I am still waiting on the promise He made with Isaiah 54 and
43, and then, just at the time that it seemed that promise was being stopped –
at the time it seemed like the forces of hell were stopping it, but I do know
that God overrules even those – just at that time when I saw the promises that
seemed so close come to a screeching halt, some other things started to rise up
in my life that made me glad in a way that I had to wait on the Lord. The other
things I have been dealing with have been sapping my strength and stealing my
joy. It’s been so hard to keep going every day. But thank God for His
faithfulness because He keeps me going, and just when I got to another place of
feeling completely overcome yesterday, He gave me those chapters from Isaiah
once again, to remind me that He had given them before and that those promises still
hold. Reading those two chapters again helped me know deep in my spirit that the
promises He made last year will come to pass and the things I am dealing with
now will come to a close.
Isaiah 49:14-18 reads, “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has
forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘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. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before Me. Your sons shall make haste; your
destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you. 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.’”
There have been times since I was born again that the Lord
spoke to me about my past – that He has forgiven and forgotten it in the way
that only He can, but that the things that have happened to me were the product
of poor choices I’d made. He understands that I didn’t know Him and that is why
I made those choices, but there is always a choice involved in the choices that
we make. God does make His voice clear to us, and we can choose to listen or
not. I chose for many years not to listen, and that was what He would talk to
me about. When He spoke to me about those times, He would use passages of
scripture that talked about the prophets warning Zion, and He would always
share with me that my past was no different than the past that the children of
Israel had. They ignored Him and did things their own way, but He was always
there to forgive and give them a fresh start. When I read Isaiah 49:14 yesterday
and I saw the words, “But Zion said . . .” I knew He was talking to me. And
then when I read further, the word filled my spirit, and right where I was on
the train going home, I had to take a moment to thank Him. If I could have
gotten down on my face in the train car I would have, and He knows that was
what was in my heart. Once when I was in a church I used to attend and everyone
had gone up for an altar call, I felt it on my heart so strong to go down on my
face on the floor, but there was no room. I remember talking to God, saying, “I
want to kneel before you,” and He answered the most hilarious thing in a moment
like that, “What are you going to do, push someone over?” I almost laughed
aloud, and then He said, “It doesn’t matter if you kneel or not, because I know
what’s in your heart.”
The thing that I’ve been dealing with lately that has been
so difficult is that I’m dealing with someone who I thought was a strong
Christian who I could trust and I found out that they’re not and I can’t. It’s
not my place to judge, but I do know that they’ve started to lie about things,
and the things they’re doing are hurting other people and are meant to hurt
other people, including me. It wouldn’t be so hurtful if it wasn’t someone who
walked and talked the talk of Jesus, but when people use His name and stand
under His banner with lies, it is the closest thing that I can think of to the
abomination that causes desolation that the Angel Gabriel speaks of in Daniel 9:27.
I know that when that time comes for that thing to happen, it will be much,
much worse than what I am dealing with now, but what I have been dealing with,
a person who lies and does hurtful things to other people while saying they are a Christian and is so loud and proud about their
Christianity, that is the root of what will bring that other and much larger
abomination to pass.
As I read Isaiah 49 and 51 yesterday, the Lord sent me back
to Isaiah 50. Verse 4 begins, “The Sovereign Lord has given me a
well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.” Thank you
Jesus, because that is true. The verse
continues, “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one
being instructed.” Verse 7 says, “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me I will
not be disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know I will
not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges
against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! It
is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me? They will all wear out
like a garment; the moths will eat them up.”
As I have gone through these months of this difficult
trial, the Lord keeps telling me that I don’t need to worry at all, that these
things this person is saying and doing will disappear and mean nothing. That
the change that’s coming will come suddenly – that is so often the way that the
Lord moves. He is always working and busy behind the scenes, so when He acts we
think it’s out of the blue, but it’s not really. He’s given His warning, He’s
spoken to us and given us the ears to hear and a well-instructed tongue. Isaiah
50:10 tells us, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His
servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name
of the Lord and rely on their God.”
And then we get to Isaiah 51. Verses 7-8 read, “Hear me, you who know what is
right, you people who have taken my instructions to heart: Do not fear the reproach
of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults. For the moth will eat them up
like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But My righteousness will
last forever, my salvation through all generations.” Verses 11-16 continue, “Those
the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away. I, even I am He who comforts you. Who
are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you
forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the
foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of
the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction? For where is the wrath
of the oppressor? The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not
die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread. For I am the Lord your God, who
stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – the Lord Almighty is His name. I have
put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand – I who
set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth. And who say to
Zion, ‘You are My people.’”
These words are not just for me. These words are for you
too. The Lord speaks His word to us all, and all we have to do is listen and
say yes.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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