What is left?

This week's study is on Isaiah 17:1-8:

A prophecy against Damascus:

“See, Damascus will no longer be a city
but will become a heap of ruins.
The cities of Aroer will be deserted
and left to flocks, which will lie down,
with no one to make them afraid.
The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
like the glory of the Israelites,”
declares the Lord Almighty.

“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
the fat of his body will waste away.
It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain,
gathering the grain in their arms—
as when someone gleans heads of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.
Yet some gleanings will remain,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
four or five on the fruitful boughs,”
declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

In that day people will look to their Maker
and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
They will not look to the altars,
the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles
and the incense altars their fingers have made.

These verses are a prophesy about what will happen to the Assyrian Empire after Isaiah's time. It talks about what happens when an empire falls and a culture disappears into history. Something similar happened after the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe, where powers changed and people had to trust in God more through invasions and diseases and ignorance.

In Isaiah's time, Assyria was a huge regional power. Think of them as something like the United States or Russia are today. It seemed unimaginable that they would ever just go away. The Assyrians were at war with Israel, and a bunch of other cultures, trying to expand their empire into new regions. Even the king of Israel made compromises with them because of their strength. And yet God told Isaiah that their kingdom would disappear from the earth.

He mentioned huge cities that would no longer be huge in the future. Military bases that would no longer be there. Ethnic groups that would no longer live in the region, like the Arameans. He even mentions the Jewish people being sparse and less powerful in that future time, before we were born but long after his death. He must have seemed crazy!

But when an empire falls, or an economy or political movement fails, there's a vacuum of power and something has to fill it. In this case, it was a blessing that these empires crumbled because people were forced to turn to God for their needs. They weren't looking at their technologies or their great architecture. They weren't worshiping at the idols of their fallen empires. The people turned and returned to God.

When we experience hardship or loss, do we turn to God? Or do we try to find another idol or benefactor to fill the gap? When money is tight, the internet isn't working correctly, our phone is out of battery, our parents are on vacation, and so on, do we ask God to fill the gap or do we just make do with what is left? Does God even come to mind as our source of protection and provision?

And what about when we are oppressed by some awful force? Maybe it's layoffs, maybe it's a bad chronic sickness, or people stirring up drama, or political changes; it doesn't really matter what. But how do we process it? Do we look at it and laugh at the challenge and ourselves, and turn to God, or do we cower in fear and surrender?

Isaiah was like "Look, these Assyrians aren't even going to be here after too long. And we'll be different too. But God is always going to be here, and we need to turn to him." Eternity is a long time. Nothing we are worried about now will matter in a short while, but God will still be there when it is done.