What the Heck I Like Isaiah Now

On the inside I am still a 20-year old kid staring wide-eyed at a world of wonder.
But my joints and my eyes tell me we’ve run through decades of being that 20-year old kid.
So I should probably be embarrassed to say that this fall is the first time I’ve enjoyed reading Isaiah.
This fall is the first time I have started to understand.

Isaiah is very beautiful and his overall message is very simple. We live in a world of corruption and oppression but the Lord will stop at nothing–even the very land and the very skies can be uprooted–to free his people from their oppression and even from themselves. Then all will be well.

I don’t think many of us ask ourselves what we as a people would be doing if we were not under the boot. We don’t think of ourselves as under the boot. But Isaiah says that we are. We have convinced ourselves that our chains are bangles.

Which is too bad, because it can be so much better than this. The millennial promises are not abstractions.

He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth:

1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.

3 ¶ Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.