DAY 284

THIS WORLD ENDS…DO YOU BELIEVE IT?

Isaiah 34, 35 & 36 and Colossians 2

While yesterday there was “back and forth” within each chapter, today the chapters serve as the division—and the divisions are strong. In 34 all the nations are judged. In 35 we read of joy and more; much more. In 36 we read of Sennacherib and his invasion of Jerusalem. Let’s look briefly at a theme from chapters 34 and 35.

My only comment on chapter 36 is that while 34 and 35 look forward, 36 shocks us back to reality…Sennacherib is at the door and you read this once in 2 Kings 18…I will touch on it tomorrow.

In chapter 34 the theme is Judgment. We do not like to judge others. Neither does God! Does it surprise you to read that God is not too fond of judging others? Look at 28:21; it says He finds this deed strange and alien. But, and it is an important “but”, but Judgment is the natural outcome of living in a world where we expect (and deeply desire) justice. If you want justice and if you want a God who is “just,” then a natural outcome is Judgment. In the midst of this God is also patient—remarkably so. And so in chapter 34 we come to the point where the world is put on notice and His patience has run out—the end of the world, with it judgment, is coming. Do you believe that this world will come to an end with God judging it?

In chapter 35 we read some beautiful verses, verses that we often read at Advent. Why Advent? Because the church season of Advent looks forward to the Second Coming of Christ…which is at the end of the world! And that Second Coming, the Judgment, deals with us. We see in this chapter one of the grand themes of Isaiah—God’s holiness. Isaiah who wrote, “I am a man of unclean lips…” has this theme of that God is holy. Look at verse 8 and the highway…it is a highway of holiness and the unclean shall not pass over it. To come to God we must be clean…we must be holy…and yet in the same chapter it says the “ransomed of the Lord shall return”…returning to a holy God and so therefore they/we must be somehow made clean!

They are returning clean because of Jesus…do you see it in Colossians…that you are holy because of what Jesus has done? Read chapter 2 of Colossians, verses 6-15 again: you are made alive by Jesus’ baptism. He has cancelled the debt—He has nailed it to the Cross which means you are clean by him. Which brings me back to my question…Do you believe in the end of the world? I do, and I am thankful that I will stand before a holy God not in my own merits, but in the merit and love of Jesus.