Isaiah 26:9-10
My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness.
But when grace is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
and do not regard the majesty of the Lord.
Much has been bandied about in political circles, especially around the US election where both parties call each other evil people.
According to the news, it's very hard to tell the good from the bad.
At least in a movie usually it's quite plain who is on the side of right and who is the villain.
Not so in today's world and, without divine insight and discernment, even the best can be deceived.
So, the time comes for judgement. If God didn't ever bring about His justice then, as it says in the quoted passage, the wicked go on doing evil.
At some stage, God has to apply the brakes, sometimes at great human cost.
We saw it during the last world war. Many people had to die in order to fight tyranny. Many innocent folk of all ages suffered beyond belief.
What was the alternative? To let evil rule the earth? To turn away and ignore it?
The prophet Isaiah sees a time of God's judgements being in the earth - it's not a pretty sight, so here is the instruction:
Isaiah 26:20-21
Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
the earth will conceal its slain no longer.
Doesn't it sound like a lockdown is being described in those verses? Isaiah is looking ahead to the time when God Himself will deal with the wrongdoings on earth.
It won't be pleasant, but, just as a greasy pot must be scrubbed, so must the depth of corruption must be scoured off the earth in God's good time.
Selah!
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