11.11.09, Isaiah 34:11-17

A note – the last devotional was incorrectly labeled, and actually came from Isaiah 35:1-10!  I had accidentally skipped the previous passage, Isaiah 34:11-17.  And so I’m going to backtrack and cover the previous passage because I think it’s definitely worth it…sorry for any confusion!

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it;
the great owl and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
the measuring line of chaos
and the plumb line of desolation.

¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
all her princes will vanish away.

¹³ Thorns will overrun her citadels,
nettles and brambles her strongholds.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
a home for owls.

¹⁴ Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and wild goats will bleat to each other;
there the night creatures will also repose
and find for themselves places of rest.

¹⁵ The owl will nest there and lay eggs,
she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings;
there also the falcons will gather,
each with its mate.

¹⁶ Look in the scroll of the LORD and read:
None of these will be missing,
not one will lack her mate.
For it is his mouth that has given the order,
and his Spirit will gather them together.

¹⁷ He allots their portions;
his hand distributes them by measure.
They will possess it forever
and dwell there from generation to generation.

Redemptive Destruction

At the very beginning of this passage, it uses the word herem in verse 2, which means “devoted to the Lord in destruction”.  This was a topic that we looked at in depth when we first started this devotional (over 1 year ago!!).  It is not a very common word, but is hugely important and controversial because it is difficult to comprehend that a loving and just God would will the destruction of anything, especially human beings… And as we found out last year, there is no simple answer to this issue, unfortunately.

But the passage makes a subtle shift in verse 11, that the destruction referenced earlier actually results in new life, that birds and wildlife will retake that which has been destroyed, and find rest there.  And the end of the passage makes it clear that this new life that emerges is no accident, but is part of the order that God had ordained.  And what’s more, when we read on into chapter 35, this destruction from chapter 34 finally results in gladness, rejoicing, and joy! (35:1)

In this, we find another way to understand the concept of herem, when God destroys – that he destroys in order to create new things, or to redeem old ones.  This may seem hopelessly optimistic, but there is a solid logic to it.  Built into the very order of nature is the fact that all life which dies creates room and provides life to the next generation.  Jesus makes reference to this idea in John 12, that a grain has to fall to the earth and die in order to produce an abundance.  And this was a foreshadowing to the most important example of all, how the death of Christ results in new life for all of creation.

So when God destroys, even in our own lives, it is not the whole of the story but only part – He destroys so that He might do something new and better instead.

Questions

1. What has God destroyed in your life?  What new thing is he doing through that act?

2. Sometimes God destroys things that we should have gotten rid of ourselves – is there something in your life which should be destroyed so that God doesn’t have to do it the hard way, like a sin, a grudge, a habit?

3. Even when know of God’s greater purposes, the moment that we lose something is still traumatic – so how can we keep our hearts and minds on the larger things that God might be doing?

11.9.09, Isaiah 34:1-10

Joy of the Redeemed

¹ The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.

³ Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;

⁴ say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”

⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.

⁷ The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

⁸ And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.

⁹ No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,

¹⁰ and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away

All That and More!

A wonderfully encouraging passage, specifically because it addresses so many of the states we find ourselves in – who among us has not at some point felt: feeble, weak-kneed, fearful, blind, deaf, or mute?  But the question of credibility enters our mind at this point, the question of whether God can really address all of these situations and states of life?  It sounds too good to be true, like some kind of spiritual snake-oil (Cures Blindness and Baldness, with just ONE dose!)…

But remember the ministry of Jesus, the feeble that leaped off their mats as he passed by.  Remember how he pulls on the tongue of the mute, and they speak words they had no experience forming.  He puts mud on the eyes of the blind, and they receive sight.  The fearful lepers and prostitutes and unclean find strength and confidence in him.  So can God really address all of these situations, all of these problems in our lives?…yes!  The evidence is Jesus.

