Isaiah 59:14-15a–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

Posted by Seth on Sep 30, 2009 in Bible Study, Daily Devotions |

Isaiah 59:14-15a–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Isaiah 59:14-15a wherein we observe what happens when truth is pushed aside in the public squares.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

God’s people were in a scary place and it is recorded that they were miserable in it. But the difficult thing to understand was that as they went about their business away from the Lord, seeing great injustices and feeling so frustrated about the way things were working, or perhaps rather weren’t working, they continued to choose rebellion against Him. We see the same today. There is a pervasive lack of trust in others (understandably so), contentment is felt by very few, and it is the norm to complain about our problems as if they magically appeared at our doorsteps to unreasonably plague us good folks. Answers are being sought, but it is understood that only a fool would look to the God of the Bible for the answers. Man, from the beginning and in every phase of history following, has always chosen to eventually take this dismal road.

Zooming in on this text we see a bit of what happens in communities, described here as “the public squares” when people go their own way. The problem first stated is that justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away. The idea seems to be that nobody wanted accountability or the threat of punishment; they wanted to be able to make shady deals, perhaps even ones that wouldn’t seem to hurt any one person much. In this kind of set-up we see all kinds of problems arise. For instance, members of a police force can become corrupt, accepting pay-offs for looking the other way. True righteousness that would govern everyone together is far removed and each one makes up a righteousness of his own. The reason that such things take place is because truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Instead of truth being upheld by a community for all to look to and gauge their practices by, it has been pushed over and locked outside the gate. And then we are told what happens to the one who tries to walk by truth: he makes himself a prey. Truth must be attacked where self-righteousness rules!

If we find the same situation in much of “the public squares” of our day, how then shall we live as followers of Christ? It certainly can become more and more frightening to depart from what God declares as evil and be vocal about it even when this is done in the most respectful way. But what must be remembered is that part of walking in the truth is a walking in humility. When we uphold God’s standard as the one that should be followed, we must remember that we too fall short of it. The aim isn’t to get people into the goodness line, but to declare to them the imputed righteousness of Christ that is available to all who trust in Him as Lord and Savior, praying that He will fill them with His Spirit. Only when the Truth resides in the hearts of man will it be allowed within the public squares.

Share on Facebook