You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Isaiah’ category.
Read: Isaiah 5:18-30
There’s always black, white, and grey in the situations we face in life. Things are more complex than just black and white.
But not in matters of sin. Sin is sin, no matter the circumstance. The Israelites blurred the distinction between good and evil so that what was formerly evil was known as good. Darkness was light and light was darkness. Bitter and sweet ended up interchanged in some strange course.
Just the other day, I saw a comment on Youtube (gotta love those Youtube trolls) referring to Christianity as a mental illness. I really don’t think that his views are unique to himself. More and more, people are calling Christianity a curse on the development of mankind. It’s “backwards.” “Foolishness.” “Will keep us from progressing into enlightenment.” Just an example of light called darkness.
Perhaps the same people cite the crusades and the inquisition as ways in which Christianity was a blight.
I have a good example of an acquaintance who believed so. Years ago, I contributed to a hobby forum about fountain pens. The forum administrator was athiest and told to everyone and anyone that would listen. He started several “threads” (topics, in forumspeak) ridiculing Christianity and told everyone about his testimony. He used to be a strong Christian who taught Sunday School in his church, the works. However, one day, he saw the light and saw Christianity for what it was. Afterwards he left and spent the rest of his time trying to convince everyone who would hear him that Christianity was a waste of everyone’s time, God was dead, everything. I used to get involved with some heated debates with the guy, and he always talked about how American had been founded as a Christian nation, and look where it got us, and so on.
Though honestly I failed to see the correlation between what’s going on in the world right now and America being a Christian nation 300 years ago.
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
A beautiful piece of Aztec art
This man honestly believed that Christianity was a blight upon the world, perpetrated by close-minded people.
I can’t deny that that particular history (referring to the crusades, and the inquisition) was nasty and not something that I believe God honestly could have condoned. Perhaps it was people blinded by religion instead of having their eyes opened by God.
My point is that often times, those who want to point fingers look at religion instead of God. Even some of us well-meaning Christians do so. If my history is right, during the times that the Spanish went to South America, they brought some people over to try to convert the heathens. These people inflicted indescribable cruelties upon those who resisted. Their creed said, “Believe in God. Otherwise we shall torture you, kill you, and put your head on a stake as an example to the heathens that shall come after you.”
They painted a cruel picture of God.
And that’s the image that a lot of us have been stuck with, all these years. We don’t think of the God who calls us to Him by grace, we think of a God that delights in torture. The God of the Bible was not one who tortured needlessly. It wasn’t God’s FAULT that those earlier so-called “Christians” did such horrific things. People will do what they want to do, no matter what God or the Bible says. No matter that what they’re doing in the name of God and religion is so against what the Bible teaches.
As a result, what once was known as light to many was known seen as a darkness that cruelly tortured and killed people if they did not choose to believe what they were “supposed” to believe in the eyes of others.
Good was known as evil in those days. Perhaps with good cause.
But it was sad.
Similarly, evil has taken the place of good as the norm. I’ve talked about premarital sex and issues like adultery. This brings to mind a discussion I had in church. Someone argued that homosexuality should be accepted because times have changed. The pastor also talked about women preachers as an example of how times have changed. Then a friend of mine said something earth shattering. Roughly stated, she said, “You may say that times have changed. But what about issues like premarital sex? That’s still a sin and will always be a sin. People are doing it all the time now and accepting it as normal and even good. But that doesn’t mean that it’s NOT a sin.”
She was right.
Isaiah continues. “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”
Woe to those who think they’re so smart, they have all the answers to life, they know everything, etc.
Woe to me, who once believed at age 15 that I had nothing more to figure out.
I was wrong. And I found that out quickly, believe me.
Verse 22. “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks…”
In some places it’s a common practice to hold drinking games. See who can hold the most alcohol. The one who passes out first or gets rid of the alcohol by puking loses automatically and has to hand the winner a huge chunk of moolah. That of course depends on the bets placed. Drinking games seem a lot of fun on movies (Raiders of the Lost Ark comes to mind) but in real life they’re quite dangerous.
