Isaiah 57: Peace for Contrite Survivors and Those They Persecuted -- 2019/12/13

Rev. Ben Ball, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamel, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 57. Judah has become a mess in the wake of the Babylonian devastation. Their religion has devolved into sexual immorality and sacrificing children to idols. In chapter 57 Isaiah says that the people are sorceresses and adulterers by their very nature. Isaiah speaks this way to offer repentance and forgiveness. There is still a way out! Those who repent will find healing and rebuilding: God is about to reunite the survivors with the exiles. And the faithful who die are “taken away from calamity” and enter into peace. Although we have found new ways to be guilty of the same old sins of idolatry, God makes us the same offer of repentance in Christ Jesus.