July 2021 – If Not For Grace

31 Jul 202130 Jul 2021

Weekend Reading (July 31)

Dear Heavenly Father, Please open my understanding as I read the Bible so that I may be able to know you better. Please help your word be planted in my mind, so I may recall it as needed. Bless me with wisdom and knowledge, please. We also pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem. In the name of Jesus we pray ~ amen

RELATIONSHIP:
Do you already have a relationship with a powerful God who cares about your every need because He loves you? Did you know my God can communicate with you and protect you – He has a plan for you to prosper if you just submit to His will and let His plan play out in your life!!! God wants a relationship with you and has already made a plan for your life. He loves you so much He sent His son to this world, to die as a sacrifice for your sins and rise from death with victory over sin and the ability to have a personal relationship with you.
“⁹If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Romans 10:9-10 NIV
Here is a prayer for you to pray:
Jesus, I believe you are the way, the truth, the life, and the only way to the Father. I believe you are the son of God, you came to Earth and lived. That you died on the cross as a sacrifice for my sins, and rose again so that I may be saved from my sins and be able to get to know you. I declare: Jesus, you are Lord!
Therefore, I confess that I am a sinner and I ask that you forgive me of my sins and come into my life. Help me to turn away from my sins and transform me into what you have lovingly created me to be. Help me through a real personal relationship grow and accept your will for my life – that I may live in your blessings. Please walk with me, and talk with me – I accept a relationship with you and with our Father God, through you. In the name of Jesus I pray ~ Amen

MEMORY WORK: James 4:7
NKJV – “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
NAS – “Submit therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
ESV – “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
NLT – “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
NIV – “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 59-63 NKJV

Separated from God

59 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
²But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.
³For your hands are defiled with ^[^a^]blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.

⁴No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive ^[^b^]evil and bring forth iniquity.
⁵They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

⁶Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
⁷Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
⁸The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Sin Confessed

⁹Therefore 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!
¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places.
¹¹We all growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We look for justice, but there is none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
¹²For 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:
¹³In transgressing and lying against the Lord,
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
¹⁴Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands afar off;
For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
¹⁵So truth fails,
And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Redeemer of Zion

Then the Lord saw it, and ^[^c^]it displeased Him
That there was no justice.
¹⁶He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
¹⁷For 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.
¹⁸According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,
Fury to His adversaries,
Recompense to His enemies;
The coastlands He will fully repay.
¹⁹So shall they fear
The name of the Lord from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun;
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.

²⁰“The Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”
Says the Lord.

²¹“As for Me,” says the Lord, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.”

The Gentiles Bless Zion

60 Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.
²For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the Lord will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you.
³The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.

⁴“Lift up your eyes all around, and see:
They all gather together, they come to you;
Your sons shall come from afar,
And your daughters shall be nursed at your side.
⁵Then you shall see and become radiant,
And your heart shall swell with joy;
Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you.
⁶The multitude of camels shall cover your land,
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
All those from Sheba shall come;
They shall bring gold and incense,
And they shall proclaim the praises of the Lord.
⁷All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together to you,
The rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you;
They shall ascend with acceptance on My altar,
And I will glorify the house of My glory.

⁸“Who are these who fly like a cloud,
And like doves to their roosts?
⁹Surely the coastlands shall wait for Me;
And the ships of Tarshish will come first,
To bring your sons from afar,
Their silver and their gold with them,
To the name of the Lord your God,
And to the Holy One of Israel,
Because He has glorified you.

¹⁰“The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls,
And their kings shall minister to you;
For in My wrath I struck you,
But in My favor I have had mercy on you.
¹¹Therefore your gates shall be open continually;
They shall not be shut day or night,
That men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles,
And their kings in procession.
¹²For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you shall perish,
And those nations shall be utterly ruined.

¹³“The glory of Lebanon shall come to you,
The cypress, the pine, and the box tree together,
To beautify the place of My sanctuary;
And I will make the place of My feet glorious.
¹⁴Also the sons of those who afflicted you
Shall come bowing to you,
And all those who despised you shall fall prostrate at the soles of your feet;
And they shall call you The City of the Lord,
Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵“Whereas you have been forsaken and hated,
So that no one went through you,
I will make you an eternal excellence,
A joy of many generations.
¹⁶You shall drink the milk of the Gentiles,
And milk the breast of kings;
You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

¹⁷“Instead of bronze I will bring gold,
Instead of iron I will bring silver,
Instead of wood, bronze,
And instead of stones, iron.
I will also make your officers peace,
And your magistrates righteousness.
¹⁸Violence shall no longer be heard in your land,
Neither ^[^d^]wasting nor destruction within your borders;
But you shall call your walls Salvation,
And your gates Praise.

God the Glory of His People

¹⁹“The sun shall no longer be your light by day,
Nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you;
But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light,
And your God your glory.
²⁰Your sun shall no longer go down,
Nor shall your moon withdraw itself;
For the Lord will be your everlasting light,
And the days of your mourning shall be ended.
²¹Also your people shall all be righteous;
They shall inherit the land forever,
The branch of My planting,
The work of My hands,
That I may be glorified.
²²A little one shall become a thousand,
And a small one a strong nation.
I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.”

The Good News of Salvation

61 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to ^[^e^]heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
²To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
³To ^[^f^]console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

⁴And they shall rebuild the old ruins,
They shall raise up the former desolations,
And they shall repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
⁵Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
And the sons of the foreigner
Shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.
⁶But you shall be named the priests of the Lord,
They shall call you the servants of our God.
You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles,
And in their glory you shall boast.
⁷Instead of your shame you shall have double honor,
And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion.
Therefore in their land they shall possess double;
Everlasting joy shall be theirs.

⁸“For I, the Lord, love justice;
I hate robbery ^[^g^]for burnt offering;
I will direct their work in truth,
And will make with them an everlasting covenant.
⁹Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles,
And their offspring among the people.
All who see them shall acknowledge them,
That they are the posterity whom the Lord has blessed.”

¹⁰I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹For as the earth brings forth its bud,
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

Assurance of Zion’s Salvation

62 For Zion’s sake I will not ^[^h^]hold My peace,
And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
And her salvation as a lamp that burns.
²The Gentiles shall see your righteousness,
And all kings your glory.
You shall be called by a new name,
Which the mouth of the Lord will name.
³You shall also be a crown of glory
In the hand of the Lord,
And a royal diadem
In the hand of your God.
⁴You shall no longer be termed Forsaken,^[ⁱ^]
Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate;^[^j^]
But you shall be called ^[^k^]Hephzibah, and your land ^[^l^]Beulah;
For the Lord delights in you,
And your land shall be married.
⁵For as a young man marries a virgin,
So shall your sons marry you;
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
So shall your God rejoice over you.

⁶I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
They shall ^[^m^]never hold their peace day or night.
You who ^[ⁿ^]make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent,
⁷And give Him no rest till He establishes
And till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

⁸The Lord has sworn by His right hand
And by the arm of His strength:
“Surely I will no longer give your grain
As food for your enemies;
And the sons of the foreigner shall not drink your new wine,
For which you have labored.
⁹But those who have gathered it shall eat it,
And praise the Lord;
Those who have brought it together shall drink it in My holy courts.”

¹⁰Go through,
Go through the gates!
Prepare the way for the people;
Build up,
Build up the highway!
Take out the stones,
Lift up a banner for the peoples!

¹¹Indeed the Lord has proclaimed
To the end of the world:
“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Surely your salvation is coming;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His ^[^o^]work before Him.’ ”
¹²And they shall call them The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the Lord;
And you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.

The Lord in Judgment and Salvation

63 Who is this who comes from Edom,
With dyed garments from Bozrah,
This One who is ^[^p^]glorious in His apparel,
Traveling in the greatness of His strength?—

“I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”

²Why is Your apparel red,
And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?

³“I have trodden the winepress alone,
And from the peoples no one was with Me.
For I have trodden them in My anger,
And trampled them in My fury;
Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments,
And I have stained all My robes.
⁴For the day of vengeance is in My heart,
And the year of My redeemed has come.
⁵I looked, but there was no one to help,
And I wondered
That there was no one to uphold;
Therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me;
And My own fury, it sustained Me.
⁶I have trodden down the peoples in My anger,
Made them drunk in My fury,
And brought down their strength to the earth.”

God’s Mercy Remembered

⁷I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord
And the praises of the Lord,
According to all that the Lord has bestowed on us,
And the great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies,
According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.
⁸For He said, “Surely they are My people,
Children who will not lie.”
So He became their Savior.
⁹In all their affliction He was ^[^q^]afflicted,
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit;
So He turned Himself against them as an enemy,
And He fought against them.

¹¹Then he remembered the days of old,
Moses and his people, saying:
“Where is He who brought them up out of the sea
With the ^[^r^]shepherd of His flock?
Where is He who put His Holy Spirit within them,
¹²Who led them by the right hand of Moses,
With His glorious arm,
Dividing the water before them
To make for Himself an everlasting name,
¹³Who led them through the deep,
As a horse in the wilderness,
That they might not stumble?”

¹⁴As a beast goes down into the valley,
And the Spirit of the Lord causes him to rest,
So You lead Your people,
To make Yourself a glorious name.

A Prayer of Penitence

¹⁵Look down from heaven,
And see from Your habitation, holy and glorious.
Where are Your zeal and Your strength,
The yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me?
Are they restrained?
¹⁶Doubtless You are our Father,
Though Abraham was ignorant of us,
And Israel does not acknowledge us.
You, O Lord, are our Father;
Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.
¹⁷O Lord, why have You made us stray from Your ways,
And hardened our heart from Your fear?
Return for Your servants’ sake,
The tribes of Your inheritance.
¹⁸Your holy people have possessed it but a little while;
Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary.
¹⁹We have become like those of old, over whom You never ruled,
Those who were never called by Your name.

Footnotes

Isaiah 59:3 bloodshed
Isaiah 59:4 trouble
Isaiah 59:15 Lit. it was evil in His eyes
Isaiah 60:18 devastation
Isaiah 61:1 Lit. bind up
Isaiah 61:3 Lit. appoint
Isaiah 61:8 Or in
Isaiah 62:1 keep silent
Isaiah 62:4 Heb. Azubah
Isaiah 62:4 Heb. Shemamah
Isaiah 62:4 Lit. My Delight Is in Her
Isaiah 62:4 Lit. Married
Isaiah 62:6 not be silent
Isaiah 62:6 remember
Isaiah 62:11 recompense
Isaiah 63:1 Or adorned
Isaiah 63:9 Kt., LXX, Syr. not afflicted
Isaiah 63:11 MT, Vg. shepherds

30 Jul 202129 Jul 2021

So Many Good Words For Today!

“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11 NKJV

So many amazing scripture verses in today’s reading – I must open with this reminder to never dilute or muddy the scriptures. They are more powerful as a two edges sword! They will accomplish God’s will on this earth. Speak and pray them, clean and pure, into our world and situations and watch what the Lord can do! And now let’s pray and read and think about all the blessed scriptures for today!!! God surely has blessed us!

Dear Heavenly Father – As always, please open eye to see and our ears to hear what you are saying! Lord – open our understanding that we may know you and give us wisdom. Please do not let us miss out on what you want and need from us today. And please keep us and bless us and shine your face upon us and pour out grace over us and give us peace! Thank you! We also pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem. – In Jesus name we pray, Amen

Today’s reading is from the book of Isaiah chapters 54-58 (embedded below the image below for your convenience). What amazing chapters we have today!!! GLORY!!!

54 – while the prime minister calls a slight majority of the Israeli nation enemies of the state for not receiving something that Israeli funded independent studies have proved unsafe and ineffective. Oh Israel, we pray for you! May the Lord bless you and keep you – may you return to Him quickly. But remember the blessings and promises like the promise to Noah – Oh cling to these beautiful promises. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, oh Israel!!! As well as not prospering against us.