And so personally, it is good to remember that there is not one situation you find yourselves in from which God cannot save, which is beyond his purview or his power.  We do not have to be overly selective in deciding which situations we bring before the Lord, because Christ revealed that he has power, and is the answer, to them all.

Questions

1. Is there one situation where you honestly don’t think God has any control?  Why does that one situation stand out?

2. Do you remember Jesus addressing a situation similar to yours?

3. What would it look like to, as stated above, to bring that situation to God to address?

11.6.09, Isaiah 34:1-12

Judgment Against the Nations

¹ Come near, you nations, and listen;
pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
the world, and all that comes out of it!

² The LORD is angry with all nations;
his wrath is upon all their armies.
He will totally destroy them,
he will give them over to slaughter.

³ Their slain will be thrown out,
their dead bodies will send up a stench;
the mountains will be soaked with their blood.

⁴ All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved
and the sky rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

⁵ My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
see, it descends in judgment on Edom,
the people I have totally destroyed.

⁶ The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood,
it is covered with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
fat from the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in Edom.

⁷ And the wild oxen will fall with them,
the bull calves and the great bulls.
Their land will be drenched with blood,
and the dust will be soaked with fat.

⁸ For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.

⁹ Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
her dust into burning sulfur;
her land will become blazing pitch!

¹⁰ It will not be quenched night and day;
its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
no one will ever pass through it again.

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it;
the great owl and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
the measuring line of chaos
and the plumb line of desolation.

¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
all her princes will vanish away.

A Glimpse

Whew, some tough words here.  What makes this passage even more difficult to comprehend is its stark contrast to the God of the New Testament, a God of such mercy and love.  If you feel this way, you wouldn’t be the first.  A lot of people have struggled with these contrasting images of God, and some have, in an attempt to make sense of the discrepancy, decided that the Old Testament must be irrelevant, or created edited versions of the Bible that make more sense to them.  But we don’t have to go that far, because there is another way to interpret such a passage:

That it is a glimpse of an alternative reality.

No, I haven’t lost my mind.  Stay with me here.

For a moment, assume that Jesus never came.  Assume that God did the logical thing, and allowed us to reap the consequences of our own sin, allowed us to be justly punished for our collective guilt.  We would be punished for the millions who died in gas chambers, innocents killed in war, for women raped, for children abandoned, in every century, in every corner of the world.  Every sin punished justly.  As terrible as that sounds, let’s pretend.

That judgment would look much like Isaiah 34 – a day of bloody reckoning on a universal scale, poured out on all nations.  You see then, that Isaiah 34 is a glimpse of an alternative reality, a glimpse into what judgment would have looked like for us without the intercession of Jesus Christ.  We catch a glimpse of what Jesus saved us from.

The practical ramification is that this glimpse helps us fully appreciate the work of the gospel, and what it really accomplished.  The depiction of the thought of God’s judgment should help us appreciate the reality of God’s mercy.  We know more fully what Paul means when he says that we were meant to be objects of wrath, and can more fully rejoice with him when we realize that we are instead objects of mercy.  The ultimate lesson of Isaiah 34 is, “Whew!  Thank God that Christ came!”

Questions

1. Sometimes it is easy to forget that we are sinners who deserve judgment – why do you think it is so easy to fall into this mentality?

2. Have you come into contact with other passages that gave a very contrasting depiction of God?  How did you come to understand that passage?

11.3.09, Isaiah 33:10-17

¹⁰ “Now will I arise,” says the LORD.
“Now will I be exalted;
now will I be lifted up.

¹¹ You conceive chaff,
you give birth to straw;
your breath is a fire that consumes you.

¹² The peoples will be burned as if to lime;
like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.”

¹³ You who are far away, hear what I have done;
you who are near, acknowledge my power!

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are terrified;
trembling grips the godless:
“Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?”

¹⁵ He who walks righteously
and speaks what is right,
who rejects gain from extortion
and keeps his hand from accepting bribes,
who stops his ears against plots of murder
and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil-

¹⁶ this is the man who will dwell on the heights,
whose refuge will be the mountain fortress.
His bread will be supplied,
and water will not fail him.

