Fear Not What They Fear

In Isaiah 8, there is a gloriously striking phrase to our twenty-first-century ears: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread” (v. 12). It feels like it could have been written yesterday.

Isaiah was preaching to God’s people, Judah, in the time of King Ahaz, who was an evil king. The nations surrounding Judah were hostile and God had called, commissioned, and sent His prophet Isaiah, but His people would not listen. Judah was facing an international crisis. King Ahaz was under pressure to join alliances with Israel and Syria to stand against Assyria. Ahaz refused to join with Israel and Syria, Judah was attacked, and God sent Isaiah to Ahaz to say, “You don’t have to be afraid; you just have to trust in God.”

In Isaiah 8, the prophet is given three oracles directly from the Lord, and then at the end of the chapter, he shows us how we are to respond to this Lord. Shockingly, he says that the answer to fear is fear. God assures us that fear is real for Isaiah and the people, but the key point for them and for us is this: Whom do we fear?

We live in an age of fear, wherein our media catastrophizes everything from economics to weather to war to elections. In addition, over the last five years, conspiracy theorists have moved into the mainstream. Distrust and disbelief are in vogue, with authority completely undermined. It plays into that desire of human beings to be in the know. Belief in a conspiracy theory feeds our pride that we are not like other people because we really see the truth that so few see.

In Isaiah 8:10, we are told that the schemes of the nations will ultimately fail: “Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” The challenge is, Will we constantly look to God as the life-giving stream of salvation?

The immediate context of verse 11 speaks of the Lord’s strong hand: “Be broken, you peoples, and be shattered; give ear, all you far countries; strap on your armor and be shattered; strap on your armor and be shattered” (v. 9). It’s a beautiful picture of the personal strength of the Lord. He is not absent without leave. God knows and is personally involved in this world for the sake of His people, so God’s people are to live under His Word.

Israel was surrounded by enemy nations, enemies within and fears without, and into this situation, God spoke. He told the people clearly to make the Lord Himself their object of fear. Our hymn writers understood this in a way that the contemporary church has lost. In “Amazing Grace” we sing, “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”

All around can be fear and alarm, but in our hearts, we can know calm and have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

Isaiah addressed the paranoia that conspiracy can bring: “Don’t give in to that; don’t trust in the superpowers of Assyria; trust in the Lord. Replace your fear of the opposition with a genuine fear for God. Respect for the Lord arises from treating Him as holy and distinct, different from all others, from the other gods and human beings. He has the right to rule and direct us.”

To those who do this, the Lord will become a sanctuary (He will protect them)—a place of refuge in the storm. The Lord Himself alone provides salvation in the midst of chaos, destruction, and persecution. But to those who do not trust in the Lord, He will be like a great stone in their path over which they will stumble and fall.

The bottom line is that you cannot ignore the Lord. He will be either your Savior or your stumbling block, a sanctuary or a stone of offense.

The New Testament picks up on this imagery. First Peter 3:14–15 says, “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.” Or in the words of Isaiah 8, “Do not fear what they fear.” As followers of the Lord Jesus, we are not to fear the false gods, the prospect of persecution, pain, or even death. We don’t enter into the conspiracies of our age; we regard Jesus Christ as Lord and God, as the One who ransoms us through His death and was raised to life to establish an eternal inheritance for us.

Peter goes on to command that we believe God’s Word with a clear conscience (1 Peter 3:15–16), so there’s no conspiracy here, no hidden truth.

This Jesus who through His death became the cornerstone is also the stone over which people trip and fall. The judgment that Isaiah predicted for those who will reject God’s sanctuary in Isaiah 8 is now applied to those who reject Jesus as Savior and Lord. This stone is double-edged: Jesus will be either your refuge or your ruin.

This can be a source of great assurance for us as Christians. All around can be fear and alarm, but in our hearts, we can know calm and have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. This is found by life with God and in God. The people of God are not without fear and dread, but their fear and dread are of the Lord.

Our lives are uncertain, and the culture we live in is disintegrating. It is very easy for our hearts and flesh to give way to fear, but the people of God in every generation are to fear God and to have God loom large in our thinking, living, and devotion. As we do that, we are to trust and rest in Him, to see His sovereign, gracious hand in our lives and over our lives.

Rev. Paul Levy is minister of International Presbyterian Church Ealing in West London.

Fear Not What They Fear