Isaiah 5:25 “Therefore
the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His
hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses
were as refuse in the midst of the streets.”
As I continued in my short
Bible Study of Isaiah chapter 5, the lesson pointed out that judgment was
coming to Judah because the people had rejected the law of God. They refused to
keep His instructions, teachings and precepts as their fathers had done, and
they threw God’s Law away from them as if it were nothing more than a piece of
trash. Isaiah said that two things roused God’s wrath against His chosen
people: their rejection of His law and their disdain for His Word. These are
one and the same, the latter just being one step further down the path of
apostasy than the other. The Jewish people had rejected the law as the standard
for their conduct, but they didn’t stop there. They even despised it to the
point that they mocked and ridiculed it, and hence derided the holiness of God.
Judah’s treatment of God’s
law was not through ignorance or mistake, but through inveterate malice, that
they shook off the yoke of God, and abandoned themselves to every kind of licentiousness;
which was nothing else than to reject so kind a Father, and to give themselves
up to be the slaves of the devil. This being the state of Judah, God’s wrath
was kindled against them. They already had suffered some chastisement in the
past, but they hadn’t learned from it. And now, in the days of repose and prosperity,
they were being warned that God’s hand was still stretched forth; a more severe
punishment than they could ever imagine was coming.
Isaiah said that punishment
would come in the form of war. An enemy from “far off” would attack them. This
would have made the Jews scoff, because they were currently at peace with their
neighbors. But when God chooses to bring judgment on a people, He often does it
by unexpected and unlikely means. Though the kingdom of Israel had faced
God’s wrath, the kingdom of Judah was not yet overturned. The people thought themselves
safe from the calamities of their brethren. But Isaiah warned them that God
would command foreign nations to rise up against them, and in this case it was
the Assyrians.
If God decides to bring
judgment on a nation that has rejected His law and held His holiness in
contempt, He will use any means necessary to that end. Judgment might come
through pestilence, famine, war, or some other form. We don’t know. But one
thing we can be sure of: if we no longer honor God’s law, judgment will come
from the least expected place, and with it will come death and destruction. Justice
is hardest when it is against ourself.
Love, joy and peace in
Christ