1 July | EVERYONE
“The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24: 3-5
The world we live in cannot continue its hallucinatory ramblings without running the risk of being consumed by its own incoherence. The text you just read is not a divine threat to the rebellious man of our days. It is only the description of what will happen as a result of ignoring God’s warnings.
Isaiah uses human expressions in this passage when he attributes the complete devastation to the word “spoken” by the Lord. But the universal cataclysm that will put an end to human stubbornness obeys, rather, the behavior of humans described later in the text.
“God destroys no one. The sinner destroys himself by his own impenitence” (Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 120).
Raise your eyes, contemplate the world around you, and answer yourself: To what extent do we, the inhabitants of the earth, damage nature? “The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together” (Romans 8:22). Do we keep God's laws, and respect the rights of other people?
Given our behavior in this regard, Paul warns us: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). The destruction of the earth will, in reality, be a consequence of human rebellion.
However, God calls, insists, and invites, “Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live” (Isaiah 55:3).
Take Action
It seems like a bleak outlook, but is it not encouraging to know that God will restore the land we are determined to destroy? If you are aware of this, incline your ear to the Lord today so that the restoration begins for you, and you become a messenger of that hope to the world.