Isaiah 5:8 KJV
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
The sin that is condemned in the context is that of covetousness and greed. It refers to the person who keeps getting land and houses until he is the baron of the place. He owns it all and anyone who lives in his area answers to him. It reminds me of the old western movies where John Wayne is the good guy who owns all the land and lets the small-timers use his water, but then comes the wicked guy who tries to compete with Wayne by running out all of the small-time ranchers and claiming their land. You see these houses on thousands of acres with nothing near them.
But as I thought about it I see another problem that can happen with we who are Christians. We sometimes want to protect our own privacy to the place where we "may be placed alone in the midst of the earth" and not care about the spiritual needs of others. God has been so good to us. He has made us possessors of heaven. He has made us joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. He has made us priests and kings.
We do not well when we place ourselves so far from others that we don't share the streams of God's living water with those who do not have it. It is a terrible thing to starve a person out of the life-giving flow seeing it is inexhaustible and given to us to share.
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
The sin that is condemned in the context is that of covetousness and greed. It refers to the person who keeps getting land and houses until he is the baron of the place. He owns it all and anyone who lives in his area answers to him. It reminds me of the old western movies where John Wayne is the good guy who owns all the land and lets the small-timers use his water, but then comes the wicked guy who tries to compete with Wayne by running out all of the small-time ranchers and claiming their land. You see these houses on thousands of acres with nothing near them.
But as I thought about it I see another problem that can happen with we who are Christians. We sometimes want to protect our own privacy to the place where we "may be placed alone in the midst of the earth" and not care about the spiritual needs of others. God has been so good to us. He has made us possessors of heaven. He has made us joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. He has made us priests and kings.
We do not well when we place ourselves so far from others that we don't share the streams of God's living water with those who do not have it. It is a terrible thing to starve a person out of the life-giving flow seeing it is inexhaustible and given to us to share.
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