SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/1/2013
8:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Lord Will Restore the Nation PT -2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah 26:12-18
Message of the
verses: In our last SD we began to
look at the topic of God restoring Israel and we mentioned that in chapters
26-27 that “In these two chapters, the prophet encourages God’s suffering
people by describing in seven pictures the kingdom blessings that await them in
the future.” We looked at two of them
yesterday.
The Woman in Travail (Isaiah 26:12-18): “12 LORD, You will establish peace for us, Since You have
also performed for us all our works. 13 O LORD our God, other masters besides
You have ruled us; But through You alone we confess Your name. 14 The dead will
not live, the departed spirits will not rise; Therefore You have punished and destroyed
them, And You have wiped out all remembrance of them. 15 You have increased the
nation, O LORD, You have increased the nation, You are glorified; You have
extended all the borders of the land. 16 O LORD, they sought You in distress;
They could only whisper a prayer, Your chastening was upon them. 17 As the pregnant woman approaches
the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her labor pains, Thus were we before You, O LORD.
18 We were pregnant, we writhed in labor, We gave birth, as it seems, only to
wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth, Nor were inhabitants
of the world born.”
Let us compare these verses which describe the Day of the
Lord with 1Thes. 5:1-3: “1 Now as to the
times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to
you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in
the night. 3 While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then
destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they
will not escape.”
We have been studying from the book of Daniel in the last
few months, as I have taken one chapter from Daniel to look at each month and
post it on the blog. In the ninth
chapter of Daniel we see the greatest prophecy that is found in all of the
Scriptures, and the reason I say that is because of all that is contained in
such a short section for it speaks of Israel going back to their land from their
captivity in Babylon and then Messiah being born and then the destruction of
the temple, which happened in 70 A. D. and then goes on to speak about what
will transpire to the children of Israel after that, including all the way to
the kingdom age headed up by Messiah. As
I was preparing for a Sunday School class on this 9th chapter from
Daniel I was listening to John MacArthur’s sermons on it and he stated that in
this chapter Daniel describes all of the difficulties that Israel would go
through after they returned to their land and not only at that time, but all
the difficulties they would face throughout their history as a people. Now we see Isaiah stating in this section
that all of those who had ruled over Israel were dead, those Gentile tyrants
and they could not return to enslave them again. It was God who was using them to discipline
His people and now He has brought them to the place where all they could do was
whisper their prayers as seen in verse twenty-six, but God heard those prayers
and was now answering them.
We see a number of times the imagery that is used of a
woman in travail giving birth to a child as a picture of Israel coming out of
trouble. Revelations 12:1 A great sign
appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2
and she was with child; and she *cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. 3
Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having
seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his tail
*swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the
dragon stood before the woman
who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her
child. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is
to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God
and to His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she
*had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one
thousand two hundred and sixty days.”
One more comment before we move on to the next section
and that comes from verse 18 where we see that in times past that Israel had
failed to do what God desired for them to do, that is bring blessings of God to
the world, but during the kingdom age when Jesus reigns from Mt. Zion they will
bring blessings to the world as promised by God. The things that hindered Israel from being a
blessing in the past was that they worshiped idols as seen in verse 13 where
Dr. Wiersbe explains: “The Hebrew verb in verse 13 translated ‘had dominion’
(KJV) gives us the noun baal, the
name of the Canaanite storm god whose cult created so much problems in
Israel. But the word baal also means ‘husband,’ so the
suggestion is that Israel was not true to her husband Jehovah, but in her
unfaithfulness turned to another god.
The same image occurs in James 4:4.”
Do to some time restraints this Sunday morning we will
not look at the next section today, but God willing, will move on to the next
section.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Idols are still a
problem for believers today, not the kind of idols that are made from wood or
stone, but perhaps from plastic that contain pictures that come from cable or satellites
TV’s. Just like Israel I need to rid
myself from these types of idols that have affected my life from time to time.
My Steps of Faith for Today: “Little children, guard yourselves from
idols.”
Memory verses for the
week: I want to go back to the verses in
2 Peter again that I have put to memory earlier to review them.
2 Peter 2:1 “Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of
Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by
the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Shem” (Genesis 11:10-26).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Without what does sin become
dead?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/1/2013 9:23 AM
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