Rebellious People

Rebellious people.  While what we have been reading in Isaiah were specific prophecies about specific nations, we can still learn from it.  Did you notice the description of the rebellious people in today’s reading?  It says, “They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not want to listen to the Lord’s instruction.  They say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy the truth to us.  Tell us flattering things.  Prophesy illusions” (Isaiah 30:9-10). This should sound familiar, for Paul writes to Timothy, providing a description of a people in a similar condition.  Paul writes, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).