Isaiah 32:9-15 NLT
“9 Listen, you women who lie around in ease.
Listen to me, you who are so smug.
10 In a short time—just a little more than a year—
you careless ones will suddenly begin to care.
For your fruit crops will fail,
and the harvest will never take place.
11 Tremble, you women of ease;
throw off your complacency.
Strip off your pretty clothes,
and put on burlap to show your grief.
12 Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms
and your fruitful grapevines.
13 For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers.
Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone.
14 The palace and the city will be deserted,
and busy towns will be empty.
Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze
in the empty forts and watchtowers
15 until at last the Spirit is poured out
on us from heaven.
Then the wilderness will become a fertile field,
and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.”
The Bible doesn’t focus so much on women. More often we find passages of Scripture addressed to men, or more generally to people. So to find a passage of Scripture addressed to women is relatively unusual. I suppose the most prominent is Proverbs 31, where Solomon enthused about “A Wife of Noble Character”, and verse 31 reads, “Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies”. He was right, of course, and the passage continues until it concludes the Book of Proverbs with, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise”. In the New Testament we read about a businesswoman called Lydia, whom Paul met on a riverbank in Philippi. In Acts 16:13-15, we read, “On the Sabbath we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank, where we thought people would be meeting for prayer, and we sat down to speak with some women who had gathered there. One of them was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshipped God. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart, and she accepted what Paul was saying. She and her household were baptised, and she asked us to be her guests. “If you agree that I am a true believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my home.” And she urged us until we agreed”. Incidentally, Lydia became the first recorded Christian convert in Europe, because Philippi was a town in Macedonia, now called Greece. But we can’t leave references to women in the Bible without visiting the poignant scene outside the empty tomb where it was a woman who first met the resurrected Jesus. John 20: “Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. … She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.” “Mary!” Jesus said. She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”)” (John 20: 11, 14-16).
But back in Isaiah 32, the women Isaiah described were of a different character. He described them as being careless, smug, and living a life of luxury, but, “In a short time—just a little more than a year— you careless ones will suddenly begin to care. For your fruit crops will fail, and the harvest will never take place” (Isaiah 32:10). Disaster was coming, and the women were warned about what this would mean. The land and the cities would become deserted, and the neglected flocks and a selection of donkeys would roam unchecked. This state of affairs would continue “until at last the Spirit is poured out on us from heaven. Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops” (Isaiah 32:15). Perhaps, for these women, the reality of what was about to happen to them was starting to dawn upon them, because the Assyrian army was getting ever closer, and they seemed unstoppable. What would happen to these women as the foreign invaders prevailed over the Judeans doesn’t bear thinking about, and most would have disappeared into death or exile, and history sooner or later, with luxury forgotten, and grief the norm for the survivors.
However, a time would come when God would once again pour out His Spirit from Heaven. For the Judeans and Israelites, this would be a long time coming, although at various points after the exile, God brought new life and His Spirit to the remnant of His faithful people. We note that the modern nation of Israel has not yet experienced an outpouring of God’s Spirit. But why have the Jews experienced such a roller-coaster of spiritual life? Probably for the same reason that many peoples do today. Life consists of a sequence of events that starts with God blessing His people, who then became complacent and neglect their relationship with Him. Then they find, usually too late, that life without God is no life at all, as disasters strike. In the Old Testament days, the people, well, those who survive, turn back to God and life starts again.
But that is all on a macro scale. What about us as pilgrims, personally? I have been richly blessed by God with a godly wife who, in so many ways, reflects the woman of Proverbs 31, and I know other men in the same situation with their wives. To live married life as God designed it in Genesis is, I believe, the sweet spot of man–woman relationships. That is not to say that everything is perfect, because sin is always lurking at the door and the devil will probe for any weak spots, but a relationship lived together in communion and fellowship with God surely brings a smile to His face.
Sadly, in our Western societies, God-ordained relationships are now in the minority. Many young people enter relationships with an exit plan already in mind, in case things “don’t work out”. Those who marry may make the vow “till death us do part”, but all too often it is quickly forgotten on the way to the divorce lawyers. I remember overhearing a phone conversation from a young woman in a nearby train seat; after a long and painful exchange she finally rang off with the words, “You told me that I could trust you.” Perhaps I had just overheard the end of a relationship that had gone sour. Looking at the divorce statistics, she was far from alone.
God never designed single-parent families. God never designed relationships between a man and a woman to be temporary. And He certainly never designed same-sex marriages, regardless of what the Church of Scotland may think or choose to condone.
Today, the women living luxurious lives without God, will not necessarily experience physical devastation, death and exile, but they will experience spiritual equivalents unless they live lives close to God. Some have never known God, and they journey through life never achieving what God intended. Others have a God-consciousness, perhaps through their upbringing, but never made a commitment to follow Jesus after they had grown up. But for every person, male or female, a life without God will lead to death and destruction one day, either in this life or the next. Such people will never experience the time when “at last the Spirit is poured out on us from Heaven”.
Dear Heavenly Father. Number us with Your people, we pray, so that one day we can arrive in the home You are preparing for us. We thank You for being with us on our life journeys and leading us in Your ways. Amen.
