SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/13/2013
11:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Lord
Humbles Jerusalem
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah
29:1-14
Message of the
verses: 1 Woe, O Ariel, Ariel the
city where David once camped! Add year to year, observe your feasts on
schedule. 2 I will bring distress to Ariel, And she will be a city of lamenting
and mourning; And she will be like an Ariel to me. 3 I will camp against you
encircling you, And I will set siegeworks against you, And I will raise up
battle towers against you. 4 Then you will be brought low; From the earth you
will speak, And from the dust where you are prostrate Your words will come.
Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the ground, And your speech
will whisper from the dust. 5 But the multitude of your enemies will become
like fine dust, And the multitude of the ruthless ones like the chaff which
blows away; And it will
happen instantly, suddenly. 6 From the LORD of hosts you will be
punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, With whirlwind and tempest
and the flame of a consuming fire. 7 And the multitude of all the nations who
wage war against Ariel, Even all who wage war against her and her stronghold,
and who distress her, Will be like a dream, a vision of the night. 8 It will be as when a hungry man dreams- And
behold, he is eating; But when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied, Or as when
a thirsty man dreams- And behold, he is drinking, But when he awakens, behold,
he is faint And his thirst is not quenched. Thus the multitude of all the
nations will be Who wage war against Mount Zion.
“9 Be delayed and wait, Blind yourselves
and be blind; They become drunk, but not with wine, They stagger, but not with
strong drink. 10 For the LORD has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep, He
has shut your eyes, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, the seers.
11 The entire vision will be to you like
the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate,
saying, "Please read this," he will say, "I cannot, for it is
sealed." 12 Then the book will be given to the one who is illiterate,
saying, "Please read this." And he will say, "I cannot
read." 13 Then the Lord said, "Because this people draw near with their words And honor
Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me
consists of tradition learned by rote, 14 Therefore behold, I will once again deal
marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous; And the wisdom of their
wise men will perish, And the discernment of their discerning men will be
concealed."
The meaning of Ariel is “lion of God” however Isaiah is
speaking about Jerusalem in this section, for the lion was a symbol of Assyria,
so it is possible that Isaiah is saying now that Assyria is the lion of God,
for God will use Assyria to do His bidding against His stubborn, sinful
people. Dr. Wiersbe adds this: “But the Hebrew word also means ‘an altar
hearth,’ where the burnt offerings were sacrificed (Ezekiel 43:13-18). ‘It [Jerusalem] shall be unto me as Ariel [an
altar hearth]’ (Isaiah 29:2). In other
words, it would become a place of slaughter.”
In verse fifteen of Ezekiel 43 we see the words “altar hearth” and when
you look it up with the Strong’s concordance the number is 739 and when you
look up Ariel the number is 740, but it comes from 739, so this is how we can
better understand that Ariel can also mean an “altar hearth.”
The Lord would humble the city of Jerusalem, a city where
all the feasts were to take place, where all the offerings were given, but now
the city would become like an altar where the people would be the offering in
some cases. (See verses 4 & 1).
When did all these things take place? In 701 God would begin to turn up the heat on
Jerusalem first began to be attacked by the Assyrians, however God would defeat
Assyria as we will see in chapter 37:36 and he will do it as verse 5 says in
our text today, “suddenly.” Verse six
speaks of the blowing of the chaff or the blowing of dust. I suppose that this should have brought Judah
back to the Lord, but it did not and so after the death of Hezekiah, his son
would bring ruin to the nation for over fifty years and shortly after that they
would go into captivity. It would begin
in 605, and then again in 597, with complete destruction in 586. The city would become like an altar hearth
during that siege.
We have mentioned that some prophecies have meaning for
the times when they were written, and in this case some time after it was
written, but they would also have meaning for the “Day of the Lord” or last
days as this one does. Dr Wiersbe
writes: “But Isaiah looked far down the
highway of history to the end times when Jerusalem would be attacked by the
armies of the world (vs. 7-8; Zech. 14:1-3).
This is what prophetic students call ‘the battle of Armageddon,’ though
that title is not used in Scripture (Rev. 14:1 4-20;
16:13-21). When it looks as though the
city is about to fall, and the enemy armies are sure of victory, Jesus Christ
will return and deliver His people (Rev. 19:11-21). The enemy victory will vanish.” Let’s look at Zech. 14:1-3 “1 Behold, a day
is coming for the LORD when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you.
2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle,
and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and
half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from
the city. 3 Then the LORD
will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a
day of battle.”
We see in verse thirteen that the reason the people are
so ignorant about what was going to happen, “13 Then the Lord said, "Because this people draw near
with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far
from Me, And their
reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” As in the days when Jesus was on the earth
the people would go through outward forms of worship, but their hearts were far
from God. Matthew 15:1-9 speaks of this,
“1 Then some Pharisees and scribes *came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
2 "Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the
elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." 3
And He answered and said to them, "Why do you yourselves transgress the
commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 "For God said, ’HONOR YOUR FATHER AND
MOTHER,’ and, ’HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’ 5
“But you say, ’Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever I have that
would help you has been given to God," 6 he is not to honor his father or
his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your
tradition. 7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: 8 ’THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME
WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. 9 ’BUT IN VAIN DO THEY
WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’"”
Because of this God would send a spiritual blindness upon
the people, and Dr. Wiersbe writes “Such blindness persists today (Rom. 11:8; 2
Cor. 3:13-18). IF people will not accept
the truth, then they must become more and more blind and accept lies. (See John
9:39-41 and 2 Thes 2:1-12.)”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is a terrible thing seeing that people in the world
today just care about living their lives without having anything to do with the
Lord. They act as if there is no God at
all, and one of the reasons for this is the great lie of evolution, a teaching
that has even crept into the Church today for believers believe in what is
called the “Gap Theory,” that is that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and
Genesis 1:2. They also believe that it
took much longer than a 24 hour day for God to create the earth. This is a lie for the Bible teaches that God
did create the world in six 24 hour days.
People do most anything not to be accountable to God, and evolution gives
them the out they want to not believe in or be accountable to God. Just as Isaiah said in our text today “they
are blind.” I feel badly for these
people and pray that the Lord will open up their eyes and that perhaps He will
use me to talk to others about the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be available to talk to others that the Lord
brings into my path about the wonderful salvation that God provided for them.
Memory verses for the
week: Review of 2 Peter 2:1-3
1 Simon Peter a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith lf the same kind as ours, by the
righteousness of God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of
Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called
us by His own glory and excellence.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Zerubbable” (Zech. 4:9).”
Today’s Bible
Question: “What is the third book of the
Pentateuch?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/13/2013 12:18 PM
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