Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Isaiah 3:8-10

There's a lot of judgment in chapter 3 of Isaiah. Isaiah was a pre-exilic prophet, which means he went about the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming God's Word before Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon. He speaks during the time when Assyria was a world-power (and they captured much of the Northern Kingdom) This makes it often hard to understand because much of the judgment and 'things to come' can be misread as either being appropriate to the coming exile, or the latter days (the Great tribulation) if you don't read it carefully. Sometimes it is one of those and sometimes the other. But at least realise that it was during times of these struggles that Isaiah spoke these words:

For Jerusalem stumbled,
And Judah is fallen,
Because their tongue and their doings
Are against the LORD,
To provoke the eyes of His glory.
The look on their countenance witnesses against them,
And they declare their sin as Sodom;
They do not hide it.
Woe to their soul!
For they have brought evil upon themselves.’ (Isaiah 3:8-9)

Now realise here that Jerusalem and Judah, indeed Israel a a whole, is God's inheritance and He will never completely forsake them. The nation is His, just as nowadays we individually are His, and He won't let us go. However it says Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen. Why? Because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD! Their speech, what they talk about and how they say it are not of the LORD (for us that does not only mean that we swear or talk rudely, but perhaps we talk idly about silly matters or talk avidly of something that shouldn't matter because it is not of the LORD). Also, what they do is against the LORD, which i suppose is often a result of saying things against Him.

How does God know this? 3 reasons:
a) It provokes the eyes of His glory - ie. He sees us in the light of His perfect and amazing glory and sees that we are filthy and sinful.

b) The look on their countenance witnesses against them - the chapter spends a great deal of time judging haughty people (especially vain women in vs 16-23) and this expression i believe means that God can tell (obviously He already knows because He is omniscient - but maybe this is how we can tell as well) that they are against Him because they are proud of their sin. (Prov 6:16-17a 'These six things the LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look....') Are we proud of our own sin? I'm sure that sometimes we are. Are we ever proud? Then we are proud of our own sin.

c) They declare their sin as Sodom - Sodom declared her sin quite boldly and clearly if you read Lot's story, and their list of common sins was appalling. That Judah is declaring her own sins as clearly and boldly as Sodom should be a wake-up call to its people. These ways that God knows Jerusalem has stumbled seem to get more and more clear and more and more damning. But sadly I think we too declare our sin as Sodom (probably not the same sins), and what's more, around unbelievers who will take that as a reason that they don't have to be saved.

And what is the outcome of such behaviour? 'Woe to their soul! For they have brought evil on themselves!'. Nevertheless, God still has not forsaken His people. The judgment foretold here is not eternal, only temporary, a chastisement. And we can be sure that in Jesus Christ we have no eternal punishment to fear, because of God's unconditional love. Notice what it says on the next line:

'Say to the righteous that it will be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings' (Isaiah 3:10)

Let's not stumble as Judah and Jerusalem did, because we have the power of the risen Christ within us to help us make the right decisions, to keep us from evil.

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