Freaked Out Mr. Fox (Luke 9:7-9)

Last year, an Oregon family received the worst delivery possible: an urn full of ashes and an accompanying death certificate, notifying them that their beloved 23-year-old son was dead. He had been living in a recovery center and had not been in contact with his family for several years.

Three months after hearing the news, the family was contacted again. Their son, Tyler John was alive and ready to talk to them on a video call. The newspaper outlet reporting the story called “this  bizarre story of resurrection an urn-ormous mix-up.”

In Luke chapter 9, Herod, the phony king of Galilee, received a similar shock. It seemed like someone he thought was dead was back. That’s bad news if you’re the one who killed him.

In the opening chapters of this Gospel, the Savior arrives and gets to work. Though kings and devils and doubters stand against Him, He cannot be stopped. He heals the sick, raises the dead, commands wind and waves, casts out demons, teaches enormous crowds, and gathers disciples.

Not everyone understood Who Jesus really was. Most of us come to these chapters knowing the rest of the story. We know Jesus is the Messiah, the GodMan Who came from heaven to make a way that human beings can be forgiven of their sins and receive everlasting life. But, at the time, it wasn’t so clear for many. Even Jesus’ disciples struggled to apprehend His identity.

Luke chapter 9 highlights the fact that most people were wonder Who Jesus really was. From the countryside to within the palace walls, Jesus was being discussed. We have this interesting scene shown in three of the four Gospels, where Herod is concerned and confused, talking about Jesus, confronted with this reality and then we see the response.

It challenges all of us to consider Who Jesus is and what that means – to pause for a moment and set aside our distractions, our desires, our activities, and preconceptions and to acknowledge the reality of Jesus Christ, how we can know Him, and what difference that should make in a life.

Luke 9:7a – Herod the tetrarch heard about everything that was going on.

There are six Herods mentioned in the Bible. They were all from the same, extended family. It was not a good group. The three we’re most familiar with were all killers. This one, called Herod the tetrarch is also known as Herod Antipas. His father was Herod the Great, who killed the babies in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus.

He ruled over a fourth of the territory of Israel. He wasn’t really a king – more like a governor – only allowed to exist as long as Rome’s Emperor said it was ok. That didn’t stop him from cosplaying as a king. He even had a political party that supported him and stroked his ego – the Herodians.

He had authority over two regions, but he mainly operated in Galilee. He built Tiberias as his capital on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He was a man of great success, great achievement, but also a man of great vice and corruption. He threw wild parties, stole his brother’s wife (who was his niece). He was jealous of titles and always looked out for his own interests.

His life of excess was interrupted in Luke 9. Suddenly, he could not escape hearing about this Jesus and the things He did. The Lord had just sent out the Twelve with power to heal and preach about the Kingdom of God. For a man like Herod, this was no longer just whispers of a backwoods rabbi with a few admirers. This was a growing movement – one unlike anything the world had ever seen. One that made bold claims backed up with undeniable proofs.

Jesus’ influence wasn’t only in villages or up in the hills. The wife of Herod’s very own steward not only believed Jesus, she was a key financial supporter of His ministry. In Acts 13 we learn that one of Herod’s close friends was also a believer in Jesus.

“Everything that was going on” can also be translated as “all that was coming to pass.” It’s a small distinction, but throughout these verses we should notice an emphasis on the prophetic nature of Jesus’ presence and ministry. The people having these conversations weren’t only saying, “Can you believe what’s happening,” there was also a palpable sense that something was unfolding.

That’s still true of God’s activity today. The Bible reveals that Jesus Christ is not only still alive, He is not only still working, He is accomplishing an eternal plan that will be completed in full. We discover this plan in God’s Word. There, on its pages, we see the beginning, the middle, and end.

If you’re a Christian here today, it’s good to be reminded that your spiritual life is not just about your circumstances right now, or reactions to problems today. The Lord does have strength for today – He is mindful of whatever situations you find yourself in presently – but there is a worldwide, cosmic plan that is still unfolding. And God has invited you to have a specific part in that plan and He invites each of us to walk with Him and discover what assignments, what opportunities, what position He’s set aside for us in that plan.

Luke 9:7b-8 – [Herod] was perplexed, because some said that John had been raised from the dead, some that Elijah had appeared, and others that one of the ancient prophets had risen.

We’ll hear Herod’s thoughts in the next verse. For now, we see his confusion. He wasn’t just puzzled, he was quite disturbed. One dictionary defines this as, “perplexity amounting to despair.” Another source says “perplexed” means, “unable to find a way out.”

Rumors were flying. Maybe John the Baptist was back. That would be bad news for Herod. If not John, maybe this miracle-worker was actually Elijah. For Jews, that would signal the end of the age, a major advance in God’s plan. For Herod, a God-mocking unbeliever, that wouldn’t be good news. He knew what Elijah had done to kings like Ahab. These Herods were worried about their status and keeping control of their pretend kingdom. Remember how paranoid Herod the Great was when wise men from the east came saying a new King of the Jews had been born. He didn’t know Who Jesus was, but no matter Who He was, Herod was worried.

Did you notice that all of the rumors had a resurrection emphasis? Maybe an ancient prophet has risen. Maybe Elijah is back. Maybe John is raised from the dead. Their guesses weren’t right, but it was undeniable that Jesus’ ministry had a supernatural, life-from-death quality to it.

In chapter 8 He literally raised a girl from the dead and she wouldn’t be the only one. But, even beyond those miracles we see that encounters with Jesus weren’t just about making things a little better in the here and now, or providing short-term fixes to problems. Jesus Christ brings new life.

Jesus said that if we want to live forever in heaven we must be born again. When a person is born again, we are made alive in Him – pulled out of the jaws of death, given a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, a new perspective. The resurrection power of God starts transforming us now. We are “raised up” presently in purpose and spiritual provision and then those who are born again will be raised up out of the grave to live forever and ever in the heavenly Kingdom with God Himself.

When Christianity becomes diminished to the short-sighted level of “Your Best Life Now,” or just about God making me feel better or making my circumstances easier, then we have seriously underestimated the power of God, the plan of God, His purpose in saving us and providing for us. Christianity is about resurrection. It is about life over death. We are set free from the old, dead nature, the old, dead systems, the old, dead snares of sin and now God has shared with us His power. We will share, Paul says in Romans 6, “in the likeness of His resurrection.”

Herod was not comforted by Jesus’ resurrection power. He was condemned by it.

Luke 9:9 – “I beheaded John,” Herod said, “but who is this I hear such things about?” And he wanted to see him.

We learn in Matthew and Mark that Herod was convinced John was back, or at least that the spirit of John the Baptist was now on Jesus. That made Herod paranoid because it exposed his guilt.

You see, before he died, John told Herod, “You’re in sin and need to repent.” That made Herod quite angry, but he was torn. On the one hand, he wanted to kill John. His wife wanted it, too. But he was afraid the people wouldn’t stand for it. He also knew that John was righteous and so he was afraid to actually kill him. So, to try to shut John up, Herod threw him in prison.

But then something strange happened: Herod started talking to John. And, we’re told in Mark 6 that Herod even liked listening to John. How can that be? How can a man want to kill somebody but, at the same time, feel compelled to talk to him about spiritual things?

The answer is that the Holy Spirit was reaching out to Herod the tetrarch. Despite his wickedness, despite his guilt, despite his unworthiness, God sent an offer of peace to him. God was willing to send His best people to share the truth with this terrible man. Even though Herod was terrible, God loved him, just as He loved Pharaoh in Joseph’s time, Abimelech, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Jeroboam, and so many other unworthy kings. Just like He loves you and me.

God gives a genuine offer of peace to every person on earth. He did for Herod. And we see that Herod “wanted to see Jesus.”

Ok! So does that mean Herod was seeking the truth? Sadly, the answer seems to be a very definite “no.” The Bible promises that if you seek the Lord, you will find Him. Looking at the evidence we see that Herod had no real desire to learn about Who Jesus really was. He had no intention of surrendering to God and turning from his sin.

He did not go to see Jesus, like Nicodemus did. He could have. He did not invite Jesus to his home like other civic leaders did. He could have. He would’ve heard that his steward’s wife was a disciple of Jesus. He could’ve spoken to her plainly about the Lord. He didn’t.

He wasn’t seeking the truth. He was scared of retribution for the things he had done. By chapter 13 we learn that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. It was then Jesus said, “Go tell that fox I’ve got real power and I’m not afraid of you and My work cannot be stopped.” Herod wasn’t looking for truth. He was a fox – a jackal – a thief and destroyer, out for his own interests. He wanted to hide his guilt, maintain his sad little throne, and hold onto his power as long as he could. He just wanted to find a way out of the conviction he was feeling.

Herod would finally get to see Jesus. It was the day of our Lord’s crucifixion. Pilate sent Him over to Herod and Herod got all excited because he thought he was going to see Jesus perform some wonder, some miracle. He was no longer perplexed, no longer paranoid. He just wanted a show. He kept trying to talk to Jesus – kept asking Him questions. But, by then, it was too late. Jesus had absolutely nothing to say to this man who refused to answer God’s calls when they came.

Now, if you’re not a Christian here today, Jesus still has something to say to you. He’s not silent. That’s why He allows us to eavesdrop on this palace conversation. He wants to communicate to all of us today, whether we be kings or peasants, rulers or servants.

If you’re not a Christian, God’s message is that you are a hell-doomed sinner who needs to be rescued from their guilt. You may think of yourself as a king or queen. You may enjoy great success or achievement. You may think religion is for suckers.

But here is the reality: The real King, the King of heaven and earth, the One Who holds your life in His hands has pronounced you guilty of sin against His law. The penalty for that sin is eternal death. Success won’t save you. Making political moves won’t save you. Wealth can’t save you. Good deeds can’t save you. Only Jesus Christ can save you and He wants to save you.

In Acts 4, we read:

Acts 4:12 – 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.

You need to reckon with this question that perplexed Herod: Who is Jesus? Do you believe He is Who the Bible says He is? Do you know what the Bible says about Him? Many people have mistaken His identity.

Some think of Jesus as make believe. He’s not. He is altogether real. He is alive right now. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is busy unfolding His plan to establish His forever Kingdom.

Some think of Him as a good teacher, or the founder of a new religion. It’s just like how the people talked in these verses. Is He John? Is He Elijah? Maybe He’s this or that.

The truth is, John the Baptist was simply the herald. Jesus is the King Who was and is and is to come. John said he wasn’t even worthy to unstrap Jesus’ sandals.

Elijah was a prophet of God who lived for a brief time and gave some messages from heaven to people. Jesus is God, Himself. Jesus was there with Elijah – the Angel of the Lord – Who empowered Elijah and directed him.

The ancient prophets of Israel had a dramatic place in Israel’s history, but they all pointed people to the Messiah Himself – the One on whom all history pivots and rests.

Herod had been brought face to face with some of these truths. His response was “how do I find a way out of this?” But he couldn’t escape. Instead, he simply ignored the reality of Jesus. But ignoring the truth wouldn’t help him. In fact, it just pushed him further and further away from the very Person Who wanted to rescue him from his sin until it was too late.

He had this opportunity to discover the truth and to have Jesus change his life, but instead of seeking, he ignored. He busied himself with other things. He never learned the truth.

