Metaphorically Speaking
Isaiah 32:1-2
Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm … like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
Isaiah has just described at length the coming judgement of God as a sweeping hurricane that leaves an already desecrated world of sinners in total desolation, so these lines here serve as a sort of metaphorical fulcrum for the whole book. I’m tempted to just sit back and admire the richness of Isaiah’s poetry in a literary sense, even in an eschatological sense, but then I’d miss the practicable power of these analogies for my present tense. Remember your English classes, friend: to miss the object of a symbol is to miss the meaning of it. And we can’t afford to miss a promise as needed as this. So friend, amidst the winds of today’s trials, amidst the gale of cultural ungodliness, amidst the soul-killing ideologies sweeping through society, let Christ be your Prince of Peace in the conflict and your Comforter in the wilderness and your Rock of Ages in the present storm.
Oh that the King of righteousness would reign in our hearts today! And oh that we might behold Him along the way.