AWAKE, ARISE, AND TRIUMPH
Monday – October 17, 2022, Tishrei 22, 5783
WOE TO ARIEL
Greetings dearly beloved of the Lord and welcome back to the Study of the wonderful Book of Isaiah. Please take a moment to share this teaching as widely as possible by every means available to you. Thank you for sharing. You have a very important role in this Ministry, in the Kingdom of God. Each of us have a vital role, that all the parts of the body work to maximum efficiency to increase the harvest and fruits of the Kingdom. The featured picture is a wonderful autumn landscape, one of my favorite times of year in Maine. I was recently introduced to a quote attributed to H. B. Clendenin and have introduced it to you. It goes like this; “We preach what revival brings rather then preaching what brings revival”. I have been very struck by this and must confess I too am guilty at looking at the end result and not the necessary path to the end result. This does not mean I will stop teaching about what revival brings for we must have the reward, the carrot so to speak in front of us but I will not neglect the path to revival or what brings revival. What does not bring revival is doing the same thing over and over again thinking we are going to obtain a different result, that is to say, revival. Now let’s turn our attention to our primary Bible text in the Book of Isaiah and continue reading out loud.
Isaiah 29:1-4 (KJV)
1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.
3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.
We are now entering the 29th chapter of Isaiah which has 66 chapters and God through His Prophet is still talking to Israel about their sin and the consequences, which are terrible, which are about to come upon them. These consequences involve great loss of life, freedom, and dislocation (taken captive to a foreign land). This all started in the first chapter.
Isaiah 1:1-4 (KJV)
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
It is vital that we not, not ever, forget that God is not talking just to Jerusalem and the Jewish people as a whole, this is a lesson, a mirror of us today. This scenario has played out over and over down through time with the Hebrew people and is now playing out again in America. As we reflect once again on the verses from the first chapter remember that we are, still, a Covenant nation in the sight of God. The founders of this great nation for the most part were Christians and recognized that for a nation to endure it must have God’s Word, God Himself, as it foundation. We have strayed a great distance however that is not the fault of the heathen, that is what heathen do. It is the fault of those who have authority and the Blessing to back up the authority in the earth. That is the Church, the body of Christ.
Looking back at Isaiah 29:1, we may not know exactly what ‘woe’ means but I think we intuitively know we don’t want any. According to the dictionary it means great sorrow, distress, and misery. Ariel is another name for Jerusalem, we know this is true from the modifier “the city of David”. God goes on to say through His Prophet that they are doing Church as usual (my paraphrase for today) however heavy judgment is at the door. Why? No change, no repentance! Do you suppose a little repentance in the Church, a little back bone, and obedience could reverse the rotting of this nation. Just as in Isaiah our enemies are ruthless, not because God made them so, they are demonically motivated. There is no one more ruthless than Satan and his demonic hoards and they are facing very little resistance from the Church, the body of Christ presently. Even the America I know in my childhood is destroyed, when will we, the Church, stand and restore? The heathen will not and cannot do it.
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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