06 February 2022
[쓰라린 심판 속에 달콤한 삶/The Sweet Life in The Bitter Judgment ]
#강해설교 #이사야 #Isaiah 26: 7-10 #Hymn찬송가88

이사야26:
7의인의 길은 정직함이여 정직하신 주께서 의인의 첩경을 평탄하게 하시도다
8여호와여 주께서 심판하시는 길에서 우리가 주를 기다렸사오며 주의 이름을 위하여 또 주를 기억하려고 우리 영혼이 사모하나이다
9밤에 내 영혼이 주를 사모하였사온즉 내 중심이 주를 간절히 구하오리니 이는 주께서 땅에서 심판하시는 때에 세계의 거민이 의를 배움이니이다
10악인은 은총을 입을지라도 의를 배우지 아니하며 정직한 자의 땅에서 불의를 행하고 여호와의 위엄을 돌아보지 아니하는도다

Isaiah 26:
7 The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.
8 In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 If favour is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD. (ESV)

[The Sweet Life in The Bitter Judgment쓰라린 심판 속에 달콤한 삶]

The views of our life is so distorted that a sort of pessimistic or nihilistic concept takes over us, especially in the pandemic era where we have cynicism towards politicians.
In 8c BC Southern Judah struggled with Assyria which had destroyed Northern Israel and Isaiah prophesized that Judah would have the victory in the future when the Messiah came. But should the people of Judah have the pain and only wait for God who would make them win?

Should our life be a painful life until our deathbed?
No, the more we know God the more sweet our life even in our struggling life.

Before the expository of these verses we cannot avoid the dogma of the judgments (8, 9) that should apply to our adversity and chastisements. 1)
Because after Adam’s fall we as his posterities can’t escape from God’s punishment as the judgment.

First of all God declared the believing life will be levelled nicely. (7)
The road of our life is not going easily but levelled by God. 2) The King James Version expresses it as ‘The way for the righteous is straight.’ The emphasis falls not upon the path but upon ‘straight.’ 3) That is nothing to do with the believer’s effort to make ‘the way.’

Next I would like to verify that our life would consist with sweetness in the world if we know God who makes our way level.
Then how does God make our way level?
In verse 8 the Israelites remembered their ancestors that waited for God at the time of Exodus before the Red sea when Pharaoh with the Egyptian army approached to kill them. Just to remember God’s saving power on us changes our struggling life to be sweet.

Verse 9 manifests that Isaiah earnestly looked for God even in the night. He was longing for God at all times. Even during the night when he slept he knew himself looking for God. 4) When we find ourselves always longing for God even when in our unconsciousness then we know that God gives us a sweeter and levelled life.

Lastly verse 10 manifests that unbelievers, ‘the wicked,’ never know God’s favour on them and more sadly they can’t look for God. The road of their life is always crooked and bitter, not levelled and sweet.

Guhyun Woo

---------------------------------------
1) John Calvin, Isaiah, cc. vol 2, trans. William Pringle (Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1961), pp. 218-221.
2) Ibid., p. 217.
3) Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol 2 (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), p. 211.
4) Ibid., p.214.

#강해설교이사야