If you aren’t sure Who Jesus is, we’d invite you to respond to this offer of life He’s giving you. It will require you to actually speak to God and invite Him into your heart and life.

One commentator wrote, “Who Jesus really is cannot be discovered through second-hand reports and rumors.” But you can know Him today. If you seek Him, you will find Him.

If you are a Christian here today, that means you know Who Jesus is. It’s good to be reminded the truth about our King. But there are some secondary applications for us. One is that some people who are close to you may not understand Who Jesus is. It is our privilege to not only try to introduce Jesus to them, but also to represent Jesus to them.

Another important principle for us is that our goal as servants of God is to broadcast Jesus, direct people to Jesus, glorify Jesus. This whole scene with Herod happened because the 12 were going from place to place preaching about the Kingdom. As a result, Herod wasn’t talking about Bartholomew or Peter or Thomas. People were talking about Jesus. We should not be upset or disappointed if we are not acknowledged or if people aren’t impressed with us. Isn’t it better to have the affectionate attention of God Himself, Who delights in us?

The more we understand Who Jesus is, the more we understand who we are. Our value in His eyes. Our place in His plan. The spiritual wealth and privilege and authority we have because we belong to Him. We know that we don’t need to be perplexed by this life and we don’t need to try to find a way out. We’re on our way in – into His forever Kingdom, where we will rule and reign with Him, the true King Almighty, Who was and is and is to come.

Prophecy Update #773 – Blinken’s Not Thinkin’

Where is the United States in Bible prophecy?

It’s a valid question to ask. The place to start looking for an answer is with Israel. After all, the US isn’t mentioned nearly 700 times, but Jerusalem is.

The modern nation of Israel is a genuine miracle. Her existence fulfilled numerous prophecies regarding the regathering in the Last Days of the Jews to their homeland:

Isaiah 11:12 ESV He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Isaiah 66:8 ESV Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children.

God makes one thing clear to all other nations:

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ ” (Genesis 12:1-3).

History shows the US as a blessing to Israel.

President Harry Truman made certain we were the first to recognize her status in 1948.

BUT we must consider these prophecies:

Zechariah 12:3 ESV On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.

Zechariah 12:9 ESV And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem,

Blessing Israel does not mean we must condone everything she does or does not do. Cursing her, in part, would involve siding with her enemies.

All of which leads us to the January 31st headline on axios, US State Department reviewing options for possible recognition of Palestinian state.

Excerpts:

Secretary of State Tony Blinken asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza, two US officials briefed on the issue told Axios.

While US officials say there has been no policy change, the fact the State Department is even considering such options signals a shift in thinking within the Biden administration on possible Palestinian statehood recognition, which is highly sensitive both internationally and domestically.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long opposed a two-state solution, has recently rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty and Israel is vehemently against any recognition of a Palestinian state by individual countries or at the UN.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/01/31/palestine-statehood-biden-israel-gaza-war

So: Where are we in prophecy?

If “all” means all, we will be against Israel.

We could be seeing the start of that. I would suggest a more likely scenario: The Church is removed from Earth by Jesus, leaving the US crippled, at which point our great nation allies with “all” against Israel.

We live in the Church Age, between the first coming of Jesus and His return to establish and rule the Kingdom of God on earth. His return will be preceded by a seven year time of incredible trouble upon the earth. Most commonly it is called the Great Tribulation, but the prophet Jeremiah calls it the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. It is a reminder that God will use that time to reveal Himself to unbelieving Israel. By the end of the seven years “all Israel will be saved.”

Jesus promised His Church, “I… will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

He keeps us entirely out of the 7yr Great Tribulation by raising deceased Church Age saints, then rapturing “we who are alive and remain.”

When? The return of the Lord for us is imminent. It could happen any time. Nothing needs to occur before Jesus can come for us.

Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.

Ready or not, Jesus is coming!

“When in the end that church will suddenly be caught up from this, then it is said,

‘There will be tribulation such as not been since the beginning, nor will be.’ ”

Irenaeus (AD130-202), Against Heresies 5.29

Don’t He Make You Wanna Go Home (Isaiah 51:1-23)

“Oh, the burden on my back grows heavier with every step, but my heart longs for the Celestial City. I press on, for there awaits a home not built by human hands, a place where my soul shall find true rest and eternal joy. The journey is arduous, yet my eagerness to reach the heavenly abode propels me forward, enduring all trials on the path homeward.”

Called Pilgrim’s Progress for short, the full title of John Bunyon’s 1678 masterpiece is The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come. It is an allegory of our walk with the Lord from Earth to Heaven.

The main character is Christian, who is a Christian. He is every Christian. He is, in his own words, “eager to reach the heavenly abode.”

Our passage in Isaiah describes an eagerness to reach the heavenly abode.

It’s in verse eleven: “So 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.”

Christian was eager to go home…Christians ought to be eager to go home.

  • The apostle Paul was eager: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23).
  • The apostle Peter was eager. He urges us to “hasten” the Lord’s coming (Second Peter 3:12).

What about us? How eager are we to go home? I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Let’s Be Eager To Go Home, and #2 Let’s Be Loathe To Stay Here.

#1 – Let’s Be Eager To Go Home (v1-11)

Isaiah’s immediate audience was the nation of Judah. His topics revolve around them and their promised land and earthly kingdom. We can see ourselves, the Church, in relation to the events discussed. For example, when Isaiah looks into the far future and sees the return of the Lord to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth that was promised to Israel, we come with Him from Heaven to Earth.

The LORD told the Jews that in approximately 150 years they would be disciplined by God for their idolatry and spiritual adultery. King Nebuchadnezzar would burn the Temple, raze Jerusalem, tear down its walls. The Jews would be captives in Babylon.

King Cyrus of Persia would give the Jews their freedom to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. We like to point out every chance we get that in a stunning prophecy, Cyrus is named by Isaiah before he was born. Take that, Nostradamus.

Isaiah is a little like Sam Becket. He’s the scientist leaping through time in the SyFy classic series,  Quantum Leap. We need to pay close attention to Isaiah’s ‘leaps’ to know where he has taken us.

  • Sometimes he describes the Jews returning to Jerusalem from Babylon.
  • Sometimes he describes the Jews in the future Great Tribulation.
  • Sometimes he describes the 1000yr Kingdom on Earth Jesus will establish at His return to Earth.
  • Sometimes he describes eternity.

In verses one through eight Isaiah is jumpy.

Isa 51:1  “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, You who seek the LORD… [There was always a remnant of believing Jews. They were declared “righteous” by believing God. They sought God, following His precepts]. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug [The idiom we would use is, “You’re a chip off the old block.” Abraham was the block].

Isa 51:2  Look to Abraham your father, And to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, And blessed him and increased him.”

When descendants of Abraham look at his storied life they see the whole plan of God to redeem Jews & Gentiles. One man becomes as numerous as the sand along the seashore, and as the stars in the sky (Genesis 22:17). We would say, “He who has begun a good work will perform it.” The Jews might be in captivity. They might suffer terrifically throughout history. But God will prove faithful to Abraham.

For his part Abraham stumbled at first, but as he continued with the Lord, he found his spiritual rhythm. So much so that at one point he would have sacrificed his only son without asking a question.

Like father Abraham, like his sons. Judah could have that same faith. So can we as spiritual sons & daughters.

Isa 51:3  For 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.

Isa 51:4  “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.

Isa 51:5  My 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. [“Peoples” & “the coastlands” refers to Gentile nations].

This sounds very Kingdom-of-God-on-Earth-ish. The Bible tells us Jesus will return to establish a Kingdom on Earth that will last for 1000yrs. His return is at the end of 7yrs of Great Tribulation.

  • Jesus will transform “waste places” and the “wilderness” to be like Eden.
  • His rule will be in righteousness, dispensing justice.
  • Jesus will save all who call upon Him.

Isa 51:6  Lift 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 abolished.

This is a leap farther forward. After the 1000yr Kingdom the Lord will create new heavens & a new Earth that will exist eternally.

Isa 51:7  “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.

Isa 51:8  For 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.”

Back from the future… The remnant can encourage themselves by remembering their destiny as opposed to that of unbelievers.

Those who follow the Lord will be reproached and insulted on Earth. That can hurt, but it doesn’t need to. Would you rather unbelieving men praise you, or the Lord? He bore their reproaches for you; now it is your turn to do bear them for Him. As Maxwell Smart would say, “And loving it!”

Isa 51:9  Awake, 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?

Isa 51:10  Are 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?

Commentators see these three verses as a prayer from Isaiah’s coal-burned lips. Is it, though??

God’s words were a sermon about the Jews in Bible prophecy. Isaiah gets excited. I can’t really blame him for going full Pentecostal. Instead of saying, “Can I get an Amen!”, Isaiah said, “Can I get an A-wake!”

“Awake… Awake… Awake.” Who does Isaiah think he is to order the LORD who never slumbers or sleeps to awaken? That isn’t what Isaiah was doing. There are exhortations in the Bible for sleepy, lazy believers to wake up & serve. This isn’t that. He was asking the LORD to “wake up” the way our kids might come to us on Christmas morning and say “Get up! It’s time to open presents!!”

Nemo was super excited; it was the first day of school! Marlin was asleep. “Get up! Get up! Time for school! Time for school! First day of school!”

Isaiah was excited to go home “to Jerusalem and beyond.”

Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, And wounded the serpent?” Rahab, in the Bible, is another name for Egypt. The “serpent” or monster (in some versions) is Pharaoh. The LORD recalls the drying-up of the Red Sea that provided the redeemed Hebrews a clear, dry path across. When the Egyptians followed, the water was released, drowning the army.

Isa 51:11  So 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.

Do we have that eagerness? Sure we do… Or we did & can once again. As the Bible ends,“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And …him who hears say[s], “Come!” (v17).

#2 – Let’s Be Loathe To Stay Here (v12-23)

If you have been with us before, you’ve heard me talk about Jesus coming to resurrect the dead believers of the Church Age and transform living believers. We call this event the Rapture of the Church. It can occur anytime and it will occur prior to the Great Tribulation. It is a pre-Tribulation event.

We don’t hold this position because we want to avoid persecution; We hold it  because it is what the Bible teaches.

Opponents of the pre-Tribulation rapture are multiplying and getting more antagonistic. They will try to convince you, for example, that no one in the early church ever believed in such nonsense. That’s not true. Here’s a quote from Irenaeus. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John. Irenaeus declared, ““When in the end that church will suddenly be caught up from this, then it is said, ‘There will be tribulation such as not been since the beginning, nor will be.’ ” (AD130-202, Against Heresies, 5.29).

With the Church removed, God focuses on the Jews. That is why the prophet Jeremiah called the Great Tribulation, The Time of Jacob’s Trouble. The remainder of the chapter seems mostly set in that troubled time.

Isa 51:12  “I, even I, am He who comforts you…

The LORD’s comfort is not a food, or a favorite bankie, or a hug with tapping. Those are fine in their own way. No, by “comfort” He means preserving His often undeserving people. It isn’t antisemitic to point out Israel’s epic failures. Takes one to know one.

Isa 51:12  “… 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?

Isa 51:13  And 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?

