Isaiah 30:10, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 30:10 portrays rebellious, lying children who refuse to hear the law of the Lord and tell His seers and prophets to stop seeing and speaking what is right, to cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them. To say see not and prophesy not is to demand that true messengers be silenced so their reproofs no longer annoy, a demand made by influence and action as well as by spoken words. The smooth things and deceits demanded in place of truth are pleasing, flattering assurances of peace and safety that soothe the conscience into false security and gratify pride, while avoiding the cutting truths that expose sin and warn of judgment. This attitude especially marks the professed people of God in the last days, who have had great light and seen the Lord work yet cherish pride and selfishness, hate pure testimony, and ask in word and act for smooth deceit on the very eve of the crisis. False teachers cater to that desire by preaching to please and amuse and crying peace when there is no peace, while God's true servants faithfully reprove sin and speak truth rather than flatter, even when it provokes anger.

Meaning of Rebellious Demand

The verse portrays rebellious, lying children who will not hear the law of the Lord, who tell the seers to see not and the prophets to prophesy not right things but smooth things and deceits, and who tell them to cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them. It is a refusal to hear God's law and word, a rejection of truthful warnings and of the call to what is right, demanding instead pleasing messages and reassuring falsehoods and seeking to remove God from the path. The Lord answers such a choice by permitting them to go on in the way of their own choosing and taking from them the privilege of having their errors pointed out, so that no prophecy awakens them from carnal security and no warning shames them or leads them to repentance. The command to write it in a table and note it in a book for the time to come for ever and ever was given because the rebellion seen in ancient Israel would increase in after ages, as a testimony against them forever. No one who refuses the admonitions of the Word of God and follows a way of his own choosing can accept the gospel of Christ.

To say see not and prophesy not is to demand that God's true messengers be silenced so as no more to annoy with reproofs. It is disdain for plain, straight testimony that points out transgression and sin, even when that message comes from lips under the moving of the Spirit of God. That disdain need not be spoken aloud, for it is expressed by actions and influence as well as by words, by using influence against what is sent through chosen agencies and by every device to hush the admonitory voice. The Lord reads the motives of every heart while inclining His ear to the prayer of the contrite heart.

Smooth things and deceits are pleasing, flattering, reassuring words that promise peace and safety to those who do not want correction. They foster pride and presumption, encourage presumption, soothe the conscience into false peace, and please the carnal mind and heart. By contrast they avoid the plain, cutting truths of God's word that expose sin and hypocrisy, awaken conscience, and warn of judgment. Such smooth preaching leaves sinners untroubled by coming judgment and suits the natural heart, but it does not bring the sinner to salvation, while the truth of Christ and salvation is hateful to the carnal heart. God's prophets, by contrast, faithfully reprove sin, often provoking the anger of the self-righteous and deceived, and in its end-time bearing this attitude marks those who hate pure testimony and oppose the faithful remnant, joining rejection to sudden destruction.

The demand comes from those frightened when they see their lives measured by the searching demands of God's law, wanting its stern requirements softened. It comes because faithful warning exposes impurity and calls to obey God's requirements, which they resist. It is also the plain refusal of worldlings and church members to accept rebuke and warning about the Lord coming in judgment, saying in attitude, we want none of these rebukes, we want none of your warnings, we will not hear. Yet judgments are soon to fall and are already falling in many places, and neither kings nor rulers, wealth nor influence will be able to stand against or ward them off.

Rejecting the light and counsel God has given and insisting on one's own judgment and ways places the soul in peril and brings the consequences of the chosen course. The warning first given to ancient Israel presses upon all who live on the earth the choice to walk in the way God has shown or to walk in finite and erring human counsel and practice what He warned against. Putting trust in men who are not obedient to God's warnings and who despise His reproof, and following voices that turn things upside down, leaves people turned where they cannot see, as blind men. Despising His word and trusting in oppression and perverseness makes iniquity like a swelling breach in a high wall whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant, and this blindness comes just as destruction has gone forth upon cities and the day of the Lord is right upon the world when evidence shall be made sure.

Ancient Examples of Rejection

The warning was first given to ancient Israel as a rebellious and lying people who would not hear the law of the Lord and who hated and rejected both His message and the messengers who delivered it. They told the seers to see not and the prophets to prophesy not right things but smooth things and deceits, seeking to silence true messengers so as to be no more annoyed by their reproofs. The command to write it in a table and note it in a book for the time to come for ever and ever was given because God saw that the rebellion manifested then would increase in after ages, to stand as a testimony against them forever.

In Jeremiah's day the priests, the false prophets, and the people turned against Jeremiah because he would not soften God's warning that Jerusalem would become desolate. They could not endure his exposure of their wickedness and his threatening of judgment, and were angry because he would not speak smooth things or prophesy deceit. They threatened him with death for delivering God's warning rather than words that pleased them. Faithful prophets chose reproach and even death rather than speak deceitfully.

