Isaiah 47:1 Come, down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Profit for Your Old Age
I don’t know what you think of your age, but I am always shocked when I realize how old I am. I don’t feel like I’m that old. Life is brief, and a god that will not profit in old age should not be pursued in youth, as Isaiah 47 illustrates.
When God addressed Babylon, the world empire that would come to nothing, He said, “And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.” Babylon never thought about what life would be like when she got old. She never thought about what would happen when the power and money ran out and there was someone bigger, stronger, and greater than she was.
Babylon was careless and given to pleasure. She never thought about the future. If that can be true of an empire, then it can certainly be true of you or me. How unwise it is to live life merely for pleasure. Now, the Bible tells us that God has given us richly all things to enjoy, but to live merely for pleasure and without thinking about the future is unwise.
Babylon never intended to become a widow. She thought she would always be young, but she was not. No god that you cannot trust in your old age should be pursued in your youth. There are so many things that we pursue after, things that can’t take care of us in our old age.
Psalm 37 says, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Today, so many of us are pursuing pleasures, ideas, and goals that won’t profit a lick tomorrow, and certainly not in ten or twenty years. The wise country, the wise person, is a person who follows today the God that will profit tomorrow.