“Fury” is a terrifying description of Satan’s efforts against Israel in the Time of Jacob’s Trouble:

  • He is depicted as a great red dragon wanting to devour Jesus in His first coming.
  • He is depicted as a flood in his efforts to kill every last Jew to thwart the return of the Lord.

Fear of any man, or fear of anything at all besides God, is irrational for a believer in Jesus. What is the worse thing that we face? Death.  For a believer, “to die is gain.”

Yes, you will suffer. In some cases your suffering will be extreme. I’ve been thinking about what the apostle Paul said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). “This present time” isn’t merely a season. It is all of human history from the fig to now. Paul immediately brings up creation in the next two verses in Romans 8. We get overwhelmed by pain, but it is nothing when you consider the Heaven you are journeying to.

Isa 51:14  The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed, That he should not die in the pit, And that his bread should not fail.

The Jews would be “captive exiles” in Babylon. This describes their fear that they were headed toward extinction. They were ignoring the LORD’s prophecies and promises that the nation could never become extinct. The destiny of the entire human race depended upon God working through them.

Isa 51:15  But I am the LORD your God, Who divided the sea whose waves roared – The LORD of hosts is His name. [“Hosts” is armies].

Isa 51:16  And I have put My words in your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, That I may plant the heavens, Lay the foundations of the earth, And say to Zion, ‘You are My people.’ ”

Like Fievel Moskowitz, God “Had a plan.” It was to have a special, set-apart nation to share His “words” with Gentile nations. He protected them with His “hosts.” He shaded them when necessary.

Planting “the heavens” and laying “the foundations of the Earth” was a preliminary, and temporary, project. The LORD required a workshop to work on His people.

Isa 51:17  Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem…

Now who is excited? The LORD pictures Himself waking-up a slumbering child so they don’t miss the celebration.

Isa 51:17  … 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.

Has any people group suffered for practically their entire existence more than the nation of Israel? In the future 7yrs God is pours out wrath upon their oppressors.

I tend to forget that Jerusalem will be attacked by the antichrist just prior to the Lord’s return to Earth. A description can be found in the fourteenth chapter of the OT Book of Zechariah. It’s ugly.

Jesus returns & once again saves His people.

Isa 51:18  There 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.

Isa 51:19  These two things have come to you; Who will be sorry for you? – Desolation and destruction, famine and sword – By whom will I comfort you?

Isa 51:20  Your 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.

The Jews suffer terribly during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Only of the Jews on Earth will survive.

Isa 51:21  Therefore please hear this, you afflicted, And drunk but not with wine. [Makes me think of Hannah weeping in the Temple. Eli thought she was drunk with wine, but it was an intoxication from sorrow over being barren]

Isa 51:22  Thus 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.

Isa 51:23  But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, Who have said to 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.” [So much death that their bodies are the street their enemies walked on]

Isaiah’s earlier shout-out lasted about 30 seconds. It occupies three verses. The LORD’s encouragement occupies twenty. Maybe we should listen more.

You must have noticed that the LORD tells the Jews to “listen” three times (v1, 4&7).

A.W. Tozer had plenty to say about listening. He prefaced it by saying, “The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. [Did] a silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever?”

With regard to listening Tozer said:

It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts.

I had the privilege of meeting Alan Redpath. He has a story about Tozer. When they both served in Chicago, Tozer – who was there before Redpath – invited Redpath to pray with him mornings. Redpath said he went, but not often. He felt he was interrupting something deep going on between Tozer & his Lord.

Wait, wait, wait on the Lord

I must wait, wait, wait on the Lord

Learn my lessons well

In His timing He will tell you

What to do, where to go, what to say

Love Is Gracious, Love Don’t Die (Ephesians 6:21-24)

Ephesians 6:21-24 – 21 Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. 22 I am sending him to you for this very reason, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts.

23 Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tonight, we part ways with the Church at Ephesus. Of course, for them it wasn’t the end. They had decades of history yet to experience. Closing this letter, Paul didn’t expect to see his Ephesian friends again, but he very much expected God to continue His work of grace in their church.

Ephesians 6:21 – 21 Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed.

Paul wrote while under house arrest waiting to testify before Caesar Nero. After finishing his letter, he put it in the hands of Tychicus to personally deliver. But not just one letter – on this trip, Tychicus would also deliver the New Testament letters to the Colossians, to Philemon, and Paul’s non-Canonical letter to the Laodiceans. So who was this Christian mail man?

He’s mentioned five times in the Bible. He was a convert from Asia Minor. Some believe he was actually from Ephesus and saved during Paul’s stay there in Acts 19. He became a close friend and ministry partner of Paul’s. He traveled with Paul on some of his journeys. In fact, he left Ephesus with Paul in Acts 20 with the group that delivered financial aid to Christians in Jerusalem.

As Ephesians closes, it’s about 62AD. Tychicus is with Paul in Rome. Now, with letters in hand, he’d travel to Asia Minor to visit multiple churches. Five or seven years later, when Paul was imprisoned a second time, Tychicus is by his side again. Paul would send him once more to Ephesus, this time with a letter we know as 2 Timothy. Paul had Tychicus fill in for Timothy so that Timothy could go to Rome to visit Paul and bring him a coat and some study materials.

It’s possible that Paul also sent Tychicus to relieve Titus so he could come for a visit. It was either going to be Tychicus or a fellow named Artemas.

So, we see Tychicus going back and forth, here and there, dropping off letters, filling in for this guy or that guy, carrying funds to help hungry people. If he had a job description, it would be gofer. There’s no record of him performing miracles or planting churches or preaching to thousands. But, reading the verses that mention him, we get a sense of how valuable and meaningful his regular faithfulness really was.

Yes, Paul wrote the letter, but if there’s no Tychicus, who would ever read it? He stood and walked in the gap, not just for the Ephesians, but in all these other situations. His helpfulness, his willingness to do small things, his availability and reliability extended the reach of Paul’s ministry. He was an agent of God’s help and relief and wisdom and provision and truth and so much more.

He wasn’t just a mail man. I get packages all the time. I don’t think I could pick out my Amazon driver from a lineup of one. But Tychicus didn’t just drop the message and move on. He also told them all the news about Paul. The word there means the “who, what, which, and why.” Tychicus would give personal testimony of what God was doing through Paul’s life and imprisonment.

The book of Acts closes with this sentence, “Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house. And he welcomed all who visited him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”

Remember: Most of the recipients of this letter didn’t know Paul personally. Tychicus could be a witness. He could tell them that Paul wasn’t faking. God was fulfilling His promises. Paul wanted the Ephesians to know these things. He said, “I’m sending Tychicus so that you may be informed.”

This has been a major theme of the letter – that God’s people understand and grow in knowledge, and apprehend more and more of the truth of God and the power of God for day-to-day living. God wants you to be informed. Informed of His truth. Sharing in His wisdom. Growing in your understanding of His heart and His work and your place in it.

Ephesians 6:22 – 22 I am sending him to you for this very reason, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts.

From a human perspective, Tychicus might look like a gofer. In reality, his service to Paul and to the Church and to the Lord changed the world. He was an encourager. It’s the same term Jesus used of God the Holy Spirit when He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth.” Tychicus was full of Spirit and therefore was used by the Spirit to do the work of the Spirit.

This is a wonderful example of what God wants to do in our lives. In 2 Corinthians, Paul said:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – the God of all comfort…comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

The word comfort used again and again in those verses is the same word used to describe what Tychicus did: Encourage, build up, come alongside to help. Do the work of the Spirit.

So, on the one hand, the job Tychicus was given was relatively routine: Deliver a letter and share some news. But, on the other hand, this wasn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. This was a long trip – dangerous and difficult. It didn’t come with a lot of recognition or fanfare. But it was so needful, so beneficial. He was able to represent both God and Paul to these Christians in Asia Minor.

Ephesians 6:23 –  23 Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians is a blatantly Trinitarian book. We see both Father and Son here. In chapter 1, all three Persons are listed in a verse together. Keep that in your pocket for when you need it.

What God wants for His people is peace and love and growing faith. God does not want us to spend our lives full of fear or confusion. He doesn’t want us to waste our days in constant aggravation or discontent. He offers us peace and calls us to it.

Peace means tranquility, freedom from worry, harmony. The city of Ephesus was a city full of tension. You had all these cultures coming together: Romans and Jews and pagans. There were all sorts of religions and cults. There were 25-30 different pagan temples in the city. The great harbor was constantly silted by the river, threatening the commerce and economics of the area.

There was a gladiator school in Ephesus, and many fights in the theater. There was, of course, political unrest. This was the time of revolts, of assassinations, of Emperors perhaps burning their own capitals.

In a climate like that, God’s plan for His people was peace – harmony when the world is full of dissonance. Tranquility when the world was full of animosity. Rest and well-being.

Paul reminded them that this life-changing, counter-cultural love and peace was from the God of heaven and earth – from Jesus Christ, Who is Lord. It’s found nowhere else. You see, in Ephesus, the message was: Caesar is lord. The Emperor Cult held great sway in the city. As an example, in the early Second Century AD, a prominent citizen of Ephesus built a fountain with a great statue of Caesar with his foot on the globe. Ephesian Christians walking downtown would see a sculpture of the goddess Nike, holding the wreath of victory in her hand. The messaging was in your face.

Every day would be a choice to believe God, rather than man – to walk with Him in spite of the world’s flow. So Paul encouraged them: Have faith. Receive the peace of God, the love of God, all the promises and power that he talked so passionately about in this letter. The Lord would follow through on His promises and provision.

Ephesians 6:24 – 24 Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

All of the victory and the peace and the love and the spiritual strength and the unity was possible because of God’s grace and only by God’s grace.

A few verses earlier, Paul spoke of the armor of God. We remember the images of the battles coming our way. We’ve heard about our everlasting inheritance and our place in God’s eternal, cosmic work. We’ve seen how much God loves us and His affection for us. It’s all from His grace. God loves us and delights to pour His favor and His kindness into us so we can experience life more abundantly.

Compare that to what Rome’s warriors experienced. Before beginning their fights, gladiators would say: “Hail, Emperor. We who are about to die salute you! And then the emperor forced them to destroy one another.

But the Christian’s King is no Roman Emperor. The King of love, our Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never.

For the third time in four verses, Paul mentions love. Here, he calls the Ephesians (and us) to an undying love. Your version may say love “in sincerity,” or, “incorruptible.” Linguists tell us that the words literally read, “in incorruption, incorruptibility, immortality.” You could also use the term, “unfading love.”

This was Paul’s closing prayer for these precious people: That they would grow and flow with God’s grace as their love for Christ endured, day after day.

Of course, most of you know what I’m going to say next. 30 or 35 years after this letter was read in their assembly, a new letter was delivered. This time it wasn’t from Paul, it was from Christ Himself. We can read it in Revelation 2. There, the Lord commends the church at Ephesus for their good works and their unwillingness to tolerate evil people. They had good doctrine. They had good programs. They endured hardships and had not grown weary in doing Christian things. But they no longer loved the Lord.

The Ephesians teach us that loving God isn’t just about serving. Serving is part of it. Enduring is part of it. Defending orthodoxy is part of it. Suffering patiently is part of it. But, at the base level, our hearts must belong to the Lord, personally, passionately, affectionately. Their love had faded. And, from what we can tell, it faded imperceptibly over time. But, one day, it was gone. And so, the Lord wrote them a very loving, but very direct letter, urging them to return to that love they once had.

What happened in-between Ephesians 6:24 and Revelation 2:1? The story is pretty interesting. During the first century, Ephesus “was one of the largest centers of Christian activity in the Gentile world.” The church was world famous for their Godly activity.

Timothy became their pastor for many years. In fact, when Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, that’s where he was ministering. But, during those Timothy years, false teachings started to creep in from outside. Paul had predicted this back in Acts 20, so many years before.

Paul was set free from his first imprisonment. Church history teaches that he went as far as Spain preaching the Gospel and then, on his way back, returned once more to Ephesus, maybe 5 or 7 years after he wrote this letter. Shortly after that visit he was arrested again. This time he would be martyred for his faith.

A few years after Paul died, when the Jews revolted against Rome Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Around that time, the Apostle John came to live in Ephesus. Church history suggests that Jesus’ mother, Mary was with him there for a few years. There’s a traditional site where it believed that they lived.

While in Ephesus, John wrote his Gospel, then 1, 2, and 3 John. During this time, it seems, there was a split within the church – something John wrote about in his letters.

In the mid-90’s, John was exiled to the island of Patmos, about 60 miles off the coast of Ephesus. While John was there, Timothy, now an old man, continued to preach the Gospel in the city. He was beaten to death after preaching against idolatry.

The Church Father Ignatius, who lived and wrote at the time, records that Onesimus then took over as pastor at Ephesus. That would’ve been a full-circle thing for this friend of Paul’s who was once a slave. You see, when Tychicus came to Ephesus with Paul’s letter, Onesimus was with him! He would’ve been quite an object lesson, by the way. Remember when Paul was teaching about slaves being faithful as unto the Lord? And there’s Onesimus, standing by, waiting to go back into slavery in Philemon’s house.

After a few years of exile, John was released from Patmos. He returned to Ephesus. It was then that he delivered Jesus’ letter to this beloved church.

We don’t know how they responded. We don’t know if they ran back to the Lord or continued in lovelessness. What we do know is that the Ephesians had everything they needed for growth, success. Think about it: They had received teaching ministry from Paul, Apollos, Timothy, John, Onesimus, and Tychicus. All these New Testament writings were there: Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, 1, 2, 3 John, the Gospel of John, the Revelation. The church became prominent and influential. They had room to grow and had everything they needed to succeed.

So what happened? The problem was within.

Research shows that one in 13 Americans has an undiagnosed disease. The Ephesians weren’t lacking in anything they needed. They problem was within their own hearts. There was a slow drift away from love into programs. Into gestures. Into the motions of Christian activity without any real passion for Christ. These Ephesians, who had been saved out of such pagan culture, had now become cultural Christians.

This is not just a sad story, it’s a serious warning. The Ephesians church was a powerhouse of Godliness, truth, activity, and growth for decades. But in the end they were in a position where the Lord had to say, “Look, I’m about to remove your lampstand.”

If it could happen to this church, it could happen to any church. And so, no matter what lies ahead, our personal and corporate focus should be to walk with the Lord in love. Love for Him. Love for His truth. Love for His leading. Love for His people. As we love God, His grace flows in us. And when grace is operating in our lives and in our midst, we see what’s possible. Ephesians has shown us that.

This isn’t some new idea. It’s been God’s plan all along for all His people. He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to lavish His grace on us so that we could be saved and transformed and assigned in His purposes and then put on display forever to prove His greatness and kindness.

How could we stop loving a God like this? We will stop if we don’t remind ourselves of what is true, of Who God is and what He has done. As we grow in our knowledge, our love should increase, not fading but become richer and deeper and more alive.

I’m Awl Ears (Isaiah 50:1-11)

“We stood and watched while God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could.”

That’s author Alice Hoffman’s conclusion as to why there is so much evil. God must have abandoned us. She’s not alone in her assessment. In the movie Venom Carlton Drake says, “God has abandoned us. He didn’t keep His part of the bargain.”

It’s one thing for an author who writes about magic, or a comic book villain, to paint God that way. We can dismiss it as ignorance.  

Isaiah’s Jewish listeners accused the LORD of abandoning them.

They forgot one not insignificant detail: They had brought their troubles upon themselves. It wasn’t God who had abandoned them. No, it was the opposite. It was for their “iniquities” and their “transgressions” that they were being punished.

You and I have not abandoned God. What might you be blaming God for? Accusing Him of not loving you for? Of delaying until it was too late? Maybe nothing… Maybe something… Maybe everything?

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Jesus Never Abandons You, and #2 Jesus Always Advocates For You. 

#1 – Jesus Will Never Abandon You (v1-7)

Mega-Church pastor Joshua Harris authored the wildly popular book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Not too long ago he kissed Jesus goodbye. After announcing his divorce he renounced his faith: “I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”

I looked-up ‘deconstruction’ for you:

Faith deconstruction, also known as deconstructing faith, evangelical deconstruction, the deconstruction movement, or simply deconstruction, is a phenomenon within American evangelicalism in which Christians rethink their faith and jettison previously held beliefs, sometimes to the point of no longer identifying as Christians. It is closely related to the exvangelical movement.

I looked-up ‘ex-vangelical’ for you:

Ex-vangelical is a social movement of people who have left evangelicalism, especially white evangelical churches in the United States, for atheism, agnosticism, progressive Christianity, or any other religious belief, or lack thereof. People in the movement are called ‘ex-vangelicals’ or ‘exvies.’

Abandon Jesus and you are not an apostate who denies the Lord who bought you. You’re a hip deconstructionist or a trendy ex-vangelical.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. The % grows with each new poll.

The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said He’d never leave you, never forsake you. He keeps “His end of the bargain.”

We are in the section of Isaiah in which he is introducing the Jewish Messiah. He calls Him the Servant. We know it is Jesus. For one, several verses from Isaiah are applied to Jesus in the NT.

Isa 50:1  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.

We jump right into an illustration in verse one. The LORD compares He and them (they?) to a family – husband, wife, kids. It is OK to call them dysfunctional as long as we understand it applies only to the wife and kids – not the LORD.

It is so Garden of Eden to blame others, or God, is it not? Their situation was of their own doing.

Translators have a tough time with this verse:

  • A lot of Bible versions make it sound like the husband did give his wife a certificate of divorce, as required by Jewish law, and a receipt for selling the kids.
  • In other versions, the LORD insists He has done no such thing.

The “I’ve done no such thing” fits best with the context. The LORD challenged them to prove His unfaithfulness. He had not divorced them or else He would have provided a certificate of divorce as required. He had no debts to repay, therefore He had not sold them.

I could be missing something, but this is an illustration – not a teaching on marriage & divorce. You shouldn’t read anything into it about who is the wife of YHWH and who is the bride of Jesus.

Isa 50:2  Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer?…

Remember I Love Lucy? What did Ricky say when he came home from work? That’s right – “Lucy, I’m home!”

The faithful husband & father comes home after a hard day’s work. His wife is gone, having abandoned him and the children. Nevertheless the kids hold dad responsible for all their distresses.

Isa 50:2  … 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.

The LORD had power to both “redeem” and “deliver” them. He didn’t because they wouldn’t stop sinning.

There are14 questions asked in these verses. Asking question after question is something God employs to reset our worldview. In Job 38&39 the LORD asks 77 questions. Job is overwhelmed by the LORD’s power tempered by grace. It is a profound reset for him.

God never fatigues, never tires. He doesn’t need retraining for perishable skills. Why doesn’t He flex His spiritual muscles more often? He’s not a poser! Real strength in the Church Age is revealed in our weakness. When we are weak, then are we strong.

The image of dead, stinking fish dying of thirst is a throwback to the days just prior to the Exodus from Egypt. He had ten plagues to choose from, plus hundreds of other miracles, signs, and wonders in their history. Why this one?

I don’t know. It does teach us something. Jesus knows what He would say to a person if He were on Earth. Since He is not on Earth He employs us to speak to people for Him. We ought, therefore, to attempt discovering what it is He wants said.

Isa 50:3  I clothe the heavens with blackness, And I make sackcloth their covering.”

Charles Spurgeon applied this to the 3hrs of darkness when Jesus was on the Cross:

We read that, at high noon, the sun was veiled, and there was darkness over all the land for three black hours. Wonder of wonders, He who hung bleeding there had wrought that mighty marvel! The sun had looked upon Him hanging on the Cross, and, as if in horror, had covered its face, and traveled on in tenfold night. The tears of Jesus quenched the light of the sun. Had He been wrathful, He might have put out its light for ever; but His love not only restored that light, but it has given to us a light a thousand times more precious, even the light of everlasting life and joy.

As the darkness of that day diminished Jesus announced with a commanding voice, “It is finished!”The time to conquer death by dying had come.

Let’s skip verse four. Don’t worry. We will ‘circle back’ to ‘unpack’ it.

Isa 50:5  The Lord GOD has opened My ear; And I was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away.

In the OT Book of Deuteronomy we learn that indentured servants who desired to remain in the household permanently had their ears pierced. “You shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever” (15:17). That is what is meant by “opening the ear.”

Adding humanity to His deity through the virgin birth was the penultimate ‘opening of the ear.’

Isa 50:6  I 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.

Our context is the accusation that God has abandoned us, leaving us to fend for ourselves. If ever there was a time to call it quits, to abandon the human race, it would have been that long night and day. Jesus didn’t quit. He dug in, flint-faced.

Isa 50:7  “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.

  • How can a man be beaten so thoroughly that He barely looked human and yet say it was not a disgrace?
  • How can He, the most innocent man ever, die the death of a common criminal nailed naked on the main road into Jerusalem and not be ashamed?

Jesus revealed His ‘secret.’ “For the Lord GOD will help Me.” He so trusted in the Father’s help that, for His entire life, He “set [His] face like a flint.” It’s a way of saying that nothing would deter Him from His mission.

The Father did not help Him in ways we would like for Him to help us. He didn’t stop the crucifixion. He didn’t immediately come and smite the enemies of Christ. In fact, the entire episode came across as the greatest religious failure in the history of the world.

How did God the Father help Jesus? In many ways, but I would put near or on top of the list that they shared fellowship with each other as the Lord was on the Cross.

The one place in the Bible that seems contrary to this is Psalm 22, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” People say, “See that? The Father turned anthropomorphic His back on the Son.”

He didn’t; He couldn’t. Read on in Psalm 22, to verse 24 – “For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and He has not hidden His face from Him, but has heard, when He cried to him.”

Can you envision Jesus looking into the Father’s face, knowing He had perfectly obeyed Him and was about to finish their work? The Father’s face would be beaming with light and love.

#2 – Jesus Always Advocates For You (v8-11)

The scene in Isaiah shifts to Heaven, post-resurrection.

Isa 50:8  He is near who justifies Me; Who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come near Me.

“Justified” is referring to a Judge. It has a courtroom vibe. Having endured the Cross, Jesus can stand in a heavenly tribunal and declare His total and convincing victory. If any “adversary” wishes to “contend” with Him, as King Theoden said, “Let them come!”

