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A Civilized Glory

From Isaiah 3 – 1 For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water, 2 the mighty men of war, the judge and the prophet, and the diviner and the elder; 3 the captain of the fifty and the honorable man, the counselor and the skillful artisan, and the expert enchanter. Russell Kirk penned in The Conservative Mind , “If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.” What has come down to us as the kickoff of Isaiah's third chapter shows us the counterpoint. The lack of order in the individual soul, the chasing after the idols of short-term gratification, especially on the part of the nation's leaders will have consequences throughout the whole society. The factors of social cohesion the Lord says he will take away, listed one by one, remind us of the attributes of His blessing which are so easy to take for granted o...
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Renouncing MY Idols

Isaiah 2:20-22 English Standard Version (ESV) 20 In that day mankind will cast away     their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship,     to the moles and to the bats, 21 to enter the caverns of the rocks     and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty,     when he rises to terrify the earth. 22 Stop regarding man     in whose nostrils is breath,     for of what account is he? "My heart is swayed," worships and confesses John Piper in the seventh reason of his book, 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die , "and I embrace the beauty and the bounty of Christ as my Treasure." Considering Isaiah 2:20-22, I find something especially moving about Piper's word MY. He finds beauty and bounty in Christ as his particular treasure, just as the repentant in that section cast away the idols of gold and silver that they ...
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The Aftermath of Glory

Isaiah 2:17-19 English Standard Version (ESV) 17 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,     and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,     and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 18 And the idols shall utterly pass away. 19 And people shall enter the caves of the rocks     and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty,     when he rises to terrify the earth "God's holiness," warns Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus ' entry on Psalm 93, "is more threatening than the stormy sea." Accordingly, in Isaiah 2:17-19, the waves stirred up by the storm of His glory reach inland to submerge all rivals. As He begins to display His character more fully, pretenses to comparison are exposed for their ridiculousness. Bring arrogance, questions Isaiah 2:17? He punctures it and enforces humility. Pride is groundless. Idols were not alive to begin with because only God c...
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Open to Glory

From Isaiah 2 – 15 Upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall; 16 upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops… In Becoming Dallas Willard , biographer Gary Moon captures his subject's essence as a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California when he writes that Dallas wasn't satisfied with the divisions between philosophical schools. He kept digging underneath the barriers to the deeper unity. This is the sort of quest on which the checks of God's judgment in Isaiah 2:15-16 insist we go. To the prophet, God displays His willingness and ability to undermine our defensive self assurance, whether the walls we put up our of physical or psychological protection. Our high towers that, we think, will allow us to spot trouble in advance are coming down. God alone is sovereign over the future, and He will not share the honor of provident protection with mere men or their engineering. While protecting His glory, His overarching mas...
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Week 21: Isaiah's Warning

Isaiah 2:20-22   English Standard Version (ESV) 20  In that day  mankind will cast away      their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship,      to the moles and to the  bats, 21  to enter the caverns of the rocks      and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the  Lord ,      and from the splendor of his majesty,      when he rises to terrify the earth. 22  Stop regarding man      in whose nostrils is breath,      for of what account is he?    This passage continues and finishes the theme on the Day of the Lord that took up most of this chapter. We see here many of the same phrases that Isaiah used before, driving home the point more and more, or as we say in the modern times, "Repetition, repetition, repetition." But I think there is mor...
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Week 20: The Only Safe Place

Isaiah 2:17-19   English Standard Version (ESV) 17  And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,      and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,      and the  Lord  alone will be exalted in that day. 18  And the idols shall utterly pass away. 19  And people shall enter the caves of the rocks      and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the  Lord ,      and from the splendor of his majesty,      when he rises to terrify the earth.    With verse 17 we are seeing (with just a couple of words switched around), verse 11 again, which we took that single verse as a full post earlier. (See the entries for January 5th 2019). Why would Isaiah repeat himself so often? It is something that he is trying to drive home to any of the Israelites who will listen, and hence now to the modern world. He then moves on in 18 and 19 ...
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Week 19: Why Do We Create?

Isaiah 2:15-16   English Standard Version (ESV) 15  against every high tower,      and against every fortified wall; 16  against all  the ships of Tarshish,      and against all the beautiful craft.    In the previous three verses we found that there is a coming Day of the Lord, and that day, and hence the Lord, is going to be against many things. In 13 and 14 Isaiah talks about the things in the natural world that we put above God. Putting the creation above the Creator if you will. Now he moves on and we see that not only has man put himself above God, creation above God, but also the things which man himself has created!     The first example he gives is the high towers. Interestingly enough, one of the first man-made structures mentioned in the bible is the Tower of Babel, a tower built in direct defiance to God not long after the first God-directed structure recorded, Noah's Ark. M...
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