Jesus' hearers refused His teaching because it condemned their cherished sins, while they would have honored Him if He had praised their pride and excused their wrongdoing. Pretenders without divine authority who gratified pride and vanity could win firm allegiance by flattering the rich and unsanctified, but their false teachings led their followers to ruin. Elijah's example shows the same pattern, for the faithful prophet does not soften the truth or hide the real cause of God's judgments. Those who deliver warnings may be blamed, while the blame rests on those who turn from God and disobey Him.

True and False Teachers

False prophets, teachers, and unfaithful pastors give hearers what the carnal mind wants, preaching smooth things to please and amuse rather than telling right things. They avoid Jesus and the Bible's plain, hard, cutting truths because worldly, hypocritical members would not listen, especially when ministers fear losing wealthy members and want religion to appear popular and honored by the world, contrary to Christ's call to renounce the world. Pleasing fables from Satan are readily accepted, while pure truth that would expose hypocrisy and sin and drive hearers from the church is rejected. Faithful preaching refuses this course and speaks plainly, so that even outsiders who come expecting entertainment become serious and are moved to tears.

Their smooth preaching declares peace and safety and teaches that there is peace, leading people to feel secure while rejecting the Sabbath and the nearness of Christ's coming. It cries peace when there is no special alarm, while people and teachers are asleep, so that the multitude who hear believe the report and rest at ease, opposite to the plain and pointed testimony needed in a time of scouring and purifying, warfare and trial, when the house of Israel is sifted as corn in a sieve. It declares the church flourishing and all well and cries peace, peace, while overlooking conformity to the world, worldliness, lack of love and forbearance, and the need for repentance. It assures transgressors that it shall be well with them, glosses over terrible iniquity, refuses to picture sin in its abhorrent character as fearful and bringing inevitable ruin, and scatters false doctrines and soul-destroying heresies under sham liberality and charity, so multitudes rest in sin unmindful of the solemn warnings and examples of the Word of God.

A large majority who profess to know the truth prefer smooth messages and do not want their sins and defects brought before them. They want accommodating ministers who will not arouse conviction by speaking the truth, choosing men who will flatter them, flattering such ministers in return for their good spirit while reviling the faithful servant of God. They want preaching that dwells only on the grace and mercy and love of Jesus without enforcing duties and obligations, without warning of the danger of hypocrisy, and without presenting the terrors of God's wrath, with great efforts made to turn ministers from the straightforward path of truth and holiness in order to sustain a wrong course of action. They resist plain reproof because it conflicts with feeling, then join together in dissatisfaction and doubt toward messages that expose their wrongs, speaking smooth things and weakening the effect of plain warnings that expose sin, which helps people remain asleep in their sins. Worldly people likewise praise and reassure those whose conduct gives sinners the impression that all is well, and such mutual comfort encourages pride and pleasure, dulls judgment, and makes sins God hates seem harmless.

God's prophets by contrast faithfully reprove sin and speak truth rather than flatter, often provoking the anger of the self-righteous and deceived, while false prophets speak smooth words and promise peace and safety to people who do not want correction. The call to speak smooth things expresses the rebellious desire of those who resent having their sins exposed, and the spirit of prophecy answers by speaking the truth rather than flattering them.

Prophecy for the Last Days

The demand for smooth things and deceits belongs to the professed people of God in the last days, to those who have had great privileges and opportunities and before whom the Lord has worked in a marked manner, yet who oppose righteousness instead of carrying the principles of the Word into practical life. They cherish pride and selfishness and covetousness, and though they have known the truth they have not cherished its principles in their hearts nor made them part of life. Becoming leavened with an evil they do not discern, failing to recognize unrighteousness for what it is, they ask in word and act for smooth and deceitful teaching instead of right things and refuse to hear reproof. Against that demand wrong must be named as wrong, the standard of truth must be lifted up, a decided stand must be taken for truth and righteousness, with no fellowship with worldly practices and worldly elements that pervert faith and corrupt those who have enjoyed great privileges. They are called to be converted and to surrender the entire being to the working of the Holy Spirit.

In its end-time application this spirit marks those who hate the pure testimony and oppose the faithful remnant, rejecting warnings from God's seers and prophets and demanding reassuring but false messages instead of what is right. It is the attitude of people in the last days who resist reproof and prefer smooth words to truth, preserved as a warning for the future and joined to sudden destruction. In the time just before Christ's second coming God's faithful preachers must give an even more direct testimony than John the Baptist gave, while those who speak smooth things rather than plainly reproving wrong will not be acknowledged by God as shepherds and stand under a fearful woe. In the final conflict on the very eve of the crisis, with eternal interests involved for the remnant people of God to the very close of this earth's history, there is no time for that soft pleasing course. To take it is to relax effort, become tame and spiritless, hide light, break allegiance to God, fail to testify for God and for truth, be turned aside by worldly suggestions, compromise when compromise cannot be afforded, and hold an evil unbelieving heart that departs from the living God, whereas every power is to be employed for God in open loyalty.

