Passage: Isaiah 32:9-20 Complacent Women Warned of Disaster.
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10 In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
13 for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.
14 For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19 And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
Journal: Complacency is a dangerous thing. It can cause the small business owner to lose ground to the competition. It can cause a relationship to stagnate. It can lead to acts previously considered unfathomable. Sin is at our core, for a sinful nature is our core. This sinful nature flourishes where pride is prevalent, and pride often sprouts in the midst of our complacency.
What leads to a complacent attitude? Well, certainly abundance is a building block of complacency. Recall what Isaiah said to Judah back in Chapter 22 [Isaiah 22:13 -- and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."] In reality, we are complacent about our own mortality, and therefore cavalier about our coming judgment. Absent some severe prognosis, do any of us believe that death is knocking on our door? There is always plenty of time to get our affairs in order, and we consider our relationship with God, our righteousness, to be an item on our checklist of affairs.
God wants us to develop an attitude of urgency. [Isaiah 32:9-10 --"Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.] A child of God is to give glory to God, and that glory in part is bound up in the sanctification of His saints. Complacency works against sanctification, for one cannot become holy as a result of an apathetic undertaking. No, holiness must be pursued with vigor, for it leads to the foot of the throne of God, and that pathway is not the easy way. Yet, the destination achieved is worth the journey undertaken. [Isaiah 32:17-18 -- "And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places."]
Heard 'Round the House: You folks have no idea the trouble I go through preparing the Daily Journal. Little Ms. Ella, the three year old we adopted from Colombia, decided to rip the J and the 9 off of the lap top we use at home. So, when I need either of these, I must search through something else [usually email] to find a J or a 9, copy it, and then paste it. This is very annoying, especially since mommy and daddy are named ohn and ill, uh John and Jill . . .