¹⁷ Your eyes will see the king in his beauty
and view a land that stretches afar.

The Good Man Who Does Good

The last devotional highlighted that internal change, on the level of our very identity, needs to occur if we want to change our behavior in any lasting way.  And consequently, we sometimes have to take stock of our identity if we want to alter our actions.

But lest we take this too far, I think the arrow actually goes both ways – yes, identity will powerfully shape our actions.  But at the same time, our actions have a role in shaping who we are, and transforming our identities in turn.  After all, if all of our actions simply unconsciously overflowed out of us, why would ever need obedience?  Because obedience necessitates that there will be moments when we do not want to do what is right, but do so because we know we should.

And so in verse 15, when Isaiah describes the type of man who can stand in God’s presence, it is important to see this catalog as both descriptive, as well as prescriptive.  God doesn’t reveal these actions merely so we could know if we are righteous or not, but so that we could imitate them, and in so doing, encourage the process of becoming more like Christ.  I think many of us can testify to times where we did not want to do the right thing, but were changed through the process of doing that right thing.

In the end, action and identity are not distinct from one another, but affect one another in turn: it is our identity as God’s children that creates a desire within us to obey our Father, and our obedience that marks us as belonging to Him (John 14:15).

Questions:

Read the following passages prescriptively: what does it mean to imitate these passages in your life?

1. Micah 6:-8

2. Matthew 5:1-12

11.1.09, Isaiah 32:1-8

The Kingdom of Righteousness

¹ See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.

² Each man will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

³ Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.

⁴ The mind of the rash will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

⁵ No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

⁶ For the fool speaks folly,
his mind is busy with evil:
He practices ungodliness
and spreads error concerning the LORD;
the hungry he leaves empty
and from the thirsty he withholds water.

⁷ The scoundrel’s methods are wicked,
he makes up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.

⁸ But the noble man makes noble plans,
and by noble deeds he stands.

Who We Do

This passage references a lot of identities, doesn’t it?  The rash, the fool, the scoundrel, the noble.  And more than this, it also connects each of these identities to certain actions, and some of these identities will change, while others will remain the same.  What an important issue this is for all of us, for whom among us doesn’t want to change our behavior at some point in time?  How do we accomplish such changes?

Verse 8 is a great insight into this issue of identity and action, where it states that a noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.  There is a type of order to this, that a noble person (identity) will make noble plans (thought), which leads to noble deeds (action).  But first in this process is the identity of this person, that they are a noble person who then does noble deeds.

I think this resonates with what Christ teaches and reveals in his ministry.  Jesus teaches in Luke 6 that the words we speak don’t come out of a vacuum, but are the overflow of our heart.  And so if we speak curses and anger at others, we simply cannot deny, as much as we would like, that we must have anger and hatred in our hearts.  So when it comes to changing our behavior, it is helpful not just to focus on the actions that we perform, but the identity out of which these actions overflowed.

Too often, we spend a majority of our time and effort fruitlessly trying to change behavior, when in the end, deeper and harder questions of identity must be addressed.  But we take heart and courage in knowing that the blood of Christ answered the deepest questions of identity by making us sons and daughters of God.

Questions:

1. If you have a problem with lust, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

2. If you have a problem with pride, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

3. If you have a problem with jealousy, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

4. If you have a problem with anger, what is it about your identity, or past experiences, makes that a harder sin to resist and overcome?

10.30.09, Isaiah 31:1-3

Woe to Those Who Rely on Egypt

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

² Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against the house of the wicked,
against those who help evildoers.

³ But the Egyptians are men and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
he who helps will stumble,
he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.

