Fear and Self-Control

Recently I heard a story of a young lady, I think calling into a radio show or something, who relayed her situation of a love-hate relationship with scary movies. She loves scary horror movies on the one hand because she loves the adrenaline rush that it causes. Those scary moments, those shrieky, you know, high-pitched violin sort of moments, that just gets you really amped up. And then she has a hate relationship with it because after the adrenaline has worn off and she has to go back into a dark house, she's really terrified. And she has to turn on all the lights in all the rooms.

She goes, has to go and look behind the doors, every door in the house, look behind the shower curtains, in the cupboards, everything to make sure that there is no scary monster, zombie, weird doll that comes out and hunts you down. She has to go and make sure that she's safe. But that's what fear is, or that's what fear does. It exaggerates a perfectly secure house in a normally safe neighbourhood where you have felt safe for weeks on end and didn't worry about the lights being off and the doors being closed.

All of a sudden, it becomes, in your mind, the next crime scene for the bloodiest murders in all of human history. But the fact is, most of the stuff we worry about actually would never come to pass. Worry, someone said, is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but never brings you anywhere. Or like a hamster in a cage, you can go round and round with a lot of activity and anxiety, but never make any progress.

Now the underlying problem with worry, despite that it's often irrational, is the fact that it comes from the idea that you actually have control over your situation. It's a problem, in other words, of self-sufficiency. Being sufficient in yourself. Having all that is needed to change your environment. And this morning, we're going to look at this topic a little bit more.

And we're going to look at a particular context for the nation of Israel in the Old Testament in Isaiah 31. That was, in fact, not just a fictional horror movie. It was a very scary real-life situation. So if you do have your bibles with you, let's turn to Isaiah 31, and we're going to read the first five verses of this chapter. Isaiah 31, verse one.

God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah, and it says, verse one, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots, and in the great strength of their horsemen. But do not look to the Holy One of Israel or seek help from the Lord. Yet He too is wise and can bring disaster. The Lord does not take back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked, against those who help evildoers.

But the Egyptians are men and not God. Their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, he who helps will stumble. He who is helped will fall. Both will perish together."

"This is what the Lord says to me. As a lion growls, a great lion over his prey. And though a whole band of shepherds is called together against him, he is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamour. So the Lord Almighty will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights. Like birds hovering overhead, the Lord Almighty will shield Jerusalem.

He will shield it and deliver it. He will pass over it and will rescue it." So far our reading. We'll have to think back on our biblical history and put on that cap today. The time of Isaiah was the time where the northern tribes of Israel were about to be overcome and invaded by the Assyrian army.

The first great empire of that time, the greatest empire of that time. The Assyrian empire had been growing and growing, and they were on a warpath to Egypt, which was in the South. And it just so happened that Israel was on its way down. In this time, God raised up a prophet named Isaiah who proclaimed and preached to the nation of Israel that because of its fall into idolatry, because of its rejection of God, Yahweh, their God, the Assyrian army would conquer them.

The Assyrian army would take them away into exile. If they would just return to their God, if they would just cry out to Him for help, if they would just make Him their God again, they would be saved. It was in this time, however, that the leaders of Israel who had rejected their God, who had turned to the idols and the gods of the surrounding areas, who had forgotten God, it was in this time that the leaders here in chapter 31 were talking about an alliance with Egypt, their neighbour to the south. Also a very powerful and capable army, very powerful and capable nation. And these leaders ostensibly, apparently, were beginning to think, "Well, you know, counting up Egypt's power and their forces and their horses and their great chariots, and how they could potentially conquer the Assyrian army if worse came to worse." So when we get to chapter 31 in Isaiah, we see the prophet speaking about this allegiance with Egypt.

The leaders of Israel were worried. But we see here instead of returning to God, instead of going to Him with their worries and their cares, they start making plans. They start making schemes. And in verse one to three, we see this warning against a self-sufficiency that would seek to make earthly solutions at the expense of turning to a heavenly Father. And we see them constantly, or we see Isaiah the prophet constantly weighing up the forces of Egypt against the force of God.

