LifeLink Devotions for Friday, May 16, 2025

Over the last two days we discovered the ways that we reject God and turn to people for our support and security. Now God reveals to Isaiah how people who trust in people end up.

Isaiah 3:8  “Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the LORD, defying his glorious presence.”

As you read the third chapter there are six things that stand out to me as the social consequences of turning away from faith in God and obedience to His Word:

• Oppression – verse 5a – People will oppress each other—man against man, neighbor against neighbor. 
• Disrespect – verse 5b – The young will rise up against the old, the base against the honorable.
• Unqualified Leadership – verses 6-7 – A man will seize one of his brothers at his father’s home, and say, “You have a cloak, you be our leader; take charge of this heap of ruins!” But in that day he will cry out, “I have no remedy. I have no food or clothing in my house; do not make me the leader of the people.”
• Open and Shameless Sin – verse 9 – The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. 
• Ignorance and Apathy – verse 12 – O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.
• Hedonism  (The belief that the pursuit of pleasure is mankind’s highest goal) – verse 16 – The LORD says, “The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.

We only need to look outside our own homes to the society that surrounds us to know that we are in the same predicament. HOWEVER, if we are looking outside our own homes for the solutions rather than inside our own hearts, then we are part of the problem.

Oh my dear friends, how grave is our condition if we believe that we are not participants in the problem. We all have varying degrees of these conditions in our own lives, which means that in some way we have rejected the truth of God and have turned to pursuing humanistic objectives. And the fact that we won’t admit it makes the problem more severe.

Go back and review the list again. This time, rather than evaluate it in the context of your society, evaluate it against the reality of your own life and ask yourself these questions.

• Is there any degree of oppression in me that seeks to put others down so that I can feel better about myself?
• Is there any measure of disrespect for the authority God has ordained over me?
• Have I surrendered my civic privilege to vote or even lead to those who are simply willing so I can get on with my own life?
• Am I becoming less and less ashamed of some sin or sins in my life?
• Am I becoming less informed about culture and how God’s Word relates to it, so that those in leadership are given free rein to go unopposed wherever they choose?
• Am I becoming more entrenched in the pursuit of pleasure through the means of materialism, sex, alcohol, drugs, or addictions of any kind?

Piercing questions if asked humbly and answered honestly. I hope you will do both.

Pastor John