Trust That Holds When Life Falls Apart

Trust can feel impossible once you’ve been let down enough times, and that’s exactly why this teaching from Isaiah cuts through the noise. We start with a blunt question: do we really trust the Lord to provide, guide, and still be good even if everything we lean on gets taken away? Pastor Carl challenges the shaky ground beneath our “backup plans” and points to the one place faith can actually rest. 

We dig into what it means to wait on the Lord without checking out. Waiting isn’t doing nothing; it’s staying faithful to what God has already called you to do while you seek Him, remember His faithfulness, and stop pushing your own agenda. We also get practical about spiritual discipline, choosing the best part of your day to meet with God, and why that kind of daily priority becomes a visible witness in a world that’s starving for something real. 

From grace toward enemies to the quiet power of idols, this message names the heart-level battle behind so much anxiety and restlessness. You’ll hear how God establishes peace by doing what we can’t do for ourselves, why repentance matters for individuals and nations, and how Isaiah’s promises of resurrection and end-times justice reshape the way we live right now. 

If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs steady hope, and leave a review with one question you’re still wrestling with.

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_01 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_00 0:13

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

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Do we really trust in the Lord? Trust that he will provide for us. Trust that he will guide and direct us. And even if everything is taken away, we can still say God is God and He is good. And He's working all things together. These works, these idols, these false gods, they are dead and they will not live. They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore, you have punished and destroyed them and made all their memory to perish.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Having someone's trust is a big deal. It feels as if it's a precious thing you don't want to lose. Trust is hard to earn, but can easily be taken away. Has anyone lost your trust? It could have been due to not following through on multiple commitments or someone telling lies. The reality is that a person, maybe a close friend or spouse, will fail you at some point, and that's due to the brokenness in this world. But there is one who will never let you down. Today, Pastor Carl shares how you can count on the Lord because he's faithful. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