No wonder God was angry at these types of people. I would have been angry too. In fact today, I get angry whenever I see such things glorified. It’s so common for people to just drink and drink and get drunk. Especially teenagers my age, who really aren’t supposed to be drinking. Their brains aren’t developed, for goodness’ sake! They’re killing their brain cells! But seriously, drinking ends up destroying a lot of their chances in life. If you’re caught drinking and driving as a minor, you get to go to DUI school and a whole lot of good stuff. Plus it remains on your driving record and you have to report it whenever you have to
I knew a girl who went into a coma because a friend (or her? I don’t remember) drove her home from school. And the driver, being drunk, crashed into a tree. The girl fell into a coma for days. A friend of mine organized a fundraiser and painted several pictures to raise awareness about this girl. The girl eventually recovered, but she had to retake a whole year of high school because of all the time she spent off recovering.
Such things do not come without consequence. These happenings are compared to tongues of fire licking dry straw, or dry grass bursting into flames. You put a tiny spark to all that dry tinder and the whole thing immediately goes up in flames.
Israel was invaded.
In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks at the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be darkened by the clouds.
Picture Credits: Markusram, OpenSkyMedia, cathyse97, Akash K, Gret@Lorenz, and ercwttmn.
Read: Isaiah 5:1-17
Once there was a man and a vineyard. He took care of his vineyard for he loved it very much. He cleared all the stones away and planted all the best fruit. The soil was good and fertile. This man even built a watchtower to make sure no one would harm the vineyard. He did all he could.
However, at harvest time, he found only bad fruit.
What would you do?
What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
He decided to let the vineyard go to rot. What more could he do for his vineyard? Maybe he felt disappointed in the vineyard he had sweated over and loved and sang to.
Wine is great in moderation.
Isaiah reveals that the house of Israel was the vineyard that God had loved. He had nurtured His people, kept them, watched over them in the hopes of reaping justice. Yet He was left with bloodshed and chaos. All he heard were the cries of distress.
Then Isaiah, on behalf of God, starts proclaiming woes and judgements. “Woe to those who drink in the morning, continue to drink, and stay up late still drinking.”
One thing I remember from driver’s education is that blood alcohol content is cumulative, meaning that if you continue to drink during the day, you will continue to add alcohol before you can digest it properly. As a result, the alcohol overflows into your bloodstream. At perhaps 0.6 BAC, you will die. Someone who drinks that much is asking to die. Woe to them indeed.
Sadly, there are people now who do drink like that. I learned about a college student somewhere who drank so much that she passed out and never woke up. It happens.
The people of that time were rich. They raised great mansions with their money and had 10 acre vineyards.
Yet they had no respect for God.
Wealth in itself is not a bad thing. It’s wonderful to have a lot of money. Money in itself is not an evil thing that should be avoided. However, with much wealth can bring the danger of arrogance. One with much wealth can so easily feel that they can do anything, be anything with all the money they have. If they make a mistake, they can bribe off the paparazzi with some cash. Or if they really want something very badly, they can always lay down a few grand and come home with it. With wealth, one can easily feel that, “I don’t need God. I have money.” With wealth, one can come to believe that much money equals their salvation.
That’s why I greatly admire those who have great wealth, yet use that money to glorify God. I admire those who have almost never lacked for anything, yet remain humble before God.
But for those that fall in the trap of believing that money is salvation?
Whiskey is probably the most alcoholic drink there is
God decreed that they’d die of hunger, be dehydrated, and end up in exile for “lack of understanding.”
Does our lack of understanding stem from simply being clueless, or does it stem from refusing to listen to God’s word?
It’s worth much thought. Did I not know because no one told me, or was this lack of knowledge because I refused to heed the warning that had been there all along?
I have the feeling that in this case it stemmed of a stubborn refusal to listen to God.
The result is that God will once again bring us to our knees.
That isn’t a bad thing. In the world today, I can sense more and more a tendency to rely on oneself other than God. Jesus, according to a New Age leader, did not come to teach us that He was divine, but instead came because He wanted to show us the Divine in us. We listen to our inner voice and look for spirit guides. There’s Oprah and her Law of Attraction which tires to teach us to call things to ourselves and control our lives to make things how WE want them to be.
We desire to search for the divine in ourselves instead of seeking out the Divine that is God.
We are becoming an arrogant people, distrustful of God and His wisdom and instead chasing after our own desires. You can see where it’s leading us. Places where we should not go and should not ever be in.
We need to fall from the pedestals that we’ve erected for ourselves and our own so called nonexistent divinity and realize that we are nothing without God and his grace.
We need to be on our knees again in front of the One who gave it all.
Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich.
Picture credits: Jacob Childrey, Mr. T in D.C., Unlisted Sightings, Tavallai, and Rat Goddess.
Read: Isaiah 4
Picture by wolfpix
Whoa. What a short chapter. Though a mere six verses, this passage still remains packed with promise and meaning.
