Who do you say that I am? We have all heard this question in our lives in the church, it was an infamous question that Jesus posed to Simeon one of his disciples. Jesus asked this of Simeon not because He didn't believe that Simeon knew who Jesus was....but because Jesus was setting up Simeon to see HIS true identity in Christ. Of all the disciples that worked with Jesus in his time here, there was only one that he changed their birthname.
It came down something like this John 16-13 when Jesus asked his disciples "Who do you say that I am", most of them answered with what other people thought. "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah and still other say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. At that moment he gazed over to Simeon and asked him "Who Do you Say that I am" Simeon answered with "You are the Christ the son of the living God." Jesus blessed Simeon and told him that, that had not been revealed to him by man but by God the father and at that moment Jesus changed Simeons name and his sense of purpose to Peter and Jesus said "on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will nor prevail.
I wonder at how often many of us have reflected on what God calls us....we fail to see the new identity in Christ and the things that we don't believe that in our flesh could be accomplished. If we saw ourselves the way God see's us and take the NEW name he has given us we could be far more effective in our ministry to others. Perhaps its time for us to find our true identify and to begin to live in the new name that we have been given.
Lord help the church to find their new identities in you an pursue a path that you would want to build a church on.
I've struggled for two weeks now, this is a place I've been asking God not to take me! Its easy for us all to show up to church on Sunday and then on Monday easily blend back in with our society of work, motherhood, wife, husband, father....whatever that may be for you. God called me out on a chapter in Isaiah that we studied back towards the start of Isaiah, at that time it was words on a page and though we know that everything God had his prophets and apostles write about was things he wanted us to know, this chapter meant little to us in the time we were living...it was only a part of prophecy that had yet to be fulfilled. Trust me!!! I've tried to move on and avoid going here....less you think I'm crazy, but God's not letting it go in my mind and he keeps bringing me back to this place and is asking me to share it with you.
We all want to know that scripture is relevant in our lives and that we are walking in it, but from what we have read of scripture that seems so far fetched to us...those things happened back then but they don't happen today. Well today I'm here to tell you that, right now at this moment we are walking in the words that the Lord gave to Isaiah in regards to his prophecy of Israel and Syria! Today we are watching the scriptures unfold like a script from a movie being played and I stand back and am amazed that I am living in a time where I can see that a prophet that prophesied over 2800 years ago is telling the people of that time what is actually happening TODAY!!
I will do my best to tie all this together for you, the Lord has been flooding my head with scriptures all over the bible and he won't let me move forward in Isaiah until I help you to understand that we are living the bible....it is our script and we are the actors and actresses of a great movie!!
It all began for me about 7-8 years ago, God woke me up one night and all I kept hearing was Ezekiel 38. I lay there like any of us would saying "ok, I'll read it in the morning" but God persisted and all night I kept hearing Ezekiel 38. I finally relented and got up about 3 a.m and read it. Now I found myself even more perplexed than ever. God may as well have been speaking Greek (or Arabic) to me.....I remember asking him "what does all this mean and why are you telling me this." It wasn't for another 5 years that God finally revealed Ezekiel to me in its full clarity. Today I still wonder why he is telling me these things and what am I to do about them....except to prepare the hearts of His people to repent and turn back to Him he is desperately calling you back home.
I'm going to attempt to break down to you what took me years to discover and we'll start first with Ezekiel 38 and 39. Ezekiel 38 begins with Ezekiel saying that God gave him a word, he said "Son of man, set your face against Gog (ruler or king), of the land of Magog (modern day Russia), the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal (modern day Turkey); prophecy against him and say: "this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal (Turkey). I will turn you around put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army-your horses, your horseman fully armed and a great horde with large and small shields, of all them brandishing their swords. Persia (modern day Iran), Cush (modern day Ehiopia) and Put (modern day Libya) will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer (modern day Germany) with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah (also part of Turkey) from the far NORTH with all its troops-the MANY nations with you." Ezekiel goes on to say in verse 7 that they will be called to arms to invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations (if you refer back to Ezekiel 37:21, the Lord says "I will take Israelites out of the nations where they have gone, I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land......the nation that they will be overtaking will be Israel after its war with Syria, I'll show you why I say Syria in scripture in a bit). As you read on in Ezekiel you'll see that God sends Russia and other nations into Israel to plunder it and attack it after Israel destroys Syria. Few will be left in Israel and those that are left will be the followers of Christ.
