that indeed their stations have been replaced. While Shebna was above Eliakim now Eliakim and the way that we see there. Their stations described one being a secretary one being over the whole house.

Eliakim is now above Shebna and so we see God's hand of correction. But what was it that Shebna had done to receive this rebuke? It was in particular when God is sending enemies against them. He rather than Retreating back in silence and mourning his sin in order to address it correctly He immediately responds with building a tomb for himself, you know, if he says, uh, well if I'm going to die I'm going to die.

So I might as well I might as well. Make myself some kind of legacy here and make a monument to my greatness. This is his response rather than receiving the correction from the Lord rather than realizing.

Well, I simply repent God is merciful and kind, you know, God is God is merciful and kind so many people. Do not repent do not turn to him because they don't see him as merciful read our catechism what it says about repentance the true.

Repentance.

Anticipates the mercy of God. If you don't anticipate the mercy of God, you're not going to you're not going to realize these things instead you're just going to React adding sin to sin and this is what the people do.

This is what has been spoken of before in Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 30 verse 1 It said ah stubborn children declares the Lord who carry out a plan but not mine who make an alliance But not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin.

So what do they do when trusting in one nation doesn't work out? Do they turn to Lord? No, they turn to another nation. This is what many people do with their sin rather than trusting in the mercy of the Lord.

They just add sin to sin. What do you do when you're caught in a lie? You make another lie to cover it up. What do you do when? You're overwhelmed with your sin and it feels hopeless. Many people rather than turning to the Lord just go ahead and wallow in their sin because they say well If I'm not going to be able to pull myself out of this then I might just and go ahead and enjoy it this is this is no appropriate response because God is merciful and You can anticipate his mercy as you come to him.

He gives you the power to conquer sin by the power of his spirit. These are things that are Accomplishable with God and so let us not be people who very instinctively react to being caught in sin very instinctively.

React to rebuke to discipline to correction with defensive mechanisms that treat these things as being for our ill but rather let's Respond as we ought and so as we see here in these first two verses they respond in silence.

But they were silent and answered him not a word for the king's command was do not answer him. The Nelly Acom the son of Hilkiah who was over the whole household and Sheb and the secretary and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and Told him the words of the rabbi Shacko.

These are people who are messengers of Hezekiah. They have the authority to speak on his behalf. Now one option they had here is rather than trusting Hezekiah. Every other city in Judah having been destroyed everyone retreating just here to Jerusalem this being the only city left.

It would be very tempting in that moment just to speak on Hezekiah's behalf and say Okay, we're willing to surrender go ahead and take this authoritatively. We're surrendering. And really there wouldn't be much if they had said that if they had already set that in motion.

It could be done to undo this. Even though Hezekiah is king. They could probably and conniving have done this if they had not followed Hezekiah's commands to be silent. We follow a great king. You know Hezekiah is the great great etc. Grandfather of Jesus Christ.

This is the king who we follow and he commands it in face of an enemy like this. That's telling us to give up to give in. That we are not to respond Reflexively but instead to respond with silence. Silence meaning not rashly not with hastiness.

Psalm 19 to excuse me Proverbs 19 to Proverbs 19 who says that desire without knowledge is not good and He who makes haste with his feet Misses his way. All right, the one who acts rashly the one who thinks that just by going and Reflexively responding to situations often does a very poor job.

I'm a software engineer I know that there's a temptation a lot of times to start going ahead and building before you have a plan in place. This is the case with a lot of things if you ever try to build something without having a plan in place.

What happens it never it never works out the way it's supposed to and this is how many people react though. Because they just want to react reflexively. Just as though you know, you were hitting the you know, whatever joints that make your arm goes what which way they they just respond reflexively to the situation rather than respond stopping taking a minute to consider how God would have them to respond and Then responding in that way.

This is especially the case in rebuke you know, it's a difficult thing a lot of times for a brother to come to you and bring some sin to you and When they do a lot of times the first things out of someone's mouth is defense, right?

They want to what you want to do often when you feel something like that is you your fight-or-flight mechanisms kick in. You speak as someone who's being attacked not as someone who's being helped and you try to defend all the reasons why the thing you Were doing was okay, etc.