Jesus did not die for Himself. He had no sin. He died for the human race. When you believe Him, God withdraws your sin and puts Jesus’ righteousness into your heavenly account. What is true of Him becomes true of you. You will be accused and have to contend with enemies. It is always in the context that Jesus advocates for you.

Isa 50:9  Surely 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.

This is the OT counterpart to, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). The moth is reminiscent of Jesus encouraging us to think always about Heaven and our future rewards. Moths are not allowed. Neither are thieves or rust.

How will He help? “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us (Romans 8:31-34).

Isa 50:10  “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.

“Fear the Lord” in this context was a description of those who had been declared righteous by God. My dad used to call Christians, “Born-agains.” Maybe apostate Jews called righteous Jews, “Fearers,” or something like that.

Obedience is beyond us without help (read Romans 7). Praise the Lord we not only have “help,” He has given us the Helper Himself, God the Holy Spirit, to permanently indwell us individually & corporately.   

When we get saved, aren’t we removed from the domain of darkness and placed in the kingdom of light? Yes, but you remain on Earth, “among the English” as the Amish put it. The word for “darkness” is a plural; it is “darknesses.” The believer is God’s light in the peculiar “darknesses” in which you find yourself throughout your lifetime.

The apostle Paul said, “But even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (Second Corinthians 4:3-4).

A thick “veil” prevents unbelievers from ‘seeing’ the Lord. One commentator likened Satan’s veil to virtual reality goggles. You “see,” but it is a fantasy, a game, with deadly stakes.

We have had our virtual reality goggles removed by the power of the Gospel & we see reality.

Isa 50:11  Look, 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 unbelievers in verse eleven kindle their own fire. Religion, science, psychology, philosophy; they send out sparks but not sufficient to kindle a fire.

You can sing Amazing Grace or I Did it My Way. The account Jesus gave of the rich man and Lazarus perfectly illustrates what we mean.

You arrive on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening and the special guest is Jesus. After He addresses us -hopefully in a Church of Philadelphia way – He opens it up for Q&A.

“Jesus, in the Gospels we see you spending a lot of time alone with our Father. Can you describe a little about that?”

Quoting verse four, “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.”

When Jesus was on the Earth, “morning by morning” He had devotions! More likely, “morning by morning” means “day after day.”

It is incredible to think of the Second Person of the Trinity being instructed “how to speak” just the right “word” to people, all of whom are weary from life on a fallen Earth in a corrupting body and eternity in their hearts.

Who are the “learned?” You are!

“Learned” means those who are instructed. Having set aside His deity to live an entirely human life, the Lord was instructed by the Father via God the Holy Spirit. The Helper, God the Holy Spirit, is also our resident scholar (John 14:26).

It is arrogant to think God has abandoned us. The fault with the world is not His. It is ours for choosing the wages of sin.

It seems to me that God had two choices:

  1. Create the universe exactly as described, knowing what our parents would do and what He would do about it.
  2. Or, not create the universe at all.

Behind Door #1 is the incredible sufferings of the human race. But there is also the incredible grace of God.

Job put a foot inside Door #2. “May the day perish on which I was born, And the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived’ ” (3:3). But when his suffering was ended he said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You” (42:5).   

In the end, everything is going to be awl-right

Prophecy Update #772 – How About Now, Red Cow?

Hamas Spokesman: October 7 attack launched to stop the red heifers.

That was the January 17 headline on israel365News.com

Excerpts:

Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization, gave a rare speech on the 100 day anniversary of the war against Israel. In his speech, he cited the arrival of the red heifers in Israel as one of the motives for the massacre of Jews on October 7.

https://www.israel365news.com/382489/hamas-spokesman-oct-7-attack-launched-to-stop-the-red-heifers/

The Palestine Chronicle translated his speech. Among the reasons he cited, “the ‘bringing of red cows’ as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity, and the path of its prophet (the Night Journey) and Ascension to heaven.”

The ‘red cows’ are rare, spotless red heifers whose ashes are necessary to purify the implements in the Jewish Temple. Last September, five red heifers arrived in Israel amid great fanfare. To replicate the ceremony mentioned in the Bible, they need to be at least 3yrs old. They are almost 2yrs old.

The Temple Institute in Jerusalem has been busy for decades replicating all necessary implements to perform animal sacrifices. The ceremony needs priests who have not been defiled by touching anything dead. They have identified nine such men.   

Why is that seen as an act of aggression? It is assumed that the site of the Jewish Temple is where the Al Aqsa Mosque is currently built. That presents a problem.

Daniel in the Old Testament prophesied that there would be a Temple in Jerusalem on the holy site during the seven year Time of Jacob’s Trouble that we commonly call the Great Tribulation. Jesus validated Daniel and spoke of certain events that must take place in the middle of the Tribulation in the Temple.

This is exactly what we expect to be happening based on the unfulfilled End Times prophecies in the Bible.

We monitor biometrics, cashless commerce, the manipulation of human DNA, global government, the exponential growth of human knowledge, one-world religion, instantaneous global communication, the rise in popularity of the occult, a falling-away from the faith in Christendom, and all things Israel.

All of these are increasingly trending in the news – just as you’d expect.

We live in the Church Age, between the first coming of Jesus and His return to establish and rule the Kingdom of God on earth. His return will be preceded by a seven year time of incredible trouble upon the earth. Most commonly it is called the Great Tribulation, but the prophet Jeremiah calls it the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. It is a reminder that God will use that time to reveal Himself to unbelieving Israel. By the end of the seven years all Israel will be saved.

Jesus promised His Church, “I… will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

He keeps us entirely out of the 7yr Great Tribulation by raising deceased Church Age saints, then rapturing “we who are alive and remain.”

When? The return of the Lord for us is imminent. It could happen any time. Nothing needs to occur before Jesus can come for us.

Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.

Ready or not, Jesus is coming!

“When in the end that church will suddenly be caught up from this, then it is said,

‘There will be tribulation such as not been since the beginning, nor will be.’ ”

Irenaeus (AD130-202), Against Heresies 5.29

Training Pray (Ephesians 6:18-20)

Ephesians 6:18-20 – 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

The average Christian feels like they don’t quite have prayer figured out. Most of us have moments where we’re not sure we’re doing it properly – like seeing some of those machines at the gym and wondering how they work. We try our best but suspect we used the wrong muscles altogether.

Books on prayer mean well, but some slice more than they assist. I see quotes like, “A [person] who does not spend much time in prayer cannot properly be called a follower of Jesus Christ.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a man who God dramatically used in the 20th century. He personally witnessed the Welsh Revival of 1904. He wrote definitive books on preaching and revival, Romans and Ephesians. But when it came to preaching about prayer he sounded like many of us:

“God knows at this point I find myself more hesitant than I’ve ever been in a pulpit or ever can be in a pulpit. To pray in the Holy Spirit. How much do we know about this?…Would that I knew more.”

If you, like me and like Dr. Lloyd-Jones, feel like you come up short in your prayer life, be encouraged. Tonight God offers us comfort. The Bible meets us right where we are and gives us what we need. You see, it’s not a secret to God that we struggle in prayer. And why shouldn’t we? It is a heavenly activity! How could we be masters of it without God’s assistance and revelation?

In Romans 8, Paul says, “we do not know what to pray for as we should.” The disciples themselves approached Jesus and said, “We don’t know how to pray. Can You teach us?”

The Bible is crowded with instructions, examples, encouragements, and opportunities about how to pray. Our text tonight is specifically geared to help us – to set us on a path of prayer from this day forward. By the end, I hope we see that for the Christian, prayer is our tradecraft. It is a major purpose and enterprise in the function of our faith and it is ours to enjoy.

Ephesians 6:18a – 18 Pray at all times…

The U.S. Marine Corps’ motto is Always Faithful. Our Coast Guard’s motto is Always Ready. Paul would say the Christian’s is Always Praying.

Perhaps this is one reason why we’re intimidated by prayer. We hear these phrases – pray at all times, pray without ceasing. We hear stories or read books by other Christians who seem to have broken through to ‘true’ prayer with deep spiritual power. And I suppose some have. But Paul assumes that all of us can pray in all times and circumstances. Every one of us has the same access.

What does “prayer” even mean? If it’s this important – this essential to the Christian life – we should make sure we know what it is. Is it a posture? Is it an experience? What does it require?

At the most basic level, prayer means to “address a Deity.” Talking to God. That’s it. What do we talk about? Anything you’d like. The Bible shows us many types of prayer. Look to the Psalms and you’ll see a huge variety of conversations people had with the Lord.

Paul says, “pray at all times.” The last verses were full of battle imagery. The Bible shows the importance of praying before the battle. David was a good example of that. We see God’s people praying during the battle. Joshua did. There is prayer after the battle. The apostles, having faced serious spiritual warfare, gathered to pray after a scuffle with spiritual foes in Acts 4.

The Bible shows us prayer in caves and dungeons, in houses and mountains, in the wilderness and in palaces, in the church and in courts, in joy and in crisis. There is no time, place, or circumstance where prayer isn’t a benefit to us. The Scriptures present it almost like spiritual breathing – happening all the time, naturally, in every situation.

So how do we do it right? Paul gives us the key when he says:

Ephesians 6:18a – 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit…

It’s not about formulas or quotas. It’s not about systems or a certain level of emotions. What God wants is for us to pray in the Spirit. What does that mean?

Well, we remember what Paul has already told us about the Spirit in this letter: That the Holy Spirit was given to us as a down payment of what God has promised and that He seals us into those promises. That the Holy Spirit fills us and dwells in us.

When I was in college I had a great relationship with one of my roommates. We lived together for a couple of years and got to know each other pretty well. We talked with each other throughout the day. We did things together, laughed together, were open with each other. It would’ve been strange if we only spoke to each other at set times or with memorized dialogue.

But my first year I had a different roommate. We did not get along. We very rarely spoke with each other. There was no cooperation or openness. It was more like we lived next to each other in the same room, with invisible partitions between us.

When we have a healthy relationship with God the Holy Spirit, when we acknowledge Him and agree with Him and give affection to Him, He is able to  develop our prayer lives. It’s what He wants to do. Our prayer lives grow as He fills us and strengthens us and teaches us.

In Romans 8, where Paul said we really don’t know how to pray, here’s the rest of what he wrote:

Romans 8:26 – 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

We already have a conversation running in our minds. Praying in the Spirit means we remember that He is with us and in us and we bring Him into the conversation. As we do, we’re reminded about what is true and what our perspective on life should be and what has been promised by God, which then shapes our thoughts and prayers. We become aligned with the Spirit.

Ephesians 6:18a – Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request…

Paul separates out prayer and requests (or your version may say supplication). That doesn’t mean that asking God for things isn’t prayer. He’s just highlighting the fact that there are many types of prayer. There are prayers of praise or thanksgiving or asking God for things or confessing to God or crying out to God or lamenting before God. There are all sorts of conversations we can have with the Lord. And, you know what? He wants to hear all of them. Every prayer. Every request.

We don’t have to be shy or pretend we aren’t thinking what we’re thinking. The Lord already knows! Now, if we are in right relationship with the Holy Spirit, our prayers are going to be shaped according to God’s truth and His purposes. But we should never hesitate to converse with the Lord and to bring requests to Him. James, at one point says, “You have not because you ask not.” But he also says sometimes we ask and don’t receive because our motives and desires aren’t aligned with the heart of God. As we walk with the Lord and grow in spiritual maturity, as we deepen our personal friendship with God, our thought lives and prayer lives become more conformed to Him.

With that said, I would encourage all of us to remind ourselves that not every prayer should be a request. If all of our prayers are just asking God to do things for us, then our relationship with Him is not as healthy as it should be. There are a lot of other things to focus on in prayer. For example:

Ephesians 6:18b – and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Here we see that a major part of our prayer life should be focused on other Christians. It’s fine to pray for yourself. But so much of Ephesians has been about our unity in the Body – how we’re all connected and integral to each other’s spiritual lives and how good that is. And so, each Christian has a duty to be in prayer for other Christians.

“Stay alert” means “be on guard,” and “watch with concern.” In can also mean “linger.” Linger in prayer for other Christians. We intercede for one another, meaning we take on the heart and mission of God. The Holy Spirit intercedes for each of us and now we join that same work as agents of God’s grace in the lives of others.

We want to be Spirit-filled Christians. One way for us to be Spirit-filled is to pray for other Christians. Intercede for them. And to persevere as we do.

I’m sure some of you here have been praying for certain people in your lives for years, maybe for decades. The same prayer again and again. I tend to want to give up. I’m afraid of becoming the kid in the back seat saying “Are we there yet?” over and over to God. But that’s not how the Lord sees it. Jesus taught to keep on asking, keep on knocking. Paul tells us to persevere.

Now, there are times when God tells His people to stop praying about certain things. He did that to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. At one point in Exodus, the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to break camp.” There are times to stop praying about a specific situation and do something else. But, meanwhile, don’t be shy to keep petitioning, keep interceding.

By the way: We’re to pray for the saints, not to the saints. Those believers who have gone before us into heaven cannot hear you – they aren’t omnipresent. They are not a go-between for you. There is One Mediator between God and man and that is Christ Jesus. We approach the throne of grace directly and boldly because God the Father has granted us that access.

Ephesians 6:19 – 19 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

There’s so much to love about this verse. First, even though these Ephesians were novices, even though some of them were barely out of paganism, even though none of them were apostles or knew much at all about the Word of God, Paul wanted their prayers.

You’re a brand new Christian? Your prayer is just as legitimate as Paul’s prayer. Your prayers matter.

Paul practice what he preached. He’s talking about unity, about the value of prayer, and we see earlier in the book he prays for them. Now he says, “How about you pray for me?” He wasn’t too proud to ask for prayer. He knew he needed it. Paul the Apostle! A man who spoke to Jesus face-to-face. Author of the New Testament. Miracle-worker, church planter, who walked the streets of heaven then returned to tell us about it. That guy says, “I need your prayer so that I won’t be too afraid to do what God has called me to do. Your prayers clear obstacles for me.”

And that reveals another beautiful thing from this verse. Paul was the smartest guy in the room. Paul was the most spiritual guy in the room. The mysteries of God were revealed to him. And yet, he did not rely on his intellect as he served God. He relied on the Spirit, working through his mind and experience and everything else, but it was the Spirit working in him. Paul asked that they pray he would be able to serve God with boldness.

Paul talked about Christians being bold a lot. It doesn’t mean loud or cocky. It means uninhibited – to speak frankly, without fear of reprisal. Paul knew there would be reprisals – he was shackled as he wrote those words, potentially facing death. But he asked his friends to pray that he would experience a heavenly freedom of speech.

Now, Paul was in real trouble. But that did not change his mission or determination. The Lord had stood in his cell and said, “Have courage, Paul. It’s necessary for you to testify about Me in Rome.” And so, in this case, Paul did not ask his friends to pray that he would be released from prison.

At other times, Paul did ask people to pray for his deliverance. In Romans 15, he outright says, “Please pray that I would be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea.” In Philippians, Paul talks about their prayers leading to his salvation – not spiritually but physically. But Paul filtered his circumstances through the revelation of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. And so, he said, “Ok, today, this is what I need you to pray for.”

We should never be shy to ask for prayer, but God help us to be mature enough to recognize what we should ask for. To know that, we need to be in tune with the Spirit, in harmony with the Word.

Ephesians 6:20 – 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

Ambassador in chains is a bit of an oxymoron. Rome did not recognize his authority, nor his King. Scholars tell us Paul used a pun here, no doubt smiling as he wrote or dictated this portion of the letter with a heavy chain attached to his wrist and a Roman guard on the other end.

One commentary notes, “The term ‘chain’ signifies among other things the (golden) adornment(s) worn around the neck and wrists by…high ranking men. On festive occasions ambassadors wear such chains in order to reveal the riches, power, and dignity of the government they represent. Because Paul serves Christ crucified, he considers the painful iron prison chains as most appropriate insignia for the representation of his Lord.”

And so, we see Paul had a great boldness and a very spiritual understanding of his situation. But he also recognized that, though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. He knew he would be tempted to retreat, to shrink from his mission. And so he said, “Pray that I might be the way I should be.”

How should we be in our Christian life? We should be confident in our Lord and vigorous in our callings. Faithful to our King. Trusting Him. Communing and communicating with Him. About His business. Conducting ourselves as ambassadors of the God of heaven and earth.

What an amazing reminder of God’s tender grace. He keeps sending emissaries to His enemies to offer them peace, to offer them forgiveness, to offer them life everlasting. Rome mocked God. They attacked His children. Their whole empire was an affront to the Lord. And how did God respond? He sent people like Paul over and over to their centurions and their governors and their emperors with the Good News of the Gospel.

Paul gave the Ephesians instruction on prayer and then asks them to get right to it. He did not condemn them for not being masters of prayer. He invited them to enjoy it, grow in it, and wield it. To recognize how essential it is, but also revealing what a powerful, accessible gift it is.

We should be encouraged that prayer is ours to enjoy, grow in, and wield. I’m not against books on prayer. I’ve read some wonderful ones. I’m not necessarily opposed to trying one of the methods that encourage prayer like A.C.T.S. But you don’t need those things to pray. God is your Father and Friend. He wants to hear all your prayers and then develop your prayer life as you cooperate with the Holy Spirit. So, anything that makes you think you can’t do real prayer right here, right now, isn’t Biblical.

At the same time, we should be fine with the fact that not every time of prayer will be dramatically spiritual. Martin Lloyd-Jones said there were two times in his long life of faith where he experienced an unusual work of the Spirit in a prayer meeting – and they were both when he was a young boy.

Even in the Bible we see most times of prayer that were what we might call normal. Nothing unusual or particularly fantastic happened. Only rarely did the room shake at a prayer meeting. Only once was Peter in a trance as he prayed.

Otherwise, God’s people are just shown praying normally. Praying for themselves. Praying for one another. Praying that God’s will would be done. Giving Him thanks and praise for His goodness and power. Confessing their sin and calling on His promises. These prayers are every day but that does not make them unimportant. They are all-important. They are ours to make use of at all times, in all places, in all circumstances, for all the world, and especially other Christians. The Bible’s teaching on prayer is: Do it! As you walk with God, He will teach you to do it “better.” But we need not hesitate. Instead, gravitate to it, gravitate toward the Lord by speaking with Him all the time.

Who Is That Marked Man? It’s The Lone Savior. (Isaiah 49:1-26)

Don’t… Don’t Dare… Don’t Dare Stare…Don’t Dare Stare at the Illustrated Man.

That’s the tagline to the awful 1969 movie based on Ray Bradbury’s awesome anthology of short stories. A former carnival freak is completely tattooed. If you stare at a tattoo it becomes animated.

Isaiah introduces us to a Servant. In verse sixteen the Servant says, “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands…” Different versions of the Bible translate “inscribed” as graven, marked, drawn, engraved, and written.

Do Dare Stare at the tattooed man in our verses.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 The Lord’s Inscribed Hands Battle For You, and #2 The Lord’s Inscribed Hands Buttle For You.

#1 – The Lord’s Inscribed Hands Battle For You (v1-7)

“See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.” The “walls” have to be the walls of the beloved city, Jerusalem. The CEV translates this, “A picture of your city is drawn on my hand.”

The servant talks about Jerusalem and the Israelites as if they were one and the same.

In the Star Trek original series episode, Amok Time, Kirk and Spock must fight to the death. Dr. McCoy tries to talk him out of it, but Kirk says, “Bones, He’s my first officer and my friend. I disregarded StarFleet orders to bring him here. Another thing, that’s T’Pau of Vulcan. All of Vulcan in one package. How can I back out in front of her?”

“All of Vulcan in one” person. That’s the idea here. All of Israel in one city, Jerusalem. Stare at the inscription of the city and you ‘see’ every saved Israelite.

Isa 49:1  “Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar! The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.

Isaiah doesn’t say this person is Jesus. There are Christian commentators who suggest other possibilities. Note the descriptions of the Servant as we read and you will conclude He can only be Jesus.

The “coastlands” was an idiom to describe the limits of the known world. Salvation would be offered to Gentiles, to the whole world.

Translators didn’t know the word “matrix” would make us think SyFy. It’s a synonym for an atmosphere or a surrounding in which something develops. In this case it is someone, developing in the “matrix” that was His mother’s “womb.”

God the Father “called” the Servant before He was born to be the redeemer of the sin-enslaved, headed-for-second-death, perishing human race.

Isa 49:2  And 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.”

He battled for us. Every moment Jesus was on earth for us He was battling. Whether it was his obscurity, for the better part of his life, or the opposition of the devil, Jesus was grappling.

The “mouth” of the Servant, His words, are like a honed “sword” and a sharpened “arrow.”

These were spiritual weapons, not used to slaughter His enemies in Jesus’ first coming, but to pierce hardened hearts with the Gospel.

Jesus grew up before His Heavenly Father concealed from the eyes of the world, protected in the “shadow” of God’s hand. God “hid” Jesus until it was time. The majority of His life on earth was spent in a very ordinary way.

God’s time and timing trouble us. In our more spiritual moments we acknowledge that God is always right on time. But when you’re in the thick of it, it can seem as though He is late. Even too late!

Isa 49:3  “And He said to me, ‘You are My servant, O Israel, In whom I will be glorified.’

Isa 49:4  Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, And my work with my God.’ ”

The words “You are My servant, O Israel” are why some suggest that this cannot be Jesus. Other candidates are Isaiah, the nation of Israel, the believing remnant within Israel, King Cyrus, or his successor, King Darius.

In verse six the Servant is called “a light to the Gentiles.” That is quoted and applied to Jesus by Simeon in Luke 2:32. Duh.

It is hard not to read this as discouragement on the Lord’s part. I certainly don’t want to go too far trying to describe the Lord’s pure, never sinful, emotions.  Nevertheless it is wrong to try to explain this away, or suggest simple solutions.   

One Sunday morning in 1866, from the pulpit of his London Metropolitan Tabernacle, Charles Spurgeon shocked his congregation of 5000 by admitting, “I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever gets to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to.” He later described his depression as a “seething caldron of despair.”

On another occasion he said, “My spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for.” Spurgeon never did conquer his depression.