The Best Foolishness Available

Some context is helpful in this passage, as it is in every passage!  Here Isaiah talks about the chariots of Egypt, which strikes us today as a prosaic bit of imagery.  But in that time period, the chariots of Egypt were the most advanced war machines of the time: fast, inventive, complete with built-in quivers for arrows – they were the best war technology that was available.  If we put it today’s terms, it’s like Isaiah references the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced and dominant jet fighter in the US Air Force.

And perhaps this context helps us more clearly understand this teaching.  It’s not as if the Israelites were making alliances with some neighbors with pointy sticks – they were looking for help from one of the most powerful and advanced cultures in the world.  And for the leaders of Israel, this must have seemed like a sure bet, a wise and prudent decision.  After all, who could be more powerful than Egypt?  Who could better protect us?

I think we all know the answer to that…

This applies very much to our own lives, because we have our own “sure bets”, wise investments that are supposed to be failsafe in their ability to protect us.  Ivy League education.  Great wealth.  Investments.  But there is no such thing as failsafe, no such thing as bulletproof, nothing that cannot fail.  This is not to say that these things are evil in themselves – there is no indication in this passage that God hates the Egyptians.  Rather, it is important to recognize that the very best that humankind has to offer is nothing compared the best that God has for us.

Questions

1. What is your “sure bet”, something that is supposed to absolutely protect or provide for you?

2. Has anything that was a sure bet ever failed you?  A job, a girlfriend, anything?

3. What are some of the sure bets that God provides us instead?

10.28.09, Isaiah 30:19-33

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ²² Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

²⁷ See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar,
with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
his lips are full of wrath,
and his tongue is a consuming fire.

²⁸ His breath is like a rushing torrent,
rising up to the neck.
He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
he places in the jaws of the peoples
a bit that leads them astray.

²⁹ And you will sing
as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;
your hearts will rejoice
as when people go up with flutes
to the mountain of the LORD,
to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰ The LORD will cause men to hear his majestic voice
and will make them see his arm coming down
with raging anger and consuming fire,
with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.

³¹ The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria;
with his scepter he will strike them down.

³² Every stroke the LORD lays on them
with his punishing rod
will be to the music of tambourines and harps,
as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.

³³ Topheth has long been prepared;
it has been made ready for the king.
Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,
with an abundance of fire and wood;
the breath of the LORD,
like a stream of burning sulfur,
sets it ablaze.

Destruction & Joy

As I have been hinting at, we find a brief respite from “Woe” to hear how God will vindicate the people of Israel.  But this vindication is not all rosy, but instead is very striking in its juxtapositions: joy and destruction, punishment and praise, adversity and providence, all bound up together in this passage. And it is difficult to see these ideas in working concert with one another…

I think we need to appreciate, and as difficult as it may seem, celebrate, when God destroys.  I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out.  Of course God is a good creator, and every good and perfect gift is from him.  But this passage, and the rest of Scripture, also seems to indicate that God is also a good destroyer, that he destroys idols that lead his people astray and into sin, and that he exacts justice upon those who would violently trample others.

I know that “good destroyer” seems too hard to grasp, so perhaps a different analogy would help us: let’s say someone came up to you and said that they wanted to take a knife and stick it in your belly and cut out part of an organ.  You would run screaming for the police.  But if a surgeon tells you that exact same thing, and that he is doing this to cut the spreading cancer from your liver, you willingly place your life in his hands.  You see, “destruction” is a relative idea: in the hands of the unwise and fallible, it is a negative term, but in the hands of a wise and precise Surgeon, it is the best thing for us.

For a similar devotional from a different text, please see here.

Questions

1. What has the Lord “destroyed” in your life?  What did he accomplish through that process?

2. How can we come to better respect, and even appreciate, when God destroys harmful things in our lives?

10.26.09, Isaiah 30:17-18

¹⁷ A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill.”

¹⁸ Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

Wait For It

We have patiently sloughed through a lot of difficult passages, and we are rewarded with a brief encouragement, a glimpse of the salvation that God is going to bring.  And almost as if it was written for us, the Scripture says, “Blessed are all who wait for him!”  We’ll spend a short time seeing the good things that God has planned for Israel, and for all the world, but then it is back to some difficult prophecies and warnings.

