Woah! Did he say woe?

It never ceases to amaze me the wisdom and instruction we can gain from a book that is over two thousand years old. Yet, in our daily struggles and our striving to do better, be better than yesterday, I find the simple words so poignant and profound.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” (Isa 10:1-2, NIV)

It is as if God is omniscient and foresaw our need for His wisdom in our time today. It is almost as if, if we were to read and heed His divine, inspired word, we might glean some gem of wisdom of our own to help us get through some of this trouble we find ourselves in.

“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.” (Isa 10:5-6, NIV)

“Does the ax raise itself against the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up, or a club brandish the one who is not wood!” (Isa 10:15, NIV)

Woe to those who make unjust laws. Woe to the godless nation. Woe to he who claims “the axe made me do it!”

It’s almost as if God foresaw the day when these United States of America would turn away from Him and would seek the counsel of materially wealthy and popular people over His divine, inspired, and truthfully tested word. Sure, we’re not Zion nor are we being assaulted by the King of Assyria, but aren’t our crimes as egregious as those of Zion’s and aren’t our internal enemies as vicious as those Assyrians who plundered the freedoms of Israel?

Some will say God’s word is for a different time, that the Bible isn’t divine but written by flawed man, and that those of us who cling to His word are emotionally deficient and in need of a crutch. Strict constructionists will argue His word applied only to that generation of Israelites and that those writers, the prophets of old, had only the experiences of their day for reference. That they could not and would not have the wisdom to apply God’s “inspired” word to today’s challenges.

They would be wrong.

God’s inspired word is as alive and applicable today as it was when it was written two-, three-, four thousand years ago and more, because God is as alive today as He was when He originally inspired His word. He is as omniscient today as He was in the time of the Assyrian king, and His word applies just as much to this godless nation as it did to Zion. But in all destruction God also gives us His promise.

“Very soon my anger against you will end and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.” (Isa 10:25, NIV)

Just as Peter walked on the troubled waters of the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, if we keep our eyes upon God and trust in His inspired word, we can walk on the troubled waters of this time. But just as Peter sank when he lost focus on Jesus, we will sink if we lose our focus on God.

Hosanna in the Highest! Lest we forget.

(Painting from Abraham Hunter at www.masterseditions.com)