The Two reactions To Tribulation - Those who repent and those who curse God

 

The Two Reactions To Tribulation

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word:

 

Before we were so rudely interrupted by my technical deficiencies, we were going through the Book of Isaiah verse by verse. We pick it up where we left off in the end of chapter 8:

Isa 8:21 They will pass through it hard pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22 Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

 

Isaiah is talking about the impending judgment of those who have no faith or have cast their faith aside for other things. They look for their help from anything except the Lord.

 

The reaction of the believer to hard times and famine is to repent and seek relief from the Lord. The reaction of those without faith is to curse the very God who can save them! One of the commentaries I read put it this way:

 

“Affliction has not in itself any sanctifying power.  When not accompanied by the subduing influence of the Holy Ghost, it only stirs up in men's hearts the spirit of rebellion, and leads them to blaspheme the author of their sufferings.”

 

This is the lot of the hard-hearted who refuse to repent and surrender to the Lordship of Christ. The end result being that they are driven deeper and deeper into darkness, blaspheming the very God who can save them!

 

This prophecy from Isaiah should warn us of the end times as well where the reaction of unbelievers to God’s judgment is the same: Re 16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.

Re 16:11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.

 Re 16:21 And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.

 When tribulation comes to this world, ….and it will, don’t curse God, rather run to the cross, run to Jesus for he has assured us that He has overcome the world.

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word.