AP

Isaiah 10:24-25  Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD Almighty, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians, who beat you with a rod and lift up a club against you, as Egypt did.  Very soon my anger against you will end and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.”

Perhaps one of the most important things for us to learn from this part of Isaiah’s prophecy is that our God, the Creator, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, remains absolutely sovereign over all that he has created, that “he still upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty – all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand,” and that “we can [therefore] be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing will separate us from his love.  All creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.” (Heidelberg Catechism Qq 27-28)

This is not only a truth that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, had to learn the hard way, but that God’s people, Israel, had to hang onto firmly as they went through a time of God’s Judgement, and the outpouring of his just wrath against their mistrust and disobedience.  God remains at all times ‘Lord’ (Adonai) and ‘’Yahweh Tsabaoth’ (the ‘Lord of Hosts’, the ‘God of Armies’).  Yes, he was, justly, angry with his Chosen People for their sin, but he was executing his Eternal Plan of Salvation, which he had been doing from the beginning of Creation, a Plan that had at its heart the placing of his own dear Son on a cruel cross of shame to bear the outpouring of his wrath against our sin so that we might be protected from it and go free.

Isaiah will anticipate and foretell this gracious provision in the very next chapter: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.  The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD – and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.” (Isaiah 11:1-3a – in fact it is worth taking the time to read the whole of Isaiah 11 as it points us clearly to the ‘Stump of Jesse’, the ‘Branch’ – the ‘son of David’, the Lord Jesus Christ.)

It is good for us to take all this to heart as we live in the Last Days between the first and second comings of the Lord.  Jesus warned us that, as we approach the time of his Second Coming in power, we too will face times of fierce opposition and persecution: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.  You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22)  How important it is that, as we face this time, we will remember the message Isaiah gave to Israel three millennia ago, and  that “God is still on the throne, and he will remember his own; though trials may press us and burdens distress us, he never will leave us alone.  God is still on the throne, and he will remember his own; his promise is true, he will not forget you; God is still on the throne.” (Anon).

– Bruce Christian