Now to take you to where we have already studied to show you that what Isaiah's prophesied is now happening. Isaiah 17 is an Oracle about Damascus-Syria. Isaiah says vs 1 "See, Damascus (Syria) will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins." Amos 1:3 This is what the Lord says: For three sins of Damascus (Syria) even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. I will send fire upon the house of Hazael that will consume the fortresses of Ben-Hadad. I will break down the gate of Damascus (Syria). Interestingly enough there have already been 3 major wars involving Syria and Israel 1948, 1967 and 1973 just as Amos had said "three" but the forth God will destroy Syria. As of last week Israel and Syria have declared war and main stream media has failed to discuss what is happening. Last night Bill pulled up an article on a news site of what was happening as of Friday and as of Friday many people are fleeing from Syria, Russia is setting up its defenses, Iran is preparing its nuclear missiles and all of scripture is coming into full alignment. We read the article and were amazed that you could almost lay the article next to your bible and be reading the same thing. http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/world/meast/syria-more-dangerous/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2
These are all the beginnings of the birth pains. A final World War will come to pass before the final war that completes scripture. Is the war we are seeing in Israel and Syria in fact the final World War that will set into motion the second coming of Christ, scripture sure seems to point in that direction. I'm no scholar, I've never went to seminary....but I believe deeply in a God that speaks to his children when they have an ear to hear and heart to learn. Its time for us to turn back to God and be ready to stand in the face of opposition in these challenging times ahead.
Allow this to challenge you to look at scripture and to look at life and see the same thing!! God is preparing the hearts of those that love him.
I want to post this like I want to post a baseball bat to my head.....but I feel like I would be disobeying what God has asked me to do if I fail to do so. As our pastor always tells me "you brought all this on yourself when you told God to choose you that you would go." YEP, somedays I wonder if I knew what I was saying on that day sitting up at prayer mountain surrendering it all to God and asking Him to use me in a way that I never dreamt he could or would. So here I am "surrendered" and still saying "send me....I will go Isaiah 6:8"
Our H20 Hydrate group has been digging into the book of Isaiah....but as the study has progressed I've had others ask me about Isaiah so to accommodate the needs of those that cannot attend a morning study I've decided to share the information in my blog. Many Christians avoid the book of Isaiah and those of the other prophets due to the depth of the information and being able to understand what is being said, it is for this reason that I chose to do a study on Isaiah to help take the confusion out of what Isaiah was telling the people then and what Isaiah has prophesied so many years ago that has yet to occur today.
This week we pick up in Isaiah 23 and end with Isaiah 24-27 which are the books where God gives Isaiah the prophesy about Revelation. I'll go back and update the first part of Isaiah for those of you that want to catch up, but just something to help you get started. Isaiah is broken into two parts; the first 39 chapters are a call to repentance for the people the last 27 chapters are God's message of forgiveness and hope. Ironically, if you flip back to your book of contents and count the books of the Old Testament there are exactly 39 books and 27 books in the New Testament. We will find many things that are wow moments throughout our study of Isaiah. Isaiah was the first prophet to foretell of the coming Messiah which was approximately 700 years before Christ's birth!! And Jesus himself would quote Isaiah's words during his time on earth.
We begin this week in Chapter 23, my recommendation is for you to first sit down and just read Isaiah 23 and as you read it as most of us have we seem to be more confused than full of understanding about what exactly Isaiah was saying, but as I break down the parts for you and when you re-read it you'll begin to have an ahh-haaa moment of "I understand now". In Chapter 23 God is upset with Tyre. Now Tyre is one the largest commodities trading ports in the world back in this time. To gain a greater understanding Tyre is currently 50 miles South of Beirut, Lebanon and today is the fourth largest city of of Lebanon. Chapter 23 begins with "An oracle concerning Tyre" anytime we hear 'oracle' mentioned in scripture it is also interchangeable with the word 'burden'. So God had a burden against Tyre. God was very angry with Tyre as they had built themselves up and had no dependence on God's power but of their own power. Verse 2 "Be silent, you people of the island and you merchants of Sidon whom the seafarers have enriched" at this time merchants were princes and traders were known as honorables, not because of their royal ancestry but only because of their wealth and success. But the Lord got tired of their pride and allowed them to be destroyed therefore humbling them. The very supplies used by King Solomon and David to build the temple of God came from Tyre. Isaiah verse 5 says "when word came to Egypt they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre." The merchants were out of port and traveling when they had heard word of the Tyre destruction!. Isaiah 23:15 says "At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years the span of a kings life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute. Vs 17 At the end of seventy years the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes." It happened just as the Lord had told Isaiah. Tyre was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and was left in ruins for 70 years and at that time was rebuilt. Tyre has been the city of many attacks and many desolations over the years. Since the last takeover by the Turks in 1517 Tyre has rebuilt but not over the ancient ruins it has rebuilt in close proximity and one can visit Tyre today and still view the ancient ruins as prophesied by Isaiah. Interestingly enough Ezekiel 26 gives a very clear and concise description of what happened in Tyre. We know for a fact that Tyre has not been completely destroyed as Jesus himself visited Tyre in Matthew 15:21, and some of the crowd that came to hear Jesus speak in Mark 3:8 were noted to have traveled from Tyre and Sidon. One of the interesting things to note is that the island part of Tyre sank into the sea. Was this part of what God had told Ezekiel in that it would not be inhabited again?
The next four Chapters God begins to reveal to Isaiah the Destruction of the Earth. Prophecy of Revelation! Which has yet to occur today. To think that a man chosen by God to reveal what God was going to do and to warn his people and that some of these things are warnings for us for those that are still living is beyond remarkable to me.
In Chapter 24 God begins by telling Isaiah that he will lay waste the Earth and that He will turn his face from her. Just as God did on the very day that his son hung on a cross bearing our sin, God could not bear to look upon his son carrying so much of our sin that in the moment that Jesus cries out to God "why, why have you foresaken me", God turns his very head from his only son and allows him to die bearing our sin and our shame. God tells Isaiah that NOBODY will be the same, nobody will escape judgement. Judgement will be the same for priests as it is for the people, for master as the servant, for mistress as the maid, for seller as the buyer, for borrower as the lender and for debtor as for the creditor, (24:2) God speaks of how the earth will be defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes (the commandments) and we have broken the everlasting convenant. Therefore a curse will consume the earth; its people MUST bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up and very few are left. (24:5-6). An interesting association is made in 2 Peter 3:7 "by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men." Isaiah 24:10 "The ruined city lies desolate" as it says in Rev 16:19 "The great city split into three parts and cities of nations collapsed." Isaiah 24:19 "The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken. The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind, so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls--never to rise again. Revelation 6:12 tells of a similar shaking "I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red and the stars of the sky fell to earth. The earth is mentioned no less than sixteen times in Chapter 24 alone, not just a place on earth, but the earth as a whole. When the disciples asked Jesus in Luke 21:11 "how will we know, what will be the signs of the second coming? Jesus replies "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places and fearful events and great signs from Heaven."
Isaiah 25 is a chapter of hope for those that exalt and praise the Lord during these troubled times. Isaiah says 25:3 "therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you. You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat" Isaiah goes on to say in verse 6 "on this mountain (this mountain would be Mt Zion) the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich for all peoples (people that believe and hold strong in their faith till the end) he will swallow up death forever. see also Hosea 13:14 "I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death". For those who believe God has promised a deliverance from even death itself. A death that cannot hold us, a death that cannot contain us. In Him we who believe will find victory for all our sufferings.
Isaiah 26 Isaiah says "we have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts, open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps FAITH. You will keep in perfect peace (sustain) him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. TRUST in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal. He humbles those who dwell on high (city of God-which is the kingdom of God) and he lays the lofty city low (which is the worldly system of man). In which will we put our trust?
To be kept in perfect peace our minds must be "stayed". The Hebrew word for stayed is sawmak it comes from the root 'to prop' and has the idea to 'lean upon or take hold of'...'bear up, establish, uphold, lay lean, lie hard, put, rest self, set self, stand fast...Sustain'
So what sustains your mind? What do you lay your mind upon? What upholds your mind? What does your mind stand fast upon? What is your mind established on? What does your mind lean upon? To have perfect peace your mind cannot occasionally come to the Lord it has to be 'stayed' on Him.
That's why Isaiah reminded us in 26:4 to "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the rock eternal."
When we trust in the Lord we keep our mind 'stayed' on him!!
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Lean remember is taken from the same root as word as 'stayed'. So we 'stay' NOT on our own understanding which is weak, frail and faulty.
The battle for trust in our lives begins in our minds. If we trust the Lord it will show in our actions but it will begin in our minds!!
God is the rock, He does not have everlasting strength, HE IS everlasting strength.
Of all the things I found extremely interesting in my study of Isaiah was not only his prophecy of what was going to happen and it happened in just the way God had revealed to him, but it was the fact that in his day Isaiah was most likely proclaimed to be a nut. Who could even fathom the things Isaiah was telling the people were going to happen and probably one of my most favorite is 26:19 "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead." WHAT???? So Isaiah let me get this straight!!!???!!! You are saying that dead people are going to rise from their graves?? Do we all get this straight? This was pre-Christ's birth let alone his resurrection. This man of God was saying that people would rise out of their graves for the day of judgement. Christ hadn't even rose from the dead yet, there was no Lazarus coming back from death yet? But yet Isaiah saw it happen many, many years prior to even the first resurrection and he has foreseen our resurrection on that day!
Isaiah 27 was probably one of the most disturbing chapters I think that Isaiah had to write. Can you imagine God giving you a vision of the last days of earth thousands of years prior to them happening, knowing that you would never see them and the people that you were telling the story too would never see it happen and wondering if you should even say anything thus leaving yourself out there to look like some crazy man. But then God placed John on the island of Patmos and on that island he gives John the same vision as he gave to Isaiah about how it will all come to a close. Sealing the deal for Isaiah as probably one of the greatest prophets ever.
Isaiah 27 starts out "In that day" many of us have read those three simple words and skimmed across them as though they meant nothing....in all reality those three simple words "In that day" is the very day of judgement the day that we all will stand before God and give an account for ourselves. So "in that day" has far greater meaning than any of us ever gave it credit to mean. It goes on to say "the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce great and powerful sword." I'm sorry but I have to stop here....because it was here that God gave me a huge revelation. I recalled God using the sword in Revelation 12 and 13 to slay the three demons in the end of the ages but if you will turn back to Genesis 3:24 you will find a greater revelation one that almost all of us have probably missed. "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." My mind whirled.....was this.....could this be that God used the very same sword that in the very beginning he used to protect his tree of life (Christ) to avenge Satan in the last days. Sounded like a great ending to a great movie to me. I had never in all of my years placed the two of these together that God placed a sword in the beginning and then used a sword to end it all!!.
Isaiah 27:3 continues "Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent, he slay the monster of the sea" relate this verse to what God allowed John to see in Revelation, Rev 12: 3 "Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. Rev 13:1 And I saw a beast coming out of the sea, he had ten horns and seven heads. Rev 13:11 Then I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. (the last dragon if you will read the rest of the Revelation is in reference to the anti-Christ, John goes on to say that the third beast was given great power and performed miraculous signs).
Isaiah once again says "In that day" God will guard those that call upon him and in verse 6 of Isaiah 27 he says "In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit" this is in reference to the great move of Christ that will occur before the end of time.
There is so much knowledge to be gained by studying the prophets of old. God didn't send them to the people for only their time but he sent them here to tell us all of what God expects and what God does on an unrepenting nation. Its time to wake up America......God is calling us just like he did the people in Isaiah's time to call upon his name and be ready to give an account for ourselves on that day that this world comes to an end and eternal life begins!
