Isaiah had some pretty tough and straightforward things to say to his nation. It made him uncomfortable and unpopular. Note a few things in Isaiah 1:4-9 which correlate strikingly to where we find ourselves today.
“Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with wicked acts, seeded offspring of those who are committed to evil, and sons who act in corruption! You have abandoned the Lord, despised the Holy One of Israel, and have turned away from Him.”
Our nation has rejected God at our core: both His commands and His heart, and we are in the process of remaking ourselves in the image of Baal, Asherah, and Molech. Baal because we are creating our own gods, Asherah because we are being consumed by our lusts and addictions, and Molech because we are sacrificing our children on high places. I know this sounds harsh – but is it not reflective of our days – and former times as well?
The leadership battle has been lost in government, education, medicine, corporations, and media – and is not going well in the church. The instability of this reshaping is ignored everywhere. This is more than a changing of times. It is a rotting of our core. This whole head sickness results in lost hope for any change for good. We hold on like an unwilling participant on a roller-coaster, waiting for the next disconcerting twist and turn. We are bruised and battered and bereft of any soothing to our cuts and wounds.
Isaiah continues:
“Where will new attacks come as your rebellion continues? The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, and there is nothing stable in it. Only bruises, cuts and fresh open wounds which are not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”
“Your land is appalling and your cities are burned with fire (crime and self-absorbed, militant disorder). Your fields are being devoured by strangers right before your eyes (foreign governments and influences). You are being desolated and overthrown by strangers (world leaders and personalities who are sons and daughters of wickedness).”
Those who have been and any current voices for good are being driven to the fringes, where we are reduced to protecting what we have in order to survive. Isaiah 1:8-9:
“The daughter of Zion (glory) is left like a shack in a vineyard guarding rotten grapes, and desperate like a guard’s shack in a cucumber field. We are like a city under siege. Unless the LORD of hosts Had left us a few survivors who escape this evil, we would become like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
As we contemplate such a desperate condition, Psalm 7 (and others like it) bring comfort and hope to those who chose to not live as Sodom and Gomorrah.
Let us call out to the Living God, repent of our own and our neighbor’s idolatries, pray for an awakening of sleeping souls, and embrace once again the Giver of Life.
Soberly yours,
Dave and Burnadette
Related links:
Deeper in Isaiah
A Healing Song from Isaiah 55