This chapter pulls no punches right from the off – “See, the Lord, is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it” (v1). Our God is a Holy God and the price of sin and disobedience is made perfectly clear here. Verse 2 reminds us God has no favourites and all will be treated equally – “it will be the same for priests as for people, for master as for servant…” I take comfort in the knowledge that God is just and even handed.
The following verses are full of imagery, leaving us (through the ages) in no doubt as to the price for disowning God. The times we live in now, where God appears marginalised or even denied, by many, seem to echo the depiction from Isaiah only too closely. Our society feels disjointed, selfish, angry, lacking in morality or humanity. Verse 5 tells us “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant”.
Despite all this there is a message of hope, right in the middle - “They raise their voices, they shout for joy” (v14). It is a glimpse of the redemption to come. June 4th represents a dark day in my family, the recent death of a loved child. Even out of that darkness there is a light that never goes out and a hope for what is to come. God does not leave us, in our despair or our disobedience and we should rejoice in that, even when it is a lesson learned painfully.
Jason O’Hagan
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1 comment:
Well said Jason, I read the passage this morning and thought 'I wonder who is doing today's thought and what they will say.' You haven't pulled your punches either - bless you
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