If there is a subject I most avoided during 50 years of active preaching, it was the kind of judgment found in Isaiah 24, Mark 13, and Matthew 24.
Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;
as with the male slave, so with his master;
as with the female slave, so with her mistress;
as with the buyer, so with the seller;
as with the lender, so with the borrower;
as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled,
for the Lord has spoken this word. (Isaiah 24:1-3)
The images in these verses is destruction that incorporates the entire population. Wealth and status will not allow anyone to escape God’s activity. God’s spoken word was the active agent in creation (Genesis 1), and it will be His way of laying the waste to the earth.
Like my avoidance of preaching about God’s judgment, we don’t find refrigerator magnets or greeting cards with these verses printed on them. That doesn’t mean that God won’t act, and we shouldn’t be warned.
The Earth is Polluted
I remember the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson’s campaign against littering. As a high school student at the time, I stopped dropping soda cups out of my car window. I became conscious about littering and pollution.
God’s punishment for human pollution is greater than a fine for littering. The kind of pollution God condemns is moral and ethical, not merely failing to pick up dropped paper products.
The earth dries up and withers;
the world languishes and withers;
the heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants,
for they have transgressed laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant. (Isaiah 24:4-5)
Three words drop off the pages of Isaiah’s message: transgressed, violated, and broken.
One of my friends excuses the behavior of people who offend him with these words, “If he knew better, he’s do better.”
In the case of humanity, “They knew better, but they chose not to do better.”
That’s the background for God’s judgment. Humans have looked God’s prescription for loyalty and faithfulness to His guidance in the face and willfully turned away to follow their own desires.
I recently read the remarks of a Catholic priest who has lived through the horrors that have taken place in the Middle East during the past few years. He stated that the only weapons Christians have are fasting and prayer.
Fasting, prayer, and obedience to God’s will is a creative act. Warfare is destructive.
Several years ago, a state-sponsored terrorist destroyed a hospital with a bomb. An opinion piece in a paper read, “Anyone can destroy something, but it takes different person all together to build something up.”
Living life God’s way is creative and life-giving. On the other hand, transgression and broken relations with God is highly destructive.
In Deuteronomy 28, God placed before His people blessings and curses. The promise was blessings for obedience and curses for transgressions. The three words that define human behavior, transgressed, violated, and broken, create an atmosphere for the curse.
Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled,
and few people are left. (Isaiah 24:6)
Prophecy – A Warning
There are different responses to God’s message of judgment.
“Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty!” (Isaiah 13:6).
It may be possible that we hear about the impending destruction and use it as motivation to return to the Lord.
Unfortunately, there is the tendency to ignore the prophet’s warning, favoring self-interest instead.
“From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did” (Jeremiah 7:25-26).
I am particularly impressed by the Middle Eastern priests’ message. The only warfare of the Christian is fasting and prayer. We all do well to follow his advice.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 