Isaiah - Verse By Verse

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.

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