Trust in God, Not in Your Schemes and Idols

Based on these words of woe and of assurance, God now calls on his people to turn away from their idols in repentance and to return to him (v. 6). Assyria would not have even been coming had it not been for their idolatries and sinful rebellion. His people’s hearts were “far from” God (Isa 29:13), and they had acted it out by open rebellion. Now through the prophet God was calling on them to return to him. Essential to this is rejecting the idols of silver and gold their sinful hearts had devised and their sinful hands had crafted. God is at war with idolatry throughout the book of Isaiah, and the battle was far from over.

Isaiah 31:8-9

God gives a final and clear prediction of the fate of Assyria: They will fall by the sword, but it will not be held by a human warrior. God will supernaturally intervene and slaughter Assyria, and Egypt’s “help” will be displayed to have been utterly useless. In God every single human being lives and moves and exists (Acts 17:28), and when God wills the death of either a single individual or an entire empire, nothing can stop it. Assyria will walk into a raging inferno of wrath in Jerusalem, and they will be completely consumed (v. 9). Beyond their clear defeat at Jerusalem, Assyria’s “rock” (their citadel, even their empire) will “pass away” (v. 9).

As it was then, so it is for us; we face earthly trials that expose the true basis of our confidence, our true “savior”:

Health: When you are faced with the terror of a life-threatening disease, your true “savior” will float to the surface in your thought process. If as you try to sleep, you comfort yourself with thoughts of the advances of medical science, that is your “savior.”

Finances: When the economic experts are predicting a severe recession, and your company has already laid off 30 percent of the workforce with more layoffs expected, when you look ahead to the cloudy future, your true “savior” will float to the surface of your thoughts. If your dominant thought is, At least I have a year’s worth of salary saved up, then that is your savior.

Our God is a jealous God; he wants to be our only Savior. He wants our entire trust to be placed solely in him. As Joseph Hart wrote in 1759 in his hymn, “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy”: “Lo the incarnate God ascended pleads the merit of his blood. Venture on him, venture wholly, let no other trust intrude.” Any trust but in Jesus (the “incarnate God”) is as unwelcome as a home-wrecking lover vying for the affections of your spouse. To purify our trust, God brings smaller trials into our life to show us what we are really trusting in. Ultimately, we must learn through every trial on earth to trust wholly in Jesus Christ. Small trials (a winter flu, a marital conflict, a fender-bender, losing your wallet, etc.) are training opportunities for the final one: death and judgment. We must seize every one of those trials to purify our faith and rest on Christ alone.

Nations also must learn to trust in God ultimately for “national security.” It is certainly wise for governments to promote their national defense by military strength, but Isaiah 31 teaches us never to trust in that strength for ultimate security. The world governments spent $1.6 trillion on their militaries in 2015; the United States spent $596 billion, 36 percent of the world’s total (Perlo-Freeman et al., “Trends”). It is very easy for Christians in the US to trust in the power of the military and not in the Lord.