I believe Isaiah's heart rejoiced when he foresaw the many who would give their hearts to the Lord. I think his spirits were lifted as he heard those voices raised in shouts of praise to God. But Isaiah is soon brought back down to earth when he looks around him and sees the problems of his own day. It is a sobering thought to realize how much sin will take place between his day and the day in which the Lord puts an end to sin forever.
Right after envisioning the redeemed singing, "Glory to the Righteous One," his mood changes. "But I said, 'I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!'" (Isaiah 24:16b-17) Isaiah will pass away and go to be with the Lord before the day comes when only righteousness will reign on the earth. He will not see the day, from earth, when the entire creation is redeemed.
I think he is speaking of something more than just his dismay at knowing he won't be on earth to see this happen. I think he is feeling the feelings of all those who will live on earth between his lifetime and the day in which the Lord judges all wickedness and sets up an eternal holy kingdom. Isaiah envisions the terror of those upon whom the Lord's judgment falls. "Terror and pit and snare await you, people of the earth. Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare." (Isaiah 24:17-18a)
There will be no escape for those who sneered at the Lord's offer of salvation and who rejected Him right up to the end. We've made mention of this previously, but even during the Great Tribulation when the Lord begins pouring out cups of wrath upon the earth, the majority of the world's citizens will not take the Lord's correction to heart. They won't acknowledge that their distress is of their own making. They won't repent and ask His forgiveness. Instead they will curse the name of God and continue to rebel against Him. This is why we find Isaiah saying something like, "You can run but you can't hide! Be sure your sins will find you out!"
We can have our sins covered by the blood of the Redeemer or we can stand before a holy Judge and have to answer for them ourselves. We can attempt to mount a useless defense or we can have the Lord Jesus standing beside us saying, "This one is Mine. I paid their penalty and they are set free from it." What better deal can anyone ever offer us than the one the Lord Jesus offers us? To quote the author of the book of Hebrews, "How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3a)
The Lord Jesus Christ paid the price for our sin, but if we ignore this great opportunity for salvation, there remains no other remedy for us. We are lost in our sins. We must bear the penalty for our sins. But if we have accepted the Lord Jesus as our Savior and if we believe that His sacrifice has paid our debt of sin once and for all, we have become the sons and daughters of the living God because Christ will "bring many sons and daughters to glory". (Hebrews 2:10a) We who accept Christ as our Redeemer are the children of God---the brothers and sisters of Christ and the co-heirs of Christ. (Romans 8:17)
We can have shame or we can have glory. We can have judgment or we can have justification. We can have eternal joy in the presence of the One who loves us most or we can have eternity separated from His love. The choice is ours and there is no day better than today for a person to make the right choice if they have not already made it.
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