October 1, Isaiah 24
The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly
plundered; for the LORD has spoken this word.
- Isaiah 24:3
God is Lord over all the earth, not just the nations addressed in the last section. Just as God brought the wicked nations (including his own people) into judgment and punishment for their ungodliness, the Lord will bring judgment and destruction on the whole world that has rebelled against God. Isaiah spoke these words with confidence, describing what would happen in the future as certainly as he would have spoken of things in the past. God's word is just that sure.
Isaiah expanded God's wrath against specific cities and nations to include the whole world. The word “earth” is used about 16 times in this chapter. The prevailing conditions are bleak — the earth is desolate and twisted. It has been plundered. The world languishes; the nations are withered and defiled. The collapse of the world's cities and worldwide failure of the crops neutralized all social, class and economic distinctions among the people. There is nothing to celebrate. Only guilt and devastation remain as judgment approaches.
Why has this apocalyptic upheaval happened? It’s because God is a promise-making, promise- keeping God. The people of the world have broken God's laws despite God's warning about the consequences that would follow. He told Adam and Even they would surely die if they disobeyed him and ate fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They violated that prohibition and death came into the world. Isaiah is seeing the final fulfillment of that promise of fatal consequence as the whole race of Adam and Eve's children face death for their own law-breaking. As violence spread across the planet, there was no respect for life and blood, a clear violation of God's universal covenant made with Noah and his family after the Flood.
The pictures of devastation and misery are similar to some of the images John recorded from Patmos in Revelation. So also is the appearance of a righteous remnant redeemed from the destruction by God's grace. There is no joy left in the world, no cause for singing. But among the redeemed, a song of glory to the Lord's name rings out. The vain and fleeting distractions and amusements that the world turned to for its happiness are gone. But the hope and joy of the redeemed endures because their hope and joy are centered in their eternal God, not in the temporal earth.
God had shown Israel nation by nation that no human alliance could prevail against him. He broadened the message in Chapter 24 to say that nothing on earth is going to last and nothing can satisfy in the end, except trusting in the Lord. The race is doomed, the world is irreparably broken. God will triumph over all evil and bless his people who trust and submit to him. Both the destruction of the wicked and the reward for the righteous ones are all in perfect agreement with his holiness and righteousness.
Will we learn the lesson that God wanted Israel to learn? Do we believe that there is nothing in this world that will last and satisfy? Do we understand what a tragic mistake we make when we fail to listen to God and embrace the things of the world in our search for pleasure, satisfaction and meaning? Do we realize that pride was their fall and will surely be ours if we persist in it instead of humbling ourselves and trusting God? Do we realize that God is our only true and firm hope and that all other ground is, as the hymn writer said, "sinking sand"?
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—October 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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