Come! Let us Walk in the Light of the Lord: Isaiah’s Refutation of Occultism and Call for Reliance upon Yahweh

Our post-modern world has changed little from the time of the prophet Isaiah.

Threatened by war, disease, famine, and financial ruin, modern man finds himself driven to place his reliance upon the knowledge of men, finding a sense of assurance in material wealth, modern medicine, and technology, rather than God.

In the eighth century BCE, Israel was also threatened by war, disease, famine, and financial ruin, and they too sought out some guarantee of survival. Like modern man, they placed their reliance upon the knowledge of men finding assurance in the occult arts rather than God. Yet Isaiah was a revolutionary. He had experienced God in all his holiness. The prophet had come to know God as the Sovereign God of the universe, who, when compared to the limited potency of magic and divination, was the potent living God. Seeing his people walking in the dark ways of man, Isaiah viewed it as his task to demonstrate the ineff€ectiveness of occult practices. Isaiah was compelled to cry out to his people: Come! Let us walk in the light of the Lord! The prophet was imploring his people to reject the occult and to place their complete reliance upon God alone or face disaster.