God begins in verse one. "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or seek help from the Lord." Verse two states, almost with a bit of tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, that God is also wise, like the wise men of Egypt, like the tacticians and the strategists of their armies. God is also powerful like their generals, like the mighty armies of Egypt. Yet, when God speaks, He doesn't go back on His words.

He doesn't make mistakes like these wise men will make and seek to swallow them back like a politician who's made an empty promise. He doesn't make an error in judgment like a general caught in a difficult position on the battlefield. God doesn't retract any of His decisions. And verse three makes this stark contrast. "But the Egyptians are men and not God.

Their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, like a king that directs his troops, he who helps will stumble. He who is helped will fall. Both will perish together." In other words, you may be impressed by the strength of your earthly saviour Egypt, Israel, but whether you are the helper or the helpee, God is really the one who holds the power.

What God is really addressing in this passage in Isaiah is the sin of self-sufficiency. You see, there are basically two roots for sin in mankind. Two roots. One is to make God out to be like you, imagining that He has the same desires and the same fears and the same anxieties. He's just as partial as you are.

He's just as easily biased and swayed as you are, and therefore His decisions will be like your decisions. One is to make God out to be like we are, and the other is to make ourselves out to be like God. The core of sin is not our failure to adequately value ourselves, but our refusal to adequately value God. And so we see this in life. We see this in our own lives.

The sin of self-sufficiency, the sin of thinking, and this is generally talking about that latter part of seeing ourselves powerful on a par with God, the sin of self-sufficiency in Christians causes us to pray less. That's a physical symptom of it. Causes us to pray less because we don't feel the urgency to petition a God who has our lives in His control. We pray less for His strength and for His intervention in our situations. We worship less because we are not in awe of God's help or His power.

And thirdly, we trust our brothers and sisters in the faith less because we think that no one can help us in this situation. We distrust the church that God has given to us to help us because no one, apart from ourselves, can rescue us in this situation. That is the sin of self-sufficiency. That is the symptoms of it. We pray less.

We worship less. We trust others less. And so often we are programmed to either believe we need to work harder, we need to plan smarter, we need to organise better, we need to train better. Why? In order that we can secure a good outcome.

In order that we may prevent disaster or avert negative consequences. We strive and we strive, then we play harder, and we go on our holidays because we've worked so hard, and all the while we follow this mirage that we are in complete control of our situation and our context. But that is one of the biggest lies we buy into. And the reason this has been so profound to me this week is because of two things that have happened in the last seven days that should make us reflect, that should rock us out of our narrow-minded focus on self-sufficiency. Firstly, the earthquake in Nepal.

And secondly, the execution of two Australians in Bali. Both situations show just how little control we really do have in life. Mount Everest climbers are some of the most committed, well-trained, well-disciplined people on this earth. They work for years getting ready for that one climb. And on one day, on one day, thousands, hundreds were taken out because no one could have imagined the enormity of that avalanche, of that earthquake that happened.

They prepare for avalanches, but no one could have seen that coming. What about Andrew Chan and Myron Sukumaran, who had thousands and thousands of people advocating and begging for mercy from the Indonesian government? These two men who had done everything in their power to change their lives, to show visibly to everyone around that they had been rehabilitated. How much control did any of these people have about their fate? Yet we go to governments, we go to individuals, we go to the Egypts of our time, and we think that they can help.

We go to the powerful, we go to the influential, we believe that we have the power and that we have the influence, and we try to secure our positions. And we seek to shore up our lifestyles or our dreams. We seek to solve our problems, to quell our anxieties. We go from one knee-jerk reaction to another knee-jerk reaction. We hop from one relationship to another relationship, yet we fail to go to the one, the only one, who can really change our situation.

The Egyptians are but men and not God. Their horses are flesh and not spirit. God is saying their strength is limited, these influences and these powerful forces. Their strength is limited. They are finite.

