OUR LORD: PLEASE RECEIVE A PRAYER FOR CANADA

Almighty God, thank you for this wide and beautiful land that we live in. We are so richly blessed to have had the opportunity and freedom to live by our own lights and to chart the paths of our own lives;  to set our hands to toil to support and protect our families by our own means.

Lord, we know you see what peril encroaches as an iron claw of power grapples to gain the whole world in its grasp. 

A web of deception and entrapment has been cast over us all to snuff out the flame of  freedom that you gave us as our birth right.

Lord, the bastions of liberty on this planet are down to a few thin lines speckled in red and white along our border highways. 

We humbly ask you to make your great power known at this hour and bolster these last stands of protest with courage and resolve.

Give us wisdom and strength O God, to stand against tyranny  so that our brave country would  remain just and free forever.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO RESTORES HIS PEOPLE

Continuing with the Feb 10th 2022 study on Isaiah 49, let's look at verses 13 to 21 which speak of a poignant moment where Zion, the church, the bride of Christ, converses with the Lord and tells Him that He has forgotten and forsaken her as she lies in ruin and desolation.

 But the Lord responds to her by comforting her and assuring her that he will never leave her nor forsake her and that what she thought was lost, he preserved for her so that her house needed to be enlarged to accommodate all the children who returned to her. The passage reads this way;

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. 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.

“Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing,

‘This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.’

Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up?

I was left all alone, but these—where have they come from?’”

The bride is astonished. She thought she had been abandoned but the whole time she believed she was finished, those who came from her were being raised quietly from afar and to her surprise, her enemies were pushed away and her children brought back and she is at a loss as to where they came from.

This moment of revelation to the bride mirrors the moment of revelation to the Lord Jesus in this chapter when He says "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength on nothing at all".

Bless the Lord who restores what seemed lost.

Amen.

OUR LORD ASCENDS TO BE KING OF KINGS

Proceeding from the January 31st 2022 study of Isaiah 49 verses 1 - 6, we continue with Isaiah 49 verses 7 - 12.

Jesus the Lord had just revealed that God the Father had announced to Him that His sacrifice on the cross was for more than the house of Israel but for the whole world of gentiles from every tribe and tongue and race.

The conversation between God the Father and the Son of God continues. God the Father said to God the Son that kings and princes will honor Him and genuflect before Him.  The passage reads like this;

This is what the Lord says—the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers:

“Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

This is what the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’ “They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.

They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. See, they will come from afar—some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan.”

The favor of the Father is  given to the Son of God as summarized in this part of the text where Jesus is made a covenant for the people and is commissioned  to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to release the captives  and free those in darkness and shepherd the flock. In fact, shepherding the flock, is the portfolio given to Jesus that is detailed in Psalm 23 that begins this way, "The Lord is my Shepherd". 

God the Father then assigns Himself the task of setting all the conditions required to bring all the citizens of the kingdom of God from every point on earth into the fold of God's family.

Bless the Great God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who has brought salvation to all men.

Amen.

OUR LORD'S POWER OVERIDES THE STRENGTH OF THE MIGHTY

Isaiah chapter 24 verses 3 - 4 says this:

The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken this word. 

The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. 

This worrisome passage speaks about a massive destructive event that will occur on earth that will cause a wipeout on a planetary scale.

This collapse of the earthly order will bring the whole globe to devastating ruin and social and economic orders will wither as the effects of the  catastrophe begins to tear apart the ability of the  world systems to sustain our lives.

The elite people of the earth will fade away as the system they crafted and tried to bring into position in order to control all people, is destroyed by the calamity that befalls the earth.

Everything that can be  shaken will be shaken and the haughty and self-assured will be brought low.

The Lord is mighty to save so call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. 

Bless the Lord's holy name.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHOSE GLORY WILL FILL THE WHOLE EARTH

Isaiah 40 verse 5 declares this;

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

This scene is mirrored in Habakkuk 2 verse 14.

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

These two scriptures allude to a sudden and global revelation  of the glory of the LORD and the whole earth will be confronted with reality of the presence and holiness of God. 

From creation, there has never been a day like it when the glory of the Almighty God filled the whole planet like the oceans covers the earth.

Bless the name of our awesome God.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHOSE ANGER CANNOT BE CHALLENGED

 “God will not turn back His anger; Beneath Him crouch the helpers of Rahab. - Job 9 verse 13.

Rahab, in this context, is being taken to mean a great sea monster and so the text's meaning is that in  the face of the Lord's anger, even those who are accustomed to being near fearsome entities, cower in fear.

The Lord our God is just and righteous and when injustice and evil dominate a land, the Lord rises in wrath and who can withstand Him?

When fraud, deception and lawlessness are exercised wantonly in a nation, the Lord brings indictments and who can answer Him?

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. 

Bless the Lord who defends those who are His and secures His inheritance among the nations.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO COUNTERS DARKNESS

Isaiah 13 verse 19 speaks of the outpost of the  kingdom of darkness on earth called Babylon and declares that it will be overthrown by the Lord God.

Babylon, in the spirit, is a civilization of darkness that rules mankind in cruelty, abject subjugation and enslavement.

A Babylonian subject finds that absolute obedience to the ruler of Babylon is demanded or else destruction is assured. 

A Babylonian civilization violently erases the destinies of men and bends them to pursuits of vanity and nihilism. The passage in Isaiah goes like this:

Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Babylon, that ruins the lives of humans and sinks them into despair by its false promises that it can never fulfill, will be brought to an end and  a civilization of our Lord Jesus of peace, honor and righteousness will flourish.

Amen.