What does it mean to wait on the Lord? Well, it doesn't mean you don't do anything. It means you continue doing what he's called you to do until he tells you to do something else. So we wait on the Lord, we seek him, we find him, we seek him early, and we remember what he's done. It's our desire of our soul to seek him, to find him, to wait on him, to obey him, and not to push our own agenda, not to push our own way. Boy, it's so easy to pray, Lord. I want you to do this and I want you to do it now. I wanted you to do it last week. But the Lord has his perfect time to accomplish his perfect will in our lives. And we seek him early in the morning. This idea that uh we give him the best part of our day. Some of the morning might be the best part of your day. I happen to not be that effective in the morning, and there are other times of the day that are better. But what is your best time where you're most alert, where you can be most connected with the Lord and receive from him in that time, set it aside for him. It's like the tithe. You give him the best part. He's given you a new day. Now you give him the best part of that day so you can learn, so you can grow, so that you could be changed by him. That's what the people in the city of God are doing. And why? For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. How do the people realize that they are sinners when they see people that have been changed by Jesus walking in their midst? That's why it's so important for us to have a witness that's consistent with the Lord. When people see us, do they see Jesus or do they see some people that call themselves Christian and live like the world? That's a question to ask. And in this day, the people in the city of God will have been changed by the Lord, and they will be walking in righteousness, they will be walking with justice, and the world will know it. The world will see it, and the world well, some of the world will glorify it and be changed, but other parts of the world will fight against it because they still don't want it, they want their own way. Verse 10 kind of talks about that second group. Let grace be shown to the wicked. We're to be gracious to the wicked. I don't want to be gracious to the wicked, I want to pound the wicked. And isn't that what God is doing at the end? He's pounding the wicked. His judgment, his wrath is the very last straw. And even in it, if you study end times, you realize that people come to faith even in the midst of the outpouring of his wrath. But the idea is that's not his first choice. His first choice is to redeem people, his first choice is to bring people back to himself. And so we show grace to those who are ungracious towards us. We love those who hate us, right? We love our enemies and we heap hot coals upon their heads because they recognize the grace and the love of God being shown them, and conviction comes upon them. That's the heart. That conviction would come, that they would turn, and that they would find the grace that God is offering them. However, he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness, he will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. This is really the problem, the heart of man. And ultimately, not everyone will turn to the Lord. Not everyone will see their need for God and His righteousness and his ways because we're stuck in I want mine, my way, and right now. My way or the highway. And if God, if you want to be involved in my life, then you do the things I want you to do. Otherwise, I'm fine by myself and I'm gonna go my own way. That attitude is the attitude of the enemy. And he's taken advantage of our fallenness and he encourages that attitude. And so many, many people will still have that attitude. So even if you don't repent, at least give God the glory that He's given you a brain to figure these things out. But how much better if we realize that this is a sign of God saying, please repent, turn from your wicked ways, turn to me because I do love you. I do want to bring healing. And yet, these people at this time, there will be those who do not behold the majesty of our Lord. The Lord has declared his majesty throughout creation. Just go out and look at the stars at night. Just look at a plant, look at the leaves and how intricate it is. Just look at animals, just look at God's creation. Does it not reflect the majesty of God? But it's like, nah, I don't want any of that. That's the attitude we see here. Verse 11 Lord, when your hand is lifted up, they will not see. The Lord is coming in judgment and they're not repenting. Can you hear the tone of the Lord? I'm coming. I'm coming to bring wrath on an unbelieving world. But I want you to believe. I want the best for you. I've made a way. I'm coming. And they don't see it. They don't want to see it. But they will see and be ashamed for their envy of people. Yes, the fire of your enemies shall devour them. They want to exalt themselves above their neighbors. They want to exalt themselves and make deals with other nations, step on other people, and so forth and so on. And the sense here that the Lord is saying, I'm not going to even have to pour out my wrath. You're going to destroy yourselves in the way that you continue to do this. May the Lord give us eyes to see and ears to hear. And when our flesh says, I don't want to listen, may we be bold enough to say, shush, flesh. I do want to see, I do want to hear, I do want to follow the Lord. Verse 12 says, Lord, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our works in us. Here's a glimpse into the gospel. The word grace basically means God doing it. God does what we couldn't do for ourselves, make us holy. And even faith is not of ourselves, but it's a gift of God, so that we can live and work for his glory. We're changed, we're saved by his grace unto works. He changes our hearts so that he can put us to work, so that we can glorify him in his kingdom, so that we can be a part of the godly city that he's setting up. He's done all the works in us, so we're at peace. We're established, we're firm. And if our minds are stayed on him, we will experience that peace. Amen. Verse 13 O Lord our God, masters besides you have had dominion over us. But by you only we make mention of your name. We've had things in our lives that have controlled us. We've had idols. We've had idols, we've had false gods, we had things that