55 – hunger and thirst? Watch how you spend money. His ways are better than our ways! Oh Lord, help us hear clearly from you and it may not make sense in our minds but let us do it your way.

56 – The foreigner, the gentile, ME (Yes, even me) are accepted into the family and blessed under the blessings if we also commit to the covenant of the Lord!!

57 – the evils of idolatry and need for humility! God will heal the backsliders!!!
OK – ladies and gentlemen!!! Here it is!!! I promised to make a note of it at a later date and today is that day. When praying for the backslidden, particularly the children – and we hear people pray the verse in proverbs which provided instruction and not promise (to raise a child in the way they should go). Yes, it is parental instruction and NOT promise. Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son… And this prophesy of Isaiah’s about God’s commitment to heal the backsliding… these are where you find your clean verses, your sharp swords to pray. Praying the will and words of the Lord. Like a sword piercing into the spirit world and cutting the captives free, free to be healed, freeing the seeds to grow, watering the spirit side of the seeds!! This is your weapon and your promise: IT IS WRITTEN!

And finally 58 – The acceptable fast – since today I am starting a 40 day fast it is interesting that this is the day I read what the LORD says is acceptable to do during a fast. Fasts are not always food, sackcloth, and throwing dust on yourself. Nope. Fasting is sacrifice and giving to others with a contrite and consecrated spirit. Keep me in prayer these next 40 days as I fast – I know God has been pulling me to fast and I have had a few false starts and a huge battle. I found a ministry called Radiant Israel who are calling for a 40 day fast that starts today as well and the spirit bears witness to me to join them. I shared it on our Facebook wall. And here is their website: https://www.radiantisrael.com/

So many good things today!! Blessed be the Lord!! You see, this is how God speaks to us (oh Lord speak clearly through your word!) and this is how we listen (by reading). Then we pray to speak back. Sometimes God speaks directly to us but if He does it is confirmed by two witnesses and one is always the scriptures. Behold he is doing a new thing – but yet His methods haven’t changed and His character never changes. God cares about my little things like the blister on my figure which hurts and He cares about the big things like house repairs and provisions I require. He also cares about the great reset and the president, kings/queens and prime ministers and the event in our world. God has a plan for good for us – to prosper (but HIS definition of prosper and not our definition). We just need to draw close to Him. Sometimes, He says to draw close through prayer and fasting – so that is what I will do. Feel free to join us (check out the post on our Facebook page).

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 54-58 NKJV

A Perpetual Covenant of Peace

54 “Sing, O barren,
You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
²“Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
³For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.

⁴“Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame;
For you will forget the shame of your youth,
And will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
⁵For your Maker is your husband,
The Lord of hosts is His name;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;
He is called the God of the whole earth.
⁶For the Lord has called you
Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,
Like a youthful wife when you were refused,”
Says your God.
⁷“For a mere moment I have forsaken you,
But with great mercies I will gather you.
⁸With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment;
But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,”
Says the Lord, your Redeemer.

⁹“For this is like the waters of Noah to Me;
For as I have sworn
That the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth,
So have I sworn
That I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.
¹⁰For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

¹¹“O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted,
Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems,
And lay your foundations with sapphires.
¹²I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
Your gates of crystal,
And all your walls of precious stones.
¹³All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
And great shall be the peace of your children.
¹⁴In righteousness you shall be established;
You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
¹⁵Indeed they shall surely assemble, but not because of Me.
Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake.

¹⁶“Behold, I have created the blacksmith
Who blows the coals in the fire,
Who brings forth an ^[^a^]instrument for his work;
And I have created the ^[^b^]spoiler to destroy.
¹⁷No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord.

An Invitation to Abundant Life

55 “Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
²Why do you ^[^c^]spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
³Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—
The sure mercies of David.
⁴Indeed I have given him as a witness to the people,
A leader and commander for the people.
⁵Surely you shall call a nation you do not know,
And nations who do not know you shall run to you,
Because of the Lord your God,
And the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you.”

⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
⁷Let the ^[^d^]wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

⁸“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
⁹“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
¹¹So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me ^[^e^]void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

¹²“For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
¹³Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,
And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;
And it shall be to the Lord for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Salvation for the Gentiles

56 Thus says the Lord:

“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come,
And My righteousness to be revealed.
²Blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who lays hold on it;
Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

³Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the Lord
Speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”;
Nor let the eunuch say,
“Here I am, a dry tree.”
⁴For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
⁵Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give ^[^f^]them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.

⁶“Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant—
⁷Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
⁸The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says,
“Yet I will gather to him
Others besides those who are gathered to him.”

Israel’s Irresponsible Leaders

⁹All you beasts of the field, come to devour,
All you beasts in the forest.
¹⁰His watchmen are blind,
They are all ignorant;
They are all dumb dogs,
They cannot bark;
^[^g^]Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
¹¹Yes, they are greedy^[^h^] dogs
Which never^[ⁱ^] have enough.
And they are shepherds
Who cannot understand;
They all look to their own way,
Every one for his own gain,
From his own territory.
¹²“Come,” one says, “I will bring wine,
And we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink;
Tomorrow will be as today,
And much more abundant.”

Israel’s Futile Idolatry

57 The righteous perishes,
And no man takes it to heart;
Merciful men are taken away,
While no one considers
That the righteous is taken away from ^[^j^]evil.
²He shall enter into peace;
They shall rest in their beds,
Each one walking in his uprightness.

³“But come here,
You sons of the sorceress,
You offspring of the adulterer and the harlot!
⁴Whom do you ridicule?
Against whom do you make a wide mouth
And stick out the tongue?
Are you not children of transgression,
Offspring of falsehood,
⁵Inflaming yourselves with gods under every green tree,
Slaying the children in the valleys,
Under the clefts of the rocks?
⁶Among the smooth stones of the stream
Is your portion;
They, they, are your lot!
Even to them you have poured a drink offering,
You have offered a grain offering.
Should I receive comfort in these?

⁷“On a lofty and high mountain
You have set your bed;
Even there you went up
To offer sacrifice.
⁸Also behind the doors and their posts
You have set up your remembrance;
For you have uncovered yourself to those other than Me,
And have gone up to them;
You have enlarged your bed
And ^[^k^]made a covenant with them;
You have loved their bed,
Where you saw their ^[^l^]nudity.
⁹You went to the king with ointment,
And increased your perfumes;
You sent your messengers far off,
And even descended to Sheol.
¹⁰You are wearied in the length of your way;
Yet you did not say, ‘There is no hope.’
You have found the life of your hand;
Therefore you were not grieved.

¹¹“And of whom have you been afraid, or feared,
That you have lied
And not remembered Me,
Nor taken it to your heart?
Is it not because I have ^[^m^]held My peace from of old
That you do not fear Me?
¹²I will declare your righteousness
And your works,
For they will not profit you.
¹³When you cry out,
Let your collection of idols deliver you.
But the wind will carry them all away,
A breath will take them.
But he who puts his trust in Me shall possess the land,
And shall inherit My holy mountain.”

Healing for the Backslider

¹⁴And one shall say,
“Heap it up! Heap it up!
Prepare the way,
Take the stumbling block out of the way of My people.”

¹⁵For thus says the High and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
With him who has a contrite and humble spirit,
To revive the spirit of the humble,
And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
¹⁶For I will not contend forever,
Nor will I always be angry;
For the spirit would fail before Me,
And the souls which I have made.
¹⁷For the iniquity of his covetousness
I was angry and struck him;
I hid and was angry,
And he went on ^[ⁿ^]backsliding in the way of his heart.
¹⁸I have seen his ways, and will heal him;
I will also lead him,
And restore comforts to him
And to his mourners.

¹⁹“I create the fruit of the lips:
Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,”
Says the Lord,
“And I will heal him.”
²⁰But the wicked are like the troubled sea,
When it cannot rest,
Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

²¹“There is no peace,”
Says my God, “for the wicked.”

Fasting that Pleases God

58 “Cry aloud, ^[^o^]spare not;
Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
Tell My people their transgression,
And the house of Jacob their sins.
²Yet they seek Me daily,
And delight to know My ways,
As a nation that did righteousness,
And did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
They ask of Me the ordinances of justice;
They take delight in approaching God.
³‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen?
Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’

“In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,
And ^[^p^]exploit all your laborers.
⁴Indeed you fast for strife and debate,
And to strike with the fist of wickedness.
You will not fast as you do this day,
To make your voice heard on high.
⁵Is it a fast that I have chosen,
A day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush,
And to spread out sackcloth and ashes?
Would you call this a fast,
And an acceptable day to the Lord?

⁶“Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the ^[^q^]heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are ^[^r^]cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?
⁸Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
Your healing shall spring forth speedily,
And your righteousness shall go before you;
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you take away the yoke from your midst,
The ^[^s^]pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
¹⁰If you extend your soul to the hungry
And satisfy the afflicted soul,
Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
And your ^[^t^]darkness shall be as the noonday.
¹¹The Lord will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
¹²Those from among you
Shall build the old waste places;
You shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,
The Restorer of ^[^u^]Streets to Dwell In.

¹³“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
¹⁴Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Footnotes

Isaiah 54:16 Or weapon
Isaiah 54:16 destroyer
Isaiah 55:2 Lit. weigh out silver
Isaiah 55:7 Lit. man of iniquity
Isaiah 55:11 empty, without fruit
Isaiah 56:5 Lit. him
Isaiah 56:10 Or Dreaming
Isaiah 56:11 Lit. strong of soul
Isaiah 56:11 Lit. do not know satisfaction
Isaiah 57:1 Lit. the face of evil
Isaiah 57:8 Lit. cut
Isaiah 57:8 Lit. hand, a euphemism
Isaiah 57:11 remained silent
Isaiah 57:17 Or turning back
Isaiah 58:1 do not hold back
Isaiah 58:3 Lit. drive hard
Isaiah 58:6 Lit. bonds of the yoke
Isaiah 58:7 wandering
Isaiah 58:9 Lit. sending out of
Isaiah 58:10 Or gloom
Isaiah 58:12 Lit. Paths

29 Jul 202129 Jul 2021

Today’s Favor

“Thus says the Lord: “In an acceptable time I have heard You, And in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You As a covenant to the people, To restore the earth, To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages; That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’…” Isaiah 49:8-9a NKJV

When I returned to the Lord, He gave me a few verses and I studied them over and over. I traced them back to their original Hebrew and Greek. I traced them from Old Testament to New Testament and back again. I can see the greater prophesy how it applies to this world, in such a time. I can see how they related to me and my own salvation. And this, right here is one that God gave me – but the New Testament version…

Today’s reading is from the book of Isaiah chapters 49-53 (embedded below the image below for your convenience).

“But my prayer to You, O LORD, is for a time of favor. In Your abundant loving devotion, O God, answer me with Your sure salvation.” Psalm 69:13

When you cross reference the time of favor – oh the grace of it!!! And if you have read this blog for any time we all know I absolutely melt into worship at the mere mention of God’s grace!!! All the glory goes to Him as grace transformed me! It was in HIS TIME OF FAVOR that I was saved. In this dispensation of grace that this blog is written – submerged in the favor and grace I speak (through written word) and somehow through that same grace moving this – it gets to you. So God can let you know that in His grace He loves you!

“For He says: “In the time of favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!” 2 Corinthians 6:2

Now is the time. You have heard me recite this section over and over because NOW IS THE TIME. We were made for such a time as this and now is that exact time. Today is the day! Our salvation, our eternity is secured through grace – now in this time of grace. But also in this time we have favor and grace – so our Father defends us, He rescues us, and He saves us… and in this political environment – we need actual physical saving as well as spiritual. If we recognize it or not.

In a time such as this – the best thing to do is just seek God. Everything else will be fine and will work out when we stay in His will and in His hands in in our relationship with Him. We have the favor, we have the grace – so now in this time it is vital we draw close to Him.

