Isaiah - Verse By Verse

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:19 (NIV):  "to those who say, 'Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it.  Let it approach, let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it.' "

Thought:  To me, it is very easy but quite unfortunate that mankind mocks God.

Question:  Do I feel I have the right to know all God's plans?

Under the control of sin, as described yesterday in verse 18, men may say that God really has no plan.  They rationalize that God never "rises up" to resist them, so they may do as they please.  But they fail to understand that the fruit of their own rebellion will destroy them.  God need not ever "destroy" them--sin does that itself.  Their arrogance is unlimited here.  In a way, they acknowledge God's existance, yet by their wrong choices, they truly deny Him in the deepest sense.  The new testament verse 2 Timothy 3:5 comes to mind:  "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof..."  To empty God of all His power is to strip Him of His basic nature--it is to reject Who He is in every sense of the word.

This verse has an arrogant, mocking tone:  "let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it."  As if "we" were in charge!  God's plans are not subject to man's knowledge nor to man's timetables!  "Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it."  This is a blatant attitude of entitlement and control.  As if "we" needed to see and know God's plans!  Wo do they think they are?  By saying this they imply that because God does not openly or quickly act He therefore must not be taken seriously at all.  This is an inflated ego at work--this is ultimate selfishness. 

It is much more appropriate for God's creatures to meditate on the fact that God is the eternal Creator and humans are but temporal beings.  Let's get back under God's Holy authority!

They mockingly call God "the Holy One of Israel" when, in truth, He is indeed the only and very Holy One!  What is meant by God's Holiness?  Definitions of holy all seem to simply come back to the pure and perfect character of God.  But one ancient definition states:  "that which must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated."  It's meaning is here connected to a sense of health and wholeness.  So we are not off track to say that the words "holy" and "whole" are somewhat synonymous.  God is "holy" in the fact that He is completely, whollly, without flaw and all that He does is equally pure. 

It is this Divine Holiness that separates us far and away from God.  He is high, very high, above us; we are low, extremely low down, and it is the worst of sins to put ourselves on the same plane as God.  "Woe" comes to those who act and think this way. 

Prayer:  Oh, Holy God, forgive me when I am even tempted to begin to demand from You Your plans, Your timetable, Your intentions.  Help me, rather, to humble myself appropriately as Your servant, a cleansed sinner and object of Your mercy.  Help me to trust You instead, and to rest peacefully in Your powerful care.  Amen.   

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:18 (NIV):  "Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes,"

Thought:  To me, there is an awful lot of deception at work producing an abundance of evil today in our country.

Question:  Do I coddle sin in my life?

Given the context, that is, the judgment and humbling process of proud mankind and the rise of God in His Day to establish His holy righteousness in the land, this verse is a very interesting warning to all who read:  "Woe to those who draw sin along..."  This is the third "woe" listed by our prophet, Isaiah.  Sin is avoidable, but often we make a conscious choice to accept it.  Often we go even further and coddle it, feed it, nurture it along, until it grows and becomes much more complicated, involved and dark.  Our whole treatment of sin in this way draws it "along with cords of deceit."  We are deceiving ourselves, lying to ourselves, when we allow sin in the first place.  How?  To choose sin is to choose to believe in an idea that does not come from God.  We convince ourselves that somehow this idea/choice is better than what our Holy Father has offered to us.  At any point we have plenty of opportunity to turn away from this deception and return to God, but quite often we "draw sin along" by going further into error.  We develop "cords of deceit", that is, stronger, thicker ideas to defend our wrong choices.  These "cords", in turn, end up binding us more tightly to the sin and we are held captive in sin, away from God.

"Cart ropes" implies, to me, that a heavy load is being pulled along now; "wickedness" has heaped itself up!  Certainly there is "woe" to an individual who is caught in this condition.  And, again, it has been his own doing, created by his own choices, the "woe" of which is an automatic consequence to him as a result of his decision.  So let's not be blaming God for this, or any other woe!  God simply allows the natural consequence to flow, or rather backlash, from the person's choice.

Prayer:  Father of justice, I praise You for Your ways; for allowing the woeful consequences of sin to bring grief and suffering.  Through that grief and suffering I have been made to return to You.  I am sorry for every time I have turned my back on You, so willfully, and chosen to sin!  I also thank You that through Christ, I can find forgiveness, healing and restoration to You.  Amen.

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:17 (NIV):  "Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich."

Thought:  To me, the entire earth is "weighed down" with the not-too-pleasant effects of man's deeds.

Question:  Do I look forward to a better day--a better earth?

After all judgments have ceased and God has been elevated, peace will come rolling in and incongruently, the ruins of the greedy will serve as pastures where sheep and lambs will feel at home.  Man's doings will be forgotten and his so-called marvels of construction will become ruins. 

