Isaiah 9:8-12 – Don’t be proud but be humble

The motivation of God’s dealing has always been His love. Either with gentleness or tough measures, He did it out of love. God’s wrath is a demonstration of His tough love. So one common refrain we discover in reading the rest of Isaiah 9 is this phrase, “In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away and His hand is still stretched out.” In fact, this phrase would again be repeated in Isaiah 10:4. So in total, we see this phrase repeated four times. On closer look, we can tell that each time this phrase is repeated, a flaw of Israel is pointed out. But this phrase also points us to the tough love of God. He took severe measures to try to get them to return to Him. It would take too much time to deal with all four at once. So we shall deal with it one at a time.

The first time this phrase appeared is in Isaiah 9:12. Bear in mind that up to now, Isaiah was largely addressing Judah. From verse 8, we see that this time he had turned to address the people of Israel. How do we know? From the mention of Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria. Here the first thing God was dealing with was their pride and arrogance. The message was clear, their pride had made their humiliation inevitable.  

 

Obviously, we can see that Israel was being attacked militarily. Their bricks had fallen, and their sycamores were cut down. Yet they did not take the time to evaluate what went wrong and identify the reason for their plight. Instead, they took the time to do a “facelift.” For bricks that were fallen, they resorted to using smooth stones. And for sycamores that were cut down, they used cedar. They did not take time to try and identify what led to their predicament. They failed to see that there were reasons that led them to their quandary. They were so self-absorbed, there was no self-examination nor humility.

 

Verse 11 said that God then raised the “enemies of Rezin”, meaning Assyria to deal with them. On top of that, He also allowed the Syrians and the Philistines to intrude into their territories and bring great troubles. Even then Israel did not respond aptly. So God would persist in dealing with them with His tough love.  

 

The lesson is clear, God gives grace to the humble but will resist the proud. It is wise to take time to take stock of our life, especially when the situation is tough going. The principle of cause and effect always happens. So when things go wrong, we need to take time to identify the cause and make needful amendments. Remember, God is not through with us yet. He is seeking to bring the very best out of us. And He would use tough love to draw us to Himself. Don’t resist it!