If you do not have a relationship with the one true living God…

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 49-53 NKJV

The Servant, the Light to the Gentiles

49 “Listen, O coastlands, to Me,
And take heed, you peoples from afar!
The Lord has called Me from the womb;
From the ^[^a^]matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.
²And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword;
In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me,
And made Me a polished shaft;
In His quiver He has hidden Me.”

³“And He said to me,
‘You are My servant, O Israel,
In whom I will be glorified.’
⁴Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain;
Yet surely my ^[^b^]just reward is with the Lord,
And my ^[^c^]work with my God.’ ”

⁵“And now the Lord says,
Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him,
So that Israel is ^[^d^]gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,
And My God shall be My strength),
⁶Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”

⁷Thus says the Lord,
The Redeemer of Israel, ^[^e^]their Holy One,
To Him ^[^f^]whom man despises,
To Him whom the nation abhors,
To the Servant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise,
Princes also shall worship,
Because of the Lord who is faithful,
The Holy One of Israel;
And He has chosen You.”

⁸Thus says the Lord:

“In an acceptable^[^g^] time I have heard You,
And in the day of salvation I have helped You;
I will ^[^h^]preserve You and give You
As a covenant to the people,
To restore the earth,
To cause them to inherit the desolate ^[ⁱ^]heritages;
⁹That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’
To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’

“They shall feed along the roads,
And their pastures shall be on all desolate heights.
¹⁰They shall neither hunger nor thirst,
Neither heat nor sun shall strike them;
For He who has mercy on them will lead them,
Even by the springs of water He will guide them.
¹¹I will make each of My mountains a road,
And My highways shall be elevated.
¹²Surely these shall come from afar;
Look! Those from the north and the west,
And these from the land of Sinim.”

¹³Sing, O heavens!
Be joyful, O earth!
And break out in singing, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted His people,
And will have mercy on His afflicted.

God Will Remember Zion

¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
^[^j^]And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.
¹⁶See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
¹⁷Your ^[^k^]sons shall make haste;
Your destroyers and those who laid you waste
Shall go away from you.
¹⁸Lift up your eyes, look around and see;
All these gather together and come to you.
As I live,” says the Lord,
“You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament,
And bind them on you as a bride does.

¹⁹“For your waste and desolate places,
And the land of your destruction,
Will even now be too small for the inhabitants;
And those who swallowed you up will be far away.
²⁰The children you will have,
After you have lost the others,
Will say again in your ears,
‘The place is too small for me;
Give me a place where I may dwell.’
²¹Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have lost my children and am desolate,
A captive, and wandering to and fro?
And who has brought these up?
There I was, left alone;
But these, where were they?’ ”

²²Thus says the Lord God:

“Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,
And set up My ^[^l^]standard for the peoples;
They shall bring your sons in their ^[^m^]arms,
And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;
²³Kings shall be your foster fathers,
And their queens your nursing mothers;
They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth,
And lick up the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord,
For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.”

²⁴Shall the prey be taken from the mighty,
Or the captives ^[ⁿ^]of the righteous be delivered?

²⁵But thus says the Lord:

“Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
And the prey of the terrible be delivered;
For I will contend with him who contends with you,
And I will save your children.
²⁶I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh,
And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine.
All flesh shall know
That I, the Lord, am your Savior,
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

The Servant, Israel’s Hope

50 Thus says the Lord:

“Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce,
Whom I have put away?
Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
For your iniquities you have sold yourselves,
And for your transgressions your mother has been put away.
²Why, when I came, was there no man?
Why, when I called, was there none to answer?
Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power to deliver?
Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers a wilderness;
Their fish stink because there is no water,
And die of thirst.
³I clothe the heavens with blackness,
And I make sackcloth their covering.”

⁴“The Lord God has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.
⁵The Lord God has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
⁶I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.

⁷“For the Lord God will help Me;
Therefore I will not be disgraced;
Therefore I have set My face like a flint,
And I know that I will not be ashamed.
⁸He is near who justifies Me;
Who will contend with Me?
Let us stand together.
Who is ^[^o^]My adversary?
Let him come near Me.
⁹Surely the Lord God will help Me;
Who is he who will condemn Me?
Indeed they will all grow old like a garment;
The moth will eat them up.

¹⁰“Who among you fears the Lord?
Who obeys the voice of His Servant?
Who walks in darkness
And has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the Lord
And rely upon his God.
¹¹Look, all you who kindle a fire,
Who encircle yourselves with sparks:
Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—
This you shall have from My hand:
You shall lie down in torment.

The Lord Comforts Zion

51 “Listen to Me, you who ^[^p^]follow after righteousness,
You who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.
²Look to Abraham your father,
And to Sarah who bore you;
For I called him alone,
And blessed him and increased him.”

³For the Lord will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the Lord;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

⁴“Listen to Me, My people;
And give ear to Me, O My nation:
For law will proceed from Me,
And I will make My justice rest
As a light of the peoples.
⁵My righteousness is near,
My salvation has gone forth,
And My arms will judge the peoples;
The coastlands will wait upon Me,
And on My arm they will trust.
⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment,
And those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be ^[^q^]abolished.

⁷“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
You people in whose heart is My law:
Do not fear the reproach of men,
Nor be afraid of their insults.
⁸For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
And the worm will eat them like wool;
But My righteousness will be forever,
And My salvation from generation to generation.”

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord!
Awake as in the ancient days,
In the generations of old.
Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart,
And wounded the serpent?

¹⁰Are You not the One who dried up the sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the depths of the sea a road
For the redeemed to cross over?
¹¹So the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness;
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

¹²“I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you should be afraid
Of a man who will die,
And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
¹³And you forget the Lord your Maker,
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth;
You have feared continually every day
Because of the fury of the oppressor,
When he has prepared to destroy.
And where is the fury of the oppressor?
¹⁴The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed,
That he should not die in the pit,
And that his bread should not fail.
¹⁵But I am the Lord your God,
Who divided the sea whose waves roared—
The Lord of hosts is His name.
¹⁶And I have put My words in your mouth;
I have covered you with the shadow of My hand,
That I may ^[^r^]plant the heavens,
Lay the foundations of the earth,
And say to Zion, ‘You are My people.’ ”

God’s Fury Removed

¹⁷Awake, awake!
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
You who have drunk at the hand of the Lord
The cup of His fury;
You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling,
And drained it out.
¹⁸There is no one to guide her
Among all the sons she has brought forth;
Nor is there any who takes her by the hand
Among all the sons she has brought up.
¹⁹These two things have come to you;
Who will be sorry for you?—
Desolation and destruction, famine and sword—
By whom will I comfort you?
²⁰Your sons have fainted,
They lie at the head of all the streets,
Like an antelope in a net;
They are full of the fury of the Lord,
The rebuke of your God.

²¹Therefore please hear this, you afflicted,
And drunk but not with wine.
²²Thus says your Lord,
The Lord and your God,
Who pleads the cause of His people:
“See, I have taken out of your hand
The cup of trembling,
The dregs of the cup of My fury;
You shall no longer drink it.
²³But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
Who have said to ^[^s^]you,
‘Lie down, that we may walk over you.’
And you have laid your body like the ground,
And as the street, for those who walk over.”

God Redeems Jerusalem

52 Awake, awake!
Put on your strength, O Zion;
Put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Shall no longer come to you.
²Shake yourself from the dust, arise;
Sit down, O Jerusalem!
Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion!

³For thus says the Lord:

“You have sold yourselves for nothing,
And you shall be redeemed without money.”

⁴For thus says the Lord God:

“My people went down at first
Into Egypt to ^[^t^]dwell there;
Then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
⁵Now therefore, what have I here,” says the Lord,
“That My people are taken away for nothing?
Those who rule over them
^[^u^]Make them wail,” says the Lord,
“And My name is blasphemed continually every day.
⁶Therefore My people shall know My name;
Therefore they shall know in that day
That I am He who speaks:
‘Behold, it is I.’ ”

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who proclaims peace,
Who brings glad tidings of good things,
Who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
⁸Your watchmen shall lift up their voices,
With their voices they shall sing together;
For they shall see eye to eye
When the Lord brings back Zion.
⁹Break forth into joy, sing together,
You waste places of Jerusalem!
For the Lord has comforted His people,
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
¹⁰The Lord has ^[^v^]made bare His holy arm
In the eyes of all the nations;
And all the ends of the earth shall see
The salvation of our God.

¹¹Depart! Depart! Go out from there,
Touch no unclean thing;
Go out from the midst of her,
Be clean,
You who bear the vessels of the Lord.
¹²For you shall not go out with haste,
Nor go by flight;
For the Lord will go before you,
And the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

The Sin-Bearing Servant

¹³Behold, My Servant shall ^[^w^]deal prudently;
He shall be exalted and ^[^x^]extolled and be very high.
¹⁴Just as many were astonished at you,
So His visage^[^y^] was marred more than any man,
And His form more than the sons of men;
¹⁵So shall He ^[^z^]sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him;
For what had not been told them they shall see,
And what they had not heard they shall consider.

The Sin-Bearing Messiah

53 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no ^[^aa^]form or ^[^ab^]comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no ^[^ac^]beauty that we should desire Him.
³He is despised and ^[^ad^]rejected by men,
A Man of ^[^ae^]sorrows and acquainted with ^[^af^]grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

⁴Surely He has borne our ^[^ag^]griefs
And carried our ^[^ah^]sorrows;
Yet we ^[^ai^]esteemed Him stricken,
^[^aj^]Smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵But He was wounded^[^ak^] for our transgressions,
He was ^[^al^]bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes^[^am^] we are healed.
⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord ^[^an^]has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
⁸He was taken from ^[^ao^]prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
⁹And ^[^ap^]they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

¹⁰Yet it pleased the Lord to ^[^aq^]bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
¹¹^[^ar^]He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
¹²Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the ^[^as^]spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.

Footnotes

Isaiah 49:1 Lit. inward parts
Isaiah 49:4 justice
Isaiah 49:4 recompense
Isaiah 49:5 Qr., DSS, LXX gathered to Him; Kt. not gathered
Isaiah 49:7 Lit. his or its
Isaiah 49:7 Lit. who is despised of soul
Isaiah 49:8 favorable
Isaiah 49:8 keep
Isaiah 49:8 inheritances
Isaiah 49:15 Lit. From having compassion
Isaiah 49:17 DSS, LXX, Tg., Vg. builders
Isaiah 49:22 banner
Isaiah 49:22 Lit. bosom
Isaiah 49:24 So with MT, Tg.; DSS, Syr., Vg. of the mighty; LXX unjustly
Isaiah 50:8 Lit. master of My judgment
Isaiah 51:1 pursue
Isaiah 51:6 broken
Isaiah 51:16 establish
Isaiah 51:23 Lit. your soul
Isaiah 52:4 As resident aliens
Isaiah 52:5 DSS Mock; LXX Marvel and wail; Tg. Boast themselves; Vg. Treat them unjustly
Isaiah 52:10 Revealed His power
Isaiah 52:13 prosper
Isaiah 52:13 Lit. be lifted up
Isaiah 52:14 appearance
Isaiah 52:15 Or startle
Isaiah 53:2 Stately form
Isaiah 53:2 splendor
Isaiah 53:2 Lit. appearance
Isaiah 53:3 Or forsaken
Isaiah 53:3 Lit. pains
Isaiah 53:3 Lit. sickness
Isaiah 53:4 Lit. sicknesses
Isaiah 53:4 Lit. pains
Isaiah 53:4 reckoned
Isaiah 53:4 Struck down
Isaiah 53:5 Or pierced through
Isaiah 53:5 crushed
Isaiah 53:5 Blows that cut in
Isaiah 53:6 Lit. has caused to land on Him
Isaiah 53:8 confinement
Isaiah 53:9 Lit. he or He
Isaiah 53:10 crush
Isaiah 53:11 So with MT, Tg., Vg.; DSS, LXX From the labor of His soul He shall see light
Isaiah 53:12 plunder

28 Jul 202127 Jul 2021

Humble Response

“And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.” 2 Kings 19:1 NKJV

Right responses to God is something we discuss often. What about the right response when the threats come against you? Here we see it is the exact same response – humility before God!

