To console those who mourn. . . to give them beauty for ashes. . .” – Isaiah 61:3
California is being devastated by terrible wildfires. People rich and poor are losing everything. “Mother Nature” does not discriminate. “Mother Nature” can be betraying, vicious and brutal to those who bow at her alter. Many of the conditions leading to this tragic state were put in place in the name of environmentalism. But compounding the pain are those who are already looking at the causes of this natural disaster and finding government shortsightedness and shallow thinking as facilitators. Fire department budgets were cut. Reservoirs were left empty. Forests were left wild and unattended. Lurking in the wings are earthquake tremors that are common for this area of the country but nevertheless threaten to make the heavy weight of hurt even heavier. Jesus once said, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). For those who have lost worldly possessions, mementoes, and objects of precious memories, they are glad to escape with their soul. To those who have lost so much, to the rich, and to the poor, I want to encourage you that the Creator God can bring beauty from your ashes.
For encouragement and hope, to find how God can bring beauty from your ashes, we need only look to the tiny nation of Israel as a life example. When God’s people persisted in their idolatry for nearly five hundred years, their longsuffering God decided enough was enough. As a consequence for their persistent sin, God allowed them to be defeated and taken into captivity. Besides their sin of idolatry Israel was guilty of an environmental sin. For 490 years they had neglected to allow the Land to rest every Sabbatical or seventh year (Leviticus 25:1-7). Israel owed a debt of seventy years of rest to God’s Land. And it was for seventy years that Israel would be in captivity.
Once Israel’s discipline was complete, God arranged through a prophetic word, for His people to be allowed to return to His Land and His Holy City Jerusalem (Jeremiah 25:11; Ezra and Nehemiah). The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Persian king Cyrus who would provide for this return some one hundred and fifty years before it happened (Isaiah 44 and 45). The night that Medo-Persians defeated the Babylonians and came to power the prophet Daniel had been summoned to interpret a manifestation God made at a wild party of the Babylonian king Belshazzar. The account is recorded in Daniel chapter five.
This secular king Belshazzar had made the mistake of abusing the holy implements of the Temple that he had taken as booty when Jerusalem was defeated. Belshazzar was literally sobered to a knee shaking terror when the Finger of God wrote on the wall of his party chamber, “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” None of the king’s astrologers, Chaldeans, soothsayers, or wisemen were able to interpret these words. Providentially, the prophet Daniel was called in to interpret these words. Daniel knew this was not a time for diplomacy or weak words, but he spoke straight to the point. “You have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven” Daniel began. And then he said, “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; . . . Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” Sure enough, that night Babylon fell. Just as Daniel had been inspired by God to interpret, that great city of Babylon with walls so thick three chariots could race across the top of them, was breeched by the Medo-Persian army. Later when Cyrus ascended to the throne of Persia he apparently never forgot the circumstances of this fateful night. Maybe the message of God through Daniel made its way to Cyrus that God, “removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21). For us the message is clear too, GOD IS IN CONTROL. It was Cyrus who gave God’s people permission to return from their captivity.
But just as God spoke to Cyrus through Daniel, he can speak to us. That book of Daniel contains one of the most remarkable prophetic words in all of scripture. It is in Daniel 9 that God responds to the prophet’s prayer by informing him that He has allotted four hundred and ninety years of His prophetic plan to include Israel. Most importantly, from the date that God’s people were given permission to return to their Land, it would be 483 years until the anointed Messiah-Savior would come to Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-27). That Anointed One was and is Jesus.
If you want God to turn your ashes into something beautiful you must come to Jesus. Beauty coming from ashes begins with Jesus. In fact, Jesus began His ministry by reading from Isaiah 61 where it states, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD” (Luke 4:18-20; Isaiah 61:1-2a). The Holy Spirit was upon Jesus anointing Him for ministry. Jesus’ message was that we must be born again. Just as we have been physically born, we need to be spiritually born (John 3). It is only with the Holy Spirit within us that we can follow in the steps of Jesus and preach the gospel and minister to people. It is only with the Holy Spirit’s help that we can have our own broken hearts healed and help others with broken hearts to find healing. It is only by the Holy Spirit that captives can be freed, blind can see, and the oppressed can truly find liberty. And it is through the Holy Spirit that we can find where we fit prophetically into the acceptable year of the Lord.
It’s interesting where Jesus chose to end His reading. Jesus stopped in mid verse. Isaiah 61:2 continues, “And the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” The Bible says that everyone will one day face judgment (Hebrew 9:27). Hopefully when that time comes for us we are right with God through faith in Jesus and it will be a comfort to us. That day of judgment Jesus chose to put off mentioning is coming. Judgment is coming to us individually, and it is coming to the world generally. Are you ready for judgment day?
There’s something further I’d like to point out. It is in the context of Isaiah 61 where it continues, “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3). Israel would find consolation and beauty for their ashes when they returned to the Land, and particularly Jerusalem. But their “beauty” was incomplete and will remain incomplete until they come to Jesus. It is in Jesus and the gospel’s life in the Spirit that we truly experience the “oil of joy.” When the Bible says to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” it is referencing Isaiah’s “garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” “Trees of righteousness” and “the planting of the LORD” is found in Jesus the Vine (John 15). And all of this is so “He may be glorified.” Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10b). He said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).
For those who are suffering the loss of material things, I want to encourage you. While you may have lost precious valuables, you are still alive and still have the opportunity to tend to your eternal soul. No matter how devastated you feel, no matter how much you’ve lost, God is able to take the ingredients of your ashes, and if you let Him, if you ask Him, He can make something beautiful from them. God is in the beauty for ashes business. We see that in His workings with Israel. We can see that in our individual lives.
I’ll close with this, In Isaiah 61 there is one more verse that was encouraging to Israel and that is instructive to us. Isaiah 61:4 goes on to promise, “And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.” God has a beautiful rebuilding program for those who have suffered loss. Israel has experienced that historically and will one day experience it spiritually (Zechariah 12:10). Those individually in the ashes can also look to the Lord for rebuilding. But its important how we build because how we build determines if we will be susceptible to repeated losses. There is a way to build so that you will never be burned again, never be blown away again, never be bowed down again. Oh, you may face trials and fires and even shakings in life, but you can stand strong through it all if you just build right. Jesus said:
Matthew 7:24–27 (NKJV) – 24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Ashes or beauty? What will your story be?