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Isaiah 23:10-14   Till your land as they do along the Nile, Daughter Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbour.  The LORD has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble.  He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed.  He said, “No more of your revelling, Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!  “Up, cross over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.”  Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account!  The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.  Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your fortress is destroyed!

We can find much comfort in reading prophecies like this today.  The political unrest, the militant advances of Islam, and the threats of the form World War III might take, can all be very unsettling for the next generation.  But Isaiah is reminding us that our God, who is eternally unchanging, is not only faithful and concerned for his own people, Israel, his Church, but is sovereign over every nation.  There is nothing that happens in our sinful, messed-up world, that is outside his control.

And there is a sense in which we are in a more blessed situation than was Isaiah: we know what God has done about the mess through his gracious action in the Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, his Son.  (I say ‘there is a sense in which’ because Isaiah’s whole prophecy points us to what God would do nearly eight centuries later, and  the faithful prophet was in no doubt about its reality!).

So we can face, and encourage the next generation(s) to face, the future with a powerful message of hope in spite of the picture we are getting from the culture driven by our media!  And, more than this, this same Jesus has also opened up for us direct access through prayer into the presence of his Sovereign Father in the power, and with the help, of the Holy Spirit.  It is hard to imagine anything more comforting than this – having such access to the One in charge of the control room!  Moreover, Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the ‘Parakletos’, a Greek word meaning one who is ‘called alongside’ us, so it covers many different functions and is therefore translated variously into English as Comforter, Helper, Advocate, etc.  So let us continue to proclaim this message of hope, and to pray for, and with, one another as we plead with our Heavenly Father, through the Son, with the help of the Holy Spirit, on behalf of our world.

– Bruce Christian