Today’s reading is from the book of Second Kings chapter 18 verse 9 through chapter 19 verse 37, the book of Psalms chapters 46, 80 and 135 (embedded below the image below for your convenience). This passage shows God’s hand on Isaiah as a prophet – I think we tend to think about all the messianic prophecies and end time prophesies from Isaiah and tend to forget when he was seeking God for the current situations and getting these kinds of responses from God. Spoiler Alert – it was a miracle. But I will not spoil the rest.

I will say this is a scary moment as an Israelite – a foreign nation with the capability to destroy them (in man’s eyes) was threatening to do exactly that. The people held their tongue and went to God and His prophet – which would be like us keeping our mouths shut and going to God and the word of God. How often we do not keep our mouths shut.

Then when we do decide to pray – we think it though, we come up with every way it will or won’t work. We pray our plans. Sometimes we limit God by praying our way. This is why I ALWAYS ask for chapter and verse. Show me when and how God did it that way and were it says that is His will to pray for that to happen in your situation. See King Hezekiah stayed quiet and told all the people to shut their mouths – then they inquired of what the Lord said. For us – that is the Bible, the Word of God, and we need chapter and verse!!! We need to know the will of the Lord. We need to pray the will of the Lord.

Human faith is small by nature and God gave us chapter and verse so we can swing the word of the Lord, which is the sword into the situation and say: It is written! And therefore, God will do it – and our faith grows from a mustard seed into a mustard tree. It is written – and God did it before! Look here in today’s reading how unexplainably God just did what God does and God gets the Glory. The enemy has no might or power over the will and plans of our Lord!

And the Lord’s ways are not our ways.

It reminds me to seek God first and then everything else follows. And included in that ‘everything else’ is the answers to our prayers. Seek God – build a relationship with Him. And see His power move in your life like in Isaiah’s life, and like in King Hezekiah’s life. Stay humble before Him. He is a real and living God and His care, intervention and power are not just for a time long ago – but they are very much for a time such as this!

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: 2 Kings 18:9-19:37, Psalm 46, Psalm 80, & Psalm 135 NKJV

2 Kings 18:9-19:37

⁹Now it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. ¹⁰And at the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹²because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would neither hear nor do them.

¹³And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ¹⁴Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; turn away from me; whatever you impose on me I will pay.” And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. ¹⁶At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave ^[^a^]it to the king of Assyria.

Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord

¹⁷Then the king of Assyria sent the ^[^b^]Tartan, the ^[^c^]Rabsaris, and the ^[^d^]Rabshakeh from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ¹⁸And when they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the ^[^e^]scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them. ¹⁹Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust? ²⁰You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are ^[^f^]mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? ²¹Now look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ²²But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose ^[^g^]high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?” ’ ²³Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them! ²⁴How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ²⁵Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

²⁶Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in ^[^h^]Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

²⁷But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

²⁸Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in ^[ⁱ^]Hebrew, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! ²⁹Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you from his hand; ³⁰nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’ ³¹Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me ^[^j^]by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; ³²until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive groves and honey, that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” ³³Has any of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim and Hena and Ivah? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? ³⁵Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

³⁶But the people held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Isaiah Assures Deliverance

19 And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. ²Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. ³And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to ^[^k^]bring them forth. ⁴It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. ⁶And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. ⁷Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

Sennacherib’s Threat and Hezekiah’s Prayer

⁸Then the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. ⁹And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Look, he has come out to make war with you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹¹Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’ ”

¹⁴And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. ¹⁷Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, ¹⁸and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. ¹⁹Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone.”

The Word of the Lord Concerning Sennacherib

²⁰Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.’ ²¹This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him:

‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion,
Has despised you, laughed you to scorn;
The daughter of Jerusalem
Has shaken her head behind your back!

²²‘Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel.
²³By your messengers you have reproached the Lord,
And said: “By the multitude of my chariots
I have come up to the height of the mountains,
To the limits of Lebanon;
I will cut down its tall cedars
And its choice cypress trees;
I will enter the extremity of its borders,
To its fruitful forest.
²⁴I have dug and drunk strange water,
And with the soles of my feet I have dried up
All the brooks of defense.”

²⁵‘Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
²⁶Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.

²⁷‘But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
²⁸Because your rage against Me and your tumult
Have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back
By the way which you came.

²⁹‘This shall be a sign to you:

‘You shall eat this year such as grows ^[^l^]of itself,
And in the second year what springs from the same;
Also in the third year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
³⁰And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah
Shall again take root downward,
And bear fruit upward.
³¹For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,
And those who escape from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord ^[^m^]of hosts will do this.’

³²“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow there,
Nor come before it with shield,
Nor build a siege mound against it.
³³By the way that he came,
By the same shall he return;
And he shall not come into this city,’
Says the Lord.
³⁴‘For I will defend this city, to save it
For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”

Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death

³⁵And it came to pass on a certain night that the ^[ⁿ^]angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. ³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. ³⁷Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Footnotes

2 Kings 18:16 Lit. them
2 Kings 18:17 A title, probably Commander in Chief
2 Kings 18:17 A title, probably Chief Officer
2 Kings 18:17 A title, probably Chief of Staff or Governor
2 Kings 18:18 secretary
2 Kings 18:20 Lit. a word of the lips
2 Kings 18:22 Places for pagan worship
2 Kings 18:26 Lit. Judean
2 Kings 18:28 Lit. Judean
2 Kings 18:31 By paying tribute
2 Kings 19:3 give birth
2 Kings 19:29 Without cultivation
2 Kings 19:31 So with many Heb. mss. and ancient vss. (cf. Is. 37:32); MT omits of hosts
2 Kings 19:35 Or Angel

Psalm 46

God the Refuge of His People and Conqueror of the Nations

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. A Song for Alamoth.

46 God is our refuge and strength,
A^[^a^] very present help in trouble.
²Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the ^[^b^]midst of the sea;
³Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling. Selah

⁴There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God,
The holy place of the ^[^c^]tabernacle of the Most High.
⁵God is in the midst of her, she shall not be ^[^d^]moved;
God shall help her, just ^[^e^]at the break of dawn.
⁶The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;
He uttered His voice, the earth melted.

⁷The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

⁸Come, behold the works of the Lord,
Who has made desolations in the earth.
⁹He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariot in the fire.

¹⁰Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

¹¹The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Footnotes

Psalm 46:1 An abundantly available help
Psalm 46:2 Lit. heart
Psalm 46:4 dwelling places
Psalm 46:5 shaken
Psalm 46:5 Lit. at the turning of the morning

Psalm 80

Prayer for Israel’s Restoration

To the Chief Musician. Set to ^[^a^]“The Lilies.” A ^[^b^]Testimony of Asaph. A Psalm.

80 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
You who lead Joseph like a flock;
You who dwell between the cherubim, shine forth!
²Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,
Stir up Your strength,
And come and save us!

³Restore us, O God;
Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!

⁴O Lord God of hosts,
How long will You be angry
Against the prayer of Your people?
⁵You have fed them with the bread of tears,
And given them tears to drink in great measure.
⁶You have made us a strife to our neighbors,
And our enemies laugh among themselves.

⁷Restore us, O God of hosts;
Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!

⁸You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You have cast out the ^[^c^]nations, and planted it.
⁹You prepared room for it,
And caused it to take deep root,
And it filled the land.
¹⁰The hills were covered with its shadow,
And the ^[^d^]mighty cedars with its boughs.
¹¹She sent out her boughs to ^[^e^]the Sea,
And her branches to ^[^f^]the River.

¹²Why have You broken down her ^[^g^]hedges,
So that all who pass by the way pluck her fruit?
¹³The boar out of the woods uproots it,
And the wild beast of the field devours it.

¹⁴Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts;
Look down from heaven and see,
And visit this vine
¹⁵And the vineyard which Your right hand has planted,
And the branch that You made strong for Yourself.
¹⁶It is burned with fire, it is cut down;
They perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
¹⁷Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand,
Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
¹⁸Then we will not turn back from You;
Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.

¹⁹Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!

Footnotes

Psalm 80:1 Heb. Shoshannim
Psalm 80:1 Heb. Eduth
Psalm 80:8 Gentiles
Psalm 80:10 Lit. cedars of God
Psalm 80:11 The Mediterranean
Psalm 80:11 The Euphrates
Psalm 80:12 walls or fences

Psalm 135

Praise to God in Creation and Redemption

135 Praise the Lord!

Praise the name of the Lord;
Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord!
²You who stand in the house of the Lord,
In the courts of the house of our God,
³Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
Sing praises to His name, for it is pleasant.
⁴For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself,
Israel for His ^[^a^]special treasure.

⁵For I know that the Lord is great,
And our Lord is above all gods.
⁶Whatever the Lord pleases He does,
In heaven and in earth,
In the seas and in all deep places.
⁷He causes the ^[^b^]vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries.

⁸He ^[^c^]destroyed the firstborn of Egypt,
^[^d^]Both of man and beast.
⁹He sent signs and wonders into the midst of you, O Egypt,
Upon Pharaoh and all his servants.
¹⁰He defeated many nations
And slew mighty kings—
¹¹Sihon king of the Amorites,
Og king of Bashan,
And all the kingdoms of Canaan—
¹²And gave their land as a ^[^e^]heritage,
A heritage to Israel His people.

¹³Your name, O Lord, endures forever,
Your fame, O Lord, throughout all generations.
¹⁴For the Lord will judge His people,
And He will have compassion on His servants.

¹⁵The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
The work of men’s hands.
¹⁶They have mouths, but they do not speak;
Eyes they have, but they do not see;
¹⁷They have ears, but they do not hear;
Nor is there any breath in their mouths.
¹⁸Those who make them are like them;
So is everyone who trusts in them.

¹⁹Bless the Lord, O house of Israel!
Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron!
²⁰Bless the Lord, O house of Levi!
You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord!
²¹Blessed be the Lord out of Zion,
Who dwells in Jerusalem!

Praise the Lord!

Footnotes

Psalm 135:4 precious possession
Psalm 135:7 Water vapor
Psalm 135:8 Lit. struck down
Psalm 135:8 Lit. From man to beast
Psalm 135:12 inheritance

27 Jul 202126 Jul 2021

Remember Who God Is

“Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.” Isaiah 46:9-11 NKJV

Remember He is God – the Only God. Such a pertinent message. Praying for revelation – that He reveals to you His sovereignty and His might – His gentleness and His love. Sometimes, humans seem to forget who He is. He is bigger. He is more powerful. He has already planned it all out and yet in grace He has given us full choice. And although He does know what we will choose – nothing is settled until you choose it. So there is always hope – and always urgency.

Today’s reading is from the book of Isaiah chapters 44-48 (embedded below the image below for your convenience).

Obviously with the history of Israel we see that it is not just a good practice to remind yourself of who God is – But it is also vital to our faith! Starting early on God encouraged them to set up monuments to events and to have holidays to recall the victories and throughout it all He send men of God to remind them of who God is.

Sometimes I wonder why I do not have an annual holiday of my Rebirthday? Or invite everyone over to feast on my Deliverance Day? But I do often remind myself of all the amazing miracles God has performed in my life – as well as sharing them with others. Because God is still alive and powerful and the same yesterday, today and forever. If He could save Israel from Egypt – from Babylon – from all their enemies; then why do we not easily believe He can and will do the same now if we respond with humility as they did in those past situations. Why is our faith not firm and easily given to understand the following:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 NKJV

“But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.” Psalm 102:27 NKJV

If Jesus and God are BOTH the same forever – then it should be easy to believe He can shoot fire down from the sky – or that impossible walls can unexplainably fall (and should logic and science explain some of these event – acknowledge the miracle that these people who did not know these sciences unexplainably had supernatural guidance to do these things at these exact moments when time, nature and science all worked together to make it happen)! Because Our Father was in control of every aspect and still is and forever will be.