To me, this verse paints a very contrastive picture:  previously the houses of the rich were built closely together and the land was inaccessible, probably privately owned, (Isaiah 5:8), but now the gentle sheep have moved in to peacefully graze.  There is a fundamental difference between the effects of mankind's domination of the land and God's holy influence! 

I think what our current environmentalists long for and attempt to promote today is achieved much more successfully by God's sovereign control!  Once God is "exalted by his justice", (yesterday's verse, Isaiah 5:16), He will bring our planet back to its original purposes and His creatures will once again roam peacefully.  

What a wonderful "Day" that will be!

Prayer:  Great God, how I appreciate Your Holy control of our planet!  One day You will restore tranquility to our earth.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:16 (NIV):  "But the LORD Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness."

Thought:  To me, to see God demonstrate His holiness will be one great and special Day!

Question:  Do I want to see God exalted?

"But"...a small but important word!  Though men are humbled (verse 15), and this because of their own arrogance and sin, God will be elevated and exalted.  How?  By His perfect justice.  Webster defines "justice" as:  "conformity in conduct or practice to the principles of right or of positive law; regard for or fulfillment of obligation; rectitude; honesty...adherence to truth of fact...the quality of being just or reasonable; rightness; equitableness...(and) one of God's attributes, by virtue of which he wills equal laws and makes just awards."  Synonyms include:  "equity, fairness, faithfulness, honor, impartiality, integrity, justness, law, lawfulness, legality, propriety, rectitude, right, righteousness, rightfulness, truth, uprightness and virtue."  God will act by reacting to what man has done and His reaction will be correct and perfectly righteous.

Though He uses woes to open their eyes, yet God acts with pure justice, giving them EXACTLY what they have earned and/or requested.  He does not strike out unfairly.  His every action, even judgment, is done in a way that will demonstsrate His holiness.

Prayer:  Holy Father, thank You for being Who You are:  utterly flawless and uncompromised by error or sin.  May I ever worship Your holiness!  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:15 (NIV):  "So man will be brought low and mankind humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled."

Thought:  To me, mankind could definitely use a good humbling!

Question:  Do I have a clean fear of the Lord?

The Lord's Day will exalt the LORD; therefore it must also humble those who oppose God.  Eyes need to see God in a new, clear way, in order to be truly humbled.  God will accomplish that Himself--making Himself visible through judgmental "woes".  Finally, they will see God.

There is so much pride in mankind--so much independence from God.  Today we are characterized by an almost complete lack of fear of God.  We have forgotten Who He really is.  God has given us so much comfortable ease in our living; we have become like a spoiled, indulged child.  We have no respect for His authority, no sense of His power.  All we perceive, like a child, is our next burning desire:  when will we get what we want?  We are blind to the coming of the Day of the Lord!  But it will come, whether we are ready or not, and it will indeed be a Day of humbling!

Prayer:  Lord, keep me humble before You.  Make me to see Your power.  Cause me to respect You and fear You appropriately, before Your Day brings its woes to the disobedient and rebellious!  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:14 (NIV):  "Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers."

Thought:  To me, more people need to realize how imminent hell is.

Question:  Have I been lifted away from hell by Christ? 

This context, beginning in Isaiah 5:11, is the continuation of the "woe" of excessive drink.  As we traced through verses 12 and 13 we found how excessive drink can lead to other excesses:  in celebrations and in pride.  The result of these excesses are want, hunger and thirst!  Today we see that at the end of this downward spiral is an enlargement of death!  One step away from starvation, parching, separation from God and exile is the grave.  We see an "enlarged" grave into which are drawn "nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers."  These are the "celebrants" of verse 12, whose unchecked behavior goes overboard.  With so many failing to own God, hell enlarges to accommodate them, even expanding "without limit".  Down they all go into an eternity of wrong behavior, unchanged and alone without God.  And all this because of an initial pursuit of escapism through drink.

There is a progression here:  begun in verse 11 and carrying on through to this verse (14) and "concluded" in verses 15 and 16.  That "progression" is really the full unfolding of the consequences of excessive drinking as a behavior.  Hence the word "woe."  God has not designed this woe; rather it is man-made by man's own behaviors and choices, and, equally, will bring "matching" degrees of consequences, all the way to death.

We get exactly what we seek.  We get exactly what we ask for.  We bear the exact consequences of all we do.  We are paid exactly what we invest.  We reap exactly what we sow.

Prayer:  Oh, Lord, my prayer is that You would take over my desires that I would make all choices pleasing to You so that I may reap You and all Your goodness forever!  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:13 (NIV):  "Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst."

Thought:  To me, just as the laws of physics speak of "an equal and opposite reaction" to an action, so God's judgments are an equal and opposite reaping of sins that are sown.  

Question:  Do I lack a proper spiritual understanding?

Why is Israel in exile?  Their sins have come between themselves and God, and He is forced to let them reap what they have sown.