I could divide the themes into two parts. Both parts with “In that day.” However both parts are quite different.
In the first part, the people of Israel are disgraced.
In the second part, the people’s disgrace is taken away. They are redeemed. Verse four speaks of a time when things will be good and this land will no longer reek of decay or filth but instead be a shelter and a refuge.
Grace is an amazing thing.
Read: Isaiah 3:12-26
This passage speaks of judgement.
First, though the LORD points out that those the Israelites used to fill their God-hole led them astray. Those things turned them from the path they were meant to be on.
And so, judgement day comes. He takes his place at court.
What does He have to say?
First, He tells the elders that they have done wrong. “It is you” (verse 14). They’ve ruined His vineyard, plunder from the poor, crush people, and grind the faces of the poor. “What do you mean by it?” He asks. Somehow I have the feeling that this question is hypothetical. It’s a declaration rather than a question, as God’s not looking for an answer — He already knows the answer.
It’s not only the elders who are sinning. It’s also the women. They have pride. Tripping along with mincing steps? You should see some people tripping along on their stilettos… nothing against high heels. I just think it’s funny that we women, including me, get high heels even though they crush our toes into points, bunch our calves into knots, and throw our spine out of alignment.
They do look wonderful on the legs though.
Maybe in old days, they had some sort of shoe that made them mince along daintily.
The description of women as haughty sounds to me like a woman who is confident in her powers of seduction. “I can have any man I want.” The kind of woman who leads a man by a string and twists his heart around her little finger only to cast him away when she tires of the game.
It seems to me also that the temptress isn’t seen as a bad thing as often now. Freedom of sexual expression, right? Tonight I was browsing the web looking for inspiration for my blog, and on the sex blog at Glamour, someone was talking about having a threesome. (whoa.) The commenters were all going, “Oh yeah! The threesome is the sexiest thing ever! You should try it to spice up your sex life!” I’m not condemning it. I just don’t like it. And I don’t believe that it’s right. However, that’s something that’s seen as good and normal and even healthy! Especially when the woman is tugging along two men with her.
With the feminist movement, women were told that they could be anything. So what if the past had male dominance over women in a patriarchal society? Those days are over and gone! Right now women can have dominance over men if they want. EVen in relationships. No longer is the man alone calling the shots in the relationship. No longer will he be the one to say when the relationship is a dead end. Now it’s the woman who can seduce him, bed him, and then throw him out when she’s tired of the game and wants to move on to something else.
Both men and women playing at such games is a really really sick thing.
Both genders can even have the either one begging at their feet if they wanted.
But He will come in, pound his gavel, and call judgement. He is the only one who has the right to do it. And the only one who COULD do it. God knows we need judgement. We need someone to tell us where we’re going wrong and help us straighten life out again like it’s supposed to be: walking hand in hand with God.
And so, He will snatch away all our finery.
the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, the signet rings and nose rings, the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls.
Ooh. Pretty! Picture from Flickr
That’s a lot of finery. Evidently, we’re not that different from the women of yesteryear. Bangles? Check. Headbands? Yes. Necklaces? Oh yes! Earrings? Chunky is in. Any woman nowadays who is in touch with the world could tell you that. Perfume bottles? Would you like to smell like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, female Zorro, or Sarah Jessica Parker? Take your pick.
However, at that time, there will not be Sarah Jessica Parker’s Covet. There will be a stench of nothing good. Instead of our fancy leather belts, a rope. Instead of fine shampooed hair with perfectly useless vitamins, there will be no hair. Instead of our Vera Wang’s and Donna Karan’s, our Oscar de la Renta’s or Gucci’s, but sackcloth.
Our men will fall by the sword, and we will be destitute.
Big blow to our pride, don’t you think?
This supposedly happened so long ago. However… considering how it conforms to our life here right now… I suspect that it might come up again in the future. This wasn’t the first time that God’s people were punished and put straight, and maybe it won’t be the last either. Considering how our culture is so saturated with celebrity influence, youth obsession, and thinness as the beauty ideal, maybe those days are coming.
*Another interpretation could mean that this was referring to the nation itself, but not the women specifically. I think it could mean both. Just be careful when interpreting anything, because the nations were often referred to as “she.” And metaphors were also used. “Virgin daughter of Zion” that sort of thing.
Read: Isaiah 3:1-11
God teaches us to depend on him by taking away the other things that we depend on for our lives. If it’s our strength that we depend on to the exclusion of God, then he takes that away so that we will learn how to lean on Him.
