Besetting Sins – Isaiah 20

Shame: a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute (Merriam-Webster).  It can be devastating.  Articles abound on how to deal with its destructive consequences.  Isaiah had to experience it to tell Israel that she would experience it.

In the year that the commander in chief, who was sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and captured it—at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

   Then the LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt. Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast. And the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria! And we, how shall we escape?’”  (Isaiah 20 ESV)

One of Israel’s besetting sins was depending on Egypt in military alliance for deliverance from other enemies.  Egypt, of course, was originally Israel’s enemy, enslaving her and trying to destroy her when she fled.  God warned Israel never to go back to Egypt.  But when Israel got scared that’s exactly what she did.  Alliance with Egypt, however, was not without a price.  It meant paying tribute, taxes if you will, to Egypt, and it meant the potential drafting into their army when Egypt went to war with someone.

When we go back to our former way of making it in life, whatever that might be, instead of trusting in God, it is not without a price.  We get scared and try to make our own deliverance again but God is asking us to trust Him and His way rather than go back to our old enemy.  We will find that if we do go back to our old ways they will fail us.  There is nothing and no one besides God who can save us.

And, like the captives of Assyria had to do, we will experience shame when we resort to our previous strategies.  The strategy didn’t really work before, that’s why we had abandoned it, so to go back again makes us look foolish.  And we chose not to look to God for our help.  But we can always come back to Him.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the craziest seeming thing God has asked you to do?
2. How would you have felt if you were Isaiah and God asked you to walk around naked and barefoot for three years?
3. What did Israel see in Egypt and Cush that lured her to depend on them instead of God?
4. What strategies have you used in the past to try to meet your needs?
5. Have you experienced the shame that attends resorting to former strategies?
6. What do you tell yourself when you are tempted to return to your old ways of meeting your needs?