So now, listen to what the Lord Almighty, Israel’s powerful God, is saying: “I will take revenge on you, my enemies, and you will cause me no more trouble. I will take action against you. I will purify you the way metal is refined, and will remove all your impurity. I will give you rulers and advisers like those you had long ago. Then Jerusalem will be called the righteous, faithful city.”
Because the Lord is righteous, he will save Jerusalem and everyone there who repents. But he will crush everyone who sins and rebels against him; he will kill everyone who forsakes him.
You will be sorry that you ever worshiped trees and planted sacred gardens. You will wither like a dying oak, like a garden that no one waters. Just as straw is set on fire by a spark, so powerful people will be destroyed by their own evil deeds, and no one will be able to stop the destruction. (Good News Translation)
Judgment does not mean that you need to leave a part of yourself behind in order to be accepted or belong. Judgment isn’t about stuffing down emotions and denying certain thoughts about things because you were told to.
Rather, judgment – divine judgment – is for those leaders, and the persons who support such leaders, who tell people they have to live a particular way, be a certain way, and think in the same way the leaders say you have to think.
Isaiah’s prophecy is first and foremost directed toward leaders – political leaders and religious leaders. Indeed, the nation of Israel had gone down a path of worship that God never condoned nor wanted.
And the Lord put the primary blame squarely upon rulers who led their people in unacceptable ways by telling them things that God never wanted. As a result, the nation as a whole, lived unjustly and unrighteously.
God was determined to do something about the situation of bad leadership: Replace the rulers and advisers. Get rid of them, just like a metallurgist gets rid of impure and worthless dross.
A lot of things in life rise and fall because of leadership. The character and competence of a leader is of upmost importance. God raises up particular people to lead. So, leaders and rulers are expected to fulfill their mandated duty with all diligence and decorum.
The city of Jerusalem fell to the invading Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. All of the Old Testament prophetic books are related to that seminal event in one way or another.
Jerusalem’s destruction, according to the prophets, had a direct relationship to the failure of political kings and religious priests to lead the people according to God’s law. And that failure was specifically tied to the lack of religious piety and leadership performance amongst the rulers of the land.
Indeed, individuals are responsible for their own thoughts and words and actions. Yet, at the same time, the leaders of a city and a nation are also responsible for whether they are leading the people into ways of justice and equity, or injustice and prejudice.
People in responsible positions of authority are to take ownership of the sort of culture they develop. And when people, as a whole, have rude and irresponsible words and actions, such behavior isn’t only on individuals – it’s on the leaders, as well.
God will hold everyone accountable – especially leaders = for what they have done, and not done, to foster a just and right society.
In the time of the prophets, the majority of those in authority led the people into a degenerate state. It had become so bad that divine judgment would intervene in order to burn out the evil, and remove the worthless dross of incompetent and inconsiderate leadership.
Only through the wholesale replacement of rulers and advisers could restoration and regeneration ever take place.
Fortunately, the Lord is a God of justice, mercy, and grace. The Lord is a redeeming God. And the theme of redemption runs throughout the Book of Isaiah. Yet, for a nation to be redeemed, it will require an elimination of rebellious evil.
The wrath of God exists precisely because of the love of God. Since the Lord has a steadfast, committed, and covenantal love for the people, God will render judgment, purging hate and injustice from the land.
When God decrees something, no one can stop it. And when God decrees destruction upon the material things which promote illegitimate worship and public injustice, you can be absolutely sure that it’s going to happen.
No one, no city, and no nation is truly autonomous, in the sense that they can do whatever the heck they want to do, regardless of whether it is right or just, or not. There is no person and no government who is free to indulge in their own selfish agenda.
We have a purpose and a mandate as people on this earth, to care for this world – the people and the environments we inhabit.
All of the ways in which individuals, groups, and governments cheapen and degrade human dignity and environmental worth, puts everyone at risk of survival and a good life on this planet.
Unjust and dysfunctional systems and structures must be purged of their impurities. And that means, in many cases, a new order of things must occur.
If we cannot learn to play well with one another, then playtime will be over; and God will call us back into the house and make us sit in the corner for a long time – or worse.
Whenever leadership fails to be neighborliness, then we have a huge problem.
Our world suffering divine devastation of all the things we know and love may not be far behind. And, quite frankly, it will be our own damn fault – and not somebody else’s.
However, in the prophetic biblical tradition, devastation and destruction never have the last word. There is always hope – a confident expectation that good, right, and just forms of social, economic, and religious communities will function yet again.
There are good leaders waiting in the wings. It’s just that no one yet sees or knows them. But God will raise them up at the proper time, to accomplish good purposes in communities, churches, families, and governments everywhere.
A divine intervention will make the last be first, and the first be last.
May it be so, for the blessing of the world, and to the glory and praise of God. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 