Isa6

Isa 2:6,9 They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines….. man will be brought low and mankind humbled

For many years I have preached, “God loves you so much that He loves you exactly like you are, but He also loves you so much that He has something better for you than you are now.” Here is a central truth of the Bible. That God loves us – and He takes us just like we are. That has always amazed me; that God takes imperfect people in the Bible and enters into a relationship with them while they are still very imperfect. But what has amazed me even more is that He has put up with them while they are imperfect and has worked to bless them and bless them again until they are changed by His blessing into something more wonderful, men and women of faith, living righteously. That is God's objective and so when He comes across us in a mess, He doesn't just leave us in it; He works to do something to get us out of it.

Now there is a further truth that we really do need to take hold of. Blessing from God doesn't just come like a wave from a magic wand, it comes with the very presence of God Himself. In other words, it comes out of a living relationship with Him. God doesn't want to bless us from afar, He wants to come close in a personal relationship so that He can help us, care for us, protect us, guide us and inspire us – close up and personal. That's why He has put His Holy Spirit in us when we came to Him and were ‘born again' (Jn 3).

So, when we get into a mess, it is almost inevitably because we have lost contact (is how we feel it) with God and gone and done our own thing which has got us into trouble. God's objective therefore, is to get us back into relationship with Him. When that happens, everything else will fall into place. Now the difficult bit is how do you get someone to come back to God? Well, when someone has listened to the enemy and drifted or specifically turned away from the Lord, the very nature of their going away means that they will need a strong nudge to come to their senses and turn back. What the Lord does is either take away the protection or retraining factors that keep us safe and secure, or He specifically nudges detrimental circumstances into being. The result of both is that we find ourselves in deeper and deeper water and it is only as we realise that we are drowning that we call out for the Lord to come and help and save us, and He restores us.

We see this happening again and again in the book of Judges. The people turned away from the Lord, they got into trouble with their enemies, they cried out to the Lord, and then He sent them a saviour to rescue them and restore them to God. This same principle is seen when the apostle Paul speaks to the Corinthian church and says, “ hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved.” (1 Cor 5:5) i.e. put him out of the church so he no longer has its protection and will be subject to God's discipline through Satan that will bring him to his senses. That clearly had effect because in his second letter Paul is able to speak about restoring him (2 Cor 2:6-8). Now we need to say all this to understand Isaiah.

Isaiah describes Judah's state: they are superstitious, practicing so-called spiritism and worshiping idols (v.6,8) which are nothing. He doesn't spell this out at this stage but elsewhere in Scripture we are reminded that idols are simply models made by the hands of men and therefore are utterly powerless and lifeless. This people have turned to superstition and the Lord needs to draw them back, but it is a tough job because they have allowed their hearts to be so entrenched in this belief in manageable ‘gods' that it will need something quite drastic to change it. It will need something so dramatic that it will remove the idols and drive this foolish people out of superstition back into reliance on the Lord where, once again, they can receive the blessing of the Lord.

Something is going to happen! God is going to do something dramatic to bring this about! At the moment men are stuck in their pride. In their folly they have settled in a place where they think they know best and they are in control. To bring them back into relationship with Him, the Lord is going to have to do something dramatic. Isaiah describes its outcome: “man will be brought low and mankind humbled” (v.9) and “The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.” (v.11 and following verses). At the end of it, “the idols will totally disappear.” (v.18).

How will this happen? “the splendour of his majesty.” (v.10) and “the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.” (v.11) and “dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth.” (v.19) i.e. the Lord is going to come and reveal Himself in such a way that all of this stupid worshipping of idols will be seen for what it is, and it will all be swept away in the glorious presence of the Lord. Do we see this as harsh, or as wonderful? Your answer will reveal your state of heart.