Isaiah 20; Isaiah 15:1-16:14; Isaiah 22:15-25; Isaiah 30:1-32:20; 2 Kings 20:1-11; Isaiah 38:1-39:8

Again, we read line after line of pending judgment upon wicked nations and rebellious people. As in the days of Noah, we sense the frustration of God as He simply looks for someone – anyone – to take a step back toward Him. Hezekiah takes such a step, and is rewarded with life. God was gracious to Noah and also to Hezekiah. We get the wrong picture of Yahweh if we can only see Him as a distant god waiting to pounce on anyone making a mistake. Through the thick haze of prophecies of judgment, we glimpse the Almighty for who He really is. A God of grace.

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

Isa 30:18-22

I am struck to the core to see the extraordinary patience of God toward sinful people. How many of us have a far less enduring timeframe for those who have wronged us to come around? Not so with Elohim Shaddai, the God of justice! In the raging sea of human will and stubbornness, our God waits to pour out grace. His mercy separates Him above all else. His longing desire is to forgive me … no matter what I have done.

The blessedness of forgiveness comes to those who have a longing desire for fellowship with the divine nature. Although there is no limit to His grace, there is condition. Like Hezekiah, we must turn back and return to Him. As I type this it seems so easy. As I live it, it seems so hard.

The punishment upon His chosen people – the bread of adversity – was for their own good. It was a wake-up call for spiritual slumberers. Yahweh’s grace would spring forth at the sound of their cry of repentance. Not a moment sooner, but not a moment too late.

Here, too, is the promise of Messiah. Now He is presented as the Teacher. The Word of God in the flesh will come to Judah to guide the steps of the willing listeners. Those willing to accept correction will come to know the Way, the Truth and the Life. No longer will their desire be for their false gods and idols. Holiness will come as they shed their sinful ways.

And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

Isa 30:23-26

And there will be healing. The self-inflicted wounds of sin are devastating to humanity. The consequences that God allows to come upon us are painful. The living hope we have in Christ is born of healing. By HIS stripes WE are healed. Jesus took the true punishment and pain, so that the spiritual devastation I brought upon myself would not be fatal. There was healing enough for Judah. There is healing enough for me.

All it takes is a cry of repentant acceptance of His grace.

Consider His nature.  Consider His ways.  Strive to love Him more!