This Is The Day

THIS IS THE DAY Isaiah 12 11/12

- Isaiah 12:1-6

We all have days that we look forward to. Some days are monumental and life changing like the day you married. Some you look forward to for years, like graduation. Some you never expected to have to look forward to. I imagine some in the Northeast are looking forward to the day when their electricity comes back on or their houses are repaired. They never expected to end up in a situation like this but are looking for these days to pass and a new day to come. Some days we look forward to have been announced for a long, long time and seem like they will never get here.

I am looking forward to Wednesday, the day after the election. I am honestly not sure it will ever get here. I am so tired of the ads, the phone calls, and the arguing. It seems as if Wednesday will never come.

There are other days we look forward to, days we dream of, that we are not sure will ever really come. Days when a loved one is saved, or the doctor says, “There’s no sign of the cancer”. The day we see in this passage is one of those days. It is a day the Israelites have dream of, and hoped for, but are not sure will ever arrive.

The Israelites have been living in their Promised Land for hundreds of years. They have seen good times and bad times, depending on how they were walking with or obeying God at that particular time. God has again gotten ticked at them. The nation is divided, they have turned on each other, an invader has swarmed through the land, and their citizens have been scattered here and there. In the midst of all of this destruction, in the midst of this pain, in the midst of this despair, God sends Isaiah and says, “There is coming a day.” There is coming a day when things will be different. There is coming a day when things will be restored. There is coming a day when I’ll send healing to your land. There is coming a day …

For those Isaiah was speaking to, this was a day in the future. It was something they had to look for, hope for, and pray for. For you, that day can be today. For you, that day can be today.

Notice what occurs on that day, and what can happen for you today.

I. SIGNS OF THAT DAY

1. God’s anger was turned away – v1

The first sign of that day is that God’s anger is turned away.

Now, there are those, perhaps some of you sitting here today, which believe that God has no reason, no right, and no justification for being angry with you in the first place. You have lived a good life. You’ve done the best you can. God’s got no real “right” to be angry with you in the first place. Let me suggest, if you believe that, that perhaps you are not seeing yourself, the situation and God as clearly as you should. God has many reasons to be angry with the world and with you today.

A. Reasons God is angry –

1. God is angry because of the condition of the world - Might I suggest that God is just in being angry because of the condition of the world.

Imagine if you will, that you build a magnificent house for your son or your daughter. You fix up the house. You paint it. You furnish it with nice furniture. You fill the linen closet with 600 thread count linen sheets, and inch-thick towels. The carpet so thick you sink into them when you walk and the kitchen and bathrooms tiled with fine roman marble.

Imagine walls with the finest drywall, covered with fine wallpaper, texture, and paint. Flawless textured ceilings. Imagine lush, green lawns without bare spots or a weeds or bugs; rich landscaping with every flowering and fruit-bearing tree you can think of.

Now, imagine coming back some time after giving it to your child, and finding the house destroyed; the ceilings are sagging and the walls have holes. There’s dog feces in the torn carpet. The trees are broken down. And on that once immaculate lawn, there is now a truck with no windshield sitting on blocks, leaking oil onto the weeds below.

Would you be irritated? Perhaps a bit miffed? And yet, that’s what we have done. God created a perfect garden, a perfect world where there was no death. Mosquitoes didn’t bite, and didn’t have to look over their shoulders worrying about frogs. Frogs didn’t have to look over their shoulders having to worry about snakes, and snakes didn’t have to look over their, whatever it is they have, worrying about hawks. There was no death, and yet because of Adam and Eve’s sin, because of the sin we have continued, the world is cursed.