WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Pray that God’s word to you today will purify you. Anger and grief The second half of Isaiah 1 begins with a lament over the moral and social degeneracy of Judah: righteousness and justice had been replaced by murder and bribery, and the weakest suffered most. No one looked after orphans and widows. Everything was compromised, and the prophet was almost beside himself with anger and grief. But he also knew that God would act to purify the nation through the coming disaster. Where the social and moral capital was totally debased (v 22), God would purify (v 25) and smell out injustice and sin. Repentance required There could be only one response to ensure deliverance from the coming fire of God’s judgement: repentance (v 27). The alternative was too awful to contemplate: utter destruction (v 28), shame in the conflagration to come (v 31). It sounds like the ranting of a hellfire preacher! It is not a vision of God that many find easy today. We like our gods domesticated and rather fluffy, but Isaiah understands that God’s love for his people is matched by his hatred of injustice, and that he will act to demonstrate both. TS Eliot puts it like this at the close of his Four Quartets: ‘We only live, only suspire, consumed by either fire or fire.’ It’s either the fire of the Spirit’s purification or the fire of his destruction: pure gold or nothing. Respond: ‘Lord, purify my heart, that I might serve you wholly. Amen.’ http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-06-26