The Israelites’ support were strikingly similar to our present ones. Food, water, heroes like Iron Man, warriors, judges (Judge Judy? Sorry, couldn’t help it), prophets, soothsayers, elders, captains of fifty, people with rank, and so on. These things were what they leaned on. Much like us. However, God noticed something.
He noticed that in their comfort, they had forgotten about Him.
Sometimes, when things are going well, we forget about God. We have a job, a family that loves us, fried chicken, and many other blessings. At the same time, we’ve forgotten that God was the one who provided these things.
God wants us to remember Him. He wants us to want to have fellowship with Him. Therefore he will take from us both supply and support so we will be reminded about Him.
Harsh, right?
It’s not that I can complain.
As a result of God’s judgement, untrustworthy people will become officials. Why? There’s no one else. Chances are, though, instead of turning to God, we will turn to anyone to fill the God-shaped hole inside our hearts. The gap that we used to fill with all the comforts of life… and the gap that we now realize was always empty.
Why is it that when our foundations crumble, we, even as Christians, grasp at everything except God? We have a hole that we need to fill, and we will try to fill it at all costs. We don’t think of God as someone that can fill it in a satisfying way. Instead, we look for substitutes.
For instance, I’ve been reading a book about women and disordered eating. A lot of times, when women are faced by divorce or a drastic change in lifestyle, they’ll freak out. Their foundations, be it a marriage or having a family member, have crumbled and they don’t know what to do. A lot of these women eat to run away from their problems. Bingeing gives them a momentary feeling of satisfaction that doesn’t last. They don’t think that there are other, better, things to turn to.
It’s sad.
Continuing on to verses 10 and 11 . . .
Our world is very broken. People parade sin and do not hide it. Affairs are done openly. People preach free love and the expression of freedom from constraining rules. While some of these constraining rules should not have been there in the first place, not all of those rules are bad. No one is happy, however.
Marijuana
There was a time when professors smoked pot with their students. This was a good thing, not a bad thing. Come on, if your most respective professor is smoking pot, that can’t be bad! However, this brings disaster. After that time, there was an increase in babies born with birth defects. That could be linked to the widespread use of drugs like pot, cocaine, or ecstasy.
The righteous will enjoy the fruits of their labor. What fruit does sin have? Broken hearts, disease, and emotional pain.
I’m thankful for the gift of salvation.
Read: Isaiah 2
Think about a world where people don’t wage war against each other.
What? Hard to think about?
Check out the first part of this passage.
People dream about a world like that nowadays. In the 60s, America was torn apart by the Vietnamese war. Right now, we’re pressing the government to remove our troops from Iraq. War tears people apart, families apart, friendships apart, marriages apart, and nations apart. People die every day because of war and violence.
However, it seems that violence is deeply ingrained into this country’s soil. People fight for what they believe in — often violently. Kids learn how to fight from a tender age. We can’t get what we want without violence, we think. And so we use violence and war to achieve our ends. The opposing countries (or us, in some cases) don’t know how to talk things out. They don’t want to talk things out.
In many cases, this kind of behavior and beliefs leads to massive wars.
I think that we are too used to having blood on our hands. We cease to think about it. At the same time that we are urging our country to take away the troops from Iraq, we cannot think about a good enough solution that could replace the need for the troops.
Iron Man
I recently watched a movie called Iron Man. Tony Stark is a brilliant weapons manufacturer. His nuclear missiles have been sold to hundreds of nations for war use. Consequently, he is a rich guy. Then he saw his own weapons used on innocent civilians by terrorists — and his life changed. The former playboy turned over a new leaf, and stopped producing weapons. Of course, Tony caused buzz when he announced this to the press. He decided that he didn’t want his weapons to be used to harm innocent people — which was originally what Stark’s weapons were predominantly used for. (Of course in wartime, hundreds and thousands of civilians are killed.) His experiences gave him the sense that people were far more important than profit and industry.
Iron Man, or Tony Stark, realized that he could not live with the death of innocents on his conscience, knowing that he had indirectly caused their deaths.
Maybe he was thinking about a world where we would no longer need to fight. Maybe we could beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. No longer would there be a need to train for war. Maybe Stark industries could turn away from their nuclear weapons, and find some way to fuel the earth and make the world a better place.
Maybe.
Here in the next part of the passage, the people want to learn about God. They want to do the right thing. Very importantly, they desire to have fellowship with God.
