You’ll see all this and burst with joy
    —you’ll feel ten feet tall—
As it becomes apparent that God is on your side
    and against his enemies.
For God arrives like wildfire
    and his chariots like a tornado,
A furious outburst of anger,
    a rebuke fierce and fiery.
For it’s by fire that God brings judgment,
    a death sentence on the human race.
Many, oh so many,
    are under God’s sentence of death:

17 “All who enter the sacred groves for initiation in those unholy rituals that climaxed in that foul and obscene meal of pigs and mice will eat together and then die together.” God’s Decree. (The Message).

‘The judgment that begins with the house of God has its significance not simply in itself but in what it points to. It is a sign of the final, universal judgment to come. It puts the whole world on notice.’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’, p.249.

As we have been reading these later chapters of Isaiah we have repeatedly seen the awful reality of God’s judgment. It has become clear that there is a dividing line running through history (and even through the midst of the church: the people of God), and there will be those who are ‘saved’ and those who are ‘lost.’ Now, this great prophetic book comes to a conclusion on same note. In large parts of the church numbers of people are going soft on this message. But it is not for us to re-write the Bible just because we find somethings hard.

If it is the case that:

”Many, oh so many,
    are under God’s sentence of death”

then may we in the church feel the pain of it. Motivated by this understanding, let us pray, and commit ourselves to playing our own part in the great missionary movement we are going to read about next time.