AWAKE, ARISE, AND TRIUMPH
Wednesday – September 14, 2022, Elul 18, 5782
THE CROWN OF PRIDE
Greeting dear and precious saints of God and we greet those who are not yet saints of God. Welcome to our Bible Study of the wonderful Bible Book of Isaiah. This is the third of the four teachings from Isaiah this week. Please take a moment and share this teaching as widely as possible by every means available to you. This helps us tremendously to disseminate the gospel, the best news anyone has ever heard. Receiving the gospel, and receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior or rejecting the gospel and Him is the difference between life and death, the blessing and the curse, and exponentially more important Heaven and Hell. The beautiful picture featured today was taken, I believe, at Coos Canyon on one of our many trips to and from Rangeley Maine.
Before we dive into our Bible text for today, I want to share an incident at our home today (Aug 18) that I believe has a spiritual lesson as well to be considered. I had taken coffee to Donna in bed, she had taken a few sips of the coffee and then I was taking it to our sitting area while she took care of other matters. We have a sitting area in the back of our home that overlooks the backyard and our bird feeders. We sit there together enjoying each other’s company, our coffee, and watching the birds. I had placed her coffee on the small stand beside her chair and turned around to return to the kitchen and get my own coffee. It was then that I noticed this brown substance over a large area of the floor. We have a kitty that vomits from time to time and at first, I thought that is what it was, but I came to realize I had spilled a far amount of coffee unknowingly on the way to Donnas’ chair. I was completely unaware I was spilling coffee. The question is this. How often do we make messes spiritually, unknowingly? This unknowing spilling of the coffee was a physical mess that was easily cleaned up but spiritual messes many times are not easily cleaned up and can impact ourselves and especially others for eternity. It strikes me that this applies most directly to our thoughts and words. Those thoughts and words that are not filtered through the Word of God, especially concerning others. However, we are sometimes our own worst enemies thinking and saying things about ourselves God did not say. Let’s be more sober and vigilant least we be devoured of the enemy. Now, let’s turn our attention to our primary Bible text reading out loud.
Isaiah 28:1-5 (AMP)
1 WOE TO [Samaria] the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim [the ten tribes], and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome and smitten down with wine!
2 Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty one [the Assyrian]; like a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty overflowing waters, he will cast it down to the earth with violent hand.
3 With [alien] feet [Samaria] the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden down.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like the early fig before the fruit harvest, which, when anyone sees it, he snatches and eats it up greedily at once. [So in an amazingly short time will the Assyrians devour Samaria, Israel’s capital.]
5 [But] in that [future Messianic] day the Lord of hosts shall become a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the [converted] remnant of His people,
As you can see, we are moving ahead into chapter twenty-eight of Isaiah. Once again, the Prophet as led of the Lord is talking about the punishment of Israel as the result of persistent and unrepented sin. We can see that the primary sin is pride. This was and is the sin of Lucifer and countless peoples down through time. We ourselves are at the center of pride and although we may give lip service to God our hearts are elsewhere. We really are throwing off what we see as the restraints of God and going our own way, being our own god. That did not work out for Lucifer and the hoards that followed him and it has never worked out for any person. May have looked like it in this life but if one could follow them into the next it would be horrifying. We are not looking for crown of pride but a crown of glory, the glory of God.
1 Peter 5:4 (KJV)
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
A crown of pride, which we have placed on ourselves, it is never of God, not only fades away but leads to destruction, 100% of the time. This crown of glory from “the chief Shepherd” has no expiration date. This prize we receive from Jesus Himself conveys the ideas of dignity, honor, and praise attributed from God (all Three Persons) for eternity upon us. Back to our passage which reminds us in verse five that there is a Messiah and a day is coming when He will gather together a remnant of His people being “a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty” for us all. It may be that “His people” is referring to the believing Jewish remnant at the end of the Tribulation period.
Lord willing, I will pick up right here tomorrow.
2 Chronicles 20:20 b (KJV)
20 … Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.
Receive the blessing in Jesus’ name!
Numbers 6:24-26 (MSG)
24 GOD bless you and keep you,
25 GOD smile on you and gift you,
26 GOD look you full in the face and make you prosper.
By: Dr. David R. Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
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