How depressing

 

Reading the Book Isaiah.

My slow meditations in Luke’s Gospel were indeed challenging:-  the Lord said

 “no one can become My disciple without giving up everything for Me” (Luke 14:33).

“woe to them that are rich”

“Lazarus endured evil things but now he is comforted.”

“ If any will be first, let him be servant of all”

“You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only will you serve”

Thinking on the Lord’s repeated references to the Old Testament, I felt constrained to read the Gospel of Isaiah. But oh the pain of reading slowly the first 20 chapters. The visions given to Isaiah do not go soft on exposing sin and rebellion, Then the just judgements of God are horrific reading – and this is not fiction – it actually happened. Maybe the Lord is telling me not to go soft on sin and rather be like John the baptiser who bluntly told the people their sins. (soldiers abusing power for greed, people hoarding goods for themselves, businessmen taking more money than was honest, religious men living in hypocrisy – Luke 3).

It is so refreshing midst the dark descriptions of God’s wrath against sin, to find again and again the glimpses of God’s glory and salvation.

“Come now and let us reason together says the LORD” (1:18)

Then the promises  of a Messiah brighten the page:

“The branch of the Lord shall be beautiful” (4:2)

“ A virgin will conceive and bear a son .. “ (7:14)

“He will become a sanctuary….” (8:14)

“For unto us a child is born, a son is given….”(9:6)

But for all the entreaties of the LORD God, the rebellion of all nations spells out Divine judgements. Many of Isaiah’s prophecies are now history, but I fear the cycle is being repeated today – nations that have been entrusted with truth are turning against God. They are sinking rapidly into moral and spiritual  depravity. God must judge and the way it is all happening links closely with the predictions of the Lord Jesus Himself – “as it was in the days of Noah….”

 

Yet He warned with hope “be alert, be watching for you know not when your Lord will come”

“Even so come Lord Jesus”