POLLUTION OF THE EARTH BY MAN

POLLUTION OF THE EARTH BY MAN

"The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant" Isa. 24:5

The reasons differ from what modern science is trying to peddle today. God gives the correct reasons. This and the following three chapters constitute one prophetic utterance. It is a vision of the Day of Jehovah. In the series of the Burdens of the nations the prophet had taken a wider outlook than that of his own people, but always with the nation of God at the center. Here his outlook is still further enlarged as it takes in the whole earth; but here also God's people are in mind from beginning to end, viewed in their relation to the earth. The vision is in two movements; the first describes the desolation of the earth, (Isa. 24:1-20); the second describes the restoration which comes by the Day of Jehovah (Isa. 24:21­-27). The desolation is first declared to be the result of Divine action. It is "Jehovah makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof." Then—in these particular words—the reason of this desolate activity of God is revealed. It is that the earth is polluted under its inhabitants. The act of God is the operation of the laws by which the Divine creation is governed. Man has transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the covenant. For an interpretation of these words of Isaiah read Paul—Rom. 1:18-32. In these words we find recognition of a true order. In it, man, keeping covenant, observing the ordinance; obeying law, reigns over the earth, and leads it out into all beauty and fruitfulness. WHEN MAN BREAKS DOWN IN HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, HIS LAWS, HIS ORDINANCES, HIS COVENANT,—THEN HE BECOMES POLLUTED, AND HE COMMUNICATES HIS POLLUTION TO THE EARTH. This is the interpretation of all disease, all insanity, all the things of waste, of disorder, of strife, of misery in human history and human experience. A polluted race pollutes the earth, and chaos is the result.