NOVEMBER 7, 2024 – NO

READ: Is. 30:1-17 … For thus says the LORD God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. But you would not, and you said No … Therefore you shall flee! …

In all circumstances, the LORD asks His people to make a choice. Whether things are going well or they are in difficult circumstances: Do you expect help from Me, do you thank Me, do you live for Me, or are you self-centered? Judah faced trials from God’s side. Would they repent and seek His help in their distress, listening to His prophets?

The LORD repeatedly comes to His people with wonderful promises. This has been true since Gen. 3:15. But time and again, His people go their own way and trust in themselves or in God’s adversary. We think of the time before the flood, the Tower of Babel, the time Abraham was called, the time of the Judges.

So it is again under the kings, starting with Solomon, culminating in the reigns of Ahab and Ahaz. Isaiah warns both king and people, and at the same time, offers wonderful promises. But Israel did not want them, they did not want God (vs.15)!

This was foretold by Moses in Deut. 32:15,16: “But Jeshurun (a term of endearment for Israel) grew fat and kicked … he abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock of his salvation.” But even then, God threatened His wrath: “When the LORD saw this, He spurned them … I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation.”

In the passage we read, Judah turns to Egypt for help when threatened by Assyria, bypassing the LORD by not consulting His prophet (v.2, 9-11). But this will come at a great cost! God turns against them.

Instead of finding rest and peace in the LORD, they now face the misery of being relentlessly pursued by their enemies. They will be like a collapsing wall or a shattered pot (v.12-14). After the Babylonian exile, only a small remnant will remain, like a solitary flagpole on a mountain top (v.17).

What does this have to say to us today?                           

Sing: Ps. 32:4