I often wonder about the church of America

Isaiah 26:16-21

The American church has not reached this point; “O LORD, in distress they sought you; 

they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.  Like a pregnant 

woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we 

because of you, O LORD; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind.  

 We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have 

not fallen.  Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake 

and sing for joy!  For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”   

(Isaiah 26:16-19 ESV)

What a contrast in the verses preceding verse 16, the wicked being punished, and God’s blessing on the righteous in a future day.  But verses 17-18 return to the day Isaiah is living in and the suffering they are experiencing.  Isaiah compares it to a woman in labor, and what is always hoped for is a healthy baby, but Judea is only passing gas, she has no deliverance, and no victory.  If we look back a few chapters to Isaiah 13:8, we are given this picture of the people of Judea; “They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.  They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.”  This was not stated about Judea in chapter 13, but to the judgment of Babylon, but it is what is happening to Judea. 

I am so glad Isaiah does not end with this thought, but in verse 19, we are told your dead will live, he is referring to the Jewish people, and unlike the wicked who die and stay dead till the judgment, God’s people will live again.  In verses 20-21, the writers of HCSB give this insight: “The call to hide during the judgment is reminiscent of the first Passover when God’s people stayed in their homes while God took the lives of the Egyptian firstborn.”  (Exodus 12)

I often wonder about the church of America, will it repent?  What will become of a nation that was founded on the truth of the Scriptures, but has strayed from its authority?  I believe the answer is found in Hosea 8:7a, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice