Basic HTML Version
Isaiah, September 14
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand
not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people
fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with
their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,
and convert, and be healed.
Isaiah 6:9, 10
.
The prophet’s duty was plain; he was to lift his voice in protest against
the prevailing evils. But he dreaded to undertake the work without some
assurance of hope. “Lord, how long?” (
Isaiah 6:11
) he inquired. Are none of
Thy chosen people ever to understand, and repent, and be healed?
His burden of soul in behalf of erring Judah was not to be borne in
vain. His mission was not to be wholly fruitless. Yet the evils that had
been multiplying for many generations could not be removed in his day.
Throughout his lifetime he must be a patient, courageous teacher—a prophet
of hope as well as of doom. The divine purpose finally accomplished, the
full fruitage of his efforts, and of the labors of all God’s faithful messengers,
would appear. A remnant should be saved. That this might be brought about,
the messages of warning and entreaty were to be delivered to the rebellious,
the Lord declared, “until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the
houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have
removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land”
(
verses 11, 12
).
The heavy judgments that were to befall the impenitent—war, exile,
oppression, the loss of power and prestige among the nations—all these were
to come in order that those who would recognize in them the hand of an
offended God might be led to repent. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom
were soon to be scattered among the nations, and their cities left desolate;
the destroying armies of hostile nations were to sweep over their land again
and again; even Jerusalem was finally to fall, and Judah was to be carried
away captive; yet the Promised Land was not to remain wholly forsaken
forever.—
The Review and Herald, March 11, 1915
.
[268]
275