God is in control

So far in Isaiah there have been a series of fairly gruesome prophecies calling Judah and the surrounding nations to account for their neglect of social justice and their mistreatment of the poor.  The last few sections however, have spoken about how God will liberate Jerusalem from the power of Assyria.

This must have seemed like such a preposterous idea at the time. Assyria was a superpower, Judah a fairly puny little state dependant upon Egyptian military support. This is the equivalent of a tiny African or Caribbean country standing up to the full might of the American or Chinese army.

God says through Isaiah that he will protect Jerusalem and then the text moves from the poetry of Isaiah's prophecy to history mode and he relates a time during the reign of King Hezekiah when this actually happened.

Surrounded by enemy forces it was no wonder that the leaders of Judah were terrified but Isaiah knew that God was and is the only one who decides the fate of cities, nations and empires. Just when all seems lost, God drives the Assyrian army away and saves his people.

At a time when most other religions were local and tribal the people of Judah declared that their God was the God of the whole world who controlled even the great empires that tried to lord it over them. This view of God as all powerful is both deeply reassuring and also a bit scary. It reassures us that whatever happens in life God is in control and has allowed it to happen.

But then the flip side of that is dealing with the fact that when something terrible occurs in our lives that God has allowed it to happen. It boils down in the end to trust. We either trust that God knows what he is doing in his management of the world when things go wrong or we struggle and protest against the strong grip of his providential hand.