Isaiah 30:15 - Another look

 Chapter thirty starts will a warning form the Lord to the children of Israel. he calls them the "obstinate children". What a tragic  description for a nation who were supposedly called the "nation of priests" and a nation that the Lord loved.

The reason being Israel had slide back into her wayward ways of sin. What was their sin?

  • Not consulting God
  • Carrying out their own plans and not God's
  • Going back to Egypt from where they were once delivered and making alliance with them.

They had disregarded God's commands  and chose their own way of mastery and had backslidden into their old way of life. Very similar to what happened in the Garden of Eden.

Sometimes, we too fall into these traps wanting to exert our own ways, dishonouring the laws of God and insisting in our own ways. sadly in some cases, we form alliance with the sins from which we were once delivered. 

And this is what the Lord pronounced to Israel as judgement in verses 13-14:

this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”

But yet the Lord in His mercy gives them another chance and says:

"In repentance and rest is your salvation"

God still offers a second chance for the people to return and he was willing to forgive them. 

John the Baptist, Jesus, the early disciples and Paul spoke about repentance

  • Acts 3:19 - Repent, then, and turn to God, so that He will forgive your sins.
  • Acts 17:30 – but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
  • Acts 26:20 - First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.

Repentance has two parts:

First it means regretting for the past – deeds and thoughts that failed in God's ways.

  • 2 Cor 7:10 - For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Secondly it means turning towards God. The Hebrew word for repentance means a  change of mind, and is reflected in one's behaviour.

Repentance is not just saying sorry, not rededication, nor merely a promise, nor just confessing sin or gong forward for an alter call. There must be a change of behaviour.

Pharaoh and Judas regretted for what they did but there was no change in behaviour. 

God expects us not just to regret but to totally turn from our sins and turn towards Him.

Unfortunately, the children of Israel failed to turn back to God.  

God longs that you and I repent repent form our sins and turn back to Him


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