Or you see something that's wrong within and say well you need to get the log out of your own eye or you come up with all kinds of reasons. Why this should not be received, but that is not that's not how we ought to respond.

We should respond Receptively of these of these truths. We shouldn't be like the child who out of Dockers Office when you know, they need to be operated on kick and scream, right? That's something kids do they have devices to keep kids down because this is how kids respond.

Right when they're being when they have something they need. One of our daughters had a some of you remember, you know, she had some kind of blood vessel on her forehead that needed to get removed. They had to strap her down to something they called a cuddle board To to keep her still and I remember when I was a kid I kicked the doctor because I didn't want to get the shot that they were going to give me.

So this is a childish response is when someone is trying to help you you respond Not as one who is being helped but as one who is being attacked. Rather you need to recognize the discipline is good. You need to love discipline.

I think that verse came up in Sunday school to Proverbs 12 1 whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. So the next thing we see here is that they respond with mourning of their own sin.

Mourning Sin Rather Than Merely Its Consequences

Verses 1 through 3 as soon as King Hezekiah heard it He tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim who was over the house and Shebna the secretary and the senior priest covered with sackcloth the Prophet Isaiah the son of Amos.

They said to him thus says Hezekiah this day is a day of distress of rebuke and of disgrace. Children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to bring them forth. So they recognize this situation that they are in they recognize it's one of that deserves mourning.

It's described as a day of distress of rebuke and disgrace obviously distress. It's a distressing situation to have your city under siege warfare so that you're going to slowly starve to death until the enemy wins.

It's a day of rebuke. This is a result of their sin their sin against God that they had not trusted him To defend him against enemies and had made sinful alliances with other nations. They are being rebuked for this situation.

And that says it's also a day of disgrace because when one is rebuked and their sin is made known That should be disgraceful. A lot of people are shameless and they don't recognize the the disgrace of sin.

It is it is a disgraceful thing To have your sin made known. And they cover themselves with sackcloth. These are Indications of mourning. People mourn before the Lord. Now there's a lot of times that people mourn their situation, but they're not necessarily mourning their sin.

It's important to realize that there is a significant difference between the two. First of all mourning your sin really does look like mourning. There are those who do not mourn their sin at all. In fact, this is the other thing that we saw in Isaiah 22 right building monuments to yourself Choosing not to mourn.

This is that famous passage in Isaiah 22.

Regarding.

Shebna and Eliakim that said in that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning for baldness and wearing sackcloth and Behold joy and gladness killing oxen and slaughtering sheep eating flesh and drinking wine.

Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. This is this is the response of many let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Many of the world's songs even include this line, you know, not not word for word.

But basically say that like let's let's party like this is our last night on earth, you know, we don't get forever. Let's just enjoy every last waking minute of it as much as we can since there's nothing to be had from turning from The world's pleasures and rather turning to the Lord.

But here we see a different response here. It seems that God's rebuke of them through Isaiah in chapter 22. It's been made known to them because they are mourning. They are wearing sackcloth. And so how do you distinguish between the world's mourning?

Over the situation and then true mourning of sin. What does it mean to mourn sin? There's several questions that you can ask yourself in our home groups we've been going through different excuses people make about their discontentment to say why they're not discontent and the author of the book Jeremiah Burroughs is giving lots of Lots of questions.

You can ask yourself to tell whether or not your your excuse is real or if it's just something that You're using to defend yourself to make it look like you're not truly sinning. Well here you can ask yourself several questions to know whether or not your your mourning is real if your situation of mourning Were taken away.

If if the consequences were taken away Would you still be upset over your sin or would your sin cease to bother you at that point? If the consequence is being removed Change your situation so that you don't you don't care anymore about your sin.

You're not really mourning your sin. Right. Secondly, do you have a welcome posture towards God's hands of God's hand of discipline? Now, I'm not saying do you enjoy? You know the painfulness of discipline, but whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.

It is something that is to be loved. Is it something that you welcome and recognize the goodness of it? If you don't recognize the goodness of it and you wish it would just go away. You're really mourning your own sin.