How ironic!  Failure to grasp Who their Creator really is and what He desires from them creates a lack of understanding that alienates Israel from God, even unto "exile"; that is, a life in an unfamiliar place, separated from family and familiarity.  No one knows them better than their Maker; therefore, without Him, wherever they end up is an "exile" away from Him, where they all suffer alienation, lonliness and loss. 

Another irony:  the strong, protective men, most representative of health and vitality, are the ones weakened for lack of food.  The exact aspect they could have demonstrated through trust in God, that is, their strength, is denied them explicitly.  The masses of people perish, ironically, for lack of water.  The basic people lack the basic water to live.  God is our meat and our drink.  Without Him we "starve."  Christ is the Bread from heaven and the living water. 

This, of course, is prophetic of the Babylonian exile--a direct and equal consequence of Israel's many sins.  It also applies to us today, however.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, prevent me from going into "spiritual exile", that is, separation from You because of my sin.  Draw me ever nearer to You, Father, through Christ, the Bread of Heaven and my Living Water.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:12 (NIV):  "They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of His hands."

Thought:  To me, music that has no regard for, or respect toward, God is vain.

Question:  What makes me sing?

What are the reasons for our celebrations?  Here the Israelites have not gathered to celebrate the LORD, nor do they even have "regard for the deeds of the LORD", or "respect for the work of His hands."  By implication, they celebrate themselves, their own deeds and the work of their own hands.  Their music, like the wine consumption in the previous verse, has become a vain, self-directed, self-glorifying activity.  Even as they had "run after" wine in verse 11, so here they appear to pursue the pleasures of celebration for its own sake. 

This verse strikes at the heart of an important truth:  there is no reason to make song unless we do so to God.  All music ought to be ultimately aimed at praising Him, either directly or indirectly, for Who He is and what He has done, or to extoll His creation.  Any music that does not do this will only serve to emptily promote self and the devil.  At the heart of a great deal of secular music is the tragedy of Godlessness; that is, disrespect for God as Our Holy Supreme, and subsequently, the lifting up of self and sin instead as the idolatrous substitute.

Our God is a "jealous" God.  When He hears music upon the earth, He looks down to see the motive behind it.

Prayer:  Lord God, may I ever remember Your great deeds and respect the works of Your hands.  May You always be the inspiration of my music.  Amen.

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:11 (NIV):  "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine."

Thought:  To me, making wine consumption a priority is a choice--not a "disease."

Question:  Does my life consist in a continual desire to escape?

Perhaps this is the reason that in verse 10 there is only a small amount produced from a 10-acre vineyard!  Rather than working hard, the servants are wasting time in "other" activities:  drinking wine being at the top of the list.  If the "fruits" of our labors are harvested only to bring pleasure and escape from responsibilities, we are a people worthy to receive only what we sow.

This verse has further practical application in a broader sense.  There will be only "woe" at the end of this kind of road:  a road that indulges the flesh while at the same time deadens the senses.  Our entire drug culture would do well to realize that a pursuit of any agent that alters God-given faculties is a sin against the Creator, and will only result in God's vengeful "woes" directed at those who pursue those agents.  We will reap what we sow.

God's warnings go out for all the world to read and understand.  There is woe to come when we sin in these ways!

Prayer:  Creator God, forgive me when I fail You!  Heal me from making wrong choices.  Lead me to honor You in all that I do.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 5:10 (NIV):  "A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain."

Thought:  To me, God prospers those who honor Him.

Question:  Do I sense God's hand of blessing on my life?

Our continuing context of disobedience on the part of Israel and God's ensuing judgment upon them is still relevant in this verse.  A "bath" measurement is equal to about 38 liters or 10 U.S. gallons only.  Not much wine from a ten-acre vineyard!  And an "ephah" of grain is equal to 1 bushel or about 35 liters.  Again, a very small harvest from 10 bushels (a homer) of seed. 

We are not told exactly how God brings about such fruitlessness.  It may be through pests or blight or disease in the fields, or natural disasters such as floods, hail, freezes or fires.  However it happens, God has chosen not to "bless" Israel's agricultural efforts.  Israel is judged.

When will we realize that even today's agricultural plenty is not the result of fertilizers and irrigations only, but is directly controllled by God Who looks upon the hearts of those who work the land?  And when will we realize this truth is applicable in all walks of life:  God prospers those who honor and obey Him.

Prayer:  Dear God, You are the Lord of the harvest.  All bounty is from You!  Help me to acknowledge You, credit You, thank You and praise You for all Your blessings.  Amen.

• Main
• archives
• Albums
• Links
• Admin
• Send us a story!

• Isaiah - Day 159
• Isaiah - Day 158
• Isaiah - Day 157
• Isaiah - Day 156
• Isaiah - Day 155
• Isaiah - Day 154
• Isaiah - Day 153
• Isaiah - Day 152
• Isaiah - Day 151
• Isaiah - Day 150

• General [314]

• RSS 0.90
• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom