When will they ever learn?
This chorus from an old PPM song keeps coming to mind as I watch our leaders’ response to the current economic crisis and compare it to what we’ve been reading in Isaiah.
More than a decade before Samaria fell in 722 BC, the Assyrian host invaded the northern kingdom and took many of its citizens captive (2 Kings 15:29). Confronted with this disaster, the nation ought to have paused to consider its spiritual roots. God was trying to get their attention (Isa 9:8). But they were too proud to admit that they were under judgment for sin. So they put on a good face (Isa 9:10):
“The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”
They ignore the divine origin of this disaster, and resolve in their own pride to come back stronger than before.
Their resolve, over 2700 years old, has a strikingly modern ring. It is ominously similar to President Obama’s words in his address to the joint session of congress on Tuesday, Feb 24,
“But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
Even the most secular analyst recognizes that our current economic crisis is due to the selfishness and greed of the nation, not only among bank presidents, but among ordinary citizens who borrowed more than they could afford in a frenzy of consumerism. Yet we refuse to see our current crisis as the judgment of God upon our covetousness. We should be confessing our national sin and turning to the Lord. Instead, we defiantly insist that we will rebuild. Ephraim’s example suggests that we will continue in this proud, God-denying attitude until the final destruction falls upon us.
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
