The LORD’s Last Word – the Oppressed, Delivered

“Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,

and the disgrace of his people will be taken away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.”

~Isaiah 25:8 (NRSV).

This has to be every suffering believer’s wildest dream come true; that God would one eternal day come past each face in the land of heaven and wipe from beneath each and every eye the tears borne for the length and depth of life.

This will be the Lord’s last word!

The true dignity of Christian-being is far disposed from all of us; due both troubled circumstances and sin. But that dignity will soon be known.

Isaiah 25 – The Oppressed Praise God

If we feel oppressed there is good news ahead. I wonder how we feel if we aren’t oppressed. The simple fact is the oppressed are promised a higher portion of blessing in heaven. Jesus spoke many times about this, as is reported in the gospels. Maybe that makes us, for a fleeting moment, envy the oppressed... don’t worry, it won’t last long.

As Isaiah ebbs and flows there’s a leaving and then a returning to the sort of Scripture we like to read — for devotional purposes. Oracles (for instance, chapters 14–23) against ‘the nations’ are, though, not good reading. They’re full of judgment and the modern Christian wants nothing to do with it — though, truth be known, they have a purpose.

With signs for delivery, the oppressed rise to voice!

Indeed, Isaiah 25 reads just like a praise psalm. Above all, the faithful praise most the fact that the Lord’s name is vindicated. (The faithful and the oppressed are one and the same.)

Deliverance Now and To Come

As we look at the aspects of oppression, we soon learn that attempting to live a righteous, just and fair life is hard enough. Everyone who genuinely tries to do that will find themselves, at many points, oppressed — beyond specific bodily, mental or emotional oppression, for which some are unenviably scourged.

It’s biblically true — as is seen here in Isaiah 25 — that those oppressed are promised their deliverance. God, our faithful Lord, is intent on it.

It’s for us to not give up.

It’s for us to ensure the grip we have over our acumen for good is not relinquished, for the Holy Spirit favours us.

It’s for us to know that God will — in his time and plan — make good of every minor and significant indiscretion we suffered.

Best of all is the personal treatment we’re set to attain at the Lord’s grasp. Due the relational component of our New Covenant blessing, bequeathed in Jesus, God will apportion to us incredibly more than we can begin to imagine.

We must prepare to thank our faithful God for what is destined to occur.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: College of the Open Bible.