Isaiah 65:1-3, 5, 17 The Lord says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name. All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people. But they followed their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes. All day long they insult me to my face by worshiping idols in their sacred gardens… These people are a stench in my nostrils, an acrid smell that never goes away….. For when I called, you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen. You deliberately sinned – before my very eyes – and chose to do what you know I despise.”
And so your Nation. I have been here all along. I have been willing to help you. I have been waiting for your people to seek me. I have been patiently waiting – as a good father will – to intervene and save my children. Yet, you do not ask. You seek to remain in your sin. You seek other gods. You seek pleasure. You do not seek me. Therefore, I allow you to experience all that you seek, all of its pain and emptiness and horror. You are a duplicitous people – so arrogant in your certainty that you are good. So blind to your own sin. So quick to judge others. Yet, it is you who are the stench in my nostrils. I expect those who do not know me, who do not believe in me – I expect them to sin. Yet you, you who claim to believe in me, you who purport to follow me – it is you that I reject. It is you that is a stench in my nostrils. It is you that I will completely abandon if you do not change course soon. Repent.
Amanuensis 