Not only does reminding ourselves of who God is encourage our faith. But it is a great tool for getting to know Him better. Every time I hear someone say they want to know God better, or they want to go deeper – I think they need this very activity. Remember. And then study.

Here we see God is water for the thirsty – this is reiterated in the New Testament when Christ says He is the Living Water. God is my redeemer (and yours if you accept it). He is the first and the last. The one and only God. The only God who has consistently answered and cared and been involved since ancient times…. Well, read today’s passages and see who He is – be reminded and be encouraged and let your faith be built and get to know Him. He is doing a new thing! I know in whom I believe!

And I suppose if we are speaking of getting to know Him and knowing Him then we should quickly discuss the situation in which God places this:

“For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” 2 Timothy 1:12 NKJV

You see we suffer and are put in a situation to choose being ashamed of our belief or not. In these interesting times – these perilous time – these “such a time as this” kind of times; God has placed each of us here for a reason with a purpose and we MUST know whom I have believed. I know my Father’s voice and therefore I know a false spirit or false teacher. I know my Father’s actions so I know and have witness in my spirit to confirm the presence of the Lord! I know my Father and I am persuaded that He is able. (I make sure I commit it all to Him – I give Him my needs, my wants, my hopes and I give Him my son and my friends and my family AND I give Him ME.) I know He is ABLE in all of the situations and things that are represented in everything I have committed to Him.

Remember God – and yes, it builds faith – but let it grow you past simple faith to confidence to KNOWING – to know that you know and the spirit bears witness (and find a verse that also bears witness so you have your two witnesses). And know.

Know he wants to and He will heal you. Know that you and your faith are not at fault for any delay. Know in whom you believe and HE IS ABLE and HE WILL! Know God – absolutely get to know Him and have a relationship with Him! Everyone needs a God on His side and since there is only one true God: read the Bible, pray, and get to know Him!!!

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 44-48 NKJV

God’s Blessing on Israel

44 “Yet hear now, O Jacob My servant,
And Israel whom I have chosen.
²Thus says the Lord who made you
And formed you from the womb, who will help you:
‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant;
And you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
³For I will pour water on him who is thirsty,
And floods on the dry ground;
I will pour My Spirit on your descendants,
And My blessing on your offspring;
⁴They will spring up among the grass
Like willows by the watercourses.’
⁵One will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’;
Another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
Another will write with his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’
And name himself by the name of Israel.

There Is No Other God

⁶“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
‘I am the First and I am the Last;
Besides Me there is no God.
⁷And who can proclaim as I do?
Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me,
Since I appointed the ancient people.
And the things that are coming and shall come,
Let them show these to them.
⁸Do not fear, nor be afraid;
Have I not told you from that time, and declared it?
You are My witnesses.
Is there a God besides Me?
Indeed there is no other Rock;
I know not one.’ ”

Idolatry Is Foolishness

⁹Those who make an image, all of them are useless,
And their precious things shall not profit;
They are their own witnesses;
They neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed.
¹⁰Who would form a god or mold an image
That profits him nothing?
¹¹Surely all his companions would be ashamed;
And the workmen, they are mere men.
Let them all be gathered together,
Let them stand up;
Yet they shall fear,
They shall be ashamed together.

¹²The blacksmith with the tongs works one in the coals,
Fashions it with hammers,
And works it with the strength of his arms.
Even so, he is hungry, and his strength fails;
He drinks no water and is faint.

¹³The craftsman stretches out his rule,
He marks one out with chalk;
He fashions it with a plane,
He marks it out with the compass,
And makes it like the figure of a man,
According to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house.
¹⁴He cuts down cedars for himself,
And takes the cypress and the oak;
He ^[^a^]secures it for himself among the trees of the forest.
He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it.

¹⁵Then it shall be for a man to burn,
For he will take some of it and warm himself;
Yes, he kindles it and bakes bread;
Indeed he makes a god and worships it;
He makes it a carved image, and falls down to it.
¹⁶He burns half of it in the fire;
With this half he eats meat;
He roasts a roast, and is satisfied.
He even warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm,
I have seen the fire.”
¹⁷And the rest of it he makes into a god,
His carved image.
He falls down before it and worships it,
Prays to it and says,
“Deliver me, for you are my god!”

¹⁸They do not know nor understand;
For He has ^[^b^]shut their eyes, so that they cannot see,
And their hearts, so that they cannot understand.
¹⁹And no one considers in his heart,
Nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say,
“I have burned half of it in the fire,
Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals;
I have roasted meat and eaten it;
And shall I make the rest of it an abomination?
Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
²⁰He feeds on ashes;
A deceived heart has turned him aside;
And he cannot deliver his soul,
Nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Israel Is Not Forgotten

²¹“Remember these, O Jacob,
And Israel, for you are My servant;
I have formed you, you are My servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me!
²²I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions,
And like a cloud, your sins.
Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

²³Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it!
Shout, you lower parts of the earth;
Break forth into singing, you mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
And glorified Himself in Israel.

Judah Will Be Restored

²⁴Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
“I am the Lord, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens ^[^c^]all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
²⁵Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,
And drives diviners mad;
Who turns wise men backward,
And makes their knowledge foolishness;
²⁶Who confirms the word of His servant,
And performs the counsel of His messengers;
Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’
To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’
And I will raise up her waste places;
²⁷Who says to the deep, ‘Be dry!
And I will dry up your rivers’;
²⁸Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd,
And he shall perform all My pleasure,
Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,”
And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ’

Cyrus, God’s Instrument

45 “Thus says the Lord to His anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have ^[^d^]held—
To subdue nations before him
And loose the armor of kings,
To open before him the double doors,
So that the gates will not be shut:
²‘I will go before you
And^[^e^] make the ^[^f^]crooked places straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
And cut the bars of iron.
³I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
⁴For Jacob My servant’s sake,
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you, though you have not known Me.
⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
⁶That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
⁷I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the Lord, do all these things.’

⁸“Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it.

⁹“Woe to him who strives with his Maker!
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!
Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?
¹⁰Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’
Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’ ”

¹¹Thus says the Lord,
The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:
“Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons;
And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.
¹²I have made the earth,
And created man on it.
I—My hands—stretched out the heavens,
And all their host I have commanded.
¹³I have raised him up in righteousness,
And I will ^[^g^]direct all his ways;
He shall build My city
And let My exiles go free,
Not for price nor reward,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

The Lord, the Only Savior

¹⁴Thus says the Lord:

“The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush
And of the Sabeans, men of stature,
Shall come over to you, and they shall be yours;
They shall walk behind you,
They shall come over in chains;
And they shall bow down to you.
They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘Surely God is in you,
And there is no other;
There is no other God.’ ”

¹⁵Truly You are God, who hide Yourself,
O God of Israel, the Savior!
¹⁶They shall be ashamed
And also disgraced, all of them;
They shall go in confusion together,
Who are makers of idols.
¹⁷But Israel shall be saved by the Lord
With an everlasting salvation;
You shall not be ashamed or disgraced
Forever and ever.

¹⁸For thus says the Lord,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it ^[^h^]in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
¹⁹I have not spoken in secret,
In a dark place of the earth;
I did not say to the seed of Jacob,
‘Seek Me ^[ⁱ^]in vain’;
I, the Lord, speak righteousness,
I declare things that are right.

²⁰“Assemble yourselves and come;
Draw near together,
You who have escaped from the nations.
They have no knowledge,
Who carry the wood of their carved image,
And pray to a god that cannot save.
²¹Tell and bring forth your case;
Yes, let them take counsel together.
Who has declared this from ancient time?
Who has told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord?
And there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me.

²²“Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
²³I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness,
And shall not return,
That to Me every knee shall bow,
Every tongue shall take an oath.
²⁴He shall say,
^[^j^]‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength.
To Him men shall come,
And all shall be ashamed
Who are incensed against Him.
²⁵In the Lord all the descendants of Israel
Shall be justified, and shall glory.’ ”

Dead Idols and the Living God

46 Bel bows down, Nebo stoops;
Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle.
Your carriages were heavily loaded,
A burden to the weary beast.
²They stoop, they bow down together;
They could not deliver the burden,
But have themselves gone into captivity.

³“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
Who have been upheld by Me from ^[^k^]birth,
Who have been carried from the womb:
⁴Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

⁵“To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal
And compare Me, that we should be alike?
⁶They lavish gold out of the bag,
And weigh silver on the scales;
They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god;
They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship.
⁷They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it
And set it in its place, and it stands;
From its place it shall not move.
Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer
Nor save him out of his trouble.

⁸“Remember this, and ^[^l^]show yourselves men;
Recall to mind, O you transgressors.
⁹Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
¹⁰Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
¹¹Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.

¹²“Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted,
Who are far from righteousness:
¹³I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off;
My salvation shall not ^[^m^]linger.
And I will place salvation in Zion,
For Israel My glory.

The Humiliation of Babylon

47 “Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no more be called
Tender and ^[ⁿ^]delicate.
²Take the millstones and grind meal.
Remove your veil,
Take off the skirt,
Uncover the thigh,
Pass through the rivers.
³Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
Yes, your shame will be seen;
I will take vengeance,
And I will not arbitrate with a man.”

⁴As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name,
The Holy One of Israel.

⁵“Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans;
For you shall no longer be called
The Lady of Kingdoms.
⁶I was angry with My people;
I have profaned My inheritance,
And given them into your hand.
You showed them no mercy;
On the elderly you laid your yoke very heavily.
⁷And you said, ‘I shall be a lady forever,’
So that you did not take these things to heart,
Nor remember the latter end of them.

⁸“Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures,
Who dwell securely,
Who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow,
Nor shall I know the loss of children’;
⁹But these two things shall come to you
In a moment, in one day:
The loss of children, and widowhood.
They shall come upon you in their fullness
Because of the multitude of your sorceries,
For the great abundance of your enchantments.

¹⁰“For you have trusted in your wickedness;
You have said, ‘No one sees me’;
Your wisdom and your knowledge have ^[^o^]warped you;
And you have said in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’
¹¹Therefore evil shall come upon you;
You shall not know from where it arises.
And trouble shall fall upon you;
You will not be able ^[^p^]to put it off.
And desolation shall come upon you suddenly,
Which you shall not know.

¹²“Stand now with your enchantments
And the multitude of your sorceries,
In which you have labored from your youth—
Perhaps you will be able to profit,
Perhaps you will prevail.
¹³You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels;
Let now the^[^q^] astrologers, the stargazers,
And ^[^r^]the monthly prognosticators
Stand up and save you
From what shall come upon you.
¹⁴Behold, they shall be as stubble,
The fire shall burn them;
They shall not deliver themselves
From the power of the flame;
It shall not be a coal to be warmed by,
Nor a fire to sit before!
¹⁵Thus shall they be to you
With whom you have labored,
Your merchants from your youth;
They shall wander each one to his ^[^s^]quarter.
No one shall save you.

Israel Refined for God’s Glory

48 “Hear this, O house of Jacob,
Who are called by the name of Israel,
And have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah;
Who swear by the name of the Lord,
And make mention of the God of Israel,
But not in truth or in righteousness;
²For they call themselves after the holy city,
And lean on the God of Israel;
The Lord of hosts is His name:

³“I have declared the former things from the beginning;
They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it.
Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
⁴Because I knew that you were ^[^t^]obstinate,
And your neck was an iron sinew,
And your brow bronze,
⁵Even from the beginning I have declared it to you;
Before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you,
Lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my carved image and my molded image
Have commanded them.’

⁶“You have heard;
See all this.
And will you not declare it?
I have made you hear new things from this time,
Even hidden things, and you did not know them.
⁷They are created now and not from the beginning;
And before this day you have not heard them,
Lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them.’
⁸Surely you did not hear,
Surely you did not know;
Surely from long ago your ear was not opened.
For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
And were called a transgressor from the womb.

⁹“For My name’s sake I will ^[^u^]defer My anger,
And for My praise I will restrain it from you,
So that I do not cut you off.
¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
¹¹For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;
For how should My name be profaned?
And I will not give My glory to another.

