Scripture Focus: Isaiah 28.15
You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, 
with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement. 
When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, 
it cannot touch us, 
for we have made a lie our refuge 
and falsehood our hiding place.” 

Reflection: Puking Prophets of Success
By John Tillman

When judgment comes to those who think themselves strong and unassailable, there seem to be two kinds of prophets. 

One kind is the prophets soaked in success, whose thirsts are slaked with the excesses of the culture. Isaiah greets these prophets, comparing them to drunks who continue to revel around a vomit-covered table, still sticky with the remnants of their previous parties. (Isaiah 28.7-8)

These prophets continue to predict that Israel and Judah will be great. They declare good times will return. They misread God’s intention to fulfill his will through the nation as God’s willingness to tolerate any sin among them.

They issue a challenge to Isaiah, (Isaiah 28.9-10) saying to him, “Don’t you know how wise we are? Don’t you see how successful we are? We are not children who need your childish teaching.”

Other prophets see through this spiritual pride and hubris. They are those, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others, who call for repentance and understand that God can both bring disaster and save for himself a remnant through which to carry out his purposes.

The “puking prophets” of success are taking refuge in a lie. (Isaiah 28.15) They claim they do not need to be dictated to. They claim they should not be treated as children. But Isaiah knows that they will be soon treated worse. They will be enslaved and strictly dictated to, “do this, do that.”

The prophets of success often find great crowds and eager hearers. Paul warns Timothy of this principle in the New Testament (2 Timothy 4.3) and it is still with us today. We must learn a lesson from the fate of these popular, prideful, and puking prophets. 

By hubris they are humiliated. By turning away they become blind. By not listening they become deaf. By not feeling they become insensate.

To be part of God’s remnant, we must be humble, coming “as little children” to Christ, begging to see and repent of our sins. We must be restrained, refusing to become drunk on the power and greed our culture gulps down. 

We must open our eyes to see, open our ears to hear, and open our hearts to feel the uncomfortable, the painful, the hurtful truths of what is happening around us. In times of judgment, Christ’s remnant must work with his strength to ease, to comfort, and heal.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Gracious and upright is the Lord; therefore he teaches sinners in his way. — Psalm 25.7

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 28 (Listen – 4:49)
2 John 1 (Listen – 1:50)

Read more about Sufferings and False Prophets
When prophets warn of disaster, people often reject the simple, life-saving courses of action they recommend in favor of idolatry, conspiracies, and lies.

Read more about Much Demanded
Much has been given to us. May we praise God in thankfulness for it, serve our neighbor in humbleness with it, and challenge every form of oppression with it.

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 26.3
3 You will keep in perfect peace
    those whose minds are steadfast,
    because they trust in you.

Isaiah 27.2-6
2 …Sing about a fruitful vineyard:
3     I, the Lord, watch over it;
    I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
    so that no one may harm it.
4     I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
    I would march against them in battle;
    I would set them all on fire.
5 Or else let them come to me for refuge;
    let them make peace with me,
    yes, let them make peace with me.”
6 In days to come Jacob will take root,
    Israel will bud and blossom
    and fill all the world with fruit.

Reflection: Knowing Promises in Part
By John Tillman

In many of Isaiah’s writings three things are being described at the same time—the destruction of Israel in the immediate future, the return from exile in the near future, and the reconstruction of Israel in the far future.

Perhaps one of the most often quoted bits of Isaiah that we remove from its context is the promise to “keep in perfect peace” those who trust in God. (Isaiah 26.3) 

Isaiah’s audience may have misread this promise as an assurance of earthly political peace and the absence of suffering or conflict. Many modern readers make this same mistake. It is not invalid for us to pray this verse and long for peace. However, we should understand that earthly peace we can experience now is partial and temporary and only foreshadows the peace to come.

Throughout the scriptures, God gives his people previsualizations of ultimate reality. These are intermediary places or persons or events that stand as a picture of the promises of God. 

The Tabernacle and the Temple of Jerusalem are previsualizations of Heaven and the City of God, where people can approach God, see his glory, and understand his holiness. 

Joseph, Moses, and David are previsualizations of a suffering servant, a liberating savior, and a reigning king that are fulfilled in Jesus.

The enslavement in Egypt with eventual liberation and exodus, and the exile to Babylon with eventual return and rebuilding are previsualizations of our current state and our ultimate eternal destiny. We live now as exiles and foreigners in a world enslaved and ruled by sin, but one day we will be ultimately freed and the world we are meant to live in will be rebuilt.

In this context we will experience the ultimate fulfillment of the peace promised in Isaiah 26:3. This passage is part of a section (Isaiah 25-27) that refers to the coming of God’s eternal city to Earth, also described in Revelation. (Isaiah 25.6-8; Revelation 21.1-7). This banquet is for all the peoples of the world and every face will be covered in tears, yet God himself will wipe those tears away. 

As we take refuge in him and make peace with him, he will wipe every tear from our eyes and we will bear the fruit that we were always intended to bear. (Isaiah 27.5-6) This promise we may know and fulfill now in part, but then, we will know fully and be fully known. (1 Corinthians 13.12)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your Name forevermore. — Psalm 86.12

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 27 (Listen – 2:16)
1 John 5 (Listen – 3:00)

Read more about The House God Desires
When we make room for God in our hearts and lives, he will enter.
And when our lives are over, we will awake in the house of God.

Read more about Praise from a Stump
We, in Christ, can see ourselves in both the unworthy and shamed stump, and in the new supernatural growth of the remnant.

