Isaiah 1:5 “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.”
What happens to a nation that God has wonderfully blessed when they become a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD” (Isaiah 1:4)? It is clear that when such rebellion occurs, their “country” is “overthrown” by oppressors, they become “desolate”, their “cities are burned”, and “strangers devour” the bounties of their “land”. And, “the daughter of Zion” (The Church) “is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city”. It is true that this dreadful scene played out in Old Testament Israel when they rejected God and godliness. But this message is a practical prophecy; that is, it was a prophecy that was first fulfilled in the days in which it was given; but, the prophecy also reveals how God deals with unrepentant rebellion in later generations. Paul makes this point twice: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) and “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” (I Corinthians 10:11). Let us earnestly pray that our Lord will turn the hearts and minds of His people to Him and that we will all repent and flee “unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16) and that our Lord “will” graciously “heal” our “land” (II Chronicles 7:14)!