Isaiah 30:18-33.  Yesterday’s message was a warning about rebelling against God.  The people of Judah had decided to make an alliance with Egypt instead of letting God protect them.  God had repeatedly told them not to make such an alliance but because of Assyrian oppression they did it anyway.  But there was hope, if they changed their ways and stopped trying God would save them (Isaiah 30:15).  This second half of the chapter describes God’s forgiveness in more detail.

Notice that right away we are told that God waits to have compassion on them.  Some translations say that God “longs” to be compassionate.  The word usually means to wait, like delay what you are doing.  That makes good sense here because we already have seen that God wants us to return to him and when we do that is when we will be taken care of.  Although I am sure that he wants to do it too, that is very clear because of the number of times God makes the offer and how often he follows through even after repeated rebellion (remember the book of Judges?).  The rest of verse 18 tells us that he is waiting because it is the right thing to do (tht’s what justice is about).  Also notice how Isaiah turns things around on these people facing an invasion.  God is waiting for you to trust him you need to trust him and wait to see him take care of you.  Don’t be impatient after you decide to trust God.

Isaiah then assures the people that it was God who let thigs get desperate but after they return and wait they will not be disappointed.  The next part of today’s reading goes on to describe God teaching the people, opening their eyes and ears to what he is doing and wants done.  And they will respond by cleaning up their spiritual lives.  Often blindness and deafness are used to describe our attitude toward God.  It is interesting though that, at least in the beginning; it is a choice we make.  God does not arbitrarily keep people from seeing and hearing him.

The result of turning back to God is that he will make their environment better and more productive, plenty of water and sunshine, good things if you are a farmer.  Even the cows will have a lot to eat.  I like the picture of God  taking care of our broken parts in verse 26.  He doesn’t just say be healed he is hands on (however that works for a spirit being).  Notice that this will happen “in the day”.  We have to be careful to remember that some of what God has promised to do will not happen right away.  In 2 Peter 3:1-10 people were making fun of the Christians because they believed the promises of God and were patiently waiting for Him to act on them.  Peter reminded them that God has priorities and those involve people retuning to Him.  So we wait until God’s priorities are fulfilled, then he will deal with all the evil in the world (See 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).  In the mean time we “wait” just like God waits.  But the enemy will be punished, sometimes now sometimes later.  In Isaiah’s day the Assyrians did attack Jerusalem but the people were not saved by the Egyptians.  God physically killed 185,000 Assyrians troops in one night.  That’s action, and that is what is described in this prediction.  Later in the book Isaiah will tell us the story.  But for now the people had to hear the promise and decide what to do and then wait.  Unfortunately they had made a treaty with Egypt, in fact it was that treaty and not paying the tax or tribute to Assyria, which led to the invasion.  And that invasion cost over 40 cities in Judah and over 200,000 captives.  I’m sure it would be tough to wait for God when all of that was going on.  But as I said God followed through, after Hezekiah, their king, returned to God and admitted he had been wrong.

We need to learn to be patient and wait for God.  We need to make sure we are not causing God to wait being rebellious.  WE need to do our best to understand what god wants and to do it. When we make mistakes we need to turn back to God, quickly.  It is never too late to turn back to God, and what we do in never too bad to return from.  Remember God is waiting to be gracious to us.  Lord help me hear and see and follow.  Help me return quickly when I stray away or am outright rebellious.  Give me a clear picture of how my life can please you.  Give me patience as I wait for your will to be done.