Isaiah 3:1-12

For behold, the Lord [a]God of hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah
Both [b]supply and support, the whole [c]supply of bread
And the whole [d]supply of water;
The mighty man and the warrior,
The judge and the prophet,
The diviner and the elder,
The captain of fifty and the honorable man,
The counselor and the expert artisan,
And the skillful enchanter.
And I will make mere lads their princes,
And [e]capricious children will rule over them,
And the people will be oppressed,
Each one by another, and each one by his neighbor;
The youth will storm against the elder
And the inferior against the honorable.
When a man lays hold of his brother in his father’s house, saying,
“You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler,
And these ruins will be under your [f]charge,”
He will [g]protest on that day, saying,
“I will not be your [h]healer,
For in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;
You should not appoint me ruler of the people.”
For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen,
Because their [i]speech and their actions are against the Lord,
To rebel against [j]His glorious presence.
9 [k]The expression of their faces bears witness against them,
And they display their sin like Sodom;
They do not even conceal it.
Woe to [l]them!
For they have brought evil on themselves.
10 Say to the righteous that it will go well with them,
For they will eat the fruit of their actions.
11 Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him,
For [m]what he deserves will be done to him.
12 O My people! Their oppressors [n]are children,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray
And confuse the direction of your paths.

In the middle of this passage, there is an interesting episode, in vv. 6-7. The people are so desperate, having no food or water, and there is a dearth of leadership and skilled workers. So one man says to another, “Hey, you have a cloak, right? That’s more than I have, why don’t you lead our people?” It seems perhaps silly, but what is he really looking for?

The answer is in the reply of the brother, “I will not be your healer…” These people were wicked, they didn’t want good leadership, which is probably why God took it from them. Side note, this passage describes the future, and it’s no wonder all the “good” stories from Israel’s captivity are from the land of captivity, and not the remnant. God followed through on his promise, and all the good people were taken into captivity.

Anyway, back to this odd scenario… If they didn’t want good leaders, what did they want? They wanted someone to make things right, and more specifically to make them whole. Instead of doing what was right themselves, they were looking to someone, anyone else to fix their lives and fix their mess. Sound familiar?

We have the same dearth of good leaders in our culture today, for a myriad of reasons. But a big one is men who refuse to take responsibility. It’s a natural tendency, as any man could attest, but to do so is to deny who God has called us to be. We live in a culture where responsibility for one’s own actions is a strange and novel concept. The government will fix it, we’ll vote in the right people that say the right words, and all will be better.

Jesus parable of the talents tells a different story. We must take responsibility for the gifts God has given us, and not blame anyone else for the results, or lack thereof. We won’t be judged for what our neighbor has done, or our senator, or our governor, etc. We will be judged for what we’ve done with His gifts, and that is plenty.

Maybe you don’t have a cloak either, but God doesn’t leave anyone empty handed. Perhaps it’s just a little oil (2 Kings 4), but God can use even the smallest things. Take stock of what you do have, and ask God what he can do with it. Step up and be who God has called you to be.

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