In His coming Jesus added humanity to His deity. He set His deity aside and lived as a man. Being 100% human means He experienced the emotions we do, only never sinning. Yes, He expressed discouragement. From a strictly earthbound perspective His ministry measured a dismal failure. So will yours, either from time to time or all the time.

I’m not talking about pastors and missionaries and our supposedly stress-filled, sabbatical-seeking lives. Every believer is a minister of the Gospel, a missionary where they live & work.

There are all manner of things that will discourage you. Illness, of course, is high on the list, especially chronic. The deteriorating state of the world weighs heavy on us. Most of us at least some of the time think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. It leaves us open to discouragement. Some of you are prone to what used to be called melancholy. Sin, of course, is like a weight, crushing us.

Perspective and worldview are what is prescribed when it says, “Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, And my work with my God.”

  • Your “reward” is in the “work” itself, if it is for God.
  • It is “work with my God” to the extent you allow the indwelling Holy Spirit to lead you.

The foil for discouragement (or depression or whatever we are calling it) is to deeply believe the apostle Paul’s analysis that “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1:21&23).

Isa 49:5  “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 gathered to Him (For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, And My God shall be My strength),

The mission of redeeming & restoring Israel to God will succeed. It is still in the future, coming during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble when “all Israel” will be saved before the return of Jesus.

Isa 49:6  Indeed 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.’ ”

Isa 49:7  Thus says the LORD, The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, To Him 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.”

Jesus came to His own, the Jews, and they rejected Him. He turned His followers loose upon the Gentile world offering salvation to them. It is articulated for us by the apostle Paul right at the end of the Book of Acts. “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” (Acts 28:28).

Have you heard it? Are you hearing it now? Respond to the Lord.

#2 – The Lord’s Inscribed Hands Buttle For You (v8-26)

It’s a word; it’s what butlers do.

All of this section is about what the servant is going to do for His chosen nation. We are told what He will do, not what we must do.

Isa 49:8  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;

We would put this at the end of the Time of Jacob’s trouble. It is the “acceptable time” for the Lord to hear them cry out to Him. It is, for the Jews on earth during that time, “salvation” and miraculous “preservation.”

After the Lord returns, Israel will be a “covenant.” This may be the New Covenant promised Israel involving giving them a heart of flesh to replace their hard hearts of stone. The Church is experiencing blessings of the New Covenant, e.g., the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

Isa 49:9  That 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.

Isa 49:10  They 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.

The return of Jews to Jerusalem after the Time of Jacob’ Trouble will be with great joy. The returnees will be provided with shade and supplies along the way.

Isa 49:11  I will make each of My mountains a road, And My highways shall be elevated.

Is this a future flat-earth prooftext? No. But there will be changes in the geography of earth. It will be easy to journey to Jerusalem.

Isa 49:12  Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, And these from the land of Sinim.”

You’ll be able to look far and see Jews from “Sinim” on their way. There is absolutely zero agreement on Sinim. Whether it was Phoenicia or farther, perhaps China, we don’t know.

Isa 49:13  Sing, 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.

I’m taking this literally:

  • Geologists have proven that the earth hums due to a phenomenon known as “microseisms,” which are low-frequency, long-period seismic waves that constantly reverberate through the planet’s crust.
  • In May of last year a solar-powered balloon mission detected a repeating infrasound noise in the stratosphere. Scientists don’t know what is making it.

Isa 49:14  But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.”

Isa 49:15  “Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.

The Lord’s supernatural love for Israel is stronger and more faithful then the greatest natural love.

Isa 49:16  See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.

I don’t see how this isn’t literal. In ancient times servants and slaves were tattooed or branded or pierced. It makes sense that THE Servant of all would be likewise.

Maybe it’s a reference to the Lord’s scars from the Crucifixion? He will bear them for eternity. That’s not at all what it says here. The nails were not an inscription.

The inscription is the earthly Jerusalem, the capital of the earth in the Millennium. There is one on each palm. Are they two identical tattoos? Or is one the New Jerusalem that comes from Heaven to satellite the earth? Because it seems like in the Millennium both Jerusalem’s will be active. The New Jerusalem cannot be on earth replacing Jerusalem; it’s too big!

Isa 49:17  Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste Shall go away from you.

  • Jews who had been dispersed by the antichrist’s all-out assault will “make haste” to return to Jerusalem.
  • Persecutors who took the Mark of the Beast will flee.

You might run across the suggestion that Isaiah was writing about the Jews returning to Jerusalem when released from Babylon. Only a relatively few Israelites responded to Cyrus’ edict and returned to rebuild Jerusalem. The majority decided to stay in Babylon. This prediction is for the far future.

Isa 49:18  Lift 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.

The CEV translates this, “I, the LORD, promise that your city with its people will be as lovely as a bride wearing her jewelry.”

Isa 49:19  “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.

The Millennial Kingdom on Earth will have a good problem to resolve. There will be an abundance of believing Jews.

Isa 49:20  The 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.’

Isa 49:21  Then 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?’ ”

Modern Israel is a miracle. How did the Jews survive as a people? The history of antisemitism is mind-boggling. Speaking of Ukraine, have you heard of Bogdan Chmielnicki? In the 1700s he and his Ukrainian Cossacks murdered Jews and burned Jewish communities. Until Hitler, Chmielnicki was the greatest murderer of Jews in all of Jewish history.

Isa 49:22  Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, And set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;

Isa 49:23  Kings 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.”

These predictions sound too good to be true. The LORD said, “Just wait; you’ll see.”

Let’s talk eschatology for a moment. We’ve talked about replacement theology. It is the teaching that physical Israel has been replaced in God’s plan by spiritual Israel, which includes the Gentiles. Nothing Isaiah wrote would make any sense if that were true. The plain sense of his prophecies is that the physical descendants of Abraham will endure to the end and receive all the promises made by God.

Isa 49:24  Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, Or the captives of the righteous be delivered?

Isa 49:25  But 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.

We’d have to say the Lord is a battling buttler.

Isa 49:26  I 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.”

This describes the warning the Lord gives people who resist His rule. Too bad we don’t have time to explain “I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh.”

Siege warfare often resulted in cannibalism. In Second Kings, during a siege of Samaria, two Jewish mothers discuss eating one another’s baby (6:24-30).

When unbelievers refuse the grace of God they bring catastrophe upon themselves.

You’ve probably made a connection that I have yet to mention. Are we, the Church, ever closely identified with a city?

Sure are. Revelation 21:9-10, “Then one of the seven angels… came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.”

Almost everyone gets confused by the angel saying he was going to show “the bride,” then showing John the heavenly city. We should have a handle on it now, thanks to Isaiah. You see the city, you see the saints.

Jerusalem engraved on one hand… New Jerusalem on the other. That marked man is fully God, Jesus Christ, your Savior.

Prophecy Update #771 – Here Come Da AI, Here Come Da AI

Instead of choosing between a judge or a jury, soon you may be choosing between a judge or Artificial Intelligence.

AI News reported, “In the Federal Judiciary’s year-end report, US Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the potential impact of AI on the judicial system. In particular, he aimed to quell concerns about the obsolescence of judges in the face of technological advancements. Roberts expressed legitimate concerns about the potential drawbacks of AI in the legal domain. He warned against the possibility of AI-generated fabricated answers or “hallucinations,” citing instances where lawyers used AI-powered applications to submit briefs that referenced imaginary cases.

Roberts [also] acknowledged the positive aspects of incorporating AI in the legal system. He recognized AI’s potential to democratize access to legal advice and tools, particularly benefiting those who cannot afford legal representation.

Not the Bee posted an article titled, It begins: England’s ancient legal system to integrate AI in rulings.

Excerpts:

England’s 1,000-year-old legal system – still steeped in traditions that include wearing wigs and robes – has taken a cautious step into the future by giving judges permission to use Artificial Intelligence to help produce rulings.   

The country’s Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, somewhat understanding the Brave New World it is about to step into, said that Artificial Intelligence “could help write opinions,” but the regulators said the technology “shouldn’t be used for research or legal analyses” because AI can still “fabricate information and provide misleading, inaccurate and biased information.”

AI is a noteworthy trend we follow because it is what we expect to be happening from our plain sense futurist reading of the Bible.

What is it about AI that connects it to Bible prophecy? Here are two things:

First – In Daniel 12:4 there is a prophecy that at “the time of the end” “knowledge shall increase.” When human knowledge is growing exponentially, it is a strong indicator of the End Times. AI is blowing-up knowledge like never before. So much so that its creators are afraid it will soon surpass our knowledge and think for itself.

Second – In the Book of the Revelation, a false prophet oversees the making of something called The Image of the Beast (i.e., the antichrist). “He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (13:15). I’m not saying it is, but AI could very well be what empowers this image. I mean, it sounds like a terminator.

We monitor biometrics, cashless commerce, the manipulation of human DNA, global government, the exponential growth of human knowledge, one-world religion, instantaneous global communication, the rise in popularity of the occult, a falling-away from the faith in Christendom, and the rebirth of national Israel.

All of these are increasingly trending in the news – just as you’d expect.

We live in the Church Age, between the first coming of Jesus and His return to establish and rule the Kingdom of God on earth. His return will be preceded by a seven year time of incredible trouble upon the earth. Most commonly it is called the Great Tribulation, but the prophet Jeremiah calls it the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. It is a reminder that God will use that time to reveal Himself to unbelieving Israel. By the end of the seven years all Israel will be saved.

Jesus promised His Church, “I… will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

He keeps us entirely out of the 7yr Great Tribulation by raising deceased Church Age saints, then rapturing “we who are alive and remain.”

When? The return of the Lord for us is imminent. It could happen any time. Nothing needs to occur before Jesus can come for us.

Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.

Ready or not, Jesus is coming!

“When in the end that church will suddenly be caught up from this, then it is said, ‘There will be tribulation such as not been since the beginning, nor will be.’ ”

Irenaeus (AD130-202), Against Heresies 5.29

Fight In Shining Armor (Ephesians 6:10-17)

Ephesians 6:10-17 – 10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. 14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, 15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. 16 In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.

On January 16, 1991, President Bush announced the invasion of Iraq. In his speech, he outlined the ferocity of the enemy, the suffering of the innocent, and the valiance of American troops who joined the battle. He said, “No President can easily commit our sons and daughters to war. Ours is an all-volunteer force, magnificently trained, highly motivated. The troops know why they’re there…Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait.”

It was a costly fight that demanded much of those volunteers.

In our text, Paul points our way and says, “There’s a battle going on and the Lord wants you to join it.” We have all we need for victory. But, the Lord’s army is made up of those who volunteer.

Ephesians 6:10 – 10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

We’ve come a long way from chapter 1, verse 1. Paul took us from eternity past to eternity future. He’s described where we’ve been and where we’re going. He talked about the spiritual wealth we have – the grace and the power and the protection and the enabling. He just finished describing day-to-day Christian life in the home, in the workplace, in our relationships. Now he says, “Finally.”

It’s a term that can mean “for the remaining time,” or “from now on.” These are marching orders. And they begin with, “Be strengthened by the Lord.”

