Darkness to Light through the Prince of Peace Text: Isaiah 8:19-22
Introduction: The Seduction of the Seance
Every generation has its own preferred method of insanity, its own peculiar way of plugging its ears to the clear commands of God in order to listen to the incoherent whispers of the abyss. In Isaiah's day, the political situation was dire. The northern kingdom of Israel and Syria had formed a coalition to attack Judah, and King Ahaz was trembling like a leaf in the wind. In times of great fear and uncertainty, men are tempted to seek answers from any source other than the God they have been ignoring. The temptation is to find a shortcut, a secret piece of information, a word from the "other side" that will give them an edge.
So they turned to mediums and spiritists, to those who trafficked in the demonic and the dead. They wanted to consult the dead on behalf of the living. This is the very definition of spiritual necrophilia. And we, in our sophisticated and secular age, are tempted to read this and pat ourselves on the back for having outgrown such primitive superstitions. But we have done no such thing. We have simply changed the decor of the seance room.
Modern man does not consult a witch in a hut; he consults a Ph.D. in a lab coat who tells him he is nothing more than moist protoplasm. He does not listen for whispers from the dead; he listens to the babble of talking heads on the news who tell him that good is evil and evil is good. He does not seek out a spiritist; he seeks out a therapist who will murmur soothing lies to his conscience. The methods have been updated, but the sin is precisely the same: it is the creature turning to other creatures for the wisdom and guidance that can only be found in the Creator. It is a refusal to inquire of our God. And as Isaiah shows us, the path that begins with this refusal, this turning away from the light of God's Word, inevitably ends in a state of total, absolute, and terrifying darkness.
This passage is a stark warning. It lays out two paths, and only two. There is no third way. There is the path of submission to God's revealed Word, which is the path of dawning light. And there is the path of rebellion, which is a downward spiral into hunger, rage, blasphemy, and impenetrable gloom. This text serves as the black velvet background against which the glorious promise of the Prince of Peace in the next chapter will shine all the more brightly.
The Text
Now when they say to you, "Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter," should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
And they will pass through the land hard-pressed and hungry, and it will be that when they are hungry, they will be angry and curse their king and their God as they face upward.
Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be banished into thick darkness.
(Isaiah 8:19-22 LSB)
The Foolish Inquiry (v. 19)
The prophet begins by addressing the temptation head-on.
"Now when they say to you, 'Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,' should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" (Isaiah 8:19)
Notice the description of these false prophets: they "whisper and mutter." This is the sound of rebellion. God speaks with clarity, authority, and in the full light of day. His law is written on stone tablets. His prophets declare "Thus says the Lord" from the rooftops. The demonic, on the other hand, deals in whispers, innuendo, ambiguity, and shadow. The serpent in the garden did not make a formal declaration; he hissed a subtle question. This is the language of the occult, ancient and modern. It is the language of suggestion, not proclamation. It is the mutter of the séance and the jargon of the sociology department. It is designed to confuse, not clarify.
Isaiah's response is a pair of rhetorical questions that expose the sheer lunacy of the proposition. First, "should not a people inquire of their God?" The covenant relationship is the foundation. God has bound Himself to His people. He is their God. He is available. He has spoken. To turn to other sources is not just a mistake; it is adultery. It is like a wife who, needing to ask her husband a question, goes down the street to ask the town drunk instead. It is an insult of the highest order.
The second question drives the absurdity home: "Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" The living have the breath of God in their lungs. The dead are, well, dead. Why would those who possess life seek counsel from those who are in the realm of death? This is a spiritual inversion of the highest order. It is to prefer darkness to light, silence to speech, death to life. And yet, this is precisely what our civilization does every day. We build our philosophies on the dead thoughts of dead atheists. We structure our societies on the dead-end theories of Marx and Darwin and Freud. We are a culture that insists on inquiring of the dead on behalf of the living, and we are perplexed when we find ourselves surrounded by a culture of death.
The Divine Standard (v. 20)
After exposing the foolishness of the alternative, Isaiah gives us the only true standard, the only reliable anchor in a sea of muttering chaos.
"To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn." (Isaiah 8:20)
This is the battle cry of the Reformation, Sola Scriptura, five centuries before the fact. The "law" refers to the Torah, the instruction of God given through Moses. The "testimony" refers to the prophetic witness, the application and proclamation of that law. Together, they constitute the revealed Word of God. This is the plumb line. This is the measuring stick. Any teaching, any philosophy, any political program, any therapeutic technique, any whisper or mutter, must be brought to this standard.
