Grace As The Strength To Obey

Fear can make smart people do foolish things. That’s why Isaiah’s warning feels so current: when leaders and crowds panic, form alliances, and chase control, God calls His people to a different center of gravity. We talk about why the Lord is “with us” only in the sense that we trust Him, believe Him, and obey Him, and how trying to please God in our own strength can quietly turn into a religion we built to bless ourselves. The core takeaway is a relief and a rebuke at the same time: the source of obedience is God’s grace, not our willpower. 

We also wrestle with what it means to fear the Lord instead of fearing people. Isaiah says God becomes a sanctuary for those who hallow Him, but a stumbling stone for those who reject His truth. That theme runs straight into practical life: how to stand for righteousness without being motivated by threats, how to “wait on the Lord” by staying faithful to the last thing He told you, and why discipleship is inseparable from discipline shaped by Scripture. If you’ve ever felt pressured by the news cycle, social outrage, or cultural intimidation, this conversation aims to steady your footing. 

From there we confront counterfeit spirituality. Isaiah calls out the temptation to seek mediums, psychics, and the dead “on behalf of the living,” and we explain why spiritual experiences are not automatically spiritual truth. The standard is “the law and the testimony,” God’s Word, because voices that refuse that light ultimately lead to confusion, anger, and deeper darkness. And then Isaiah turns the corner toward hope: the people who walked in darkness see a great light, pointing to Emmanuel, Jesus, and to God’s surprising way of winning battles, like Gideon with only 300. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

In his strength and his grace, I'm able to do these things that he calls us to do. If I try to please God in my own strength, in my own wisdom, I'm gonna do things that are not glorifying to him that he didn't want me to do, and I'm gonna think that he ought to bless me for them. And Isaiah is saying, Be careful. I will wait on the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

