The Nature of Judgment - Part 1

Pastor Bill Farrow

Isaiah 1:30

30 For you shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fades,
And as a garden that has no water.

There is currently a tremendous debate over whether (or not) war is ever an acceptable thing.  Some say that war is never acceptable, that God never approves of war and killing under any circumstances and that no godly person or righteous nation can ever pursue a war and maintain the “moral high ground” before God.  Others would assert that there are times when war is acceptable, and even necessary from a Biblical point of view.  They would maintain that there are circumstances that make war necessary and even mandatory if a nation is to fulfill its spiritual obligations before God.  Both sides assert their point of view forcefully and in unambiguously spiritual terms.  For many, any disagreement means that you are not in touch with God and cannot be hearing from him.  That being the case, what is the answer for the thinking, sincere person who simply wants to understand what God wants regarding the situation with which we are all now confronted?  What is the answer?

First, we need to assert that war is a hateful thing.  There is never a time when war is a good thing, a wonderful thing that we ought to embrace and look forward to.  There are no circumstances in which we ought to be eager to go to war.  I do not believe that our President or any of his staff are eager to go to war.  I believe they would take any and every acceptable option to avoid it.  I believe they have pursued and are pursuing those options.  Anytime that the unthinkable and undesirable happens, we need to reaffirm that it is, indeed horrible for all concerned.

Second, we need to remember that war is a horrible thing.  This verse is an indicator of that horror.  What is in view, that Isaiah is predicting here is war with the Assyrians.  God sent the Assyrian army down into Israel to chasten and punish Israel for their idolatry.  We have already looked, at length, at how terrible, utterly horrible this would be and need not but remind ourselves of it now by considering for a moment what this verse tells us:

For ye … - The mention of the tree in the previous verse, gives the prophet occasion for the beautiful image in this. They had desired the oak, and they should be like it. That, when the frost came, was divested of its beauty, and its leaves faded, and fell; so should their beauty and privileges and happiness, as a people, fade away at the anger of God. Israel had been a wonderful and glorious “tree” in God’s garden.  He had hopes and the desire that they continue and that they grow to be an even more glorious tree to His mercy and grace.  But they didn’t want to submit to His authority, and so He came and judged them, chastening them for their sin.

A garden that hath no water - That is therefore withered and parched up; where nothing would flourish, but where all would be desolation - a most striking image of the approaching desolation of the Jewish nation. In Eastern countries this image would be more striking than with us. In these hot regions, a constant supply of water is necessary for the cultivation, and even for the very existence and preservation of a garden. Should it lack water for a few days, everything in it would be burned up with neat and totally destroyed. In all gardens, therefore, in those regions; there must be a constant supply of water, either from some neighboring river, or from some fountain or reservoir within it. To secure such a fountain became an object of indispensable importance, not only for the coolness and pleasantness of the garden, but for the very existence of the vegetation. One writer, that ‘all the gardens of Aleppo are on the banks of the river that runs by that city, or on the sides of the rill that supplies their aqueduct;’ and all the rest of the country he represents as perfectly burned up in the summer months, the gardens only retaining their verdure, on account of the moistness of their situation. Israel would be cut off from her supply of water, and she would suffer the same fate – she would wither and perish utterly.