Key Verse: Isaiah 25:8
He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 23 pronounces judgement. Tyre, the hometown of Jezebel, daughter of the King of Tyre and the Queen who introduced Baal worship to Israel, is to be destroyed. Today the site of Tyre is a barren wasteland on the coast of Lebanon. There are no houses and no harbour for the ships of Tarshish (Spain). Sidon is a flourishing city today.
Isaiah 24 gives us a description of some of the results of the separation of creation from its Creator because of the rebellion of men and women to whom God gave responsibility for the care of the earth. Isaiah 24:19-20 describes a scene like the one in the photograph above. “The earth is violently broken…the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard.”
Isaiah 25 is filled with hope for mankind. God is never left without a plan for restoration. He is our strength, our refuge from the storm, and our shade! “The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces!” How gentle and caring He is to those who “have waited for Him” (25:8-9)!
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord God, rebellious people and nations have brought disaster upon themselves, but as for me, I wait for You and You have promised Your help in time of trouble. I pray for the grace of waiting patiently for You! I ask this in and through the Name of Your Son and my Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen!!!
100 PERSONAL WORDS:
I’ve walked over the barren rocks where proud Tyre once stood. I’ve walked through the streets of Sidon and laughed with the children playing out in front of high-rise apartment buildings. The tragedy was that the terrorists stored their bombs in the basements of these buildings, knowing that the Israelis would never deliberately bomb childen. It’s all so very sad. The tears God will wipe away are not from self pity, but from the tragedy of human cruelty. May God have mercy on us all!
In the photo below, my son David Reynold, an ordained Minister and our professional photographer, is showing a minor example of Isaiah 24:19, “The earth split open!” Click here for one of Reynold’s reports after returning from Haiti following the earthquake.
Yours for shedding tears and giving sacrificially!
David