You are mourning just the consequences of sin. And you can ask yourself Many other questions about the situation. Am I really am I really mourning my sin or am I just mourning? Consequences of sin. We ought not to be like those Here in Isaiah 22 that say let us eat and drink be merry for tomorrow.

We die. It's very much what? You see a lot of people do you know, it's a common thing for Students who are struggling with their classes, you know final exam comes up, you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do well no point in trying.

Let's just go ahead and party. So they just go in and enjoy enjoy life rather than rather than going and studying. Well, we have a task at hand to mourn our sin rather than just the consequences of sin and then beyond silence and mourning there is Consulting with God.

There are two ways to consult with God. One is to consult with him directly which we see here but also to consult with him indirectly through People that God puts in your life in order to give you wisdom.

We see here in this passage that they plan on going to Isaiah. They're covered in sackcloth. They go to the Prophet Isaiah the son of Amos. They want to hear from the Lord now. They're going to ask him to pray for them and his prayer is not recorded here.

It is recorded in 2nd Chronicles, but it's not recorded here. And so you might only think of them going to Isaiah in order to pray. But really that's more the job of the priests that they're bringing along with him.

Why do you go to a prophet you go to a prophet to hear from God? Whether or not the solution you have is a good solution whether or not it's a sufficient solution and God will answer it. So you go to hear the Word of God?

You should go to others that God has put in your life in order to Hear the Word of God. It's good to go to the Word directly, but Through those more mature than you. You may hear more of the word. You may have your understanding of the word, correct?

So go to those who are more mature go to a pastor. I know many people they think of their you know, a lot of people go to churches where the pastor doesn't really function like a shepherd functions more as A you know a pep talk coach kind of person, right?

So they don't really think of him as one that they should talk to for shepherding but if you find yourself in a situation where you have Discipline that you're facing even if you think you know the way forward.

It's still good to Speak to those people that God has put in your life to to help you along the way. You should talk to those who are more mature than you about the matter as well to get their counsel.

Do not just go to those people who are going to say the things that you want to hear those people who are peers with you spiritually. Because that's what you'll get. You'll just get what you want to hear and you won't necessarily get what is good true advice.

I.

Once knew a man who Wanted to be a missionary. He had a and he was a missionary. I knew him when he had already been a missionary on a few different rounds.

And I.

Asked him at one point if he had ever Talked to some pastor about that. He said oh I don't think that you should talk to a pastor about whether or not you want to be a missionary. Because I did that once and I talked to him and he told me I wasn't mature enough to go and that I shouldn't go.

And so that was just really discouraging that got to me and then I I didn't feel as good about myself. And so I don't I don't think people should do that. So what did he do? He instead just got advice from the people.

He wanted to get advice. It says. Oh, yes. Yes, very affirming go go be a missionary and whatever in Thailand or wherever it is that he went to right? Your plan is good. Your plan is good. That is not seeking godly counsel if you just go to those who are going to tell you what you hear and not actually go.

To those who are more than mature than you seek out godly counsel and Then here. Going to the Lord directly. So what we see in this last verse. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the rab shakka Whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the Living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard.

Going to the Lord Directly in Prayer and Hope

Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. We should go to the Lord directly now the nature of this prayer the king of Assyria mocking the Lord. Rebuking him and this being a center of hope we're gonna talk about that a good bit more.

That will be the subject of the message in a couple of weeks when we look at Hezekiah's prayer, so I'm not going to go into that deep in detail here, but Just notice what the people do is they are going to the Lord to pray.

They are they're seeking the Lord earlier. Well in a moment, we'll see that Hezekiah will go to The temple in order to pray and here they're going to Isaiah in order to pray with Isaiah. It is important to go to God in prayer.

A lot of people don't go to God in prayer, right? They wait until look at what look at what? Judah has done. They've gone to Assyria. Assyria turn on them they go to Egypt. Egypt isn't really playing out that well and now finally they go to the Lord.

Often going to the Lord is the last resort. Maybe that's the case for you. I think about times when you've really seriously prayed to God has that been when you had a bunch of chances and you just dug that hole too deep that.

