By WAYNE STEWART
There is endless talk these days of the government stepping up to fix the nation’s debt problem.
The people of this nation are looking for a man-made solution. If everybody would take a step back for a minute, they may find all the problems arose because of man-made solutions — garbage in, garbage out.
None of the problems are new, sure, they may be peculiar to a specific culture or society, but they all boil down to the same problem — man’s reliance upon man.
“Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the city gates The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah, and you looked in that day to the weapons of the Palace of the Forest. You saw that the walls of the City of David were broken through in many places; you stored up water in the Lower Pool. You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall. You build a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.” — Isaiah 22:7-11
Let’s have a little history lesson; the time of Isaiah 22 is after the fall of the Northern Kingdom to the Assyrians. Scripture tells of a time when Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem, yet God confounded and routed the Assyrian army with a plague and the siege was lifted. Isaiah is looking past that to when Babylon would overrun Jerusalem, destroy the Temple and send many of the inhabitants into exile.
See, God had shown himself powerful to the people, he could and would fight Judah’s battles if only the people would turn to him. As J.A. Motyer noted, the people of Judah, “did not, of course, abandon faith per se. Everybody lives by faith. It is part of the human condition. Financiers trust market forces, militarists trust bombs, scientists leaders trust nature’s regularities. Jerusalem’s leaders trusted Egypt.”
This is a common failing of all men as we tend to trust what is believed to be tangible, but what they fail to realize is God is more real than the paper on which this is printed. God is powerful, faithful and He will do what He says; and God, through Jesus Christ asks us to give up self and abandon everything for him.
That’s a lot to ask of somebody, but it’s exactly what God has always desired from us — a simple walk based upon faith. In the Garden, God told Adam everything is his and he can have it all; just don’t eat of that tree. They didn’t trust God and looked where that got us, now we have to buy and work for our food and daily sustenance all while living with the burden of sin.
Several generations later God had brought a nation out of the mightiest country in the world at the time. Through mighty works God drowned much of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, yet the people still did not believe God could care for them. After defeating the Egyptians the people called Israel didn’t believe God could drive the Canaanites out of the land He had promised Abraham all those years ago, so for the next 40 years they were destined to wander the desert until that generation was gone.
The truth of the matter is God doesn’t need anything from us. He is God, after all, but He does desire something from us, and in his loving mercy he has given us the choice of choosing Him or ignoring Him.
Looking back at Isaiah 22:11, the people are indicted for ignoring God, the one who brought them up out of Egypt, and trusting in their own strength and ingenuity. In verse 10 of that same chapter a census was taken so the people would know their own strength, but what is the strength of man compared to God? No, we can’t do it on our own.
Let’s look at this nation’s recent history. The United States has the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen. It overthrew the Iraqi army in a matter of days; and it drove out the Taliban with just a handful of troops, but since that time it has been stuck in a quagmire. What has all that might done for the country as it continues to lose lives in those far-off places.
This nation has trusted in its strength, and its economic prowess. Uber-patriots talk often about “American Exceptionalism,” but what is that but God’s favor. This country has abandoned God, much the way the people of Judah. Instead of God, we look to our own mind for solutions. Instead of falling on our knees we write our Congressman. When will God say, “Enough!”
“The weakness of Judah now appeared more than ever,” Matthew Henry wrote concerning Isaiah 22. “Now also they discovered their carnal confidence and their carnal security. They looked to the fortifications. They made sure of water for the city. But they were regardless of God in all these preparations. They did not care for his glory in what they did. They did not depend upon him for a blessing on their endeavours. For every creature is to us what God makes it to be; and we must bless him for it, and use it for him. There was great contempt of God's wrath and justice, in contending with them. God's design was to humble them, and bring them to repentance. They walked contrary to this. Actual disbelief of another life after this, is at the bottom of the carnal security and brutish sensuality, which are the sin, the shame, and ruin of so great a part of mankind. God was displeased at this. It is a sin against the remedy, and it is not likely they should ever repent of it. Whether this unbelief works by presumption or despair, it produces the same contempt of God, and is a token that a man will perish wilfully.”
It is time to stop putting faith in ourselves, our government, our institutions, even our churches. It is time to abandon the old precepts and look again to God. Don’t sign your life over to a dead government, instead give your life to the Living God who allowed himself to be nailed to the cross and placed in a grave to put an end to our sins. Turn that sin over to Christ, and rise with him from the tomb.
With Jesus comes the promise of life, everything else is death.
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