Plain Spoken – Isaiah 28:9-13

We were on a mission trip to Uruguay and had to fly through Chile.  When deplaned someone met us, speaking Spanish only, and tried to convey something to us about our luggage.  We had no clue.  We went to an information desk but the personnel there only spoke Spanish.  Desperate, I said loudly, “Is there anyone here who speaks both Spanish and English?”, and a man answered and helped us understand the issue with our luggage.  Isaiah is telling Israel that she will be desperate for a translation one day.

“To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message?  Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?  For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”

For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.  And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.  (Isaiah 28:9-13 ESV)

Isaiah complains that his people, Israel, are hard of hearing.  Yahweh wants to teach them knowledge, lead them out of their idolatry and broken lives, but no one will listen.  When he prophesies they complain that he is giving them too simplistic a message, a boring litany of precepts and lines of information.

So Yahweh’s favor toward them will turn to judgment.  If they will not listen to the plain teaching of His prophets He will send foreigners into their land who will speak in ways they cannot understand.  He had offered “rest to the weary” but they would not listen to Him.  Now the plain teaching of precepts will cause them to stumble and fall in judgment.

Paul uses this principle in 1 Corinthians 14 talking about speaking in tongues.  If someone comes into our congregation and everyone is speaking in tongues they will think we are crazy.  When God is favorable to His people He speaks in intelligible language.  But if someone comes in and we are speaking in understandable prophetic precepts they will be convicted in their hearts of their sin and repent and acknowledge God is among us.

Listen to God when He is speaking plainly.  It is a sign that He wants you to be blessed.

Discussion Questions

1. Have you conquered the learning of a foreign language or has it conquered you?
2. What experience have you had of being around someone who spoke a language foreign to you and how did it make you feel?
3. Why does the truth of Scripture sometimes become boring to us?
4. How do false teachers capitalize on our boredom?
5. Are you “resting” in the plain truths of God?  If not, why not?
6. What plain truth do you need to take to heart?