What Do We Exalt?

For the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has a day of reckoning. He will punish the proud and mighty and bring down everything that is exalted. [Isaiah 2.12]

What are we lifting up? What are we exalting? 

Look back at verses 5-8 of Isaiah 2:

Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD! For the LORD has rejected his people, the descendants of Jacob, because they have filled their land with practices from the East and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do. They have made alliances with pagans. Israel is full of silver and gold; there is no end to its treasures. Their land is full of warhorses; there is no end to its chariots. Their land is full of idols; the people worship things they have made with their own hands.

The people of Judah were exalting foreign ideas and religions.

The people of Judah had made alliances with pagans.

These Israelites had made riches a priority.

Military might had become a priority.

Idol worship (worshiping self-made gods) at best, diluted worship of God and, at worst, replaced it altogether. Things made with their hands...

Look though at verse 11:

Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the LORD will be exalted on that day of judgment.

The point I am making is this: we, as a nation, are not so different than the people of Judah that Isaiah brought this prophecy against! The United States was founded on Christian faith and practice - but what is exalted now? Our tolerance? Our alliances? Our wealth? Our military might? How about our technology (things made with our hands)?

We can be sure that human pride will indeed be brought down...

Father, forgive me for trusting in and exalting anything but You.