… who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. – Isaiah 65:5

 Today's Scripture Reading (September 14, 2020): Isaiah 65

In 1981, the Canadian rock band Klaatu released their album, Magentalane. And one of the tracks included on the album was entitled "Blue Smoke." It is a song that, for some reason, has stuck with me.

When that blue smoke gets in your eyes
You'll choke, choke 'til you cry
Oh, you'll die
Hey, where you gonna hide
Well, you can talk about the fog in London
But listen, mister that ain't nothing
When that blue smoke gets in your eyes

And it is John Woloschuk's words that return to me as I read these words of Isaiah. God is speaking about self-righteous people who think that they are better than everyone else. If you listen to them as they talk, no one measures up to the standard that they project. Charles Spurgeon writes this about this kind of person. "Self-righteous men, like foxes, have many tricks and schemes. They condemn in other people what they consider to be very excusable in themselves. They would cry out against others for a tenth part of the sin which they allow in themselves." And, maybe, that is the part of the problem. Self-righteous people see the error in themselves, but they struggle to maintain their worth by condemning the same faults in others, even when those faults occur in lesser degrees while pretending that these same faults are absent in their lives.

And maybe that is why God reacts so strongly against these self-righteous people. He says that they are like "smoke in my nostrils" (cue the John Woloschuik lyrics.) The smoke starts in the nostrils as an irritant, and then it gets into your eyes and your throat, causing fits of coughing and gagging, stealing away from you the air that you need to live. And there is nothing that you can do except get away from the offending smoke.

One of our biggest problems is that there is nothing about us that has anything to do with righteousness. Any righteousness we possess, we gain from our relationship with God and, therefore, it is rightly "his" righteousness. Left to our own devices, we will always act out on the same error that we despise in the people around us. We can pretend that we are righteous, but we will forever be just actors on the stage, playing out the role that we have set before us.

Charles Spurgeon goes on to say that, "This weed of self-righteousness will grow on any dunghill. No heap of rubbish is too rotten for the accursed toadstool of proud self to grow upon." He draws a horrible picture, but one that we know is true because we recognize our self-righteousness in the description, which means that we all have the opportunity to become the "blue smoke" in the nostrils (and eyes) of God.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 66