Life is difficult. We face hazards and challenges. But you can be strong as a Christian. In fact, you’re supposed to be strong – spiritually strong, mentally strong, emotionally strong – more and more capable as a believer. That doesn’t mean we don’t struggle, but God’s plan for you is strength. And He’s the One Who does it. You don’t strengthen yourself. Be strengthened by the Lord and His vast strength – the strength that Paul said is working in us back in chapter 3, verse 20.

How do we receive this strength? How do we cooperate with God’s desire to increase our spiritual capability? Verse 18 says prayer is one way. Through prayer we are strengthened and we help strengthen others.

We’re made strong by walking with God. As we walk worthy, God is able to fortify us and do His powerful, cosmic work through us in the city and the home, on the job and at the kids’ soccer game.

Isaiah says, “Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength.” It happens as we exercise faith.

We’re also made strong, the Bible says, in our weakness. As we surrender to God’s will, as we allow His grace to operate in us, we become stronger and stronger.

Ephesians 6:11 – 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.

Spiritual strength is not just so we can look good. We used to watch Survivor. There were always contestants with perfectly sculpted physiques, but when it came to dragging the heavy box out of the surf, across the sand, onto a platform, it became clear their muscles were for looks, not labor.

God’s strength is for application, not appearance. We need to be strong because we have a very powerful, highly organized, savagely motivated adversary. He is no tin-pot tyrant – he’s the ruler of this world. And he has declared war on the Lord and all His people.

How powerful is the Devil? Consider what he did to Job. After given permission by God, the Devil exerted power over people, inciting them to violence. He exerted power over the elements, bringing a hurricane to Job’s house. He even exerted power over the health of Job’s body.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that Satan has enough power, and enough pride, and enough of a winning record that he had total confidence when he came against the Son of God Himself.

With that said, he is no match for the Lord. There is no question Who will emerge victorious in this cosmic struggle. In fact, the war is already won. And the Lord now turns to us and says, “Take My armor. Take my weapons. Take my battle plan and you can share My victory over this enemy.”

Thanks to God, you can stand against the Devil’s schemes. “Schemes” is the word we get the word “method” from. What are the Devil’s methods? There are lots of them – he’s an expert at his craft.

His attacks come in the form of persecution against God’s people. Or pollution of their minds and  culture. He attacks us with fear and deception and temptation. He conspires to get you angry at God for one reason or another. He sends wolves into the Church, spies among friends, to do his terrible work undercover. He has many effective methods.

This is why we need the armor of God. There’s that great moment in Captain America: Civil War where Iron Man and Cap are punching it out and Tony Stark is getting thrashed. The voice in his suit calls out, “You can’t beat him hand-to-hand!” And it was true. Tony Stark needed the armor to analyze the fight pattern and harness its fantastic power to defend himself.

The Devil is real but, the New Testament is clear: We don’t have to be afraid of him and he has no power over us because God has given us His armor, His power, His revelation, so we can stand. Stand means not only up on our feet, but to “hold out in a critical position on the battlefield.”

But, as one commentator points out, “Standing firm requires effort. It does not automatically happen.” We have to understand what’s going on on the spiritual level and take our position and duty seriously. We need to recognize that the Devil’s plan is to devour anyone he can. His life goal, his job, his hobby, his side-gig, his five year plan is to destroy your life if he can. And he has lots of resources at his disposal. But we have more. We have greater. We have the splendid armor of God – the very armor He wears Himself. But it will not help us if we don’t put it on.

I read a story of a Georgia police officer named Tim Smith. His department issued him a bulletproof vest, but he decided not to wear it. He responded to a call about a man with a gun. He pulled the car over, the suspect came out shooting and hit Tim in the chest. And now Tim is dead.

Ephesians 6:12 – 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

This is such an important verse. Humans are not your enemy – not really. It’s the power behind the bad boss, the schoolyard bully, the deadbeat dad, the political antagonist that is the problem. Think of Abigail and Nabal, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, Paul and Felix. For the believer, the other person was not a hated enemy. They understood that there was a spiritual situation unfolding.

Our fight is with this dedicated group of demonic forces. Paul describes it as close up, hand-to-hand wrestling with a unified coalition of foes who have colonized every corner of the world.

Ephesians 6:13 – 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

I like this because, in verse 11 Paul says, “Here’s your armor.” And we might think, “Ok, great. I’ll hang that next to my rain coat in case I need it.” But then Paul says, “Take a look right outside your door here at the battlefield and the enemy troops headed your way.” And then we get to verse 13 and Paul again says, “So, here’s your armor. Go ahead and put it on. You’re in this fight.”

For the second time Paul calls it the full armor of God. We need every piece. It won’t do to pick and choose. It’s sufficient to defend our lives and gain ground against our enemy, but we need it all.

I saw a part of a football game over the holidays and during one play a receiver, apparently, decided he didn’t need the chin strap on his helmet. Well, he caught the ball and was hit by a defender. The helmet immediately popped off and, as the receiver went down, another player’s knee went straight into his head. He was missing a piece. Put the chin strap on!

Our orders are to resist the Devil. There are those who make a big show of talking to the Devil, even taunting him. I have to agree with Skip Heitzig who said, “Don’t talk to the Devil.” He’s smarter than you, stronger than you, more experienced than you, and totally dedicated to destroying you. Resist him and he will flee from you. But don’t trash talk the Serpent of Old.

Ephesians 6:14 – 14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest,

Paul keeps telling us to stand. Christians need not cower. Standing means we’re stable on our feet. It means we’re ready to fight or rescue. There’s not much we can do from the ground. God’s desire is to keep you on your feet – to keep you from stumbling or getting knocked down.

In these verses, Paul describes our gear. Based off some of the terms he used, you can make the case that he was envisioning a certain type of infantry soldier that could do the job of a skirmisher when necessary or fall back to be a part of the phalanx of defense.

As Paul speaks, he makes many references to Isaiah, particularly chapter 59. In Isaiah we see God wearing many of these very items, which makes sense because it’s His armor that He shares with us.

We start with the belt of truth. A belt is central. It hold things together. Soldiers would hang things on the belt. Recently, my beloved, $16 ratchet belt broke. It was a Sunday morning before first service and I felt a snap and suddenly my belt wasn’t a belt anymore. I had to ask Kelly to bring me some other belt from home because I was having a wardrobe malfunction.

It’s the belt of truth, not of feelings. Not of fads. It is God’s eternal, constant truth that holds and girds everything together. That’s what we hang the rest of our life on.

Next, we see the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness protects us – our hearts and other vulnerabilities. And remember: It’s Christ’s righteousness that has been given to us, not our own self-righteousness. Paul’s not saying, “Make your own armor out of good deeds.” All your righteousness is just filthy rags. That’s no good for combat. Instead, we are clothed with Christ’s righteousness, and that protects us when we put Him on.

Ephesians 6:15 – 15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace.

Shoes make a difference. No one wants to hike in high heels. The Gospel keeps us on our feet, giving us navigation and direction. But the Gospel also keeps us on our toes, reminding us that time is short and every day we can engage on mission. Readiness means prepared for combat.

But, notice: Paul uses the word peace here. It’s a good reminder that we are liberators, not subjugators. God’s goal is to save captives, reconcile enemies to Himself. To bring peace.

We live in a very antagonistic time. Everyone is against everyone else. Let’s walk in forgiveness and peaceful reconciliation as far as it depends on us. God calls us to unity, not hatred.

Ephesians 6:16 – 16 In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

The missiles are coming. Maybe an arrow, maybe a javelin, maybe something big launched from a catapult. The shield of faith is strong enough to protect us. Paul is referencing a large shield, probably around 2 feet by 4 feet. They helped you and the people around you. Soldiers would often line up together to create a wall of shields.

Faith helps us and the people around us. There was a Roman battle that happened a little before Paul wrote Ephesians. After the fight, a centurion counted 220 darts sticking into his shield.

Soldiers would soak their shields in water to help protect from fiery projectiles. That’s a great picture: Our faith being soaked in the Living Water. Soaked in the Word, soaked in the Holy Spirit.

The shield of faith is for every situation, not just times of obvious spiritual warfare. Fiery arrows can come out of nowhere. Maybe you see the archers up on the hill, or maybe there’s an ambush set for you. An ambush of temptation. An ambush of discouragement. An ambush of disappointment. We hold the shield of faith in every situation because we believe that it would be a bad thing if that arrow of temptation hit us – that arrow of discontent. It always comes back to understanding what God has revealed and believing that what He says is true and then responding accordingly.

Now, it’s no fun to think about fiery darts coming our way, but on one level, if they’re not, that’s probably a problem. If you are not a target, maybe you’re not in the fight. Maybe you’ve been incapacitated, or in the mind of the enemy, you’re more of a help than a hindrance.

Ephesians 6:17 – 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary says, “‘Take’ is really receive or accept. The previous items were laid out for the soldier to pick up. The helmet and sword would be handed him by an attendant or by his armor-bearer.”

The Lord provides all these resources, but in a special way He hands us salvation, He sends us the Spirit. Take them. Put them into operation. Walk in the provision you’ve received.

If you’re a Christian here tonight, you are saved. You’ve got the helmet. You know it works. Markus Barth writes, “[We] go into battle and stand the heat of the day in full confidence of the outcome…for [we] wear the same battle-proven helmet which God straps on His head  (according to the original meaning of Isa 59:17).”

With this armor we receive a sword – the word of God. Paul doesn’t use the word logos here, but the word rhema. Jesus Christ is the Word, the Logos. He’s right there beside us on the battlefield. In our hands is the rhema – that which has been said and revealed to us in the inspired canon. When Jesus wrestled with the Devil He said, “Man shall not live on bread alone but on every rhema that comes from the mouth of God.” And we remember how, after each volley from Satan, our Lord used Scripture to resist him. That was the weapon and it was absolutely effective.

These are heavy images. A new Christian might say, “Hey, I’m not ready for the front lines.” But we are ready because it’s the Lord’s strength, the Lord’s equipment, the Lord’s strategy, the Lord’s power working through us. We don’t have to be afraid of spiritual warfare.

But we should be realistic about it. It’s no laughing matter. Our enemy will fight to the bitter end. And our involvement may lead to heavy blows falling on us. What did Paul say to the Galatians? “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” But this is our calling and privilege.

Witold Pilecki was a Polish soldier who fought the Nazis. The Poles heard some things that didn’t add up when it came to what the Nazis were doing with their prisoners. And so, in 1940, Witold intentionally allowed himself to be taken to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. For two and a half years, Witold gathered intelligence and worked to get the truth out.

At times, Witold felt overwhelmed by his mission. But, he soldiered on, even once “[giving] up his own planned escape through the sewers to an inmate in more imminent danger.” He eventually did escape Aushwitz and then kept fighting the good fight. He was captured again in 1944 and sent to a POW camp. There, he cared for the younger inmates, who took to calling him “Daddy.”

Witold was liberated from that prison at the end of the war. And then there were other fights to join – other dark forces to oppose. I won’t spoil the ending, I’ll just tell you that from man’s perspective, Witold’s final chapter was a tragedy. From the perspective of the lives he saved and the good work he did? The life of The Auschwitz Volunteer was a triumph of good over evil.

Christian: Are you ready to get in the fight? Put on your gear, go where you’re commanded, stand in strength and victory and confidence that the Lord will do what He has promised in you and through you.