Isaiah 59

CONTEXT: Once again the sins of the nation v.2 of Israel have separated them from God. Let me be clear, God is still sovereign and in control of all things yet His hand of providence over Israel has been lifted. In v.3-8 Isaiah lays out all the sins committed and the apparent lack of remorse. In v.9-11 he lays out the consequences of their sin and then in v.12-15a he confesses those sins. Finally, in v.15b-21 Isaiah lays out the need for a Savior and the promise thereof.

Out text, today comes from the NLT and is really v.14-15a, with …The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice completing the verse.

This should seem like a familiar tone of what is happening all around us today. Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found. With the courts legislating from the bench and the fact that you are guilty until proven innocent our legal system is turned upside down.

Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. Go ahead, speak out about LGBTQ, abortion, or some other woke or cancel culture hot topic and find out how fast truth and honesty are outlawed.

Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked. The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice. We should all expect that natural man can not understand the ways of God and is therefore corrupt and unrepentant. The disconcerting thing is that the church, v.20-21, and individual “Christians” failing to speak out and call to judgment the evil being perpetrated. John Gill comments:

and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment; he took notice of all this, and resented it, though in a professing people, that there was no judgment or discretion in matters of doctrine and worship; no order or discipline observed; no justice done in civil courts, or in the church of God; no reformation in church or state.

For far too long “Christians” have bought into the lie that we are not to be judges based solely on Matthew 7:1-2. Read these verses in CONTEXT and with the WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD and it is clear we are to judge righteously.

Was the Apostle Paul a lier? He wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things… and later in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, he writes that Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?

It is time that those calling themselves “Christians” started acting like it. As James Chapter 2 notes, a true Christain faith is a faith working for God not sitting by afraid to speak out.