Day 199 (Isaiah 23-27) - Year 8

**Tara-Leigh Cobble** (0:01)
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Tomorrow marks Day 200 in our reading plan. Can you believe it? And today we wrapped up the 15 chapters that cover the judgment of the whole world.
The last batch of judgment for foreign nations begins with Tyre and Sidon, two Phoenician cities that specialize in international trade. They're the cities of shipping magnates, and they've got ports of trade built up all around the region. Business is good, so they're wealthy, influential, popular, and most of all, prideful. Their line of work really means they need things to go well with the water, so they worship a god named Yam, not the god of sweet potato fries, but the god of the sea. Their pride is a call for judgment on them, so Yahweh sets out to show his power over their Yam god. The ports they trade with mourn over their downfall, and wonder who could have pulled off an upset like this over such great cities. But as bad as things were, Yahweh took it really easy on them, actually. Tara is destroyed, but eventually restored. The closing sentences on Chapter 23 can be really challenging to interpret, but it seems like the hearts of Tara don't actually turn to God, but that he still uses their business savvy to bless his people.
We wrap up the judgment of individual nations, but we do not get a breather. On the contrary, Chapter 24 goes all in with the judgment of the whole earth. It covers a range of time from destruction to restoration. It's a dark passage, but even it is not without hope. And as people who trust God's goodness and sovereignty, texts like this, when we view them rightly, can have the effect of sobering us without frightening us. Yahweh can be trusted with these things. He has a perfect track record.
Isaiah talks about the coming day of cosmic judgment and no one will be exempt. Power and money can't protect anyone from it. So what happened to prompt all this? God says that the whole earth has broken a covenant with him. But what covenant does the whole earth have with God? We talk a lot about the covenant he has with his people, but that's a totally different thing than a covenant with all people. The only covenant that encompasses all people is in Genesis 9, 8-16, where he promised that he wouldn't destroy the earth with a flood again. And that section immediately follows a section about how they're to honor life or God will require a reckoning. And because mankind has broken this law, they are under the curse of the covenant.
This is heavy stuff, and it's real. It's easy to think of this as just poetic imagery. It's not. This will happen. And this cosmic judgment will be like an undoing of creation just like the flood was. It won't be a flood, of course, because he promised he wouldn't do that again. Instead, the picture we have here sounds more like an earthquake and a fire.
When will all this happen? Verse 21 says it will take place on the coming day of the Lord, whenever that is.
So where's the hope, Tara-Leigh? First of all, I'm recording this podcast right now on the very same earth that was destroyed in the flood. It's still here. So God clearly didn't give up on it. And second of all, that's how we get to that awesome new heaven and new earth that Scripture talks about—Earth 3.0.
We'll read more about that as we continue through Scripture, but for now, just know that the destruction scenes are not the end. Even this weighty passage still includes reminders about God's people singing praises to Him, and it continues with lots of other beautiful things that will happen as a result of all this. In fact, let's talk about those. First of all, God puts death to death, so that's awesome. And there will be no more tears. Count me in. And He'll throw a big feast on the holy hill of Mount Zion. I never miss a party. Then everyone in Judah will sing a song of praise, which is recorded in Chapter 26 My favorite line in the song is 26.3. It says, You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. If you want to get to that perfect peace, you have to come at it backwards from the end of the verse. The thing that keeps us in perfect peace is fixing our mind on God. And the thing that helps us fix our mind on God is trusting in him and delighting in him. So the more we trust and delight in him, the more we'll fix our mind on him, and peace will be the byproduct of that pursuit. And guess what? The only way to trust and delight in him is to know him more and more, which is exactly what you're doing here in the Word every day. In getting to know God, your peace increases as a byproduct.