Given Over To Wickedness

 

Isa 1:5 Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints. 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment. 7 Your country is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, As a hut in a garden of cucumbers, As a besieged city. 9 Unless the LORD of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.

The Lord speaking through the prophet Isaiah says, “Why should I inflict more punishment on you? It does no good! You just rebel more and more! Your land has been conquered by enemies, your cities destroyed by fire, your nation has been reduced to something resembling a dilapidated gardener’s shack, and yet you continue in your wicked ways! If I hadn’t have put a stop to it, you would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah!”

 

This punishment from the Lord came during the reign of Ahaz. This wicked king of Judah promoted Baal worship and child sacrifices, he “encouraged moral decline” in the nation (2 Chr 28:19) and God gave the land over to their enemies, but even in this time of distress, Ahaz “became increasingly unfaithful.” (2 Chr 28:22) He didn’t get it. He stepped up his rebellion.

It is as Jeremiah said in Jer 5:3, “You have stricken them, But they have not grieved; You have consumed them, But they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; They have refused to return.”

Sometimes. You have to put the rod away and let the wayward child figure it out for themselves as it says in  Jer 2:19, “Your own wickedness will correct you, And your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing That you have forsaken the LORD your God, And the fear of Me is not in you," Says the Lord GOD of hosts.”

 

Personally, I think we have arrived at this point in our land. That point where the fear of the Lord is missing and God has “given us over to our own wickedness,”  until we at last figure it out, and turn back to Him! ” Ro 1:24,25 says, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Thankfully God reserves a remnant, or we might end up like Sodom and Gomorrah!