Sermon Tone Analysis

When I was growing up, I attended a church that had a multi-purpose building where the youth room, gym, classrooms, and a variety of other room for a variety of purposes was.

One year we had a youth event where we covered all the windows and made the entire building pitch black, including the exits signs, because who needs safety when you’re having a youth lock-in.

We played some game, I don’t fully recall what that game was, but it involved chasing others through the building and achieving some objective.

Several rooms you had to enter were literally pitch black.

There was no light whatsoever, you had to feel your way through the building and hope you don’t run into anything.

What began as a fun evening turned sour.

Not only was the building large and creepy in the dark, there were strange noises, and of course you were running from someone else.

It was a bit terrifying.

To make matters worse, the nature of game causing frenzied flight from other students and in the process, some students got hurt.

One twisted their ankle going down the stairs, another got hurt on something else.

What began as fun ended in misery, and we eventually had to turn the lights back on and end the game prematurely before we finished all the objectives.

In the end, the injuries weren’t severe, but they did end the game.

Imagine for a moment, that we sought to turn the lights on, but discovered that we could not.

Oh no, there’s a blackout.

No lights.

No PA system to let the whole building know the game is over.

No big deal, lets turn on our flashlights, right?

But they mysteriously don’t work either.

Ah. but there are flashlights on all our phones these days, right?

but all our phones seem to be dead as well.

This has quickly moved away from a game to a horror movie kind of scenario, hasn’t it?

It dark, people are getting hurt, others are just miserable, and there seems to be no hope of getting any lights on any time soon.

Whether it is recognized as such or not, this is the spiritual condition of the world apart from Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

Our text today seeks to show us the weight of spiritual darkness and drive us to the point of despair....but then the ray of the light of hope shines through and pierces the darkness like a spotlight at midnight.

Turn if you would to Isaiah chapter 8.

Background

Going all the way back to Genesis, God made a promise to Abraham that he would make of him a great nation, and through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Over time this nation begins to grow.

Isaac, Jacob, and then the twelve tribes of Israel all eventually flow from this promise.

Because of a famine they find themselves in Egypt.

There the people grew to the point that the Egyptians began to fear them, so they enslaved them, and so they served the Egyptians for hundreds of years before God raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt and into the promised land.

On the way out, they spent much time at mount Sinai where God gave the people the law and in a sense constituted them as a nation.

There were promises of blessing for following the law, and promises of hardship for rebelling against the Lord.

After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years due to their rebellion, they finally enter the land and conquer it through the leadership of Joshua and the blessing of the Lord.

As they finish the conquest and Joshua nears the end of his life, he charges the people.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

The Lord, or the false idols.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

The people say “The Lord!” and he says “yeah I doubt it.

you won’t follow through.”

The people double down, no no.

We WILL serve the Lord.

So Joshua charges them again.

God is a witness that you have chosen the Lord.

Therefore, put away the false idols and serve him and him alone.

And the people agree to do so.

But then there is the period of the judges.

We went through the Judges this year, so you know what that was like.

Despite their promise and resolve to serve the Lord, the people failed to pass that same zeal down to their children.

The people rebelled against the Lord and the Lord was faithful to his promise.

The people cycled around from security, to sin, to suffering, to supplication, to salvation, to security, back around to sin and suffering once again.

They would eventually ask for a king to lead them.

God would give them kings.

Some of the kings were good and godly.

Most were wicked and rebelled against the Lord.

It was during one such period of wickedness that the Lord was bringing the foreign nation of Assyria against the people because of their sin.

It was through the prophet Isaiah that God told King Ahaz about this coming judgment.

That’s what is going on In Isaiah chapter 8 where we will be in our study today.

Isaiah is to have a son who will be a sign that the clock is ticking for Israel

Let’s look at the text.

The response to such a prophecy is understandably fear.

But Isaiah is going to go on to say that the people are fearing the wrong thing.

The people are afraid of Assyria.

Isaiah says in Is 8:13 “13 But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.

Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.”

You fear the judgment, but you are not fearing the one who sends it.

As the text goes on there is an interesting sequence.

Its as if the people said “okay…Isaiah says that the Assyrians are coming....but how do we know that for sure?

Maybe we should seek out other sources for information...”

But who are those sources?

Let’s pick things up in verse 8:19, where we begin to see that Forsaking God’s word Brings Darkness.

Forsaking God’s Word Brings Darkness

Rather than relying upon the Lord and what God has said, they sought out mediums and necromancers.

These individuals supposedly communicated with the dead and would ask them questions.

It was believed that because the dead had already entered the spirit realm, they had more knowledge about things than we do, so by asking them they could tell an inquirer the desired information.

Alternate sources of truth.

And Isaiah ask them....what are you do?

Why are you inquiring the dead on behalf of the living?

We sit here today and perhaps feel the same incredulity that Isaiah felt.

Silly Israelites.

Why are you doing that?

That doesn’t make any sense.

And yet here in the year 2022, we do the same thing.

Tarot Cards, palm readers, astrology, etc.

All of it claiming to be a source of truth, but does not have the blessing of God.

We forsake the clear Word of the Lord in favor of horoscopes.

This makes no sense.

But lest we be tempted to think that is just those people out there, we all do the same thing don’t we.

Maybe it isn’t superstitions, divination, or witchcraft, we when we seek out alternate sources of truth we are doing the same thing.

Consulting the spiritually dead on behalf of the living.

We can elevate political leaders in our minds to places they ought not to be.

Too many viewed President Trump as the savior of America, as though he had all the answers for what we need politically.

Before that people treated President Obama in the same way.

Whatever we think of political leaders, they are not all-knowing saviors.

We can do the same with our spiritual leaders.

It is good to trust your pastors, but when that trust goes so far that the leader becomes unquestionable, we are placing them in positions of truth they don’t belong.

Then there are things like the Enneagram, which is steeped in paganism and purports to reveal information about yourself that is available no where else… I’m not inherently against personality texts, but the Enneagram claims to be more than that, and it is based in pagan ideas about mankind.

I remember reading the “Dear Abby” columns in the newspaper back in the day.

People would write in with questions asking for advice, and Abby would answer.

Even as young man who was young in my faith, I remember reading some of the answer Abby was providing…it was no biblical counsel.