Friday after Cantate
Posted on May 7, 2021 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 52:9-12 (NKJV)
52:9 Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing; Go out from the midst of her, be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.
12 For you shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Devotion
Isaiah’s language recalls the story of Lot in Sodom. The angel struck the men of Sodom with blindness so that they groped for the door to Lot’s house, but were unable to find it. Their outward situation matched the state of their hearts. These men had consented to temptation and fulfilled the flesh’s desires. They remained in those sins and blinded themselves to their own depravity.
Isaiah’s words show us that when we consent to temptation and fulfill the flesh’s desires, whatever they may be, we are blinding ourselves and choosing to walk in darkness rather than light. The Holy Spirit shines the light of God’s Law on us so that we clearly see our sin for what it is and what it brings: blindness and condemnation. He leads us to repentance, sorrowing over our sin and turning immediately to Christ’s forgiveness and the perfect peace He gives the conscience. If we do not immediately turn from our sin when the Spirit convicts us, but rationalize, minimize, and excuse our sin, then we “walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). May this not be so among us! Instead, let us pray each day that the Lord keep us from sin, strengthen us with His Holy Spirit in the moment of temptation, and if we do consent to sin, that we turn immediately from it in repentance and resume walking in the light of Christ.
Prayer: O God, who makest the minds of the faithful to be of one will, grant unto Thy people that they may love what Thou commandest and desire what Thou dost promise, that among the manifold changes of this world our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
