Isaiah 2:5 through 4:1 tells the tale of a bitter future for the people of God. What is described is "that day" when the Lord will judge the children of Israel for their deeds and bring low the proud.
Because of idolatry and inter-mingling with foreign spiritual influences, the nation will suffer a great leveling. "The haughty eyes of people shall be brought low, and the pride of everyone shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day. For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is high and lifted up" (Isaiah 2:11-12). This idea of the Lord being opposed to the proud is a consistent theme running throughout scripture, turning up in such places as the Magnificat of Mary in Luke 1 and the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.
Here Isaiah emphasizes God's coming judgment against the idolatry of the nation and what will happen when the Lord finally turns against her. "On that day" is a phrase we hear repeatedly (2:17, 2:20, 3:7, 3:18, 4:1). On that day, the proud will be brought low and the nation will be left without help (3:1). Because of their oppression of the poor and their trust in themselves and their riches rather than Him, the Lord "rises to argue his case; he stands to judge the peoples" (3:13).
The overriding sense and emotion of that day is "terror" as described in 2:20-21: "On that day the people will throw away to the moles and to the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts in the crags, from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth." It is, most definitely, a "bad future."
The coming "day of judgment" is a part of our prophetic future just as much as a people eventually reconciled and abiding in the Lord. Which future are we striving toward?
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