Of What Account Is Man? (Isaiah 2:22)

 


Wednesday, December 4, 2024


Psalm 80

Isaiah 2:19-3:12

Mark 5:1-20


Observance: Nicholas Ferrar, deacon and man of prayer (d. 1637)


Of What Account Is Man? (Isaiah 2:22)


The search for a guide to virtuous living is a search that has kept humanity busy for a very long time. One cannot turn their head without bumping into someone who thinks they have it all figured out, and is trying to convince everyone else that their way is the right way. But in today’s passage from Isaiah we can see exactly where we should be looking, and what happens when we don’t look in the right place.


God is very clear that he alone has the power over life and death; wealth and poverty; virtue and wickedness; success and failure. The people to whom Isaiah is prophesying have turned from the Lord’s ways, and so the Lord is withdrawing his blessing. What results is the implosion of society from top to bottom.


We all rely on the farmers who provide our bread, and the engineers who deliver our clean water. We need the mighty men and the soldiers to protect us, fair judges, honest prophets, and faithful diviners of God’s word: virtue needs to run through every single person, and when it does, everyone’s life improves. When those virtues are ignored, then our rulers are like infants, neighbours oppress one another, youths are insolent to their elders, and the honourable are despised.


No-one is making you act virtuously. There is no law that Parliament can write that can make us good people. Stop regarding man when looking for virtue, says the Lord; for of what account is he?


We have the Lord Jesus, who loves us and gave his life for us. He is our Lord, drawing us close, and he commands us to live virtuous lives purely on the basis that he loves us, and we love him.


Where do you find the inner drive to choose virtue in any given situation? What basic things in your daily life could you start with?


Lord God of hosts, you promise that it will be well with the righteous, and that we will eat the fruit of our deeds. Fill our hearts with the desire live virtuously, and give us the grace to fulfil that desire.

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