Day 203 (Isaiah 28-30) - Year 4
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Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we launched into a six-chapter section referred to as the six woes or the six laments. And the overarching theme of all six statements is that man shouldn't rely on his own devices. We're far too short-sighted and even those of us who know and love God often operate out of our natural side rather than our spiritual side. It reminds me of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2.14,

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they're folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. Each of these six statements usually opens with the word, ah, or whoa. We'll cover the first three today. And in the first one, Isaiah uses Israel's unfolding tragedy with Assyria as a warning sign for the people of Judah. He says both kingdoms have spent a little too much time with wine and not enough time with the word.

And not just the political leaders, but the religious leaders too. You may recall Hosea also called some of these guys out for their drunkenness in Hosea 7-5, so it was apparently a well-known issue. If you're reading with your eyes, you saw that 28-9-10 is in quotes. That's the leader's response to Isaiah's rebuke.

They mock him. In fact, I thought there was a typo in one of the commentaries I was using because it literally just said, blah, blah, blah, blah, for most of verse 10. That's how these people were responding to Isaiah. Isaiah. So God responds by telling them that since they're disregarding and disrespecting his words, then that's how everything he says will sound to them. Like, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It may sound funny, but this is one of the more challenging themes we see in Scripture, that God is able to close people's ears to the truth. He makes these mockers unable to understand his word. And 28.13 says God is doing this so that they may go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. This is a just response to them, but it's definitely tough to read and process.

28:16 gives us a prophecy of Jesus. Here, God says, "Behold, I am the one who has laid a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not be in haste." Some of the people who heard this prophecy of a sure foundation assumed it meant the temple in Jerusalem would never be destroyed. That is exactly not what it meant. But it's what they thought it meant at the time.

This prophecy pointed to something greater than the temple. Jesus, God the Son himself. But they had no way of knowing that. This is one reason why I try to hold any as-yet-unfulfilled prophecy with a very open hand. Because rarely does it happen exactly like people think it will.

Chapter 28 ends with Isaiah making another appeal for repentance. He reminds them that though God has fought and won many victories on their behalf, from Mount Perizim to the Valley of Gibeon, this time when he rises up, it will be to fight against them. He begs them to trust God's ways of wisdom and yield to him because he always has an orderly plan that he's working out.

Isaiah draws a metaphor between God's people and wheat. He says the process of a harvest always involves threshing. But the point of threshing is not to destroy the wheat, it's to make it usable. It exposes what's valuable in it. The second woe is to a city named Ariel, which is most likely a nickname for Jerusalem. So that's how we'll approach it.

God sends a foreign army to set up a siege against Jerusalem, but then he shows up with his army of heaven and the enemies flee. It happens so fast that the people in Jerusalem think they must have dreamt the attack. But even still, the leaders of Jerusalem won't understand what God is doing. Because even though they perform a bunch of religious activities, they don't actually love him. He says their hearts are far from him. This is when I expect him to pour out wrath on them.

But he doesn't. The very next verse says, Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder. He says, because their hearts are far from him, he will do wondrous things to reveal himself to them. Unbelievable. The third and final woe for today is indirectly addressed to Judah. They're the ones who've been trying to make an alliance with Egypt, their former captors, so that they can have someone to get their back against big bad Assyria.

This may seem like a wise diplomatic move, but the problem is that they didn't consult God about any of this, and they didn't trust him to protect them. And when he told them not to do it, even when they didn't ask for his advice, they do it anyway. God says it will not go well for them. They're running from God. They're striving and impatient and afraid, which leads them to act foolishly.

Then in 30:15, God tells them the remedy for each of these things. The remedy is found in returning to God: rest, quietness, trust. That's where they'll find their salvation and strength in this situation. But they were unwilling. Fear speaks with urgency. God whispers trust. Verse 18 says, "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you. Blessed are all those who wait for Him."

It feels like Isaiah is trying to say to Judah, you don't have to try so hard, you know, you're striving, afraid things are going to go terribly if you don't step in with your own solution. But slow down long enough to ask God what he has to say about this. He's ready to answer if you'll just ask. And all of this ties into my God shot for today.

Verses 20 through 21 say, your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

God just spent three chapters warning against walking in our own wisdom. So how cruel would he be if he told us not to lean on our own understanding, but then didn't offer to help, or told us he was too busy, or that our needs were too frivolous? We would be paralyzed. Thank God he promises to teach us, to guide us. In fact, he's so serious about it that it's a title he's given himself. Teacher, guide. It's who he is, and it's what he does.

He wants us to come to him to seek wisdom. This invitation from God isn't supposed to be paralyzing. It's supposed to free us up to talk to him about things and learn to hear and recognize his voice. And the way we learn to recognize someone's voice is by talking to them more often. If I met you once or have only ever heard other people do impressions of you, I probably wouldn't recognize your voice if you called me on the phone. But if my mom calls, even if I have bad cell service, I still know who it is.

By being in God's word every day, you're starting to recognize the kinds of things he says. You're starting to develop a deeper awareness of his personality traits. And you're storing up his actual word in your heart and mind. Based on what you know from his word, listen for his voice today. He's where the joy is. Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in.

The prophets have a little bit of a different feel to them, don't they? Maybe you weren't expecting as much poetry. It's easy to breeze through poetry and miss some of the deeper meaning, so this may have been a time when you were really feeling like, what did I just read? If that's you, hang in there and don't worry, we'll walk through all of it.

By the way, if you find yourself starting to identify with the people of Israel and Judah, that will probably be humbling, but it can also lead you to despair if all you do is fix your eyes on waywardness, either theirs or your own. So remember to look for God and His character on these pages. Keep the long view in mind as you look to God's great mercy and redemption. The Bible Recap is brought to you by DGroup, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week.