made us feel good, we had things that made us feel powerful, gave us a purpose in life. And yet, when we followed after those, we didn't consider you. We don't look to your name. Actually, any time we mentioned your name, we did it in a blasphemous way. We misused your name. We used your name in vain. Lord, we admit it now. Lord, we've seen it now. And and even during this time, this is a time of testing. Who do we really trust in? Do we trust in the unemployment check that's coming in? Do we trust in the internet to come and entertain us? Do we trust in you know the restaurants to be open to give us the food that we desire? Or do we really trust in the Lord? Trust that He will provide for us. Trust that He will guide and direct us. And even if everything is taken away, we can still say God is God and He is good. And He's working all things together. These works, these idols, these false gods, they are dead and they will not live. They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore, you have punished and destroyed them and made all their memory to perish. This is glorious. The Lord promises to remove our idols. The Lord promises to remove the false gods from us as we seek Him. He's gonna do the work of removing these things, but we have to turn from them and turn to Him. Right? And we have to do that every day, almost every minute, because there are things that pull our attention. I like to joke about licorice, but it's true that some of the things that we eat, you know, become idols to us. I've got to have that, whatever that is, right? Instead of God has given us all things to enjoy with Him. If you can't take what has been given to you with Thanksgiving and offer it up to the Lord and say, Lord, thank you for providing this wonderful meal and this treat that we can enjoy together. If you have to have an attitude of sneaking away so nobody will see what you're eating, chances are that's an idol. But if you can enjoy it with the Lord, and it's a blessing from God. And he wants to destroy all the things that keep us from knowing him, that keep us from walking in relationship with him, that keep us from experiencing the peace that goes beyond understanding. And so when he points out you know these things to us now, let's be quick to give it to him because it's for our good. The problem is our flesh gets really loud, doesn't it? And it says, I want mine and I want it now. And we have to deny ourselves, that's what it means. Deny ourselves, say shush flesh. I'm going to do God's will. And in verse 15, as he does that with individuals, as he changes hearts, the nation is changed. And in verse 15, you have increased the nation, O Lord. You have increased the nation, you are glorified, you have expanded the borders of the land. This is Israel finally fulfilling its purpose and serving God in this way. Where Israel has come to a faith in Jesus Christ, all of Israel saved. That doesn't mean every individual, but that means the nation has turned to the Lord. And they're seeking him and they're glorifying him, and the Lord is blessing them. Lord, in trouble, they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon them. They finally got to the place where they recognize God's chastening. And when God chastens, I don't run. I turn to him, I run to him and not away from him. Israel will do that. Are we doing that now? Is our nation doing that? Are we individually doing that? Are you praying on behalf of our nation, repenting and turning from our sin and turning back to him? He's chastening us. Are we pouring out prayers to him, saying, Lord, please forgive, Lord, please change, please work in the hearts of our nation, bring about a revival. We can't have a revival unless there's a repentance, unless there's a recognition of our sin. Keep praying that. Keep praying that because the Lord will increase, the Lord will bless, the Lord will glorify as we seek Him, as we repent and pour out our prayers to Him. Verse 17 says, As a woman with a child is in pain and cries out in her pangs when she draws near the time of her delivery, so have we been in your sight, O Lord. We have been with child, and we have been in pain. We have, as it were, brought forth wind. We have not accomplished any of the deliverance in the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen. The chastening of the Lord comes upon the nation and individuals like the pangs of childbirth. You know something's happening, and there's something that needs to be done. We have a child to birth here, and so we do all the things that we think we need to do to lessen the pain and to focus on the job at hand, but we don't seek the Lord. The chastening comes and we don't recognize it's from the Lord. And we try to fix it in our own way. We try to build up our nation. I mean, I don't want to get too political in this message, but there is a problem when our nation goes into debt in order to pay the people. I mean, there had to be some restitution for the nation taking away all these jobs and all this industry. It's kind of like eminent domain when they want to build a road where your house is. It's right for the government to pay you a fair value for your house so you can go build or buy another house and move into it without shaking your life up too much for the good of the people. That's good. However, frankly, we've been spending like drunken sailors for decades, maybe even hundreds of years in our government, thinking that oh, we need to do this, we'll just borrow more money, borrow more money, borrow more money. I remember when the debt was getting to six trillion dollars. I thought, boy, that's a lot of money. Now it's what 24, 25, 26 trillion. And last month we added two just like that. Boom, boom, boom. How are we gonna pay for that? That's not the Lord's wisdom. That's not the Lord's direction. We should have had, you know, savings for emergencies. That's what the Lord teaches us in his word, but we aren't doing it. So we do these things with good motivation, things that ought to be done, but we don't have the means to do it. But we do it anyway. What is that going to do in the future? How long will it take for our nation to implode and we lose everything because we try to do this and we bring forth the wind? We do all this labor to birth a child, and there's nothing there when we get done with it. We do all this effort and energy into doing what