The hungry they leave empty

Isaiah 32:1-8 TNIV

See, a king will reign in righteousness

and rulers will rule with justice.

Each one will be like a shelter from the wind

and a refuge from the storm,

like streams of water in the desert

and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,

and the ears of those who hear will listen.

The fearful heart will know and understand,

and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

No longer will the fool be called noble

nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

For fools speak folly,

their hearts are bent on evil:

They practice ungodliness

and spread error concerning the Lord ;

the hungry they leave empty

and from the thirsty they withhold water.

Scoundrels use wicked methods,

they make up evil schemes

to destroy the poor with lies,

even when the plea of the needy is just.

But the noble make noble plans,

and by noble deeds they stand.


My thoughts -

What does God desire from us? What does God desire from our leaders? I think these are important questions. Individually and collectively we see time and time again that living outside of God's will leads to destruction. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, weaves a narrative of God and God's people. It's a passionate, if dysfunctional romance. An on again and off again relationship. It runs hot and cold. The people embrace and reject God. They are rebuilt and they are destroyed and they are restored again.

Individually you see this hot and cold with God and with people. A lot of us have stories of coming to Jesus and being "on fire" for God and then cooling off. We get caught up in worldly thinking. We get tied up in the things of this life. We forget our first love. We no longer seek God's will.

But that gets me back to that initial question. What is God's will? What does God want from God's people and what does God want from our leaders?

In the Bible you see this on again off again relationship between God and God's people play out pretty much the same way all of the time. When things are "hot", when they're "on", when the people are right with God there are two things that always seem to happen.

First, they worship God and only God. They don't worship idols. They don't worship what they produce themselves. They don't get enamoured with their fleeting human stuff, the things of this world that don't last.

And second, they have righteous leaders that care about justice. They have leaders that understand that, ultimately, power like everything else is God's. These righteous, godly leaders then use what power God has allowed them to have not for personal enrichment at the expense of justice, but they use it to pursue justice. They use their power to ensure that the interests of those without power are not trampled on.

In this passage we see the righteous and the scoundrels compared and contrasted. What does the righteous ruler do? The righteous rule with justice. The righteous are a shelter. The righteous our protection for the weak and for the needy.

And the scoundrel? The scoundrel destroys the poor with lies. They spread lies about the Lord. They distort. They abuse. They leave the hungry unfed. They give the thirsty nothing to drink. They're in it only for themselves. They abuse the weak and the oppressed. They're nothing more than self enriching opportunists. In short, they are evil.

Now, what kind of leaders do we have? What kind of people are we? Are we doing God's will? Are we a righteous people who care for the needs of the weak, the poor, the helpless, the oppressed, the hungry, the thirsty, the lost and the broken?

Or are we a people who are distracted by the idols in our lives that we have made with our own hands? Have we been taken in by the fleeting things in this life and by the lies of scoundrels?

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