Isaiah describes this time as a time when people practiced witchcraft and divination. They were into stuff like astrology, perhaps. Or ouija boards and tarot cards. Much like today, in short. The people were very rich, with money and horses. (Horses are expensive to take care of. Back then, they were a mark of wealth. If you had a lot of horses, that meant that you could afford to take care of them.)
And idols. These people made them with their hands and bowed down to them.
Swastika, commonly known as a Nazi symbol. Also previously a pagan symbol adopted by Christians in the past.
When the LORD comes, they will be humbled, to the point of running into their caves and hiding. What will be exalted? Not their arts of divination, astrology, their pagan symbols and tarot cards. Not even their wealth, or horses. Definitely not the idols of wood, stone, or brass. “The LORD alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols will totally disappear.”
Also keep in mind that an idol doesn’t have to be wood, or stone. Idols can be as abstract as a fantasy, or as solid as the boy down the street. It is not the object/person/place/thing that is the bad thing. It is ourselves that are at fault for putting those things in the place of God.
But when that day comes, they won’t need idols of silver and gold. They will throw them away. Then the people will run away to their caves and crags out of dread.
Isaiah closes this chapter with a thought, and a word of advice.
Verse 22:
Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
Part Second
Read: Isaiah 1:18-31
God changes tack here.
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
He speaks of redemption. The sinner will be made clean. The blood on our hands are washed away. Verse 19 can be interpreted as “are we willing to let God do this work, or are we going to continue in our resistance?”
After all, we were once a faithful city, until we fell. What was once pure silver tarnished. We stepped away from the path we were supposed to walk on. Remember verse 17 in the other mediation where we were encouraged to defend the fatherless and take up the widows’ case? Well, we forgot about that.
I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities...
As stated in verse 25, God’s solution is to “turn against us.” How? He’s going to purify the silver again and clean away the tarnish. Once again we will be the city of righteousness.
However, those who stay away will perish. Those people are doomed to a life of dryness (the oak with fading leaves, or garden with out water). Despite the sacred oaks in which they delighted in, or the gardens they chose, the oaks’ leaves will fade. The garden will have no water. Though they made their choice themselves, they will later be ashamed about it. With such dryness, they will become like a piece of tinder, easy to catch on fire and burn to ashes. Because we refused, no one can any longer come to quench the flames.
Read: Isaiah 1:1-17
When you turn away from the path you should be walking on, things happen.
That’s what Israel did. They turned away from the LORD. They rebelled against the One who loved them the most.
In verse 5, God asks them why they persist in this path even though they’re killing themselves in the process. At this point, it really is pointless to keep on resisting. They’re suffering and in pain — direct consequences of their disobedience. Yet they still rebelled. Why?
If you disobeyed the speeding laws and wrapped your Acura (or Toyota, or Honda) around a tree, you’d rethink your stance, would you? If you survived. It might be extremely stupid to go on disobeying speeding laws, because next time you might not be so fortunate. You’re not supposed to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. You’ve seen what it has done to your peers.
Trees are for hugging, but not by cars.
A couple of years ago, a kid got killed in a car accident in my state. He had been drinking. A lot of the teenagers at my church had known him, and known him personally. His sudden death hit them hard.
Even though the news is saturated with accidents caused by drugs/drinking, even though we hear all the time about how drinking will only bring your disaster, even though we watch videos in driver’s education about this tragedy, people still continue to drink and drive.
Often, it takes them a trip to the ER to rethink.
Often they’re not that lucky.
Similarly, Israel knew that disobedience could lead them nowhere good. At the same time, the nation continued repeating history by their choices, until it became pure mulishness. This can be compared to the refusal to turn back even though you’re headed straight for a tree.
Isaiah doesn’t say why they continued to offer up sacrifices to God. If he were still living, I would have asked him. These sacrifices had become meaningless to them, and therefore meaningless to God. God desires the right heart behind the sacrifice and not the sacrifice itself. Otherwise it is no real sacrifice.
Not only that, their hands were “full of blood.” Offering God a sacrifice from bloody/sinful hands is a horrible thing. Praying a meaningless prayer while hating someone in your heart is an equally detestable thing.
Something we’ve all be guilty of at some point or another.
Seek justice.
Repent.
Cease doing wrong. You are a new creation, because of God’s grace.
God and evil cannot be together, because God is too powerful and too good.
Next up: the second half of the chapter. “Though your sins are like scarlet…”