The last time you were here with us, Pastor Carl talked about how serious God takes sin. We learned that God is serious about sin because he loves us and knows that sin hurts us. Today, Pastor Carl focuses on where we are able to find the strength to do the things he wants us to do. The source of obedience is God's grace. As we continue through the book of Isaiah, you are learning just how important it is to trust in God and lean into his grace as your source of strength and your power to obey. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Watch this. The Lord is serious, the Lord is good, He is He is gracious, He's willing to bring forgiveness to your sins and to make you a son and daughter of the King. But if you reject Him and you go in your own ways, His own chosen people have been rejected by God. Give ear nations and watch this. And people, gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces. In case you didn't understand that, I'm gonna say it again: gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing. Speak the word, but it will not stand. For God is with us, not you. Why is God with us? And it's it's Isaiah talking, and those that that follow what he's saying, those that trust in the Lord and his word, the Lord is with us because we trust him. The Lord is with us because we believe him. The Lord is with us because we obey him. When you forsake the Lord in his truth, and you go in your own way and you build your own religion, you're not walking in in the faith of the Lord. You're not trusting him, and you're not you're not walking in his grace. And you're in danger of the judgment of the Lord. No matter how much you counsel together and work things up, no matter how you you speak the word, you can even use the Bible to make a case for yourself. But it's not mixed with faith, it's not mixed with grace because you're making the word say what you want it to say. Verse 11 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. Isaiah is saying, the Lord made it abundantly clear to me this is a serious business. When we forsake the Lord, we put ourselves in danger. Don't be like the other people. Even if they have more power and prestige and influence in the world today, they won't forever. Don't do the things they do, like uh don't say a conspiracy concerning all that the people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. A conspiracy, another word for that, is a confederacy. It's saying that it's a treasonous conspiracy, an unlawful alliance. They're gathering together to fight against God ultimately. And even though that might seem like a powerful, mighty thing to do, and and and a lot of people will love it because it's like we're standing up for what we believe and what we think is right and what we want to do, you're fighting against God. Don't be afraid of their threats, don't be troubled. That's hard when we when we look at what's going on in our national government, and we scratch our heads and we go, this is unbelievable what these people are saying and doing, forsaking God, and and and and I feel threatened. Our religious freedoms are threatened. The freedom for you to raise your family as God directs you is being threatened. But God says, Don't worry about how strong they are. You stand firm in me. Find your peace in me. Don't be motivated by their threats. That doesn't mean we ignore it, right? We still stand firm, we stand for righteousness, we say some, especially in our country, because we the people are the government, right? We the people have something to say about how our representatives are representing us and the Lord for that matter. But we're not to be afraid of them. We're to have fear of the Lord and and declare his goodness and his grace and uh have wisdom on what to say and what to do. Amen. Verse 13. The Lord of hosts, him you shall hollow. He's the one that's holy, he's the one you should set apart in your hearts. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. He will be as a sanctuary. Our God is so faithful and just, he really loves us. He doesn't remember our sins when we come to him and apply what he's done for us to our own lives. He's forgiven us, he's made us new creations. So we can run to him for safety, we can run to him to to hear from him, to be ministered to by him, because he loves us. When we hollow him, when we fear him, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, not only will the northern kingdom be taken away because they've forsaken the Lord, they have not feared the Lord, they've gone in their own way. But the southern kingdom is doing the same thing, and it's going to be taken away. These are heavy words from Isaiah. As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many among them shall be shall stumble, and they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken. If we are deceived, if we start believing the lie, or if we're motivated by fear to do the things that our godless leaders call us to do, instead of standing firm in the truth of the gospel, and standing firm in who we are as a people and what direction our nation needs to take, we will be trapped and snared. We will be caused to stumble, we will fall and be broken, snared and taken. No longer will we have the freedom the Lord has given us. The big question here is: are we building our own kingdom or are we seeking after the Lord, forsaking all others? And Isaiah is saying it's very simple. When we serve the Lord and we surrender to him, we find sanctuary, we find help in the time of need, we find life, we find hope. Verse 16 bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples. And nobody's listening anyway. Let's bind this up, and the those that are serious about studying, we're gonna study it together. We're going to uh we're gonna submit ourselves to it. We're going to discipline ourselves by it. Disciples, the root word for disciple is discipline. What kind of discipline do we have? My discipline is I'm going to deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow after the Lord. And I can only do that in the Spirit of the Lord. So in His strength and His grace, I'm able to do these things that He calls us to do. And Isaiah is saying, Be careful. I will wait on the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Jacob is the name that what Jacob had before he was given the name Israel, and he's referring to the northern kingdom here. And who was Jacob? He was a conniver, he was a schemer. He always figured out how to get his own way. But here the house of Israel in the northern kingdom is being described as the house of Jacob because they've gone their own way. The God that is has rejected Jacob is the God that I am going to serve. The only reason he rejected Jacob is because Jacob has rejected him. Isaiah says, I'm not going to be in that number. I will wait on the Lord. Are you waiting on the Lord? Waiting on the Lord means continuing to do the last thing he told you to do until he tells you to do something else. Waiting the Lord on the Lord means his time is not the same as our timing, right? His time is perfect. We think our time is perfect. We need him to move now. But when he moves, hold on. Here I am and the children whom the Lord has given me. We are for signs and wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion. Now there's a whole lot there. He dwells in Mount Zion because that's where the temple is. That's what was the place that was set up for God to meet with man. And of course, just breaking up between when when the northern kingdom separated from the southern kingdom, they already separated themselves from the Lord because they set up their own place to meet with God. But at this point, God was meeting with man in Jerusalem in the temple. In Isaiah, and the people that were following him were seeking after the Lord, where the Lord is. Now, the same lady, remember that Jesus was ministering to at the wood at the well, the woman at the well. They had this discussion about well, you know, you guys say God dwells in in Jerusalem. Now the Samaritans, they're kind of a half-breed. They're part Jew and other Gentiles nations that were mixed in. They were a mixed breed. And the Jews from the south looked looked bad upon them. And this is this is hundreds of years after what the prophecies that we're talking about here. But it's in that same area in the north. And that stigma is still there. And Jesus said, the time is coming, it is here now, that men will worship on this mountain or there. But the key will be that they worship in spirit and the truth. Because God is not just in the temple, but your whole your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, God dwells in you. And now you can meet with Him wherever you are, whenever. And with that, you are one of these that God will use to be signs and wonders throughout Israel and the world. Grab a hold of that. Those that follow after the Lord are usually a small number. It doesn't fit what the groups are doing. It doesn't fit what the northern uh tribes were doing. It doesn't fit