quote unquote what's right, and we have nothing to show for it except more destruction in the end. And we have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth. Giving a person a check is a good thing, but if you don't give them the gospel, they have no hope for eternity. And the inhabitants of the world haven't fallen. And why we want the inhabitants of the world to fall, it's more of this attitude of the world we want to be destroyed. This idolatry that the Lord is working on us with. However, it's not leading to life, it's not leading to righteousness, it's not leading to a service to the Lord. May the Lord give us wisdom, and again, may the Lord give us repentance in our nation that we would turn back to him and find the real provision from him and the real fruit that comes only from him. Your dead shall live. We were talking about those that were seeking their own way, and destruction will come their own way, but now we're talking about those who have sought after the Lord and have died in the Lord. Even not the dead. I mean, poetically speaking, I'm a walking dead until I come to life in the Lord. I can fall back into my old man ways, the man who's dead. And I could be walking in the old man, in the old worldly wisdom again, because the flesh likes that. But he declares that your dead shall live. God is all about taking what's dead and making it alive. Both metaphorically in our lives, getting rid of sin, which is a daily battle, and allowing the Lord to bring life in our situation. But even after the fact that we physically died, if we've died in faith, the Lord promises that we're going to live again and live like we've never known life before. Together with my dead body, they shall arise. Isaiah knows I'm going to die. But I'm going to arise again. And this is really a mystery. They really didn't understand this in the Old Testament. And Paul kind of talks about the mystery and talks about how, you know, this is what it means. The dead in Christ will rise first, and those that are alive and remain will be brought together to the presence of the Lord. The Lord promises us a new resurrected body. There was an idea among the Christian leaders that uh, you know, once you're dead, you're dead. Once you're in your grave, you're in the grave. But Isaiah's looking beyond that and says, No, there's more to it. I'm going to be resurrected, I'm going to have a new life. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. It's going to be a glorious day. The dead will come back to life and will ever be with the Lord. Come, my people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment until the indignation is past. For the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will also disclose her blood and will no more cover her slain. We're talking about the day of the Lord again, a time where Jesus sets up his kingdom, his millennial reign forever, but before that he pours out the wrath of God. And as Isaiah and many of the other prophets talk about it, there's kind of a mishmash of what part of the end times are we talking about? He was talking about the city of God. Which was after the wrath is poured out. But now he's going back and saying, There are those who come to the Lord in the end. There are those who will fall asleep in faith in the Lord. There are those that will be there and remain. And there will be a time where God takes his people and brings them to a place of safety because the wrath of God was not appointed to those who have come and received the forgiveness of their sins. This points to uh Revelation chapter 4, when the voice from heaven tells John to come up here. Come up hither. And a lot of commentators believe that is the rapture of the church, pulling out those righteous that trust in the Lord, that have applied the blood of the Lamb to their lives. They are brought out of the situation so that Jesus can go and pour out his wrath on an unbelieving world. And this is a picture of that. The Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will disclose her blood and will no more cover her slain. The wrath of God is something you don't want to get in the way of. But again, the same one that's the judge is the one that's the savior. And he's got it all figured out. Are we trusting him? Are we following him? Are we walking in his way? That brings us to chapter 27. In that day, the Lord, with his severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. Leviathan, that twisted serpent, and he will slay the reptile that is in the sea. This is a very interesting verse, right? And it almost seems like it comes out of nowhere. We're talking about, you know, the people that trust the Lord. We're talking about the people who walk in their own ways and what to go in their own way, the city of God, the city of man. And all of a sudden we're talking about a sea serpent, Leviathan.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Thanks for listening to today's lesson from the book of Isaiah here on Come On Up. You're hearing from Pastor Carl at the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina. Now, the book of Isaiah ends with a section that prophesies a new heaven and a new earth, which will come to replace the world that we currently know as it passes away. All of the promises and prophecies that God has made through the prophet Isaiah will come to their ultimate conclusion in this new kingdom. Death and evil will be no more, and goodness and justice will flow like a river. When we look at the world around us right now, it seems like chaos has already won. We can see live images of war, inequality, and sadness in just a few clicks, and it can seem like things will never get better. But Isaiah reminds us to look past the chaos that is right in front of us and fix our eyes on God's promises. That's how we can stay afloat when everything around us feels like it's collapsing. Well, if you want to join a group of believers who are looking together towards the new kingdom, we'd love to invite you to join us here at the Mountain Cross. We meet on Sundays at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. For more information, you can visit us online at themountaincross.com. There you will also find our How to Know God page, where you will learn more about how you can belong to the kingdom of God. Thanks for joining us 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.