You realize oh man, well now I've really got to pray when you could have prayed several steps earlier. That's a very common way that people do it. And this is something that we saw in that context of Isaiah 22 is these people who should have been going to the Lord.

We're not going to the Lord. They have a special access to God. Being in Jerusalem being able to approach him his presence through the temple in prayer to reach him and yet they choose not to. This is why that passage is called the valley of vision.

Okay, you ever hear that and you think that's kind of cryptic sounding. What is Jerusalem? Jerusalem is not a valley. It's a mountain. It's a mountain of vision. Right, it's a mountain where God comes and talks to the people and the people are able to talk to God.

But he speaks of it as a valley because it is a deep dark place. It's like the valley of the shadow of death because they do not go to the Lord with any sincerity. They bring their offerings, but they aren't truly seeking the Lord and a lot of times people do that.

They rely on their identity as a person of God rather than on actually being a man of God going to the Lord in prayer. Do not wait to go to the Lord in prayer go to him. Frequently but then especially as soon as you have need do not try to answer sin with sin numerous times prior to being corrected.

Discipline is for good. It's not for your harm. Do not let the defense mechanisms come up and defend yourself From these things. But go to the Lord in prayer. You know no one when they are Stranded on the side of the road says.

Oh, I'm not gonna call a tow truck because that would just be too embarrassing. I'm gonna try my own things first. You know if they if you need a tow you have to get a tow if you need help get help. The Lord is merciful.

Um, he it's not a. He doesn't turn a blind eye towards sin there is truly shame and sin, but there is no way of. But you cannot hide from God. You cannot be like Adam foolishly clothing yourself with.

With.

Foilage. Foliage in order to hide yourself, right? You have to be someone who? Recognize that you cannot hide from God. His eyes sees everything and the only way to deal with your shame is to go to him.

Directly. Through the mercies that we have in Jesus Christ through his blood shed for us in order that we might have our sin washed away in order that we might be corrected in order to walk in his ways in order to have victory over sin in order to Enjoy the blessings of peace with him.

And you see this. The section in Isaiah 22 that this passage alludes to speaking of Shabna and Eliakim. And it had finished with this, you know at the very beginning of this message I read Isaiah 22 15 through 21 but if we just continue from there in verse 22.

And I will place on his shoulder. This is speaking of Eliakim, but prophetically. Referring to the Messiah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut and he shall shut none shall open and I will fasten him like a peg in a secure Place and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

They will hang on him the whole honor of his father's house. The offspring in the issue every small vessel from the cups to all the flagons in that day declares the Lord of hosts. The peg that was fastened in a secure place will Give way and it will be cut down and fall and the load that was on it will be cut off for the Lord has spoken.

Shabna will be removed and Eliakim will be raised. Any kind of false hope that people have that they would be able to deal with their sin by other Switching their trust from one worldly thing to another worldly thing.

All that all that done away with in Jesus Christ. He is the branch. He is the peg. It's in him that you can have a perfect answer to all these things and as we see Eliakim over the house Leading the people to act rightly as a messenger of the king as one who who serves the good King Hezekiah.

We see a model of what? We can enjoy as we are led by Jesus Christ Serving a great God over this whole universe. One who does not desire our ill even though he his hand of discipline is painful it is for a good.

It is for a correction. And so my prayer for us today would be that we would receive his correction that we would not Act as though it's an attack defending against it but rather would respond with silence with mourning our own sin and with and by consulting with God both indirectly through those he's given us and Directly through his word and prayer.

Amen. Dear my father. We thank you for your word. We thank you that the situations we face Are rarely as dire as what we see in that passage where all of Judah has been conquered except for one city and the people Await, there are almost certain death.

We thank you that you are kind to us in this way at the same time we are a People who are often very foolish and do not are not as receptive as we ought to be to your hand of discipline. I pray that you would give us wisdom that we would love your hand of discipline that we were we would respond to it as those who Are a correctable people and that we would be able to enjoy The blessings of being led by Jesus Christ of having perfect access to the throne of grace and in peace with you through Through your son Jesus name.

We pray. Amen.