Heshbon and Elealeh also cry out, Their voice is heard all the way to Jahaz; Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud; His soul trembles within him.
This verse records a detail of the judgement that befell Moab.
The towns of Heshbon and Elealeh, when struck by attackers, responded with cries that could be heard all the way to an area called Jahaz.
In response to the terrifying shouts coming from the towns, the soldiers of Moab themselves cried out in fear and their souls trembled.
All their training and defence plans were rendered obsolete in the face of the scale of destruction that came upon their country.
The strength of the once proud and arrogant Moab faded away and was brought to nothing. As Isaiah chapter 16 verse 14 says;
But now the LORD speaks, saying, "Within three years, as a hired man would count them, the glory of Moab will be degraded along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and impotent."
Such will be the fate of the proud nations upon whom the judgement of the Lord falls.
Let us humble ourselves before the Lord and pray so that the Lord may hear from heaven and forgive our sin and heal our broken land.
Amen.
Friday, July 29, 2022
OUR FATHER WHO UNDERTAKES TO FREE HIS PEOPLE
Isaiah chapter 52 verses 4 - 5 says this;
For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “At first my people went down to Egypt to live; lately, Assyria has oppressed them.
“And now what do I have here?” declares the Lord. “For my people have been taken away for nothing, and those who rule them mock, ” declares the Lord.
“And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed.
In this passage, the Lord recounts the oppression that His people suffered at the hands of the Egyptians and then at the hands of the Assyrians.
Then the Lord asks, "And now what do I have here?"
His people have been displaced for no reason and they are subjugated and mocked. Their God is constantly being blasphemed.
In their state of weakness while under the foot of the oppressor, the Lord intervenes to redeem His people.
Isaiah writes in verse 1, "Awake, awake, Zion, clothe yourself with strength! Put on your garments of splendor, Jerusalem, the holy city."
He cajoles the people of Zion to rise in strength and in the splendor of the One who has saved them.
As he declares the coming salvation, Isaiah writes about how welcome the news of this gift of God's salvation shall be to those who receive it in verse 7, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Isaiah, in verse 14, foresees that the high cost of our salvation will be paid for by a person who will be disfigured and marred beyond recognition. The verse says it this way;
Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness-
Because so many were appalled at Him, the saviour earned the right bring his influence to bear on many nations and lead His people out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
Amen.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
OUR FATHER WHOSE GREAT POWER OVERSHADOWS THE WORK OF THE OPPRESSOR
Isaiah chapter 51 verse 13 compares the limitations of men in verse 12 with the overwhelming power of God.
The verse asks, is the feeble power of men so intimidating;
that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction?
For where is the wrath of the oppressor?
When faced with the present and overt power of our human oppressors, who are but grass after all as verse 12 says, our perception of the Lord's power is sometimes skewed and we forget that everything that exists came from Him.
The vastness of space and the structures of mass and gravity are His handiwork.
We understand that the Lord is great in power but still we live in fear of what mere men can do to us if they turn against us.
Isaiah chapter 51 verses 14 -15 assures us that the prisons of men cannot hold us nor can their restrictions cause us to lack bread.
The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread. For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
OUR FATHER WHO GAVE HIS ONLY SON
Isaiah chapter 50 verse 7 says this;
Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.
John chapter 3 verse 1 says this;
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.
Nicodemus, was a pharisee and a teacher of Israel and a member of a secretive conclave within the ruling council that was curious about the teachings of Jesus.
This group within the council had reasoned that Jesus must have been sent from God because He would not have been able perform such astounding miracles otherwise and so they were not willing to disregard Jesus as the rest of the ruling council had.
The conclave sent Nicodemus to ask questions of the Lord about what He was teaching.
Jesus anticipated the question that was coming and immediately cut to the chase saying;
“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
The un-asked question to Jesus was this: "The kingdom that you say that you are representing, how can we verify it so we can incorporate it in our teaching?"
Jesus' response was simply this: "The kingdom of God is beyond the reach of any person who is not born again."
Nicodemus was flustered. "How can a person be born again?", he asked.
Jesus told him not to think in terms of the physical realm but rather in terms of the spiritual realm.
Being born again, Jesus told him, was not a repetition of emerging from a mother's womb but rather, having ones' spirit, that was dead in sin, come to life.
