Hope for Believers Who Have Neglected Justice

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Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

Isaiah 59:9

What hope is there for believers who have neglected justice? The answer is God: “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear” (59:1).

But here’s the problem: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (59:2). We have no way of breaking through to God. Our only hope is that He should break through to us.

In the middle of the chapter in Isaiah 59, God’s people come to Him in confession. Up until then, Isaiah was saying, “The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths” (59:8). He uses that language because he is speaking the Word of God to the people. But then suddenly from verse 9, Isaiah is standing with the people, talking about “us” and “we.” They turn to God together, owning their own sin and the sin of the nation.

Make these words from Isaiah 59 a prayer for yourself and for our nation: “Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom... For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us… we know our iniquities: transgressing. and denying the LORD. and turning back from following our God” (59:9, 12-13).