Isaiah
23:14
14 Howl [yalal], ye ships ['oniyah] of Tarshish [Tarshiysh]:
for your strength [ma`owz] is laid waste [shadad]. KJV-Interlinear
13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This
is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected
their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin. ESV
The word for
howl, ‘yalal,’ means to wail, to scream with frustration and loss. And that is what people do when they hit a
place where they are totally helpless and unable to do anything about their
situation.
Whereas, prior
to this judgment, a person assumes that he can do anything, get out of any
predicament, have a plan B at hand, and otherwise continue on as he has always
done before.
People place
their trust in the resources of this world, in their research, in their
insurance, in their marketing skills, in the ways that they have become
accustomed to throughout their life.
They assume that
problems happen elsewhere and to others, but not to themselves.
The ships of
Tarshish, refer to the extensive trading industry of the world. Tyre was representative of mans manipulation
of the economics of the world.
When the
economies of the world collapse, then the trading partners collapse. When the trading partners collapse, then
there is no business, no employment, no solution.
For when man
manipulates the economics of life, then undoing all of the regulations becomes
virtually impossible, because the solutions attempted will be to place even more
regulations on top of the already huge burden of regulations that exist.
The result? Total collapse of virtually everything in
life. Then chaos takes control.
These things are
the events of the future. But do not forget
that when the Rapture does occur, many of the burdens of life will already
exist. That means that in our dispensation, the foundations of disaster will
already be in place, because we are putting them there.
These things do
not occur overnight, but over the course of several generations, as each
subsequent generation adds just another layer of burdens onto society, until it
eventually all collapses under the weight of those burdens.
And now the
latest update on the ebola problem, which you are probably following yourself
in the news. Yet another nurse has been diagnosed
with the virus, but not before she traveled to Cleveland. Another man who was a part of the lab work,
boarded a cruise ship and had to be brought back to shore. And now the news tells us that there are only
eleven beds available in the whole of the United States that are set up for
this type of quarantine!
When studying
Revelation and other passages, I often wondered how disease could spread so
fast throughout the entire world. And now it would seem that when people travel
and when a disease is so toxic, and when those who are responsible for
containing things like this, fail or make mistakes, then anything is possible.
Our
responsibility in all of this? Pursue
your daily Bible study as though it is your only hope, because it is. For one day, sooner or later, something like
this could get loose and then the tears of sorrow will flow like a flood.
