Today, I'm looking at Isaiah 22. There are a lot of takeaway points in this particular chapter, but the one I'm gonna focus on right now is the Bible debunking the "yolo" myth (a few thousand years before anyone actually coined the term!).
The idea behind "YOLO" is that you only live once, and so you might as well use this life to do whatever's fun or exciting in the moment. It doesn't just mean the big things like drugs, stealing and pre-marital sex. It concerns the little things, like saying mean or perverse things, breaking rules and defying authority.
I don't mean to be a killjoy, but this is a really wrong idea.
Isaiah 22:13-15
But instead, you dance and play;
you slaughter cattle and kill sheep.
You feast on meat and drink wine.
You say, “Let’s feast and drink,
for tomorrow we die!”
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has revealed this to me: “Till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin.” That is the judgment of the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Quick note: I know it's pretty obvious, but eating and drinking doesn't refer to just eating and drinking. It refers to throwing your life away doing extravagant things that please you and the people around you, but don't please God.
The Bible is saying that God didn't call you to do this. He called you to do so much more. In fact, God wants you to do something so much more important than this that He gets really upset when you don't. He goes on for 10 verses just saying how He will punish those who squander their lives on worthless things.
Verse 16: "what right do you have here?"
Verse 18: "you shame of your master's house."
Verse 19: "and I will pull you down from your station."
Verse 21: "and I will clothe him (the servant Eliakim) with your tunic, I will entrust him with your authority."
In summary, He will shame you. Big time.
If that's not enough to put you off...
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
The fact that this anti-yolo thing is in the Bible means that it's very important to God, and if God means anything to us, it should concern us too.
So what has God called us to do? That's in verse 12.
The Lord, the Lord Almighty,
called you on that day
to weep and to wail,
to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
I know. It doesn't sound as fun. Actually, it sounds a little pointless. Right?
But what God actually means is that he wants you to be broken for Him, He wants you to see the world around you and be devastated by the secular things you see. He wants you to be so upset at these things that defy what the Bible instructs that you have to go out there and do something to change it. That's what we are to do. We need to be dynamic, powerful, strong and 100% trusting in Him.
We need to have the courage to be dead to our old sins, and be willing to be a martyr for Christ, in whatever way He asks of you.
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