God crafts a powerful, wonderful finish to this part of Isaiah (chs 21-26)!
Like we saw last week, there’s been a repeated, hugely relevant challenge to the practice of self-sufficiency, even by us as believers (ch22). Or, let’s say, to that craving for independence from God, that deep craving for personal autonomy, that lies at the heart of human spiritual disaster. Whether we listen to it sends each one of us to hell or heaven. (The great philosopher Kant presented autonomy, the rejection of external dictates, as the hallmark of modernity.)
But this craving for autonomy is a failing, not just of individuals, but something embodied and reinforced by whole cultures, including most certainly ours. So the last five prophecies in this section reveal this fact and its consequences. They begin with a further oracle against Babylon, from Genesis to Revelation the giant embodiment of human self-will over against God, including a nightmarishly vivid vision of its eventual downfall: `They set the tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink! Get up, you officers! Oil the shields!` (21:5). Further visions challenge other nations living by the same Babylon principle – and tragically, prophecy reveals that even Jerusalem is committing this catastrophic sin (ch22), revealing too what the disastrous consequences will be (and of course were).
And like I shared last week, 22:8b-11 challenged my own spirit on this very powerfully; and ch22 ends by applying it to two important individuals that we’ll meet in ch36, the self-glorifying Shebna (`Beware, the LORD is about to take firm hold of you and hurl you away, you “mighty man”`), and the much more godly Eliakim who `will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem… all the glory of his family will hang on him`, like a `peg driven into a firm place`. But Eliakim still needs to watch out (and may God alert each of us who are in any leadership to this!) that that `glory` doesn’t lead to this same self-sufficient spirit (so very easy…..)- so that even the `peg` gets torn down in judgment, as happened with his successors (vv15-25). (Once again: when might I be falling into this trap of self-sufficiency, in practice ignoring God, and His calls to repentance (v12)?)
The last nation to be challenged on this (ch23) is Tyre again. Tyre’s pride isn’t based on faith in its imperial power, like Babylon, but on over-confidence in its economic power, expressed in an entertainment culture of hedonistic revelry (23:12, cf 24:7-9). (Does this sound like the west now?) But that confidence has no basis in nature nor in permanent realities – `The sea has spoken: “I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters”` (23:4) – and it leads to disaster. Over-confident self-sufficiency is the mark of modernity? But what when climate change comes knocking at the door?
Then if you read no other of these chapters, grasp ch24 with its mind-blowing global apocalypse. `The earth will be completely laid waste… The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken` (vv3,19). This has to be the summation of these tendencies at the End of history (which has already featured in eg 11:6ff,11,16, 1312-13, 14:1-2); the time when all greys will resolve into blacks and whites, when everything will come to climax. Modernity’s godless self-sufficiency will have infected all nations, so one day judgment comes on all. We read `He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low… Feet trample it down, the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor`, and think perhaps of New York, London, and elsewhere; one day the global `city of meaninglessness` (Motyer’s translation of v10) will crash into ruin, with `all joy turning to gloom` and being replaced by sudden, desperate fear (`the entrance to every house is barred`, v10).
But there’s more: the world as a whole is under judgment (Isaiah parallels this with the equally devastating event of the flood, v18). Because of human evil the very environment `dries up and withers… The earth is defiled by its people, they have disobeyed the laws… Therefore a curse consumes the earth`, vv4-6. (`The LORD has spoken this word`, v3: we need to hold on to these visions of the greatness of God and the eventual reality of His judgments.) `Earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left`(v6; cf 13:12); when we stop to think what this means, it sounds like the mass Endtime deaths predicted in Revelation (eg Rev 9:15), that may leave us wondering whether, once God in judgment no longer restrains evil, we are looking at a devastating nuclear exchange. (Ezk 39:6?? Zec 14:12??) God has finally said `Enough`, and the results of our ingratitude, autonomy and rebellion are being made clear. It’s worth noting too that in this climactic time His judgment extends to the evil supernatural powers that have worked to bring these catastrophes about : `In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above` (24:21, and cf God’s judgment of the great Serpent in 27:1). Again it’s hard not to think of Revelation when we read how those `powers in the heavens` will now be `shut up in prison`, just like Satan is bound and rendered powerless for the thousand years of Christ’s glorious reign at the start of Revelation 20…
But: this means that, both in Isaiah and Revelation, global judgment is absolutely not how it finishes! What Revelation shows us is indeed a time when God briefly (and for a carefully limited [Matt 24:22] period – 1260 days = 42 months = 3.5 years) allows humankind to experience the full consequences of our desired autonomy; when he lets us experience what it means to live outside His kindly reign, that has been holding back so much evil. (I say `us`, though there’s a case for thinking that all true believers will have been taken to safety first by the rapture of 1 Thessalonians 4; `until [God’s] wrath has passed by`, as Isaiah 26 puts it.) Revelation and Isaiah both reveal a final time of thoroughgoing evil, judgment, and the ruination of the earth; but this is not the end! This time of judgment that reveals the full implications of human independence will be replaced by the Lord starting to reign as King of all the earth (24:14-15, cf Zec 14:9, and [I personally think] Rev 20). And that of course must lead to the earth’s glorious restoration (Rom 8:21, Isa 32:15, Isa 35, Ezk 47)……
So it is that this whole part of Isaiah ends, not with judgment, but with the marvellous, exuberant songs of 24:14 and chs 25 and 26, celebrating both Jerusalem’s deliverance from foreign oppression and also what it foreshadowed, the huge future glory when all the results of our stupid autonomy will be swept away, swamped by the wonder, beauty and power of Christ’s kingdom! Ch26 is great, but here’s part of ch25 – try standing up and reading it out loud!:
`O LORD, you are my God;
I will exalt You and praise Your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
You have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago.
You have made the city a heap of rubble,
the fortified town a ruin,
the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more…
Therefore strong peoples will honour You;
cities of ruthless nations will revere You.
You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
is like a storm driving against a wall
and like the heat of the desert…
On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
On this mountain He will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
He will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
He will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.
In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in Him, and He saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in Him;
let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation!” (NIV)
So this part of Isaiah – indeed the whole present human era – comes to conclusion. (Lord we worship You!) `We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts… You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you… Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts! My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you!` (Ch26, and there’s lots more great stuff there). Hallelujah! Hallelujah!!