God is the one who is spirit. God is the one who is eternal. Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 10:28, "Don't be afraid of those who can kill the body and cannot touch the soul. Be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul." Verses four to five, however, goes on and gives us, after giving us a damning view at our hearts, verses one to three, verses four and five goes on to give us a great hope.

Since God has the power to destroy both body and soul, God has also got the power to save both body and soul. Because He is more infinite than these finite horses made of flesh. Verses four and five speak of a God who will shield His holy city of Jerusalem like a bird hovering over His babies. Like an image of an eagle, a protective mum eagle or dad eagle hovering over the area to make sure that there are no predators coming towards its nest. That is how God is towards His people.

He will shield her, the Bible says. He will protect her. He will deliver her if Israel would only return to her God. Another image that is used here is of a lion being protective over its prey. It's just caught a lamb.

And I don't know if you've ever seen this on TV or maybe even live. A lion that has just caught a kill and will have no vultures or anything come near it. In this instance, it's shepherds trying to chase a lion away. And the image is so ironic, the lion just looks at them and laughs at them. He's not scared by their yelling.

He's not scared by their clamour. He is undisturbed. And in fact, he's willing to chase them off. These are amazingly vivid, profound images of protection. The character, the love, the relationship that God has for His people.

And who of us won't feel moved by these images? Who of us is not amazed by these promises? It's no coincidence then that Jesus, the Son of God, uses very similar images when He talks about Himself or when the New Testament talks about Him. In Matthew 23, and I, I believe here in Isaiah, we have a prophecy of the Messiah. In Matthew 23, in the final week leading up to His death, Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem.

He had just arrived after the whole fanfare, and, you know, they welcomed Him in with the palm branches and so on. Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem. And a few of His enemies, the religious teachers of that time, tried to trip Him up again and asked Him a theological question that they thought would corner Him. And once again, Jesus just flipped the whole thing upside down, and they were left speechless, and they didn't know how to answer Him. But in frustration, Jesus says this in Matthew 23:37, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."

The Son of God saw the scared and needy people of Jerusalem, the great capital of the Jewish faith, the place where they should have known God. He saw them and He pitied them, and He was sad. Why? Because He knew they were the ones who sought to be the arbitrator of true faith. They assumed the responsibility of weeding out the true prophets from the false prophets, and they often got it wrong.

And worse than that is they were to kill the prophet that was sent to them. The greatest prophet. And Jesus knows this. He knows His time is coming to an end, and He has pity on them and says to them, "I wish I could hug you and care for you." Our passage in Isaiah 31 prophesies these words of Jesus, I believe.

The image of a mother bird hovering over her young in protection of them. But like Jesus pointed out, we need to understand that we need this protection. We need this protection. God also mentions this image of the lion, that He will protect them. But He moves on, and He says that He is this lion that will not be moved by the enemies, but that He will fight for them on Mount Zion.

And again, this is a prophecy of a time in Jerusalem because Mount Zion is Jerusalem. And we see the image of this Son of God coming to Mount Zion in His last week to be crucified on another mount called Calvary. That He would come down, the Son of God would come down to do battle against the enemy. In verse five, God mentions this bird, the image there of, the bird or the saviour hovering over them, passing over them to rescue them. And I don't know if you have it in your Bibles, but the NIV has "Passover" in quotation marks.

And the reason this is is because this word is the Hebrew word for Passover, the Passover feast. And so what we see here is, again, a prophecy of a time coming where another Passover would happen. And we hear again Jesus in the night before He goes to the cross talking of a new promise, a new covenant. When He takes the wine in His hand, He says, "My body will be broken, my blood will be shed for you, just like the lamb that was slaughtered for Egypt, so that the angel of God would pass over the Israelites."

So Christ's blood would protect His people from judgment. And in verse five, we see a new Passover coming, pointing to a complete and true rescue. There's a reason that C.S. Lewis wrote of Jesus as Aslan, the lion. There's a reason C.S. Lewis spoke of Him like that because Revelation 5:5 calls Jesus the Lion of Judah. But even here in Isaiah 31, we see a glimpse of that as a lion growls and is not frightened of the shepherds or His enemies coming to Him and trying to chase Him off.

