“And in that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and for mourning. For baldness and for girding with sackcloth. But instead, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep. Eating meat and drinking wine: ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’… ‘Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death’…”
Isaiah 22
One of the greatest single lines of wisdom ever penned was Solomon’s instruction that there is a time and a purpose to everything under heaven. In the days of the prophet Isaiah, times were uncertain. The people were at a loss for direction. They’d had some very good kings and they had some very bad ones.
Their lack of direction had little to do with kings. It had nothing to do with a lack of resources. They had a Temple at which they might pray and seek God. They had the Law of God. They had priests to point the way. And they had prophets sent by God to provide specific information as to what God wanted them to do.
Isaiah had the answer. The solution to their problems was quite simple. (Christianity is often criticized for being simple by those who have never given it an honest try. How easy or difficult Christianity is, is dependent on what you’re trying to do. But that’s for another time.)
The simple solution the prophet proposed was a heartfelt prayer of repentance for their personal moral decline as well as that of the nation. Baldness referred to shaving one’s head in making a vow. Sackcloth is a garment of sorrow.
The response of the majority was to go out and party. They put some beef and mutton on the coals, poured a glass of wine, and ignored the old stick-in-the-mud, gloom and doomers, like Isaiah. They were determined to do things their own way and have a good time doing it. They identified as carefree and encouraged others to play along.
The situation sounds a lot like what I see going on around me every day. There is a truth to life—a good, a bad, a right, and a wrong. There’s room for different interpretations. Pretending as if there is no objective truth or pretending that believing makes something true and therefore acceptable is avoidance, not a solution.
God grants everyone the freedom to choose how they will live. He’s having a party whether you chose to attend or not.
Maranatha
Comments