Before the barren bride of Christ awakens to her position and calling in her LORD, her LORD himself must awaken. This is the meaning of the following prophecy:
9 (S)Awake, awake, (T)put on strength,
O (U)arm of the Lord;
awake, (V)as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut (W)Rahab in pieces,
who pierced (X)the dragon?
10 (Y)Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to pass over?
11 (Z)And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
(Isaiah 51:9-11 ESV Reference Bible – note: I encourage you to follow the excellent references in the ESV Bible; they usually take you to verses that will add much light to the particular Scripture)
The beginning of this prophecy takes us back to those great wonders and miraculous deeds which God performed when Moses led Israel out of Egypt. It is this profound type of intervention in the affairs of men which we must see again in our day or all is surely lost. Today we see tyrannical governments in control around the world on one hand. On the other we see local militias and gun rights groups rise up with loud voices and threats of physically fighting back against this tyranny. Many of these groups also claim to be Christian (and I do not doubt their claim). But make no mistake, the powers which control today’s governments possess weapons which are thousands of times more powerful than the pop guns they allow their citizens to still possess. The arm of flesh in rebellion against the beast of Babylon stands absolutely no chance of success. Christians who join such causes do not understand God’s ways. Be assured, Jesus himself would never have revolted against God’s established governmental powers, whether the Romans, the Jews, or the United States.
Until Jesus takes spiritual authority over Satan’s rule of planet earth he will not take physical authority. Our call to God to awaken and to remember his great deeds of the past represents our cry to him to finally take authority over Satan and to establish his kingdom on earth. God fully intends to use his people in the coming kingdom. According to Isaiah 51 this begins when God awakes from his metaphorical slumber because it is then when his people “come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” This has never happened, but it will happen when God “awakens” at his second coming.
Today terror lurks on every side for those who see and understand the signs of the times (those who do not watch simply party on into oblivion). Jesus forewarned,
25 “And (AV)there will be signs in sun and moon (AW)and stars, and on the earth (AX)distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For (AY)the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see (AZ)the Son of Man coming in a cloud (BA)with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and (BB)raise your heads, because (BC)your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:25-28)
Yes, these are fearful days when men’s hearts tremble at the evil coming upon the world. For example, if you are not already familiar with the new popular ideas of “the singularity” and “transhumanism” you need to watch the trailer from the movie Transcendence which is being released this week. The trailer is scary enough… what must the movie itself be like? And the really horrifying thing is that genius’s like Ray Kurzweil who works for Google, and who actually wrote a large book called “The Singularity,” actually believe transhumanism to be a good thing and attempt to bring it into full reality through their own inventions. These men deny the God who made them and try to make themselves into gods though their own means. But God speaks to this very time in this particular prophecy we now study from Isaiah 51. He says,
12 “I, I am he (AA)who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of (AB)man who dies,
of the son of man who is made (AC)like grass,
13 and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
(AD)who stretched out the heavens
and (AE)laid the foundations of the earth,
and you fear continually all the day
because of the wrath of (AF)the oppressor,
when he sets himself to destroy?
And where is the wrath of (AG)the oppressor?
14 (AH)He who is bowed down shall speedily be released;
he shall not die and go down (AI)to the pit,
neither shall his bread be lacking.
15 I am the Lord your God,
(AJ)who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name.
16 (AK)And I have put my words in your mouth
(AL)and covered you in the shadow of my hand,
(AM)establishing[c] the heavens
and (AN)laying the foundations of the earth,
and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
And so today we who call ourselves by God’s name, Christ’s name, pray that our God will now awaken from his slumber, that he will see our desperate plight, and that he will deliver us from the evil which bows our backs and threatens to crush us, removing the memory of God from mankind. I refuse to pick up arms to save myself. I do want to die with a man’s blood on my hands. I am not a man of blood. I call upon God himself to save us with the power of his might. Amen.
