Daily Lesson for December 10, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah 5:8-12,18-23:

8 Ah, you who join house to house,

   who add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you,

   and you are left to live alone

   in the midst of the land! 

9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

Surely many houses shall be desolate,

   large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. 

10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

   and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.

11 Ah, you who rise early in the morning

   in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger in the evening

   to be inflamed by wine, 

12 whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,

   tambourine and flute and wine,

but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord,

   or see the work of his hands! 

18 Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,

   who drag sin along as with cart-ropes, 

19 who say, ‘Let him make haste,

   let him speed his work

   that we may see it;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfilment,

   that we may know it!’ 

20 Ah, you who call evil good

   and good evil,

who put darkness for light

   and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

   and sweet for bitter! 

21 Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,

   and shrewd in your own sight! 

22 Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine

   and valiant at mixing drink, 

23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

   and deprive the innocent of their rights!

The Prophet brings warning this morning to a nation on the brink of collapse.

The wealth gap is too great, with the rich adding wing onto wing of their homes while the poor get further and further displaced.

The decadence of wine and entertainment leaves no thought to God and the things of God. 

Good is called evil and evil called good; and darkness has been set up in the place where the nation’s light is supposed to shine. 

Blind Justice has been kidnapped, and partiality and favor have stolen the rights of the people.

This is a warning. This is a Woe.  The Prophet calls the nation to pause and consider its state, to repent of its misguided ways, and to return again to its calling as a beacon of light for all the other nations of the world.

The Advent is coming. The LORD is at work. It is a Woe; but it is also a promise. For a change is coming over the land. The nation shall regain its former glory and witness. Good will be good again, without vileness and corruption. Light will be light again without shadow of darkness. 

And the “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”