Sunday, September 22, 2024

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 50, The People Forsook God

As Chapter 50 opens we find the Lord pointing out that He did not forsake the people; they forsook Him. A number of times in the Old Testament we find the Lord comparing His covenant with Israel to a marriage covenant. When Israel engages in idolatry, He refers to it as adultery, for example. In our previous chapter we found the Lord making good promises for the future but the people said, "The Lord has forgotten us."

He has not forgotten them but it is possible for us to live in such a manner that the Lord cannot bless us. He doesn't reward sin. He doesn't reinforce wrong behavior. That is the reason the nation will go into captivity---because of sin---in order to correct the rampant idolatry in the land. It's not that He can't save them from their enemies but that He will use their enemies to turn them back to the right path.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you?'" (Isaiah 50:1a) The Lord didn't reject the people; they rejected Him and left Him. The Lord didn't want to send them into captivity; they sold themselves to sin and He allowed them to be captured.

He explains this in the next segment. "Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away." (Isaiah 50:1b) I assume the reference to their "mother" may be due to the fact that many who were taken captive passed away before an opportunity came to return to the land. Jeremiah will tell us that the captivity in Babylon is to last seventy years, so the majority who are in Babylon when they are set free will be people who were born there. Their mothers are no longer living.

"When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was My arm too short to deliver you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you?" (Isaiah 50:2a) The Lord will repeat this theme later in the book of Isaiah, saying, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)

The people didn't go into captivity because the Lord wasn't powerful enough to rescue them. The people weren't conquered because the Lord couldn't see or hear what was going on. The fall of the nation happened because a majority of the people had fallen away from the Lord. He told them before He gave them the promised land that if they remained faithful to Him they would live in peace. They would never have to fear any enemy. But He also told them that if they fell into idolatry He would allow them to be removed from the land just as He removed their predecessors---the pagan tribes and nations---from the land.

The One who created all things and controls the forces of nature could never be too weak to save a nation from an enemy. "By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of thirst. I clothe the heavens with darkness, and make sackcloth its covering." (Isaiah 50:2b-3) He can bring calamities rather than blessing if the people turn away from Him. He told them they would have plentiful rain, abundant crops, enormous flocks and herds, healthy families, and everything else a person could want in the promised land if they did not fall into the idolatry of the heathen nations. He also said that drought, disease, famine, and other calamities would occur if they bowed to heathen images. It's not that the Lord can't protect them from the Babylonian invasion; it's that He won't because He intends to use the Babylonians as an instrument of correction.

Not every misfortune we experience in this life is a result of us living in disobedience to the Lord. Troubles can come for other reasons. But anytime troubles come, the first thing we should do is pray and search our hearts and submit to the Holy Spirit so He can reveal to us anything we are doing that brought our problems upon us. Sinning against the Lord never profits us. 

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