God’s Ancient Plan to Redeem Israel

¹²“Listen to Me, O Jacob,
And Israel, My called:
I am He, I am the First,
I am also the Last.
¹³Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth,
And My right hand has stretched out the heavens;
When I call to them,
They stand up together.

¹⁴“All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear!
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him;
He shall do His pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
¹⁵I, even I, have spoken;
Yes, I have called him,
I have brought him, and his way will prosper.

¹⁶“Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
From the time that it was, I was there.
And now the Lord God and His Spirit
^[^v^]Have sent Me.”

¹⁷Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
The Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
Who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you by the way you should go.
¹⁸Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
¹⁹Your descendants also would have been like the sand,
And the offspring of your body like the grains of sand;
His name would not have been cut off
Nor destroyed from before Me.”

²⁰Go forth from Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With a voice of singing,
Declare, proclaim this,
Utter it to the end of the earth;
Say, “The Lord has redeemed
His servant Jacob!”
²¹And they did not thirst
When He led them through the deserts;
He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them;
He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out.

²²“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

Footnotes

Isaiah 44:14 Lit. appropriates
Isaiah 44:18 Lit. smeared over
Isaiah 44:24 By Himself
Isaiah 45:1 strengthened or sustained
Isaiah 45:2 Tg. I will trample down the walls; Vg. I will humble the great ones of the earth
Isaiah 45:2 DSS, LXX mountains
Isaiah 45:13 Or make all his ways straight
Isaiah 45:18 Or empty, a waste
Isaiah 45:19 Or in a waste place
Isaiah 45:24 Or Only in the Lord are all righteousness and strength
Isaiah 46:3 Lit. the belly
Isaiah 46:8 be men, take courage
Isaiah 46:13 delay
Isaiah 47:1 dainty
Isaiah 47:10 led you astray
Isaiah 47:11 Lit. to cover it or atone for it
Isaiah 47:13 Lit. viewers of the heavens
Isaiah 47:13 Lit. those giving knowledge for new moons
Isaiah 47:15 own side or way
Isaiah 48:4 Heb. hard
Isaiah 48:9 delay
Isaiah 48:16 Heb. verb is sing.; or Has sent Me and His Spirit

26 Jul 202125 Jul 2021

Comfort

“The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:6-8 NKJV

Verse one begins today’s reading with the instructions to comfort God’s people. The opening verse above is the instruction on how to comfort – you, me, all of this (fields and flowers and life) withers and passes away. Now it is our job to pray for the spirit of revelation to reveal this to us and ALSO our job to try diligently to understand it!

Today’s reading is from the book of Isaiah chapters 40-43 (embedded below the image below for your convenience).

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God. “Speak comfort to Jerusalem” Isaiah 40:1-2a NKJV

Please extend more grace to me while I get terribly honest with you all: I believe Jesus is returning at any moment. I believe end time prophesy is being fulfilled before our very eyes. I believe the tribulation or “Jacob’s Sorrow” is a blink of the eye away from us. I believe in repent NOW, because you many never have another chance. If the world was more opened up I would be on a street corn in New York City with a cardboard sign that said “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand!” Because it is! I am labeled a conspiracy theorist (which is apparently what the “woke” liberals in the USA are calling end time prophecy: conspiracy). I am labeled radicalized – not yet in my eyes, but I know I am called to it. I am labeled an enemy of the state because I logically cannot reason why I MUST have a voluntary shot. I am told I am a liar when I quote their own words and ‘scientific studies’ back at them (like the fact that only those who have received the shot are contracting the delta variant). I am one of them. Now, you have been warned. But in the eyes of my savior, I am just seeking God’s heart, abiding in His will, and living life in a relationship with Him.

I am careful, I do not want to get censored for those things when I have a message which is MUCH more important and powerful I must spread: God loves you so much He sacrificed His son, in your place – so He can restore you to Him and have a relationship with you! See? It is much more important than my personal convictions.

But I cannot deny current events – the riots and protest in Israel over the “Happy Badge” with all sorts of horrible flashbacks to the Natzi’s Star of David. I have studied the holocaust in college with a Jewish professor and let me tell you the similarities trigger me – I cannot imagine how unfair this is to the remaining survivors. The world “reset” is written out and the world is moving forward without our consent and our governments are selling us all out. Death begets death.

And God has us reading Isaiah, a prophet who blurred the timelines of all his prophecies, and his words pierce into our day and age with uncomfortable accuracy. I am not alone in this – writing devotionals daily is difficult when I am not trying to run around screaming the sky is falling – but even the words of the prophet say it is! As you read the rest of this book, go ahead and draw the lines to today’s events and understand what God has for us right now!

And God says comfort Jerusalem by saying we are all withering away. We are fighting for our lives or moments away from it all over this globe as the body of Christ and we are supposed to be comforted by the fact that we are all going to die. Oh God your ways are not our ways!!! Because the rest says “THE WORD OF GOD STANDS FOREVER”! Hallelujah!! Do you have comfort in that? You should – Because His very word says we shall rise in Christ and live forever!

“Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:18 NKJV

I am reminded of this verse to the Thessalonian church. The preceding verses scared the dickens out of me as a child, yet Paul says this is comforting. If it is comforting, why was I so scared??? Oh spirit of revelation fall upon us all in the name of Jesus!! I experienced grace, and was given the understanding and I look forward with anticipation of the return of Christ and even try to speed it along by witnessing to others and bringing in the harvest!

“¹³But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. ¹⁵For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NKJV

God loves you. Especially you. Yes, you who are reading this! As I have said before I let this blog and God organically find the right readers to read it. I let this be the work of my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He has this find its way to you through your search, through computer algorithms, or through someone being prompted by the Spirit to share it. It is all God that you somewhere in the big world are reading this. So He must love you a whole lot!

He also sent His son to be our savior, to save us from our sins, to die in our place as sinners deserve death and it is grace – grace that can transform us from sinners to being counted righteous in the eyes of our God so he can restore having a personal relationship like he had with Adam and Eve in the garden at the beginning of it all.

And through this personal relationship, reading His love letters to us (aka the Bible) and listening for His voice and understanding the ministering the Holy Spirit does inside of us, and through talking with him – we get the directions and instructions on how to manage and maneuver through these perilous times. We cannot without Him. Read chapter 43 below slowly and understand how much He really loves us and call us His, even as a gentile adopted in.

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 40-43 NKJV

God’s People Are Comforted

40 “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
Says your God.
²“Speak ^[^a^]comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.”

³The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight ^[^b^]in the desert
A highway for our God.
⁴Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made ^[^c^]straight
And the rough places smooth;
⁵The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

⁶The voice said, “Cry out!”
And ^[^d^]he said, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass,
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
⁷The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
⁸The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”

⁹O Zion,
You who bring good tidings,
Get up into the high mountain;
O Jerusalem,
You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength,
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

¹⁰Behold, the Lord God shall come ^[^e^]with a strong hand,
And His arm shall rule for Him;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His ^[^f^]work before Him.
¹¹He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,
And gently lead those who are with young.

¹²Who has measured the ^[^g^]waters in the hollow of His hand,
Measured heaven with a ^[^h^]span
And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?
Weighed the mountains in scales
And the hills in a balance?
¹³Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
Or as His counselor has taught Him?
¹⁴With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him,
And taught Him in the path of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge,
And showed Him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust on the scales;
Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.
¹⁶And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
¹⁷All nations before Him are as nothing,
And they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.

¹⁸To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
¹⁹The workman molds an image,
The goldsmith overspreads it with gold,
And the silversmith casts silver chains.
²⁰Whoever is too impoverished for such ^[ⁱ^]a contribution
Chooses a tree that will not rot;
He seeks for himself a skillful workman
To prepare a carved image that will not totter.

²¹Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²²It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
²³He ^[^j^]brings the princes to nothing;
He makes the judges of the earth useless.

²⁴Scarcely shall they be planted,
Scarcely shall they be sown,
Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth,
When He will also blow on them,
And they will wither,
And the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.

²⁵“To whom then will you liken Me,
Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.
²⁶Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
²⁸Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
³⁰Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
³¹But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Israel Assured of God’s Help

41 “Keep silence before Me, O coastlands,
And let the people renew their strength!
Let them come near, then let them speak;
Let us come near together for judgment.

²“Who raised up one from the east?
Who in righteousness called him to His feet?
Who gave the nations before him,
And made him rule over kings?
Who gave them as the dust to his sword,
As driven stubble to his bow?
³Who pursued them, and passed ^[^k^]safely
By the way that he had not gone with his feet?
⁴Who has performed and done it,
Calling the generations from the beginning?
‘I, the Lord, am the first;
And with the last I am He.’ ”

⁵The coastlands saw it and feared,
The ends of the earth were afraid;
They drew near and came.
⁶Everyone helped his neighbor,
And said to his brother,
^[^l^]“Be of good courage!”
⁷So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith;^[^m^]
He who smooths with the hammer inspired him who strikes the anvil,
Saying, ^[ⁿ^]“It is ready for the soldering”;
Then he fastened it with pegs,
That it might not totter.

⁸“But you, Israel, are My servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
The descendants of Abraham My friend.
⁹You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
And called from its farthest regions,
And said to you,
‘You are My servant,
I have chosen you and have not cast you away:
¹⁰Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

¹¹“Behold, all those who were incensed against you
Shall be ashamed and disgraced;
They shall be as nothing,
And those who strive with you shall perish.
¹²You shall seek them and not find them—
^[^o^]Those who contended with you.
Those who war against you
Shall be as nothing,
As a nonexistent thing.
¹³For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’

¹⁴“Fear not, you worm Jacob,
You men of Israel!
I will help you,” says the Lord
And your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
¹⁵“Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small,
And make the hills like chaff.
¹⁶You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away,
And the whirlwind shall scatter them;
You shall rejoice in the Lord,
And glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷“The poor and needy seek water, but there is none,
Their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the Lord, will hear them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
¹⁸I will open rivers in desolate heights,
And fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land springs of water.
¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree,
The myrtle and the oil tree;
I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine
And the box tree together,
²⁰That they may see and know,
And consider and understand together,
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
And the Holy One of Israel has created it.

The Futility of Idols

²¹“Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.
²²“Let them bring forth and show us what will happen;
Let them show the former things, what they were,
That we may ^[^p^]consider them,
And know the latter end of them;
Or declare to us things to come.
²³Show the things that are to come hereafter,
That we may know that you are gods;
Yes, do good or do evil,
That we may be dismayed and see it together.
²⁴Indeed you are nothing,
And your work is nothing;
He who chooses you is an abomination.

²⁵“I have raised up one from the north,
And he shall come;
From the ^[^q^]rising of the sun he shall call on My name;
And he shall come against princes as though mortar,
As the potter treads clay.
²⁶Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know?
And former times, that we may say, ‘He is righteous’?
Surely there is no one who shows,
Surely there is no one who declares,
Surely there is no one who hears your words.
²⁷The first time I said to Zion,
‘Look, there they are!’
And I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings.
²⁸For I looked, and there was no man;
I looked among them, but there was no counselor,
Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
²⁹Indeed they are all ^[^r^]worthless;
Their works are nothing;
Their molded images are wind and confusion.

The Servant of the Lord

42 “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My ^[^s^]Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
²He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
³A bruised reed He will not break,
And ^[^t^]smoking flax He will not ^[^u^]quench;
He will bring forth justice for truth.
⁴He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”

⁵Thus says God the Lord,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it,
Who gives breath to the people on it,
And spirit to those who walk on it:
⁶“I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the Gentiles,
⁷To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the prison,
Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
⁸I am the Lord, that is My name;
And My glory I will not give to another,
Nor My praise to carved images.
⁹Behold, the former things have come to pass,
And new things I declare;
Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

Praise to the Lord

¹⁰Sing to the Lord a new song,
And His praise from the ends of the earth,
You who go down to the sea, and ^[^v^]all that is in it,
You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!
¹¹Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice,
The villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing,
Let them shout from the top of the mountains.
¹²Let them give glory to the Lord,
And declare His praise in the coastlands.
¹³The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man;
He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.
He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud;
He shall prevail against His enemies.