So the Lord is protective over His people. He will not be disturbed by them. No amount of noise, no amount of threats will make the lion run off. The lion will, in fact, come down to do battle against the enemy. C.S. Lewis later went on to say that fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement.

He is a rebel who needs to lay down his arms. Our self-sufficiency that is being put under the spotlight here, our self-sufficiency comes out as a rebellion against a God who is willing and able to take our lives under His care. This is the God who knows us. This is the God who knows our needs. This is the God who knows our weaknesses.

And yet we are that resistant. We are that stubborn that the image here is of us as rebels needing to lay down our weapons to hand ourselves over to the King. Worry, the flip side of self-sufficiency, or maybe the cause of our self-sufficiency, denies the care of a sovereign kingly God. One author writes that worry is a sin in the Bible because it denies the wisdom of God. It says, "You don't know what you're doing.

I know better." It denies the love of God because it says, "You do not care. You don't care about me." Worry denies the power of God because it says that He's not able or strong enough to deliver me from this situation. Worry is practical atheism.

Worry is practical atheism. And worry gives us grand delusions of our own ability to change the situation. What keeps us from believing that God will work on our behalf? And therefore, both worry and worship cannot exist in the same heart. Worry and worship cannot exist in the same heart.

Not really. Because worship is a process of handing ourselves over to God. Well, worry says that we are in control of our own destinies. The reason we can trust God with our lives, the reason we can hand over all our worries and burdens to Him is summed up by Jesus on the cross. He was the Lion of Judah.

He was the one who is protective over His people, who would not be chased off by the enemy, who would not be chased off by the noise and the clamour that came against Him in that time. His victory was a victory not simply over a nation, not simply over an impressive force. His victory was a victory over sin and death, the greatest enemies that humanity will ever face. What do we have to fear since the greatest threat has been overcome for us? Because this threat has been overcome, that must put steel in our spines.

That must give us unconquerable hope in any situation. If He has conquered our greatest enemies, will He also not put food on our table? Will He not also give us strength to stand up under stress at work? Will He also not give us courage in the face of opposition? "As a lion growls and though a whole band of shepherds are called against him, he is not frightened by their shouts.

So the Lord will come and do battle on the Mount of Zion. He will hover over us. He will shield us. He will pass over, and he will rescue us." Let's pray.

Lord, thank You for the riches of Your word. Thank You for the nuggets of truth. So often, Lord, it is easy to take for granted these amazing promises to see them relating to a time far past, a time long ago. But Father, we see a mirror into our own hearts. And Lord, we, with humility, say, "Who of us would not have called on the Egyptians with their mighty horses and their multitude of chariots?"

Because we relate that to our own situations and we so see ourselves drawing on help from men and women, drawing from our own gifts and our own abilities, and we realise, God, that we have not even stopped to think that You are the one that has complete say in this. How often we have found ourselves doing something without praying. How often we have found ourselves worrying and being up at night, stressing about something that we think we can stress out, that we can worry about to the point of solution, or we just find ourselves in that rocking chair going nowhere. Father, thank You for the promise that You are so zealous over us, that You are so protective over us, that we have these amazing images of a mother hen wanting to gather her chicks underneath her wings, of a great powerful lion protecting its prized position. Lord, we pray that we may be encouraged by this, that we may return to You again and again for our daily needs.

Lord, we do pray for our daily bread. We pray, Lord, as in the Lord's Prayer, that You will protect us from the evil one, that You will guard our hearts and our minds. Lord, that Your kingdom come, that Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so, Father, we bring our needs before You. We say, "Lord, see them.

Move in our situations. Move in our context, and give us the patience to endure. Give us the patience to persevere and continue changing our rebellious hearts. Lord, again, we come to You and we say, "Lord, we lay down our weapons. We lay down our arms.

We ask that You receive us into Your care, Lord Jesus. In Jesus' name. Amen."