Can you imagine God waiting?

Isaiah 30:19-22

Can you imagine God waiting?  But it is clear that God waits in verse 18 for His people to repent and come back, so He can show mercy and be gracious to His people.  Isaiah is telling about what happens when the people of God do this, the Jews saw this prophecy take place as they began to return from Babylonian exile in 539 B.C.

Listen to these verses; “For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no 

more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he 

answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, 

yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And 

your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to 

the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver 

and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to 

them, “Be gone!”  (Isaiah 30:19-22 ESV)

The cry of the people was repentance and acknowledgement of their sins, and God’s heart is 

always open to a person or a nation that repents, and then begins to receive the graciousness 

of God.  They were no longer looking to other nations, other little gods like a 401K or 

retirement accounts, land or position, they were returning to the God of their fathers.  The 

adversity and the water of affliction came from the judgment of telling God to stay out of their 

life; so God allowed the Assyrians and then Babylon, followed by the Persians, because of 

their sins.  It was not any longer about whose they were, but about whom God is and they 

began to listen to God, for He became their Teacher.  If only we the church, you and I, not 

some building referred to as a church; we are the body of Christ and His Holy Spirit lives in 

us.  So if we, like these people, will turn and repent of our sin of independent living, God’s 

Spirit will do now as He did then; And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 

“This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”  

And all of those little gods we have been trusting in will lose their hold on us.  Has the Father made His will clear?  The answer is yes, in the gospel of John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

So while you are pondering on the above Scripture, ask yourself, is it Jesus I’m looking to, or is it a pastor, church, or denomination, or even grandmother’s faith?   For many years, I was a Baptist, went to church, gave a tithe of my income, and was open to helping a few people, but if death had come and I had to stand before the Judge, He would have said depart from me, I never knew you, for it was not Jesus I looked to but self.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice