Reflection on Is 24:21
On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven, in heaven,
and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
This statement of the prophet Isaiah is topical or will be topical during the upcoming days. What is the host of heaven in heaven? Apostle Paul explains that our fight is not against the flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness (cosmocratores), which govern the world in the heavenly realm (Eph 6:10f), which is the so-called host of heaven. The above mentioned powers of darkness endeavor to bring the Earth to self-destruction by means of this world rule. They do this through people who serve them, namely through their mediums. We know who these earthly kings are. In the present day, they have been replaced with a so-called democratic system and various ideologies, such as communism, fascism, etc. Behind this system of ideas is also a spirit, which influences people’s thinking and acting through certain structures. The Lord promises that He will punish those dark powers on that day. There is no doubt that that day will definitely be the day of the last judgment, but it can come even before God’s judgment. Similarly, as the fascism had been punished, albeit at the expense of great sacrifices, any other “ism”, which opposes God, will be punished and destructed sooner or later.
God, through the prophet Isaiah, continues to foretell: “They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days. The moon will be dismayed, the sun ashamed; for the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion.” And the following is written before this prophetic proclamation: “The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is violently shaken. The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion…”
There are certain secrets contained in the Word of God, which God reveals to some people in certain times. Otherwise the following is true: “They look and they do not see, they listen and they do not hear.” Unless God opens our mind, the Word of God is empty for us, or we understand it in a completely different context. After we read the Word of God, the main question is: “What does God want to tell specifically to me, be it for instruction, reprimand, or encouragement?” What encouragement do I get from this prophetic word? When we look at the situation in the world, we know that historically God had allowed certain punishments for the sins of the mankind or individual nations. What for? To cleanse them internally. Eventually, even the influence of demons, or of the devil, serves to achieve this internal cleansing. It is done directly or using evil or deceived people, who bring about the suffering to nations or specific individuals. One person, out of his pride, torments the other and in the end, all evil in the world stems from the same root, which is called a hereditary sin, or a source of the sin in us. The goal of our life is not at all to create a paradise here on Earth. The main goal is to save our soul. It is not possible to achieve this in our own strength, we need God’s help. And God gave it to us in Jesus and it is easily accessible through repentance, specifically by admitting our sins and by faith, in which I surrender them under the power of the blood of Christ. That is how we get rid of sins, but we cannot completely eliminate evil. That path is much more complicated and it is linked with following Christ, entering into Christ’s death by renouncing our own will – self-will, looking for God’s will in our own life, specifically how to use this day that God is giving to me according to God’s will.
We have to pursue the goal, which is eternal life, eternal happiness, which God has prepared for us. To achieve this, we must engage in the spiritual warfare. In the midst of this warfare, when we reach the very bottom of it, that is where God’s help is the strongest, we just need to humbly receive it. We can look up to thousands of the saints as an example. We can even say: all the saints are our older brothers who have shown us how to pass through life in wisdom.
The next chapter of the prophet Isaiah portrays a vision of the spiritual renewal. We shall look into it in the next Word of Life.
Download: Reflection on Is 24:21
