CALL TO AMERICA
Hear the word of the Lord.
Isaiah 1:10
We need to recover Isaiah’s thundering call from the mothballs where we have relegated it. The first chapter could be proclaimed, with a few names changed, to America and be strictly up to date. Surely our people “doth not consider.”
Surely the moral putrefaction Isaiah portrayed (vs.5, 6) smells just as bad in our land. And God hates our Sunday-morning religion without reality as much as He despised the sham formalities of Judah (vs. 11:15). Religion is popular nowadays, but we will not put away evil and learn to do well (vs. 16, 17). We want a religion that involves no break with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Still, God invites us to reason with Him (v. 18). We reason within ourselves and among ourselves, but we do not want to accept God’s reasoning. We want to be saved on our terms, not His.
When America is willing to turn from sin to God and accept His provision, willing and obedient, we shall eat the good of the land. If not, we shall be devoured with the sword, for “the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
Though this devotion appears in his book published more that 70 years ago, the words are as fresh and applicable as if he penned them this very morning. Preach to us, Vance Havner!