Passage Read: Isaiah 23-26
Meditation Verses: 25:4-5
Thought
The Lord is not a defense to any and all who are helpless, He is a defense to those who love Him and walk in His ways, who because of their faithfulness to His ways are easily overcome by the wicked of the earth. The wicked don't care about kindness or righteousness or goodness. They only care about strengthening themselves and taking what they want. They delight in getting away with oppression and injustice. So the righteous are weak in comparison. They repay evil with good, they bless and do not curse. So the wicked has no fear of them and does whatever he pleases. The righteous must wait for deliverance, for when God rises to judge the nations. At that time, the righteous will rule over all, yet will do so in true justice and love.
Application
I hate to see anyone oppressed by bullies, and so does God. He wants all people to know and love Him so as to walk in His gracious and giving ways. And God delivers some from the hand of the oppressor, but not all. He doesn't protect His own people from the oppression of wicked men! The ultimate deliverance is from all wicked men and from all oppression when the Lord sets up His kingdom on earth, that's what the righteous hope for with absolute assurance. There are helpless people everywhere being oppressed by wicked men, but unless they trust in Christ, they will depart this life and suffer eternal torment. That's no deliverance. The hope of the helpless is God, but they must turn to Him in order to receive true deliverance. I may be able to deliver a helpless person from trouble once or twice, but if they don't turn to the Lord, their deliverance is meaningless because it is short-lived. It may even be their own sin that brings them under the judgment of earthly oppressors. The Lord is a defense to His people who are helpless before the wicked because of their faithfulness to His ways. He is not a defense to the helpless who care nothing for Him. What they suffer may not actually be oppression, but justice and judgment. For me to attempt to or successfully deliver them would be to work at odds with God. The unbelieving helpless say they need deliverance before they can think about believing in God or as proof of God's existence and love. But what they really need is to believe in God in the midst of their oppression so they can turn away from anything they're doing that may have brought on their trouble and so that they can become an object of God's compassion whom He will defend. The weak and the strong are alike: The thing they both need most is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.