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 19.23-25
23 The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24 In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. 25 The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

Reflection: Naked Humility, Unexpected Salvation
By John Tillman

When disaster or invasion or pandemic threatened, the people of Israel and Judah expected God to restore them, his chosen people. It isn’t that they did not expect judgment for sin. Rather, they, like many modern Christians, never recognized that the way they were conducting worship and politics was despised by God.

Despite being in denial about it, in a hypothetical exile, they would readily have expected salvation from God. But they would not have expected him to rescue anyone else. Isaiah’s pattern of referring to present judgment while holding on to future hope takes this inconceivable, unexpected turn in the concluding verses of chapter 19. 

Isaiah predicts something that no one in the ancient world would think possible. Egypt and Assyria united in worship as brothers in Israel? Unthinkable. These nations were not just Israel and Judah’s enemies—they were enemies of each other. The image Isaiah paints of the three countries—united by a highway, speaking a common language (of Hebrew faith), and attending a common place of worship—was a ludicrous impossibility.

We don’t live in that time just yet. We live a time when enemies, left and right, will strip naked and humiliate their opponents—a time of angrily bared teeth and shamefully bared buttocks. (Isaiah 20.4, 3.24)

How do we remain faithful without resorting to the weapons of shame or the strongarm tactics of anything-goes politics?

Isaiah models acceptance of derision, embodied humility, and expectant hope. Before Judah’s allies, the Egyptians, were humiliated and marched naked into captivity, Isaiah gave up his own freedom and swallowed his pride by going naked for three years, predicting the coming time of violence and shame.

Isaiah also shows us the power of accepting suffering as a discipline, while at the same time setting our hope on the future. Isaiah spends little time celebrating the downfall of others but focuses on Judah’s own religious sins and wretched political ethics.

May we practice naked humility, humbling ourselves before we are humbled and stripping away pride before it is stripped away.

May we expect, anticipate, and celebrate the unexpected grace and mercy of our God poured out on unexpected worshipers.

What kind of God brings peace to those perpetually at war with one another? Our God does.
What kind of God restores the unexpected and the undeserving? Our God does.
What kind of God saves people who are not his people? Our God does.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
I love you, O Lord my strength, O Lord my stronghold, my crag, and my haven. — Psalm 18.1

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 19-20 (Listen – 4:49)
2 Peter 1 (Listen – 3:06)

Read more about Different Kind of Exile
This repost from 2018 cannot be more applicable. Too many of us are ignorantly using our “freedom” to cover up our evil selfish desires in the midst of this COVID-19 response.

Read more about Hope Amidst Destruction
Even among the destruction of what is coming to Judah in Isaiah’s prophecies, there is hope. God promises to place his glory over the remnant, like a tent or shelter.

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 17.10-11
10 You have forgotten God your Savior; 
you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. 
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants 
and plant imported vines, 
11 though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, 
and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, 
yet the harvest will be as nothing 
in the day of disease and incurable pain. 

Reflection: No Such Thing as God Forsaken
By John Tillman

Isaiah has condemnation to go around. 

No matter how evil the surrounding cities have been, however, Isaiah always circles back to remind Judah and Israel that they have been unfaithful and that judgment is coming. “You have forgotten God, your savior…” (Isaiah 17.10)

It can be dangerous and prideful to read biblical prophecies as if we are the righteous prophet. This may apply to a narrow group of people and circumstances but, more often than not, we will find greater insights in prophetic texts by assuming that we are the ones being spoken to, corrected, and condemned as unrighteous. This assumption reaps great rewards in helping us understand why God is angry, what he requires of us, and how we must return to him.

People love to point out sin in others, elbowing them in the ribs and saying, “the preacher is talking about you.” However, confronting our neighbor with a jab in the ribs (or a stinging Facebook comment) is an immature reaction to God’s truth. The mature disciple does not use scripture primarily to poke one’s neighbor’s ribs but to prick one’s own heart.

Like Isaiah’s audience, we may be tempted to shout  “amens” when our “enemies” are condemned. However, maturity is shown when we agree with God not about others’ sins but about our own. We prove ourselves to be Christ’s disciples when we celebrate the salvation of our enemies, as the Damascus Christian community celebrated the conversion of Paul, who became God’s chosen instrument to take the gospel to the nations, including the condemned city-state of Damascus. 

“There is no such thing as a God forsaken town.” — Carolyn Arends 

Paul saw Damascus as a city containing his enemies and the Christian community thought similarly of Paul. Paul was blinded so that both groups could learn to see differently. May our eyes be similarly blinded and our vision similarly improved.

It may be a long road and a long exile between condemnation and redemption. May we not lose hope in our God or hope for our cities. Let us not forget our God, our savior, our rock, our fortress. May we resist the urge to apply judgmental texts to others before we have humbly examined our own hearts. May we never celebrate the destruction or condemnation of others. May we celebrate instead the redemption of sinners and the welcoming of outcasts into God’s family.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
I love you, O Lord my strength, O Lord my stronghold, my crag, and my haven. — Psalm 18.1

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 17-18 (Listen – 3:44)
1 Peter 5 (Listen – 2:11)

Read more about How Not to Read Scripture
The Bible is God’s Word—his perfect revelation, but it is not a transcript of God’s unambiguous commands. The Bible is a work of art, not a manual.

Read more about How to Read Prophetic Judgment
The best way to read prophecy is to imagine yourself not as the speaker, but as the spoken to.