July 19: Isaiah 57-59

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2012

Isaiah 57–59

 

 

In today’s passage, we see the following themes:

 

1) The people had forsaken God.  God describes their following after idols as making “a pact with those whose beds you love,/ and you looked on their nakedness.”  Our worship, either of idols or of the Lord, brings us into intimate contact.  While Isaiah speaks here of physical idols, anyone or anything that we exalt above God Himself becomes an idol.  Yet, these idols would prove worthless in front of God’s judgment:

 

“I will expose your righteousness and your works,

                and they will not benefit you.

When you cry out for help,

                let your collection of idols save you!

The wind will carry all of them off,

                a mere breath will blow them away.

But the man who makes me his refuge

                will inherit the land

                and possess my holy mountain.”

 

 

I love this imagery of God as our refuge.  We may run to Him at all times, and He will not turn us away.  Whether there is a storm today or tomorrow, we may cling to His presence.  As the beautiful song lyrics proclaim, “His love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me… ”

 

 

2) God becomes present with the contrite.  While the people had turned away from God, He will look upon those who are earnestly seeking Him (Hebrews 11:6).  While God is wholly other, “the high and lofty One[,]... who lives forever, whose name is holy,” He is “with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit.”  God will “revive the spirit of the lowly/ and to revive the spirit of the contrite.”  When the people turn to God in repentance, He will restore them and bring peace to their hearts.  As St. Augustine prayed, “Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts find no rest until they rest in you!”

 

 

3) The Lord detests empty worship.  Sometimes, we express our frustration when God appears not to answer us.  While God acknowledges that the people had indeed sought Him through fasting, He notes that their lives had not been marked by the integrity that their fasting purported to show.  God noted that their attitudes towards others showed brutality; they could not love God truly and show enmity towards their neighbors and the poor.  Indeed, the Great Commandments of Jesus tie together clearly:  our love for God comes shining through our love for our neighbor.  What a great barometer for our hearts!  God clearly looks beyond the outward actions to the condition and motivations of our hearts.  Only through the digestion of His Word and the empowering of the Holy Spirit (more later) may our hearts become in line with His “good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1,2)

 

 

4) Corporate repentance will unlock true salvation for Israel.  Isaiah prophesies about the weight of sin and how it has caused separation.  Sin brings death and cause God to “have hidden his face from you,/ so that he will not hear.”  How painful is that separation!  The lawlessness of sin has trampled truth and justice in the land and among the people.  Realizing that the people cannot bring healing themselves, God’s “own arm worked salvation for him....  [In retrospect, we may see that, in Christ,] he put on righteousness as his breastplate,/ and the helmet of salvation on his head... “  God appoints His Son as the atoning sacrifice for the people’s sins and a warrior to bring “wrath to his enemies” and so that:

 

“From the west, men will fear the name of the Lord,

                and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory.”

 

 

5) The Spirit brings lasting change.  God’s promised Spirit, which will come upon the Church, will bring lasting change through His indwelling and empowering presence.  God’s presence will sustain the Church:  “‘My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have out in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever,’ says the Lord.”  Christ did not leave us unequipped for the spiritual battle of life.  Instead, He sent the Holy Spirit:  “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you….  He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you….  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (John 14:26; John 16:14; and Acts 1:8)

 

 

QUESTIONS

 

1) Who or what is your refuge?

2) Have you confronted your sin in humility?  Did you feel God draw near to you during that period of contrition?

3) How can you trust God more fully in His provision of salvation or of the Holy Spirit?

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