But I think there is a lesson for us, even in this.  Encouragements in Isaiah are brief, and don’t come too frequently, but they are always there.  They punctuate the difficult passages, and give us room to breathe, refresh and strengthen ourselves to continue.  But we of course want the book to contain more encouragements and positive statements, all the time, in the clearest terms!

Believe it or not, this is not always good for us, to be constantly given positive reinforcement, because if we get too much of it, it begins to lose its effect and potency.  If someone always tells you that you are doing a great job, no matter how true that may be, you have no idea if you really are doing well, and that encouragement really doesn’t mean all that much.  But if you have someone who wisely withholds their praises and encouragements, and then you get one from them – man, how much more meaningful and encouraging that is, to get a compliment from someone who doesn’t say them often!

In this way, we shouldn’t be searching necessarily for frequent encouragement, but instead, waiting for meaningful encouragement.  After all, few words from a wise man are far better than a thousand from a sycophant.

Questions:

1. When was the last time that God encouraged you?  What was the encouragement he provided for you?

2. How can we better persevere in between the encouragements that God provides, which may be too infrequent for our liking?

10.23.09, Isaiah 30:12-14

¹² Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,

¹³ this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

¹⁴ It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern.”

Backstabbed

This is a topic that we have touched upon repeatedly in Isaiah, the idea that the things we trust in over God end up failing us in the end.  But the description given in verse 13 takes this idea a little further.  The high wall probably was a defensive wall surrounding the city, used to keep out invaders.  But it not only fails to defend the city, it ends up coming down unexpectedly upon the city itself – in this way, the wall was not only useless, but dangerous.

I think this dimension is a good reminder for us today.  Not only are the things that we try to surround and protect ourselves with powerless to stop tragedy and consequence, they often end up being snares in themselves.  We use our jobs as a way to provide financially, and to stimulate ourselves mentally – the often end up dragging us into joylessness and can hurt our families.  Our money is supposed to provide for a rainy day, but becomes an idol, and/or our slave driver instead.

With this, we have another reason to seek first God and his plans and righteousness – yes, because all other sources are fallible, but even more: they can end up stabbing us in the back.

Questions

1. Where do you try to find your protection in life?

2. In what ways could that source of protection end up hurting you in the end?

10.21.09, Isaiah 30:8-11

⁸ Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
it may be an everlasting witness.

⁹ These are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.

¹⁰ They say to the seers,
“See no more visions!”
and to the prophets,
“Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.

¹¹ Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!”

The Hard Truth

What wonderful words from Isaiah, a people refusing to hear truth, who just want illusions instead.  But of course, this is Isaiah speaking for them – they would never say it this way, but would find some more oblique way to reject the truth.  Because the OT type of prophet no longer exists, we might feel like this passage is a little distant from us, but I think it is incredibly relevant to us now…

When we go to church and hear from God’s word, there is this expectation that we get that it should always be positive, encouraging, up-lifting.  It should make us laugh, be palatable for everyone from every socio-political background, and generally make us feel good about ourselves.  And doubtless that the gospel in its purest form is the message of eternal joy, and will be overwhelming encouraging and positive.

But if every message is sugary and upbeat, we must be missing something, because the Kingdom that Jesus reveals in the gospels is revolutionary, and difficult, and counter-cultural.  In its very nature, it must make us at times uncomfortable and ill at ease because it is so contrary to the world and its ways.  And so if we find ourselves in a season, either personally or corporately, where the gospel no longer challenges and surprises us, then we have to ask whose gospel are we really preaching, Jesus’, or our own?

Questions:

1. What are some of the teachings of Christ that you find most difficult?

2. What are some of the beliefs of Christianity that are the most counter-cultural in your opinion?

3. What does it look like to remain faithful to these, without becoming like the Pharisees, elevating ideas above people?