Isaiah 23 – 28
As with most of Isaiah prophecies one needs to read them multiple times to mildly get it. So don’t worry if your head is spinning after reading today’s chapters, mine is! Chapter 23 focus on the end of Tyre, a large seaport where it’s believed most of Solomon’s lumber came from. Isaiah accurately predicts the demise of the city and interestingly it’s restoration. Verses 17 & 18 expand on this time:
17 At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18 Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.
It’s interesting that it will return to the same glory, but will be used for God’s purposes and not man’s. When Isaiah says “prostitute herself” does that mean the city will go back to the same ways before it was destroyed, but just it’s good be “holy to the Lord?”
Chapter 25 deals with the total annihilation of the earth. One can find some similarities between what is happening today as the population expands and we pollute the world more. Sure it’s way better in the states, but nations that now produce the stuff we consume are toxic waste lands. “The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants” are chilling words. And the next verse (6) goes into detail:
Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
and few men are left.
Global Warming “experts” should grab on to this one! The Bible implies that we will pollute the earth and cause it to be scorched, and consumed of all natural resources. Isaiah was one of the first to purpose this idea that we should respect the land we live in. I wonder if he saw today. What if all the ice melted on the earth, what would happen? Estimates of a 200 to 300 foot rise … which would in no way cover the entire earth, like in the flood, but it would cause some issues. But I digress …
The next few chapters have some “gems” on our relationship with God. The first verse in the next chapter says a bunch to me personally:
O LORD, you are my God;
I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
How many times do we exalt God and praise His name? I do it every morning, but doing that outside my den is very rare. That is truly sad when you think about it. We should be praising God each and every chance we can, not isolating our praise to a closet every morning. How many of us can take Chapter 26 verse 9 to heart?
My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Do we really yearn and seek God or do we just bask in His glory? We should not wait to learn His righteousness, but seek it always. Think about light and how you could have the most powerful spot light shine before you and if there wasn’t dust to reflect it you would never notice it. Or the radio waves that are all around us, without a tuning device we would never know they were there. It’s not that God is not with us, it’s we do not perceive His presence. Tune your body and mind to God and you will be amazed at what you find.
Read Isaiah and other prophets with an understanding that they are seeing one probable outcome, granted the most likely based on God’s knowledge of mankind. But as with Jonah’s vision about Nineveh being destroyed, that outcome changed because the people changed and repented. A scorched earth may be our future if we do not take Isaiah’s warnings to heart. Think about that for a while! What is your “Road not Taken”?