Isaiah 26:20-21 – Safe in Disaster
In verses 20 and 21, we have notice to the people of God that, though this deliverance is coming, there is trouble intervening. The Assyrian, at the time this was written, had not come in yet, and it would be 150 years or more before the Babylonians would come and exile the people, destroying the temple and Israel’s full independence. All of that was yet to come. And there would yet be difficulty from the Greeks, and later the Romans, until Christ’s coming. So, there would be difficulty and trouble. The people of God would be supported by the promises they’d already been given. These things would support them as they hunkered down in the storm that was about to come. In that storm, they would need to hide. Implied here is a prayer of deliverance, and a confession of sin, as well as a looking to Jesus Christ. Because if, somehow, you plan to stand outside thinking that you are good enough, and God will not harm you, or that somehow your trust in your wealth or position will deliver you, it won’t. No, you need to see that you are a great sinner, subject to God’s wrath. You need to cry out to him confessing your sin. You need to cry out to Him that He would save you for Jesus’ sake. Be hidden in Jesus Christ!
Now in the midst of trouble and in the midst of hardship, things seem to take forever. When we’re incapacitated on a bed of sickness, when we’re debilitated by overwhelming pain, when we are abandoned by friends, things drag. But a time is coming when our dead bodies will be raised with Christ. We who are in Christ will be in eternity, free from pain, free from affliction, free from loneliness, free from our wickedness and sin. Then what has happened here in our life now shall seem as nothing. That’s why God speaks of it as being but a short time.
There is difficulty in this life for us and for the people of God now. But even now, just as he was in Isaiah’s, day, Christ is using this difficulty for His glory and for our blessing. He covers us and brings us through, sometimes in ways that we can see coming and other times in ways we’d have never expected. But he had planned all along to show that our deliverance was not of ourselves. It was totally in Him, totally by Him, and totally for His glory. Through Him, then, if we are in Jesus Christ, just as the people of God in Isaiah’s day, we are safe in disaster.
Questions
- What trouble was to come?
- What promises do we have to see us through?
Prayer Points
- Pray that you would hide yourself in Christ.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.