The Light that Leads to Destruction (Isaiah 50:11)

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:11)

You can’t light up a dark room with a lamp-shade and you can’t find light for the darkness of life through human reasoning. Just as a lamp-shade conceals light rather than giving light, so human reasoning and solutions conceal truth, righteousness, and the light of God.

The Bible is full of warnings not to trust in human reasoning and the danger that comes from trusting in human reasoning. It tells us of the error of man’s thinking, the darkened mind of man, the blindness of man, and the futility of man’s reasoning. It teaches us that man cannot view life correctly or understand what is right unless God supernaturally brings enlightenment by His Spirit through His Word (1 Cor. 2:14, 2 Cor. 4:4).

The amazing fact that this verse points out to us is that man, even God’s children will ignore, repress, and deny the truth of God and trust in their own thinking. We, yes we, do just what this verse is warning against. We kindle our fires and light our torches to walk by the light of our torches. We rely on our own thinking, understanding, solutions, and planning. And our light is just like a lamp-shade. It is worthless for lighting up the darkness. And God says, "You have this from my hand (I have decreed): you shall lie down in torment." Your "light," your reasoning, solutions, and plans for your life are only going to lead you to more torment, greater problems, greater darkness.

Some will object and say that man, even unbelievers can and do find solutions to problems. This is true. Man can, in his reasoning find temporary solutions for superficial, temporal problems. But these solutions are just temporary band-aids because they don’t change the heart. These solutions don’t deal with the real problem of man’s spiritual needs. And so the problems just spring up again. Many times, worse.

So, we can go our own way, relying on our intelligence, wisdom and planning to get us out of the dark situations we find ourselves in at times. And we will end up still in darkness, still trying to figure things out. Or, we can learn to distrust our thinking and reasoning and learn to trust in God and His Word. One path leads to continued darkness, the other to light and life. God has decreed it.

Soli Deo Gloria


Next: The "Chief End" of Man