God Longs to be Gracious to You (Isaiah 30-31)

Isaiah 30-31

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" (Isa 30:18) "Return, you Israelites, to the One you have so greatly revolted against" (Isa 31:6, NIV).

Theme: Though we stubbornly and proudly insist on relying on our own plans instead of trusting God, yet God still longs to be gracious to us. This is the amazing logic of grace.

Isaiah 30 and 31 are connected because they both begin by denouncing the alliance with Egypt in the most explicit terms (Isa 30:1-5; 31:1-3).

But You Did Not Look To God (Isaiah 22-23)

Isaiah 22:1-15, 11; 23:1-18

"The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah, and you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest. ⁹ You saw that the walls of the City of David were broken through in many places; you stored up water in the Lower Pool.¹⁰ You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall. ¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago. But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! 'Let us eat and drink,' you say, 'for tomorrow we die!' ¹⁴ The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: 'Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,' says the Lord, the Lord Almighty" (Isa 22:8-14, NIV).

Theme: Where do you find your security? The charge against Jerusalem is her self-sufficiency (Isa 22:8-11). In Isaiah 22, when the city (1-14), individual (15-19) and family (20-25) become self-sufficient, they have committed the unforgivable sin (Isa 22:14).