The Lord almighty has a day in store…For Judah, that was not the best news! It really came and comes down to who is running the show. For Isaiah, he was warning the chosen people of Israel that they need to allow God to be God. He was in charge and the inevitable nature of that would prevail. My daughter uses this line with her 2-year-old that pretty well sums it up, “You can obey with a happy heart or a sore bum…You choose!”
God was warning Judah that they could follow Him with a happy heart or face the day of the Lord. Make no mistake–on the Day of the Lord, God will be exalted. People will be humbled like never before–all that cool stuff they collected, WORTHLESS. All the security and safety measures they put in place…USELESS. People will be running in fear and hiding in squalor. They will have left their Idols behind. Idols like wealth, pleasure, power and beauty–IRRELEVANT. It will be a time of survival.
There will be little doubt–God is God! Nothing formed by human hands will be of worth–only the vast creation and its Creator will matter. In Judah’s fall, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. The people were led away into captivity and their national identity destroyed. For the next 70 years they lived as slaves, and they were subject to Babylonian and Persian rule. The Book of Esther, a tale of the time, never mentions God’s name once.Could it happen again? For Israel–it did; in Rome, and in Europe. Now, after restarting again in 1948, they have again gained prominence across the globe.
But what of the church? We too are His chosen. As Joshua said so many generations before–“Choose this day whom you will serve…As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!” Make no mistake, the Day of the Lord will again come. In that day, all our collections and treasures will mean very little. The only things that will matter will be what we have collected for the eternal…That will be a day when all that the world holds as priceless will become worthless; and, all that men deem glorious will seem petty. On that day, all that God has made, and all that He has said is important will take center stage. We will worship Him, as it was intended to be.
So, like my precious granddaughter, we can do so with a happy heart, or with a sore bum!
God Bless You
The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled
and human pride brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
12 The Lord Almighty has a day in store
for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
(and they will be humbled),
13 for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
and all the oaks of Bashan,
14 for all the towering mountains
and all the high hills,
15 for every lofty tower
and every fortified wall,
16 for every trading ship[b]
and every stately vessel.
17 The arrogance of man will be brought low
and human pride humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
18 and the idols will totally disappear.
19 People will flee to caves in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
20 In that day people will throw away
to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
which they made to worship.
21 They will flee to caverns in the rocks
and to the overhanging crags
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
22 Stop trusting in mere humans,
who have but a breath in their nostrils.
Why hold them in esteem?
Walking With God 