Promise of the Lord’s Help

¹⁴“I have held My peace a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will cry like a woman in ^[^w^]labor,
I will pant and gasp at once.
¹⁵I will lay waste the mountains and hills,
And dry up all their vegetation;
I will make the rivers coastlands,
And I will dry up the pools.
¹⁶I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them.
¹⁷They shall be turned back,
They shall be greatly ashamed,
Who trust in carved images,
Who say to the molded images,
‘You are our gods.’

¹⁸“Hear, you deaf;
And look, you blind, that you may see.
¹⁹Who is blind but My servant,
Or deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as he who is perfect,
And blind as the Lord’s servant?
²⁰Seeing many things, but you do not observe;
Opening the ears, but he does not hear.”

Israel’s Obstinate Disobedience

²¹The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake;
He will exalt the law and make it honorable.
²²But this is a people robbed and plundered;
All of them are ^[^x^]snared in holes,
And they are hidden in prison houses;
They are for prey, and no one delivers;
For plunder, and no one says, “Restore!”

²³Who among you will give ear to this?
Who will listen and hear for the time to come?
²⁴Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the Lord,
He against whom we have sinned?
For they would not walk in His ways,
Nor were they obedient to His law.
²⁵Therefore He has poured on him the fury of His anger
And the strength of battle;
It has set him on fire all around,
Yet he did not know;
And it burned him,
Yet he did not take it to heart.

The Redeemer of Israel

43 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine.
²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
³For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place.
⁴Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honored,
And I have loved you;
Therefore I will give men for you,
And people for your life.
⁵Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your descendants from the east,
And gather you from the west;
⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’
Bring My sons from afar,
And My daughters from the ends of the earth—
⁷Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I have created for My glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”

⁸Bring out the blind people who have eyes,
And the deaf who have ears.
⁹Let all the nations be gathered together,
And let the people be assembled.
Who among them can declare this,
And show us former things?
Let them bring out their witnesses, that they may be justified;
Or let them hear and say, “It is truth.”
¹⁰“You are My witnesses,” says the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me,
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
Nor shall there be after Me.
¹¹I, even I, am the Lord,
And besides Me there is no savior.
¹²I have declared and saved,
I have proclaimed,
And there was no foreign god among you;
Therefore you are My witnesses,”
Says the Lord, “that I am God.
¹³Indeed before the day was, I am He;
And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand;
I work, and who will reverse it?”

¹⁴Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
The Holy One of Israel:
“For your sake I will send to Babylon,
And bring them all down as fugitives—
The Chaldeans, who rejoice in their ships.
¹⁵I am the Lord, your Holy One,
The Creator of Israel, your King.”

¹⁶Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea
And a path through the mighty waters,
¹⁷Who brings forth the chariot and horse,
The army and the power
(They shall lie down together, they shall not rise;
They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick):
¹⁸“Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
¹⁹Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.
²⁰The beast of the field will honor Me,
The jackals and the ostriches,
Because I give waters in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert,
To give drink to My people, My chosen.
²¹This people I have formed for Myself;
They shall declare My praise.

Pleading with Unfaithful Israel

²²“But you have not called upon Me, O Jacob;
And you have been weary of Me, O Israel.
²³You have not brought Me the sheep for your burnt offerings,
Nor have you honored Me with your sacrifices.
I have not caused you to serve with grain offerings,
Nor wearied you with incense.
²⁴You have bought Me no sweet cane with money,
Nor have you satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices;
But you have burdened Me with your sins,
You have wearied Me with your iniquities.

²⁵“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
²⁶Put Me in remembrance;
Let us contend together;
State your case, that you may be ^[^y^]acquitted.
²⁷Your first father sinned,
And your ^[^z^]mediators have transgressed against Me.
²⁸Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary;
I will give Jacob to the curse,
And Israel to reproaches.

Footnotes

Isaiah 40:2 Lit. to the heart of
Isaiah 40:3 So with MT, Tg., Vg.; LXX omits in the desert
Isaiah 40:4 Or a plain
Isaiah 40:6 So with MT, Tg.; DSS, LXX, Vg. I
Isaiah 40:10 in strength
Isaiah 40:10 recompense
Isaiah 40:12 So with MT, LXX, Vg.; DSS adds of the sea; Tg. adds of the world
Isaiah 40:12 A span .5 cubit, 9 inches; or the width of His hand
Isaiah 40:20 an offering
Isaiah 40:23 reduces
Isaiah 41:3 Lit. in peace
Isaiah 41:6 Lit. Be strong
Isaiah 41:7 refiner
Isaiah 41:7 Or The soldering is good
Isaiah 41:12 Lit. Men of your strife
Isaiah 41:22 Lit. set our heart on them
Isaiah 41:25 East
Isaiah 41:29 So with MT, Vg.; DSS, Syr., Tg. nothing; LXX omits first line
Isaiah 42:1 Chosen
Isaiah 42:3 dimly burning
Isaiah 42:3 extinguish
Isaiah 42:10 Lit. its fullness
Isaiah 42:14 childbirth
Isaiah 42:22 Or trapped in caves
Isaiah 43:26 justified
Isaiah 43:27 interpreters

25 Jul 202123 Jul 2021

Weekend Reading (July 25)

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 37-39 & Psalm 76 NKJV

Isaiah 37-39

Isaiah Assures Deliverance

37 And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. ²Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. ³And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble and rebuke and ^[a]blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth. ⁴It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

Sennacherib’s Threat and Hezekiah’s Prayer

⁸Then the Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. ⁹And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you.” So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹¹Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’ ”

¹⁴And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying: ¹⁶“O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. ¹⁸Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, ¹⁹and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. ²⁰Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord, You alone.”

The Word of the Lord Concerning Sennacherib

²¹Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²²this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“The virgin, the daughter of Zion,
Has despised you, laughed you to scorn;
The daughter of Jerusalem
Has shaken her head behind your back!

²³“Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel.
²⁴By your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots
I have come up to the height of the mountains,
To the limits of Lebanon;
I will cut down its tall cedars
And its choice cypress trees;
I will enter its farthest height,
To its fruitful forest.
²⁵I have dug and drunk water,
And with the soles of my feet I have dried up
All the brooks of ^[b]defense.’

²⁶“Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
²⁷Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.

²⁸“But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
²⁹Because your rage against Me and your tumult
Have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back
By the way which you came.” ’

³⁰“This shall be a sign to you:

You shall eat this year such as grows of itself,
And the second year what springs from the same;
Also in the third year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
³¹And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah
Shall again take root downward,
And bear fruit upward.
³²For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,
And those who escape from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

³³“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow there,
Nor come before it with shield,
Nor build a siege mound against it.
³⁴By the way that he came,
By the same shall he return;
And he shall not come into this city,’
Says the Lord.
³⁵‘For I will defend this city, to save it
For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”

Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death

³⁶Then the angel^[c] of the Lord went out, and ^[d]killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. ³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. ³⁸Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Hezekiah’s Life Extended

38 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ ”

²Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, ³and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a ^[e]loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, ⁵“Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years. ⁶I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city.” ’ ⁷And this is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing which He has spoken: ⁸Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.” So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.

⁹This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰I said,
“In the prime of my life
I shall go to the gates of Sheol;
I am deprived of the remainder of my years.”
¹¹I said,
“I shall not see ^[f]Yah,
The Lord in the land of the living;
I shall observe man no more ^[g]among the inhabitants of ^[h]the world.
¹²My life span is gone,
Taken from me like a shepherd’s tent;
I have cut off my life like a weaver.
He cuts me off from the loom;
From day until night You make an end of me.
¹³I have considered until morning—
Like a lion,
So He breaks all my bones;
From day until night You make an end of me.
¹⁴Like a crane or a swallow, so I chattered;
I mourned like a dove;
My eyes fail from looking upward.
O ^[i]Lord, I am oppressed;
^[j]Undertake for me!

¹⁵“What shall I say?
^[k]He has both spoken to me,
And He Himself has done it.
I shall walk carefully all my years
In the bitterness of my soul.
¹⁶O Lord, by these things men live;
And in all these things is the life of my spirit;
So You will restore me and make me live.
¹⁷Indeed it was for my own peace
That I had great bitterness;
But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption,
For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
¹⁸For Sheol cannot thank You,
Death cannot praise You;
Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.
¹⁹The living, the living man, he shall praise You,
As I do this day;
The father shall make known Your truth to the children.

²⁰“The Lord was ready to save me;
Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments
All the days of our life, in the house of the Lord.”

²¹Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.”

²²And Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”

The Babylonian Envoys

39 At that time ^[l]Merodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. ²And Hezekiah was pleased with them, and showed them the house of his treasures—the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory—all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

³Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where did they come to you?”

So Hezekiah said, “They came to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

⁴And he said, “What have they seen in your house?”

So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.”

⁵Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: ⁶‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord. ⁷‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”

⁸So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good!” For he said, “At least there will be peace and truth in my days.”

Footnotes

Isaiah 37:3 contempt
Isaiah 37:25 Or perhaps Egypt
Isaiah 37:36 Or Angel
Isaiah 37:36 Lit. struck
Isaiah 38:3 whole or peaceful
Isaiah 38:11 Heb. Yah, Yah
Isaiah 38:11 LXX omits among the inhabitants of the world
Isaiah 38:11 So with some Heb. mss.; MT, Vg. rest; Tg. land
Isaiah 38:14 So with Bg.; MT, DSS Lord
Isaiah 38:14 Be my surety
Isaiah 38:15 So with MT, Vg.; DSS, Tg. And shall I say to Him; LXX omits first half of this verse
Isaiah 39:1 Berodach-Baladan, 2 Kin. 20:12

Psalm 76

The Majesty of God in Judgment

To the Chief Musician. On ^[a]stringed instruments. A Psalm of Asaph. A Song.

76 In Judah God is known;
His name is great in Israel.
²In ^[b]Salem also is His tabernacle,
And His dwelling place in Zion.
³There He broke the arrows of the bow,
The shield and sword of battle. Selah

⁴You are more glorious and excellent
Than the mountains of prey.
⁵The stouthearted were plundered;
They ^[c]have sunk into their sleep;
And none of the mighty men have found the use of their hands.
⁶At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
Both the chariot and horse were cast into a dead sleep.

⁷You, Yourself, are to be feared;
And who may stand in Your presence
When once You are angry?
⁸You caused judgment to be heard from heaven;
The earth feared and was still,
⁹When God arose to judgment,
To deliver all the oppressed of the earth. Selah

¹⁰Surely the wrath of man shall praise You;
With the remainder of wrath You shall gird Yourself.

¹¹Make vows to the Lord your God, and pay them;
Let all who are around Him bring presents to Him who ought to be feared.
¹²He shall cut off the spirit of princes;
He is awesome to the kings of the earth.

Footnotes

Psalm 76:1 Heb. neginoth
Psalm 76:2 Jerusalem
Psalm 76:5 Lit. have slumbered their sleep

25 Jul 202125 Jul 2021

Go Ye Therefore (bonus post)

This is a bonus post – the usual weekend reading will be published shortly.

This map hangs on the wall of my living room, right next to where I sit and type these devotionals and Bible studies.

Jesus said to go into all the world – so the areas shaded in pink are all the places this blog has reached (except I did not paint in the USA, yet). 40 countries in total according to the digital statistics (I fear I may have missed painting in nation or two).

Not everyone is called to teach and preach – but all of us can easily share the blog on social media and maybe someone will read the salvation message and give their life to Christ! Follow and share us on Facebook and Instagram!! But most importantly share this blog – because here is where the scriptures are.

