GET REAL, FOLKS!
Opening Prayer
Teach me Lord, to follow You in faithfulness. I long to praise You with the angels and archangels forever.
Read ISAIAH 9:18 – 10:4
18 Surely wickedness burns like a fire;
it consumes briers and thorns,
it sets the forest thickets ablaze,
so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.
19 By the wrath of the Lord Almighty
the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire;
they will not spare one another.
20 On the right they will devour,
but still be hungry;
on the left they will eat,
but not be satisfied.
Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring[a]:
21 Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh;
together they will turn against Judah.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
10 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 9:20 Or arm
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
‘You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’.1
Think Further
Again, the relevance of Isaiah’s writings to our own society can’t be missed by anyone reading these verses with open eyes! The world has changed in ways that would have been completely unthinkable to Isaiah: the worldwide systems of telecommunication, transport systems, new technologies, medical advances. Life has changed dramatically even since my student days when electric typewriters were hardly known and computers filled whole rooms, with far less storage than a memory stick today. What is clear, though, is that human beings, their attitudes, and their behaviors have in many ways not changed at all! It is still so often every man and woman for themselves. Isaiah is shocked that it is not even just nation against nation, but also family against family and tribe against tribe.
Surely in today’s world will we not find governments making laws that benefit the rich and powerful, while disenfranchising the poor and the weak? Surely in today’s world won’t businesses make sure that all those who contribute to the success of the company at every level are given in their pay a fair share of any profits? Surely in today’s world haven’t we advanced enough to be able to disagree without any expression of hatred or violence? Surely we have risen above racial and other forms of prejudice against those we consider to be less worthy or less right than we think we are? If only that were true!! One wonders if Jesus had been reading through these chapters when He presented his stories about the uselessness – and indeed dangers – of amassing riches and the importance of caring for others, including those from other communities. One can see Isaiah’s influence right through Jesus’ teaching, but maybe especially in Matthew 5–7 and 10 and in Luke 10 and 12.
Apply
What, if anything, do you think Jesus would find acceptable to Him about society today?
Closing prayer
Gracious Father, I want to be about Your work. I want to helping to build a society where justice exists as a stable reality and grace seen in many ways and places. Show me Your way Lord.
1 Ps 65:5
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