03/02/2023 - EVIL IS ALREADY OVER

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Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, and drained it out. Isaiah 51.17

The Israelites had forgotten something important: God is love and justice at the same time. They gave themselves over to sin, and because they didn’t want to change their bad practices, they were taken into captivity to Babylon (2 Kings 24.10-20). Now, all the work of the Lord to bring them out of Egypt, with the purpose of making them examples of His goodness, went down the drain, because they did not repent of their transgression.

Certainly, the heart of the Most High was saddened to see them under the oppression of a kingdom worse than the Egyptian one. But they would have to return to the school of life, never again to act outside the divine plan. They were 70 years of pure anguish, humiliation and unquestionable suffering. But the time was coming for God to set them free. So, He used Isaiah to give them the good news, reminding them how much they had suffered for their rebellion.

The prophet begins by summoning them: Awake, awake. The fact that he spoke twice meant that the Lord was in a hurry. When Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s two dreams, which contained the same subject, he told the potentate of Egypt that the Lord used the repetition because He was in a hurry, or His people would starve (Genesis 41.32). The awakening was spiritual, when the people would begin to seek God’s presence for Him to fulfill His promise.

Jerusalem should rise up within each one, after all, the time of the visitation of the Most High was at hand. Likewise, we have to teach the people to draw near to God, in order to get rid of enemies and evils. While people are fallen, without the desire to improve their conditions, nothing can be done. The Bible gives the following message: The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit? (Proverbs 18.14). Believe!

The Lord warned that the wickedness done to His people would be the cup that Israel’s opponents would drink. When invading the kingdom of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar partnered with other nations. Probably many of them exceeded themselves in the punishment they were allowed to inflict on God’s people. Now, when the Babylonian empire fell under Cyrus the Persian, it was said that wickedness would come the way it was executed (Matthew 26.52).

Never do something to make God angry with you; otherwise, you will fall into the hands of the adversaries. They drank the cup of His wrath – judgment. Imagine the people who never pay attention to the Almighty, and still disdain His patience? Try to be in communion with Him, following His orders, to drink the cup of His love, and not of His wrath. The wickedness of man will determine the size of his punishment, if he is deserving of it.

The nations have treated the people of the Lord, the heir to the promise, who will judge the world, outrageously – by giving them the cup of trembling (rough language: strong punishment). They drank the dregs of the cup of trembling. So don’t waver in your faith when taking hold of your rights, because the punishment will be equal to the transgression. There is no reason to sin when God speaks (Matthew 14.31).

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares