God desires that none should perish (II Peter 3:9). God all day long, all over the world, and through all of time has been open to one, any or all coming to Him in confession and seeking to be saved.
59:1, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
He lingers. He looks. He is attuned. Anyone??
BUT – no one, not one came seeking salvation rather, DISTANCE.
59:2, But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Rather, man’s open, flagrant, gross rebellion pushed God away! Man found the source of reconciliation and restoration distant – far, far away!
Man’s desire for justice, goodness, peace, hope and goodwill – an elusive dream!
59:9, Therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us;
We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
59:11b, We look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
Rather, without God, the world becomes a vile, evil, wicked place.
59:12-15, For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey [coming for those who follow Jesus].
[Realize afresh what God in flesh, Jesus, stepped into and lived among. Read 59:3-15. Ugh!]
God was not indifferent to the gross wickedness and opted to personally take on the problem:
59:15b-17, Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brough salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
Jesus stepped from the glories of Heaven into the stench and crud of earth.
God foretold it and thus it happened – a Redeemer came to Jerusalem where He was killed taking the sin debt for others that they might in confession, repentance and confession find a personal relationship with God.
59:20, “The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” says the Lord.
To those who “turn”, the Redeemer will come.
The separation (distance) noted in verse 2 can be closed for those who turn from sins and sinning and turn to Jesus! Glory to God in the Highest!
a PK Musing 
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