To demand see not and prophesy not right things is to put trust in men who are not obedient to God's warnings and who despise His reproof, and to follow voices that turn things upside down. Those who do this will themselves be turned where they cannot see and will be as blind men. The choice pressed is to walk in the way God has shown or to walk in finite and erring human counsel, to hear the law of the Lord or to want the Holy One of Israel put out of the way, and despising His word and trusting in oppression and perverseness makes iniquity like a swelling breach in a high wall whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. This blindness comes just as destruction has gone forth upon cities and the day of the Lord is right upon the world when evidence shall be made sure.

Refusal of true reproof joined to rebellion and uncleanness ends in judgment, for Sodomitish impurity will not escape the wrath of God at the execution of the judgment. Those who do not repent of and forsake all uncleanness and all impurity will fall with the wicked. Those who become members of the royal family and form God's kingdom in the earth made new will be saints, not sinners, so church members need to fast and pray and strive earnestly to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

Unfaithful pastors have spoken such smooth things, deceiving their hearers, leading them to reject God's law and turning them against those who keep it holy unto persecution. When the people recognize that this deception has brought them to ruin, the teachers confess their deception and face the fury of those they misled. In the final reckoning the misled condemn the teachers who misled them as responsible for their ruin.

Related Scriptural Messages

The demand for smooth things is the cry of rebellious, lying children who will not hear the law of the Lord, telling seers to see not and prophets to prophesy not right things but deceits. It belongs to professed Christians who discard God's words and accept teachings that dishonor Him, including exalting a false Sabbath and rejecting the fourth-commandment Sabbath. It marks a people in the last days who have had privileges and opportunities and have seen the Lord work in a marked manner, yet oppose righteousness by cherishing pride and selfishness and covetousness instead of carrying the principles of the Word into practical life. No one who refuses the admonitions of the Word of God and follows a way of his own choosing can accept the gospel of Christ.

Those in this condition want the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them, wanting only pleasing and deceitful teaching instead of right things. They are many worldly professed Christians whom Satan uses to lead souls away from the simplicity of the gospel, with worldly companions and amusements sowing doubt and skepticism. They cheat their souls daily with a form of godliness without the power, from whom the Lord has removed His smile and the inspiration of His Spirit because their deeds are evil. He demands decided changes in life and character, and good intentions, good resolutions, and good acts cannot be accepted as substitutes for repentance, faith, and willing obedience.

The Laodicean message is not a smooth or flattering message, does not excuse faults, and does not conceal truth but confronts the people with the truth about their reproved condition. It is the pointed testimony that must be borne to a lukewarm church to arouse it from security and dangerous deception about its real standing of wretchedness, blindness, and poverty. Its purpose is to lead to zealous repentance, self-abasement, confession of sins, and prompt and decided putting away of iniquity. The same disposition that demands smooth preaching instead of plain truth about wrongs and sins, with hearts at war against faithful reproof, decides how that message of the True Witness is treated.

In the final warning the same pattern appears when ministers answer those awakened by the third angel's message with fables and smooth words to soothe fears and quiet awakened consciences. Instead of plainly affirming what Scripture teaches and acknowledging the message exposing Babylon's errors and sins, they offer soothing fables to quiet fear.

Duty to Give Plain Reproof

Because smooth preaching leaves people secure in sin, the verse shows why servants of God must plainly proclaim vital truth and reprove sin so that truth awakens hearts and reaches them. They are sent to rebuke sin, warn of danger, and declare plain Bible teaching even when hearers would rather have what pleases them. Reformers may at first hope to lead people back to Scripture by example, but the Spirit moves them to rebuke sin and declare warnings plainly despite resistance and consequences. False shepherds preach peace rather than truth, while faithful servants speak plainly, urge decision, and leave the result with God.

Faithful work must warn, counsel, and reprove even when people refuse to hear, giving firm warnings instead of flattering those who love pleasing fables and smooth words. Things must be called by their right name, the standard of truth lifted up, and a decided stand taken for truth and righteousness, with no fellowship with worldly practices and elements that pervert faith. Those who have known truth but have not cherished its principles become leavened with undiscerned evil, fail to discern evil, and in word and act demand smooth deceit and want unrighteousness called righteousness. Such preference for praise over reproof and resistance to warning marks refusal of correction.

