Quick Note – Isaiah 8:19-20 – Where to Seek Advice

Isaiah 8:19-20 – “19 And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”

Since I am not a parent, I have no clue what it feels like to watch my child seek advice from someone else other than me.  Certainly, it would hurt if they chose to forgo my words of experience to listen to the advice of their less experienced friends or peers.  I would hate to see them make avoidable mistakes, because they listened to the wrong counsel.  In the Bible, Solomon’s son Rehoboam was a prime example of a person who sought the wrong advice and suffered for it.  1 Kings 12 records the story.  When Rehoboam succeed Solomon on the throne of Israel, the people of Israel asked him to lighten the load of service that had previously been placed on them by Solomon.  Faced with this challenge, Rehoboam sought advice from two groups of people – 1) the elders who had sat under Solomon’s wisdom and reign and 2) his peers.  Instead of listening to the advice of the elders, Rehoboam took heed to his peers and lost most of the kingdom to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.  From that point forward, Israel was divided into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.

In our passage today, God rebuked His people for seeking advice from mediums, necromancers, and those who speak on behalf of the dead.  Instead of seeking God and His Word, they sought counsel from forces of darkness that would surely lead them astray.  They followed what all the other nations would do in their situation – they sought counsel from the spiritual forces of darkness that they could not understand or know.  What they should have done was look to His Word, for in it is wisdom and guidance.  But instead they acted like King Saul in 1 Samuel 28, who sought a medium to get advice from the prophet Samuel (who had already died).  Saul was rebuked by Samuel’s ghost for doing so, and God did so to His people here.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we know better than to consult fortune tellers, witches, and other members of the occult.  We know that playing with these things is like playing with fire, so we stay away as far as we can, which is wise.  Sadly though, we continue to make the same mistake the people of Israel made here – we seek advice from people other than God.  Our God is the Lord of all, the Creator of the universe, and the Sustainer of everything.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.  He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  He knows the past, present, and the future, and He knows the plans that He had planned for us even before we were formed in our mother’s wombs.  He knows all these things yet still loves us and wants us to come to Him for advice; yet when we are lost, He is the last Person we turn to.  We would rather try to solve the problem ourselves, to look to a self-help book, or to consult the world.  God has given us the manual for our lives in the Bible yet we hardly ever open it.  God didn’t give us the Bible to put up as a beautiful ornament on our coffee table; He gave it to us, so that we could delve into and learn more about Him, His commands, and His direction for our lives.  Instead of seeking worldly advice, we should be searching His Word, for it is filled with just the right words for any occasion.  For wisdom, read Proverbs.  For practical advice on church issues, read Corinthians.  For comfort, read the Psalms.  Each and every book can speak to our lives.  Stop inquiring about life and advice elsewhere; turn “to the teaching and to the testimony!”  God wants to speak to you in His Word today.