The day of judgment

This chapter starts a series of judgments that God proclaims against the different nations.

Isaiah starts with Babylon, but as he does, we also see in it the judgment that is yet to come.

Isaiah wrote,

See, the day of the Lord is coming – a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger – to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.

The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light.  The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.  I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.

I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger.  (Isaiah 13:9-13)

If verse 10 looks familiar, it should be.

Jesus quotes this passage when talking about the last days in Matthew 24:29.

And what Isaiah makes clear is this:  God’s patience will not last forever.  Right now, we are in the age of grace.  And as Peter wrote,

The Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  (2 Peter 3:9)

But then Peter adds,

But the day of the Lord (there’s that phrase again) will come like a thief.

The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  (2 Peter 3:10)

The words in Isaiah strike me, “cruel day,” “wrath,” “anger,” “destroy,” “desolate,” “burning anger,” and “punish.”

We all like to think of God as a God of love, and that’s true.  He is.  But he is a God of justice as well.  And a just God must eventually deal with sin.

Sometimes we think God is late in dealing out justice.  But God makes clear here that that day is coming.

That was the warning God gave to Babylon and its king.  And that’s the warning God gives us today.  The question is, are you ready for the day of judgment?

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that God will just overlook your sin.  That it’s beneath his notice.

The day is coming when God will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their sins.

The only hope we have is to turn to him and beg for his mercy and forgiveness while we still have time.  And that time is now.

Paul wrote this,

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.  (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Won’t you turn to him today?