Jesus, in explaining to Nicodemus how one could be born again, spoke these famous words;
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The Son of God was given by God as a sacrifice whose death on a cross would be the payment for our sins and the ransom to free us from the kingdom of darkness and death.
This payment to cover sin could be appropriated by any person by simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once our sins were covered, our spirits would come to life and we would be born again.
Once born again, the kingdom of God would be become perceptible and could then be verified in experience and in scripture and one could thus incorporate such teachings in theology.
Up to that point in time, the price had not been paid for the sins of mankind. The Lord Jesus was still going from place to place teaching the good news of the kingdom of God and healing the sick.
Jesus was soon going to undertake the journey to the cross and Isaiah the prophet wrote the Lord's inner monologue as He braced Himself for the horrific experience of paying the penalty for all the sins of the human race by dying on the cross.
Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.
Amen.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
OUR FATHER WHO RESTORES HIS PEOPLE
Isaiah chapter 49 verse 17 says this;
Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you.
In this verse, the Lord is speaking to His people telling them that he will restore them after a time of affliction and destruction.
Even though His people of Zion will think that the Lord has forsaken them, saying in verse 14;
“The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”;
The Lord cannot forget His people. He has engraved them on the palms of His hands.
Isaiah chapter 49 verse 18 fills in the details of the beginning of the return of God's people;
Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.
The Lord's church will see all her children returning to her whom she thought were lost and they shall be her adornment as that of a bride.
Those who devastated and left her in ruins, will depart and be far away from her.
This is the restoration of the Lord's people for which a rapturous celebration will break out as foretold in Isaiah 49 verse 13;
Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains!
Amen.
Monday, July 25, 2022
OUR FATHER WHOSE SALVATION IS PROVIDED ONLY THROUGH THE POWER OF THE CROSS
The Apostle Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17, says this;
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Paul had become aware that believers in the Corinthian church were being divided by claims of following one leader in the church over the next. Some were saying that they followed Apollos and others were saying they followed Christ and others yet, said they followed Cephas while others claimed to follow Paul.
In refuting the validity of these divisive arguments, Paul asked the Corinthians if Christ was divided or if Paul died for them. He pressed them further by asking if any of them were baptized into his name.
Paul wrote that he was grateful that he did not baptize many people because if people were adopting positions of loyalty based on who baptized them, he would have had many people wrongly claiming to be baptized in the name of Paul.
He then said that he was not sent by the Lord to baptize but instead, to preach the gospel. And in preaching the gospel, he said he did not come with wisdom and eloquence but rather with simplicity of speech so that the message of the cross was not emptied of its power.
As Paul explained in the next verse down, verse 18;
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
The gospel, unadorned by the wisdom and the eloquence of men, carries its own power of God unto salvation.
It was for this reason that Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 2 says;
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
In his service to the Lord Jesus among the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul, inspite of knowing a great many things about Christ and His Kingdom, resolved to know only the Lord Jesus and the message of the cross so that the people of Corinth would benefit from the undiluted power of the gospel.
Amen.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
OUR FATHER WHO TEACHES AND DISCIPLINES US
Proverbs chapter 13 verse 1 says this;
A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.
The Lord Jesus was the quintessential example of a wise son who heeded His Father's instruction. As Jesus Himself explained in John chapter 5 verse 19;
“I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself [of His own accord], unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever things the Father does, the Son [in His turn] also does in the same way.
Jesus heeded His Father's instructions so that all things that people saw him do were the things that He saw His father doing.
This fidelity to His Father also applied to the things Jesus said as it says in John chapter 12 verse 49;
For I did not speak from Myself, but the Father Himself, having sent Me, gave Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak.
The wisdom of listening to the instructions of one's father is contrasted with the inability to heed correction.
Whereas a wise son will carefully follow the instructions of his father, an unwise son not only does not listen to his father's instruction but when he acts on his own and does what is wrong, he refuses to respond to reprimands.
Such a one is labeled a mocker whose end is destruction.
Psalm chapter 1 verses 20 - 27 says this as a caution to heed wisdom and respond to rebukes lest we mock wisdom, and we are overrun by calamity and become laughingstocks ourselves.
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech:
“How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?
Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings.
But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you—when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.