July 16th ~ tammi

Today's reading from the One-Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is Isaiah 18-23.

After reading this passage, quite honestly, I wondered how on earth to approach posting about it. Six chapters of doom and gloom for Jerusalem and her surrounding nations. Sure, there were some interesting points:

• Isaiah walking around in only his undergarments for three years to demonstrate the shame in which Israel would be led into captivity. That's some serious commitment to follow God! (ch. 20);


• the part of the prophecy about Egypt that says someday Egypt and Assyria will worship God together with Israel and together, they will be a blessing to the earth. I found it VERY interesting that Isaiah says God will bless them and call Egypt "His people" and Assyria "His handiwork." (ch. 19:23-25);


• the restoration of Tyre after only 70 years of being cursed and forgotten, and while still compared to a prostitute, will yield her profits to God (ch. 23:15-18).

But other than that, it's all just death and destruction. I could end my post right here --

if it hadn't been for yesterday's passages and Tammy's look at it. Go back and read it; I'll wait.

*** (insert elevator muzak here) ***

So now you've read yesterday's passages, yesterday's post, and today's passages, right?

Notice where the emphasis is in yesterday's readings ~ on placing our trust SOLELY in God? To worship God with "fear and trembling" (man, that John Piper sure knows how to make things like that easy for simple folk to understand! Thanks for posting that excerpt, Tammy!) and to look to God alone to meet our needs?

And today we see why that's so important.

The great kingdoms of the past are, well... passed. They've fallen away. Some are barely remnants of former glory. Some don't even exist anymore. And so it will someday be with the great nations of today. Someday they, too, will cease to exist ~ whether a result of politics, war, natural catastrophe, or the Second Coming. ALL countries, nations, dominions, and kingdoms of the world, both great and small, will one day cease to exist.

God promises us that.

And all throughout the Bible we see warnings like this passage. Words of urgency to BE PREPARED, FOR THE END IS NEAR! Christ Himself, in the New Testament, says it several times, too, stressing the need to live in readiness for His return. To make sure we're placing our lives and our souls in God's care, trusting HIM to meet our physical and spiritual, our temporal and eternal needs.

And yet we see evidence in this passage, and so many others, that instead of repentence and remorse, there is revelry; instead of worship, there is wining and dining; instead of prayer and preparedness, there is partying. (22:12-14)

And we see it in our world today. Even in our churches.

We just don't tend to live like Christ's return will be today. We all know it COULD happen, but clearly we don't really believe it will. We all say we'd live differently if we knew we'd die tomorrow or next week, and yet, even though we know it COULD happen, we obviously believe it won't. Very few of us make permanent changes to our lifestyles based on that knowledge.

Or maybe it's not so much we don't believe it will happen as that we don't really WANT it to happen. We like our lives. There's so much we're planning on accomplishing, buying, and experiencing yet ~ we don't want to be "robbed" of those opportunities by a Second Coming in our lifetime.

But what if it happens at 2:00 tomorrow morning? Or next Tuesday? Or only on May 16, 2045? How would my day, my week ~ my LIFE ~ be different? WOULD they be different if I knew the exact date and time, especially if I knew I had at least 35 years yet? Could I meet God either way with the assurance that I'd lived to bring Him glory? That I'd pursued a life of holiness, separated from the world, living like a royal priest so that others would see the glory of God, regardless of how many more years, months, or mere days, He gives me? (1 Peter 2:9; Heb. 12:14-15) Would there be no careless words for which I needed to give account? (Matt. 12:36)

Wouldn't it be wonderful to live each day in anticipation of the end of time, preparing whole-heartedly for the glorious return of our Lord and Savior, rather than dreading it and/or shoving its reality into the far recesses of our hearts and minds?


Tomorrow's passages: Isaiah 24-27, and 29.