what Ahaz and his followers were doing. In fact, it threatened their lives because uh they were saying things that they didn't want to have said. And yet, we are here in the midst of it all for signs and wonders. Signs and wonders from the Lord of hosts that is meeting with people in the way that he said he would meet with people. Verse 19. And when they say to you, seek those who are in the seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? We can look at this two different ways. One is, because in the Hebrew you don't have the quotes and the commas. It could be, you know, they're saying, seek these mediums. You can seek God, who's the creator of all things, who walks in truth, who is the truth. Wouldn't it be better to walk in the truth than to seek these mediums who are demonic, who are motivated by the father of lies that are all about killing and stealing and destroying? Why even bother to seek them? That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is maybe that's what the people are saying. With this idea that whenever you have a spiritual contact, you're you're meeting with God. And there's so many ways you can meet with God. You could you can get you talk to these mediums and wizards and get an insight from the divine. If you just look deep enough, you'll find that it's there. But are you meeting with God? Just because it feels spiritual, we're built with with this spiritual need in our lives, and we fill it with the Holy Spirit or a false spirit. And there are a whole lot more false spirits than the one true spirit. So a lot of people get pulled astray because it's exciting, it's fun, it's it's powerful, but it's a lie. Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? How often do you hear of people going to uh a psychic to go and talk to their mother or father or or great-great-grandfather who's been dead for a hundred years and hear what they have to say? Well, the thing is they're not talking, it's it's a demonic spirit that that pretends to be this person that's talking to you. So you say, Don't consult the dead, consult the one who's alive. And in fact, if if they died in the Lord, they are alive to him right now in his presence. They have other work to do. The Lord is the one that speaks to us. Seek after him. The law and the testimony. Are we listening to God through the word? He speaks to us through through the word and through the testimony of others who have found him in in the word and have had their lives changed. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. They think they're enlightened, they think they have great insight, and yet they've rejected the light. They've rejected the truth of God's word. There's no light in them. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry, and and it will happen when they are hungry that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and they will look upward, and they will look uh to the earth, and they will see trouble and darkness and gloom and anguish, and they will be driven into darkness. They're walking in a lie, and then they get mad at God for it. They forsake God, they've developed their own God, and when their own God doesn't deliver, they get mad at the real God and forsake him even more. So they're driven into deeper darkness. Have we seen that? We've seen that in our families and friends and society, haven't we? You're walking on this path, what do you expect? Don't blame God for it. I can't follow a God that allows that allows all these bad things to happen to good people in this world. Well, have you sought that God and to see his perspective on the deal? Because if if I study the Bible and and if I'm reading it accurately, it says that there's no man that's good. Ever since the fall, we're born into sin. Why do bad things happen in this world to good people? Well, first of all, there's a question about who are the good people. Second, bad things happen because we're a world full of bad people who are seeking their own way, and because of the grace of God, he shines his light on us so that we can see our sin and that we can behold our Savior, who's the remedy for our sin. And the only reason there are quote-unquote good people is because he's the definition of good and he makes us good. If there was no such thing as good, there wouldn't be an argument about good and bad people, because the fact that we think that something's good is a proof that there is a good God that's given us a conscience, even if it's not fully developed and we we choose to walk in the darkness and not the light. We can go forever on this philosophy, but it's really a sad thing when we recognize God bringing his judgment, which a lot of times is just letting us go our own way. You're you're suffering the natural consequence of the sin you decide to follow in. You're following the natural consequence of not being covered by the umbrella of the Lord, by his grace. You reject his grace, and you just expose yourself to all sorts of things that'll come and get you. And you get mad at God about it. That takes us to chapter 9. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan in Galilee of the Gentiles. He's saying, These things are going to happen in the northern kingdom. Nepali and uh Zebulun were the two tribes that were right on the border of the uh Euphrates River, and they were the first to be captured by Assyria when that flood of the conquering army of Assyria came in. They were the first to get flooded, even though that whole region would be destroyed and taken away. There will be a time when they will find hope again in the in the in the Galilee of the Gentiles. It was in this area, the area that was that was judged, the area that was full of Gentiles, that the Lord made his home, that the Lord did his ministry. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them light has shined. This was the land of death, but now there's life because the light is shining. And that light is this virgin born child, whose name is Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus. You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy. They rejoice before you according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For you have broken the Yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. The Lord would come. And he would bring forgiveness. He would bring healing. He would bring a new life and hope. And this particular prophecy points to both his first and second coming. Because today the Lord is not in Jerusalem. Today the Lord is not on the throne forever. Today we're waiting for him to come back. But he came the first time to pay for our sin. And spiritually, personally, our souls are freed. The shackles are are are lifted. We're bringing we're we're brought healing and hope and new life in Jesus Christ, who came out of the Galilee of the Gentiles. And he fights for us. That fights our enemies. As in the day of Midian. Do you remember Gideon? And do you remember his mighty men that started out with tens of thousands? And they said, The guys who are scared, send them home. And a whole bunch went home. And then they kept bringing it down, and he got down to 300 men. And with those 300 men, God went before them and destroyed the camp of the Midianites. You remember that story? Isaiah is saying, it's going to be like that and even better. If you're trusting in the Lord, he's going to fight your battles. And for every every warrior's sandal from the noisy battle and the garments rolled in blood will be used for burning and a fuel of fire.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

You're listening to Pastor Carl teach through Isaiah on Come On Up. As you may know, the book of Isaiah was written by a prophet who was telling of the coming exile of the people of Israel. They had strayed far from God and they were about to face consequences for their sinful behavior. However, this exile isn't the end of the story for God's chosen people. Isaiah also shares a message of hope, reminding his readers that God can use even the darkest of circumstances for the good of all humanity. The Israelites may be away from their homeland for a while, but one day they will return. Pastor Carl wants us to learn that we are spiritual exiles, living in a world unlike the one we were made for. We were meant to be in communion with God, but we were separated from his presence by the curse of sin. But just as the Israelites came back to their homeland, we will one day be restored into the presence of our Creator, thanks to the blood of Jesus. Would you like to hear more from Pastor Carl? If so, go to themountaincross.com. There you'll find links to our Bible studies and our podcast feed, where you'll be able to listen to more of Pastor Carl's lessons. But you'll also find information about our in-person services at the Mountain Cross. If you're in Waynesville, North Carolina, you're invited to join us for our Sunday services at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. Thanks for listening today. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.