Did you know, I had slipped way for a little while? It was my friends sharing the word of the Lord on social media that reached me that one fateful day – the day I needed God to be real and alive and powerful and to reach me and tell me He loves me. Someone shared the exact thing I needed to her from God. Be that person! Be the one who shares the word of God. It might change a life! God may grow that person into having a ministry that is reaching 40 nations. God is a multiplier!!!! Also, do you know why I write in this spot in my house? This is where I laid – crying out to God to help me! This is where He heard me and changed me. This is where I had an encounter with grace and that grace continues to transform and multiply!

#GloryToGod #PraiseReport #IfNotForGrace #ifnotforgracewherewouldibe #GoYeTherefore

24 Jul 202123 Jul 2021

Weekend Reading (July 24)

Dear Heavenly Father, Please open my understanding as I read the Bible so that I may be able to know you better. Please help your word be planted in my mind, so I may recall it as needed. Bless me with wisdom and knowledge, please. We also pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem. In the name of Jesus we pray ~ amen

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 35-36 NKJV

The Future Glory of Zion

35 The wilderness and the ^[a]wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert^[b] shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
²It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.

³Strengthen the ^[c]weak hands,
And make firm the ^[d]feeble knees.
⁴Say to those who are fearful-hearted,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
With the recompense of God;
He will come and save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
⁶Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
⁷The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water;
In the habitation of jackals, where each lay,
There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

⁸A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean shall not pass over it,
But it shall be for others.
Whoever walks the road, although a fool,
Shall not go astray.
⁹No lion shall be there,
Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it;
It shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk there,
¹⁰And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord

36 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ²Then the king of Assyria sent the ^[e]Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ³And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

⁴Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust? ⁵I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are ^[f]mere words. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? ⁶Look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁷“But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’ ⁸Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them! ⁹How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰Have I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in ^[g]Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

¹³Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; ¹⁵nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’ ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; ¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? ²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

²¹But they ^[h]held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Footnotes

Isaiah 35:1 desert
Isaiah 35:1 Heb. arabah
Isaiah 35:3 Lit. sinking
Isaiah 35:3 tottering or stumbling
Isaiah 36:2 A title, probably Chief of Staff or Governor
Isaiah 36:5 Lit. a word of the lips
Isaiah 36:11 Lit. Judean
Isaiah 36:21 were silent

23 Jul 202122 Jul 2021

The Best Laid Plans of Man

“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, And rely on horses, Who trust in chariots because they are many, And in horsemen because they are very strong, But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, Nor seek the Lord!” Isaiah 31:1 NKJV

When a passage begins with the word “WOE” I always take notice. I want to ensure that woe isn’t for me. This really is a woe to anyone who trusts their own ways, man’s wisdom, over God’s – and in that (at some point or another) we all have fallen under this woe! Lord help us!

Today’s reading is from the book of Isaiah chapters 31-34 (embedded below the image below for your convenience). As I read it I cannot help but think about current events in world news. I cannot help but be concern for those who have been lulled to sleep after being “woke” (which seems to mean has fallen asleep under a lie).

The chapter about the empty cities is an eerie reminder of life during the “shut down” phase of flattening the curve. With empty streets and wildlife reclaiming the land and area. And it always amazes me how prophesy is always so specific to multiple times in life as God is pointing out the END and giving us these glimpses.

If we have a relationship with Him and we trust His ways over man’s we will be saved. We may be spared in the middle of the storm. But spared none the less. It may not look like it looks in your mind when you think and plan out how it will be… because God’s ways are not our ways (as we have discussed so many times before).

The MOST important part of today’s reading is the same message we see regularly – it is answered in how we will respond. Will we respond with humility? Will the complacent put on sackcloths and seek God? Will the diligent also humble themselves and seek his face. Are we all, each and every one of us, stripping away our own pride of self will and stubbornness and getting humble?? Who are we to think we know better than God? Especially this late in history – this close to the day of the Lord.

It would be safer to just get naked in the emotional way – being raw and honest with God. And seeking Him and trying to have a relationship with Him. And trying to read and pray and learn His ways. It is safer than being wrongs about God and going through such a time as this alone – trusting in the might of men and the fallible plans of men.

Thank you for reading.
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

BIBLE READING: Isaiah 31-34 NKJV

The Folly of Not Trusting God

31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
And rely on horses,
Who trust in chariots because they are many,
And in horsemen because they are very strong,
But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
Nor seek the Lord!
²Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,
And will not ^[a]call back His words,
But will arise against the house of evildoers,
And against the help of those who work iniquity.
³Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;
And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out His hand,
Both he who helps will fall,
And he who is helped will fall down;
They all will perish together.

God Will Deliver Jerusalem

⁴For thus the Lord has spoken to me:

“As a lion roars,
And a young lion over his prey
(When a multitude of shepherds is summoned against him,
He will not be afraid of their voice
Nor be disturbed by their noise),
So the Lord of hosts will come down
To fight for Mount Zion and for its hill.
⁵Like birds flying about,
So will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem.
Defending, He will also deliver it;
Passing over, He will preserve it.”

⁶Return to Him against whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. ⁷For in that day every man shall throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold—sin, which your own hands have made for yourselves.

⁸“Then Assyria shall fall by a sword not of man,
And a sword not of mankind shall devour him.
But he shall flee from the sword,
And his young men shall become forced labor.
⁹He shall cross over to his stronghold for fear,
And his princes shall be afraid of the banner,”
Says the Lord,
Whose fire is in Zion
And whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

A Reign of Righteousness

32 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
And princes will rule with justice.
²A man will be as a hiding place from the wind,
And a ^[b]cover from the tempest,
As rivers of water in a dry place,
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
³The eyes of those who see will not be dim,
And the ears of those who hear will listen.
⁴Also the heart of the ^[c]rash will understand knowledge,
And the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly.

⁵The foolish person will no longer be called ^[d]generous,
Nor the miser said to be bountiful;
⁶For the foolish person will speak foolishness,
And his heart will work iniquity:
To practice ungodliness,
To utter error against the Lord,
To keep the hungry unsatisfied,
And he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
⁷Also the schemes of the schemer are evil;
He devises wicked plans
To destroy the poor with lying words,
Even when the needy speaks justice.
⁸But a ^[e]generous man devises generous things,
And by generosity he shall stand.

Consequences of Complacency

⁹Rise up, you women who are at ease,
Hear my voice;
You complacent daughters,
Give ear to my speech.
¹⁰In a year and some days
You will be troubled, you complacent women;
For the vintage will fail,
The gathering will not come.
¹¹Tremble, you women who are at ease;
Be troubled, you complacent ones;
Strip yourselves, make yourselves bare,
And gird sackcloth on your waists.

¹²People shall mourn upon their breasts
For the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
¹³On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers,
Yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city;
¹⁴Because the palaces will be forsaken,
The bustling city will be deserted.
The forts and towers will become lairs forever,
A joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks—
¹⁵Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field is counted as a forest.

The Peace of God’s Reign

¹⁶Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness remain in the fruitful field.
¹⁷The work of righteousness will be peace,
And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.
¹⁸My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation,
In secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places,
¹⁹Though hail comes down on the forest,
And the city is brought low in humiliation.

²⁰Blessed are you who sow beside all waters,
Who send out freely the feet of the ox and the donkey.

A Prayer in Deep Distress

33 Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered;
And you who deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you!
When you cease plundering,
You will be plundered;
When you make an end of dealing treacherously,
They will deal treacherously with you.

²O Lord, be gracious to us;
We have waited for You.
Be ^[f]their arm every morning,
Our salvation also in the time of trouble.
³At the noise of the tumult the people shall flee;
When You lift Yourself up, the nations shall be scattered;
⁴And Your plunder shall be gathered
Like the gathering of the caterpillar;
As the running to and fro of locusts,
He shall run upon them.

⁵The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
⁶Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times,
And the strength of salvation;
The fear of the Lord is His treasure.

⁷Surely their valiant ones shall cry outside,
The ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly.
⁸The highways lie waste,
The traveling man ceases.
He has broken the covenant,
^[g]He has despised the ^[h]cities,
He regards no man.
⁹The earth mourns and languishes,
Lebanon is shamed and shriveled;
Sharon is like a wilderness,
And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.

Impending Judgment on Zion

¹⁰“Now I will rise,” says the Lord;
“Now I will be exalted,
Now I will lift Myself up.
¹¹You shall conceive chaff,
You shall bring forth stubble;
Your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
¹²And the people shall be like the burnings of lime;
Like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire.
¹³Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done;
And you who are near, acknowledge My might.”

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid;
Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites:
“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
¹⁵He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
He who despises the gain of oppressions,
Who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes,
Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
And shuts his eyes from seeing evil:
¹⁶He will dwell on ^[i]high;
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks;
Bread will be given him,
His water will be sure.

The Land of the Majestic King

¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;
They will see the land that is very far off.
¹⁸Your heart will meditate on terror:
“Where is the scribe?
Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?”
¹⁹You will not see a fierce people,
A people of obscure speech, beyond perception,
Of a ^[j]stammering tongue that you cannot understand.

²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home,
A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
Not one of its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹But there the majestic Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no ^[k]galley with oars will sail,
Nor majestic ships pass by
²²(For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us);
²³Your tackle is loosed,
They could not strengthen their mast,
They could not spread the sail.

Then the prey of great plunder is divided;
The lame take the prey.
²⁴And the inhabitant will not say, “I am sick”;
The people who dwell in it will be forgiven their iniquity.

Judgment on the Nations

34 Come near, you nations, to hear;
And heed, you people!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
The world and all things that come forth from it.
²For the indignation of the Lord is against all nations,
And His fury against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to the slaughter.
³Also their slain shall be thrown out;
Their stench shall rise from their corpses,
And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
⁴All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll;
All their host shall fall down
As the leaf falls from the vine,
And as fruit falling from a fig tree.

⁵“For My sword shall be bathed in heaven;
Indeed it shall come down on Edom,
And on the people of My curse, for judgment.
⁶The sword of the Lord is filled with blood,
It is made ^[l]overflowing with fatness,
With the blood of lambs and goats,
With the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷The wild oxen shall come down with them,
And the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
And their dust ^[m]saturated with fatness.”

⁸For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance,
The year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
⁹Its streams shall be turned into pitch,
And its dust into brimstone;
Its land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰It shall not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke shall ascend forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
No one shall pass through it forever and ever.
¹¹But the ^[n]pelican and the ^[o]porcupine shall possess it,
Also the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
And He shall stretch out over it
The line of confusion and the stones of emptiness.
¹²They shall call its nobles to the kingdom,
But none shall be there, and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³And thorns shall come up in its palaces,
Nettles and brambles in its fortresses;
It shall be a habitation of jackals,
A courtyard for ostriches.
¹⁴The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the ^[p]jackals,
And the wild goat shall bleat to its companion;
Also ^[q]the night creature shall rest there,
And find for herself a place of rest.
¹⁵There the arrow snake shall make her nest and lay eggs
And hatch, and gather them under her shadow;
There also shall the hawks be gathered,
Every one with her mate.

¹⁶“Search from the book of the Lord, and read:
Not one of these shall fail;
Not one shall lack her mate.
For My mouth has commanded it, and His Spirit has gathered them.
¹⁷He has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided it among them with a measuring line.
They shall possess it forever;
From generation to generation they shall dwell in it.”

Footnotes

Isaiah 31:2 retract
Isaiah 32:2 shelter
Isaiah 32:4 hasty
Isaiah 32:5 noble
Isaiah 32:8 noble
Isaiah 33:2 LXX omits their; Syr., Tg., Vg. our
Isaiah 33:8 Tg. They have been removed from their cities
Isaiah 33:8 So with MT, Vg.; DSS witnesses; LXX omits cities
Isaiah 33:16 Lit. heights
Isaiah 33:19 Unintelligible speech
Isaiah 33:21 ship
Isaiah 34:6 Lit. fat
Isaiah 34:7 Lit. made fat
Isaiah 34:11 Or owl
Isaiah 34:11 Or hedgehog
Isaiah 34:14 Lit. howling creatures
Isaiah 34:14 Heb. lilith