In The Word
Read: Isaiah 30:18-32:20
God Is Gracious and Just
18 Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.
19 For, you people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will certainly be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20 Although the Lord has given you bread of deprivation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will see your Teacher. 21 Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22 And you will desecrate your carved images plated with silver, and your cast metal images plated with gold. You will scatter them as a filthy thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”
23 Then He will give you rain for your seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful; on that day your livestock will graze in a wide pasture. 24 Also the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned feed, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork. 25 And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the wound He has inflicted.
27 Behold, the name of the Lord comes from a remote place;
His anger is burning and dense with smoke;
His lips are filled with indignation,
And His tongue is like a consuming fire;
28 His breath is like an overflowing river,
Which reaches to the neck,
To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,
And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads astray.
29 You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival,
And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute,
To go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.
30 And the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard,
And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger,
And in the flame of a consuming fire
In cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones.
31 For at the voice of the Lord Assyria will be terrified,
When He strikes with the rod.
32 And every blow of the rod of punishment,
Which the Lord will lay on him,
Will be with the music of tambourines and lyres;
And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them.
33 For Topheth has long been ready,
Indeed, it has been prepared for the king.
He has made it deep and large,
A pyre of fire with plenty of wood;
The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.
Help Not in Egypt but in God
31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
And rely on horses,
And trust in chariots because they are many
And in horsemen because they are very strong,
But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!
2 Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,
And does not retract His words,
But will arise against the house of evildoers,
And against the help of the workers of injustice.
3 Now the Egyptians are human and not God,
And their horses are flesh and not spirit;
So the Lord will stretch out His hand,
And any helper will stumble,
And one who is helped will fall.
And all of them will come to an end together.
4 For this is what the Lord says to me:
“As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey,
Against which a band of shepherds is called out,
And he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise,
So will the Lord of armies come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.”
5 Like flying birds so the Lord of armies will protect Jerusalem.
He will protect and save it;
He will pass over and rescue it.
6 Return to Him against whom you have been profoundly obstinate, you sons of Israel. 7 For on that day every person will reject his silver idols and his gold idols, which your hands have made for you as a sin.
8 And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not wielded by a man,
And a sword not of man will devour him.
So he will not escape the sword,
And his young men will become forced laborers.
9 “His rock will pass away because of panic,
And his officers will be terrified by the flag,”
Declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
The Glorious Future
32 Behold, a king will reign righteously,
And officials will rule justly.
2 Each will be like a refuge from the wind
And a shelter from the storm,
Like streams of water in a dry country,
Like the shade of a huge rock in an exhausted land.
3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded,
And the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 The mind of the rash will discern the truth,
And the tongue of the stammerers will hurry to speak clearly.
5 No longer will the fool be called noble,
Or the rogue be spoken of as generous.
6 For a fool speaks nonsense,
And his heart inclines toward wickedness:
To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the Lord,
To keep the hungry person unsatisfied
And to withhold drink from the thirsty.
7 As for a rogue, his weapons are evil;
He devises wicked schemes
To destroy the poor with slander,
Even though the needy one speaks what is right.
8 But the noble person devises noble plans;
And by noble plans he stands.
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease,
And hear my voice;
Listen to my word,
You complacent daughters.
10 Within a year and a few days
You will be troubled, you complacent daughters;
For the vintage is ended,
And the fruit gathering will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease;
Be troubled, you complacent daughters;
Strip, undress, and put sackcloth on your waist,
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
13 For the land of my people in which thorns and briars will come up;
Indeed, for all the joyful houses and for the jubilant city.
14 For the palace has been neglected, the populated city abandoned.
Hill and watch-tower have become caves forever,
A delight for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks,
15 Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high,
And the wilderness becomes a fertile field,
And the fertile field is considered as a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness will remain in the fertile field.
17 And the work of righteousness will be peace,
And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.
18 Then my people will live in a peaceful settlement,
In secure dwellings, and in undisturbed resting places;
19 And it will hail when the forest comes down,
And the city will be utterly laid low.
20 How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters,
Who let the ox and the donkey out freely.
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
The Lord longs to be gracious to us and to have compassion on us. He has sent The Holy Spirit as our teacher and trainer. If we listen, our ears will hear Him say, “This is the way, walk in it. Get rid of everything unholy and tell those things to be gone!” When we follow His words faithfully, He will bind up our wounds and heal our afflictions.
He longs for us, but do we long for Him? Our culture is all about us and our convenience. Our nation has gotten comfortable and complacent. However, the Lord shakes nations back and forth to separate them. What happens when we are shaken? Do we rely on the strength of others instead of looking to Him and seeking Him? Do we listen to His voice of authority? The breath of the Lord is a flame of consuming fire. He refines us and molds us to be more like Him. He wants all the impurities to be removed from us. He protects and delivers us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm when we turn to Him and cast away everything else.
Do not get lazy and complacent. Do not focus on being at ease. Pursue Him as He pursues us. Long for Him like He longs for us, and the work of righteousness will be peace, quietness, and confidence in Him. Our life will have His order instead of the world’s chaos as we follow Him on the ancient paths.