The test is simple and absolute: "If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn." The Hebrew is stark: "in whom there is no shachar," no morning light. It means they are utterly devoid of light. They have no truth in them. This is not a spectrum where some ideas are a little shadowy and others are bright. It is a binary. It is either in accord with the Word of God, or it is darkness. There is no third option. To reject God's Word is to reject the only source of light in the universe. It is to choose the dark.
This verse is a sword that cuts through all our modern fog. We are told to find our own truth, to speak our truth, to live our truth. God says there is only The Truth, and it is His Word. Any "truth" that does not align with Scripture is a lie from the pit, no matter how sincerely it is believed or how compassionately it is expressed. Without this standard, we have no way of discerning the whispers of demons from the wisdom of God. We are lost at sea without a compass, in the middle of the night, during a hurricane.
The Downward Spiral of Apostasy (v. 21)
Verses 21 and 22 describe the inevitable consequences, the covenantal curses, that follow the rejection of God's Word.
"And they will pass through the land hard-pressed and hungry, and it will be that when they are hungry, they will be angry and curse their king and their God as they face upward." (Isaiah 8:21)
The first result is aimless wandering and deprivation. "They will pass through the land hard-pressed and hungry." The word for "hard-pressed" means afflicted, driven, distressed. This is the opposite of the promised security and abundance of covenant faithfulness. When you abandon the map God has given you, you should not be surprised to find yourself lost in the wilderness, starving.
But notice the reaction to this hardship. It is not repentance. It is not a humble return to God. Instead, their hunger makes them "angry." Their emptiness breeds rage. And who is the target of this rage? Everyone but themselves. They "curse their king and their God." They blame their civil rulers, and they blame their divine ruler. This is the perennial cry of the unrepentant sinner. It is Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the serpent. It is the rebellious heart that, when confronted with the consequences of its own sin, shakes its fist at the heavens.
The posture is telling: "as they face upward." This is not the upward look of prayer or supplication. It is the upward glare of defiance. It is the impotent rage of the creature cursing the Creator for the mess the creature himself made. This is the psychology of hell: to be in misery, to know God is the ultimate reason for all things, and to hate Him for it with every fiber of your being.
The Final Destination (v. 22)
After looking up in blasphemous rage, their gaze falls, and they see the world they have made for themselves.
"Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be banished into thick darkness." (Isaiah 8:22)
Having cursed God in heaven, they look for hope on earth. But there is none. Having rejected the transcendent, they are left with nothing but the immanent, and it is a nightmare. Look at the vocabulary Isaiah piles up here: distress, darkness, gloom, anguish, thick darkness. This is a comprehensive, five-fold description of utter despair. It is darkness upon darkness.
When you reject God's Word, you do not get a happy, secular utopia. You do not get freedom and enlightenment. You get anguish and gloom. You get a world without meaning, a universe without purpose, and a life without hope. You get the existential dread of the nihilist. You get the political chaos of a world where might makes right. You get the personal disintegration of a life built on the sand of self-worship. This is the final destination for every person and every society that says "no" to the law and the testimony.
The final phrase is terrifying: "banished into thick darkness." This is not just an absence of light; it is a positive, pressing, substantial darkness. It is a final, judicial act of God. He gives them over entirely to the darkness they have chosen. This is the outer darkness Jesus spoke of, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the end of the road that begins with a seemingly small compromise, a little flirtation with a whisper from the other side.
The Coming Dawn
This chapter ends in the blackest of nights. It is a suffocating, absolute darkness. And if the story ended here, it would be the greatest tragedy imaginable. But it does not end here. This profound darkness is the necessary setup for one of the most glorious prophecies in all of Scripture. The very next verse says, "But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish... The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone" (Isaiah 9:1-2).
The total darkness of Isaiah 8 is shattered by the dawning light of Isaiah 9. The only escape from the downward spiral of sin and death is a divine invasion. The only answer to the thick darkness is a light that comes from outside the system altogether. That light is a child who is born, a son who is given. He is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.
Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the "law and the testimony." He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). To reject the written Word is to reject the living Word. To refuse to listen to Scripture is to refuse to listen to Christ. The choice Isaiah laid before Judah is the same choice that lies before us today. We can inquire of the whispering, muttering voices of our age, the dead philosophies and demonic doctrines that promise secret knowledge and personal autonomy. That path leads, as it always has, to hunger, rage, despair, and thick darkness.
Or, we can turn "to the law and to the testimony." We can bring every thought, every idea, and every ambition captive to the Word of God. We can build our lives, our families, our churches, and our communities on the solid rock of Scripture. This is the only path that has a dawn. And that dawn is not just a principle; it is a person. His name is Jesus. He is the light of the world, and whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.