Watchmen must stay alert and bear faithful open testimony for God and truth with every power in loyalty, and must not hide truth or soften it to please hearers. In the final conflict on the very eve of the crisis, with eternal interests involved for the remnant to the close of earth's history, there is no time to relax effort, become tame and spiritless, hide light, break allegiance, be turned aside by worldly suggestions, or compromise when compromise cannot be afforded. To take that course is to hold an evil unbelieving heart that departs from the living God. Messengers in days of peril must not give pleasing words that hide duty, but must speak truth in love so words cut to hearts and convict even on unpopular duties such as the tithing system when people say they cannot see it to be duty.

Ministers and men in responsible positions must not preach pleasing, flattering, deceptive messages to meet the world's standard and catch its ideas, for tame lifeless sermonizing is not after God's order. Hearts must be changed so they do not sow tares, lips purified as with a live coal from the altar, and preaching must be a living testimony with a certain distinct sound. Instead of smoothing truth, preaching must by the Holy Spirit convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with long-suffering and doctrine. Avoiding plain warnings against sin for fear of offending or losing listeners leaves people asleep in sin, confirms sinners in a wrong course, conceals their true condition, and makes truth ineffective, while faithful counsel tells painful truth to expose self-deception. Resistance to plain reproof because it conflicts with feeling and preference for hearing that all is well belongs to the same demand.

Those who have turned from the faith and sought satisfaction from what cannot sustain them proclaim a misleading message of smooth words instead of pointing to God's standard of righteousness. Every class needs the Bible's saving truth and the genuine gospel rather than such smooth things.

The verse exposes false prophets who object to reproof and warnings because they disturb peace, whose flattering promises of prosperity lull sinners into security. Israel preferred the corrupt priests' reassuring predictions to the true prophet's call to repent and submit. Ministers who soothe fears and quiet consciences with smooth teachings rather than plainly exposing error and sin will, when their authority is challenged, oppose and persecute those who proclaim truth. Preference for smooth messages over warnings that expose sin reveals a lukewarm and spiritually dangerous condition, while faithful reproof is needed to awaken sinners and give them a chance to confess and forsake wrongs.

Specific Applications of Warning

The demand to see not and to hear not right things but smooth things and deceits is the cry of a rebellious, lying people who will not hear the law of the Lord, wanting true messengers silenced so as to be no more annoyed by reproof. When that silencing is insisted upon, the answer is to be left to go on in the chosen way with the privilege of having errors pointed out withdrawn, so that no prophecy awakens from carnal security and no warning shames to repentance. The command to write it in a table and note it in a book for the time to come for ever and ever was because the rebellion seen in ancient Israel would increase in after ages, to stand as a testimony forever. No one who refuses the admonitions of the Word and follows a way of his own choosing can accept the gospel of Christ.

It applies to professed people of God who use influence against what is sent through chosen agencies, where men linked with the world in spirit and practice endeavor to turn the people from truth and righteousness. They despise messages that reprove backslidings and warn of false security, and use every device to hush the admonitory voice in order to obtain words that foster pride, encourage presumption, and soothe the conscience into false peace. It is the condition of those in the last days who have had privileges and opportunities and have seen marked workings, yet oppose righteousness by cherishing pride and selfishness and covetousness instead of carrying the principles of the Word into practical life. The Lord reads the motives of every heart and inclines His ear to the prayer of the contrite, and the call to such is to be converted and surrender the entire being to the working of the Holy Spirit.

It applies to those who claim to be teachers yet refuse right things and demand smooth things, blinding their own eyes so they cannot see. It is the case of leaders at the heart of the work who have great light but have not light and truth in heart and soul, who take up truth without conversion while keeping old hereditary and cultivated character, yet act as counsellors and wise men. They mingle their own spirit with words and actions, pervert principle, and confederate to do what has been expressly forbidden, until justice and mercy and love for God and man fall in the streets and equity cannot enter. Such a course insults and abuses honor, misrepresents Him before those called by His name, greatly weakens the work, dishonors truth of heavenly origin, and to all who act out these principles Isaiah 30:1-15 will be fulfilled.

The same refusal marks those who resist reproof and warning and turn away from the Holy One of Israel, including medical workers who oppose messages sent to correct them. It marks ministers who preach pleasing messages to satisfy worldly, hypocritical members and avoid the hard truths of the Bible, especially from fear of losing wealthy members. Those smooth teachings make religion seem popular and honored by the world, contrary to the teaching that followers must renounce the world, and such pleasing fables are from Satan and are carried out by professed Christians who do his works. For a Christian physician to speak smooth things is to falsely assure one dying with consumption that there is nothing the matter with the lungs, when careful thorough examination would reveal positive danger from a fatal malady with only a few weeks or months to live. That is deception, whether from untrustworthiness or incompetence, withholding in wisdom the truth needed on the brink of the grave, warning of danger that there might be repentance of sins and pointing to Jesus who takes away the sins of the world, and God writes such neglect in His books as deception violating the holy duties of moral rectitude that forbid deception in dealing with patients, requiring an account of stewardship, so that saying smooth things to those in danger should not be tolerated in Christian institutions.