Isaiah 3
Judah will lose all their leaders verse 1- 3
For – behold – the Lord – the LORD of hosts
does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah
the stay and staff
the whole stay of bread
the whole stay of water
The mighty man – the man of war
the judge – the prophet – the prudent
the ancient – the captain of fifty – the honorable man
the counselor – the cunning artificer – the eloquent orator
LORD makes children leaders verse 4- 5
And I will give children to be their princes
and the babes shall rule over them
And the people shall be oppressed
everyone by another and every one by his neighbor
the child shall behave himself proudly
against the ancient and the base
against the honorable
Brother looking for leader in home verse 6- 7
When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father
saying
You have clothing – be you our ruler
and let this ruin be under thy hand
IN THAT DAY shall he swear – saying
I will not be an healer
For in my house is neither bread nor clothing
make me not a ruler of the people
Reason Judah fell is disobedience verse 8- 9
For Jerusalem is ruined – and Judah is fallen
because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD
to provoke the eyes of HIS glory
The show of their countenance does witness against them
AND they declare their sin as Sodom – they hide it not
Woe unto their soul
for they have rewarded evil to themselves
Contrast between righteous and wicked verse 10- 11
Say you to the righteous – that it shall be well with him
for they shall eat the fruit of their doings
Woe unto the wicked – it shall be ill with him
for the reward of his hands shall be given him
Women in leadership verse 12
As for MY people – children are their oppressors
and women rule over them
Oh, my people – they which lead you cause you to err
and destroy the way of your paths
LORD holds court against the people verse 13- 15
The LORD stands up to plead
and stands to judge the people
The LORD will enter into judgment
with the ancients of HIS people
and the princes thereof
FOR you have eaten up the vineyard
the spoil of the poor is in your houses
What mean you that ye beat my people to pieces
AND grind the faces of the poor?
says the Lord GOD of hosts
LORD judges Jerusalem verse 16- 17
MOREOVER the LORD
says
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty
and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes
walking and mincing as they go
and making a tinkling with their feet
THEREFORE the Lord will smite with a scab the
crown of the head of the daughters of Zion
and the LORD will discover their secret parts
LORD takes away wealth verse 18- 23
IN THAT DAY the Lord
will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments
about their feet
and their cauls – their round tires like the moon
the chains
the bracelets – the mufflers – the bonnets
the ornaments of the legs – the headbands
the tablets
the earrings – the rings – the nose jewels
the changeable suits of apparel
the mantles – the wimples
the crisping pins – the glasses
the fine linen – the hoods
the veils
People will be given poverty verse 24- 26
And it shall come to pass
that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink
and instead of a girdle a rent
and instead of well set hair baldness
and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth
and burning instead of beauty
Your men shall fall by the sword
and your mighty in the war
AND her gates shall lament and mourn
and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground
COMMENTARY:
DAILY SPIRITUAL BREAKFAST: Young Believers
: 4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babies shall rule over them. (4910 “shall rule over” [mashal] means reign, dominion, governor, to exercise authority over, or tyrant.)
DEVOTION: Babies are just beginning to learn how to eat and walk and talk. At their present age they have to have others take care of them. Many parents put up gates throughout the house when they begin to crawl because they don’t want them to go places where they can be hurt.
Here we have a nation that will be having individuals who are still young in their thinking as their authority. They will be doing things that babies normally do which is to not understand the dangers that are around them.
If a ruler doesn’t understand the dangers of society he will lead the people who are following him in the wrong direction which will lead to destruction. This will happen to any nation that will allow those who are not genuine followers of the LORD to lead them. This is presently happening in many nations. I just read about demonstrates in Mexico regarding the government trying to change their definition of marriage. This has already happened in many nations around the world. This is the type of decisions the LORD is talking about that will bring down a nation or bring a nation into judgment by the LORD.
The standards the LORD set are set for those who want to be mature in their decision making process. Those who chose to dishonor the standards of the LORD whether a person or a nation will face judgment from the LORD.
Children are to be taught by those who are considered adults what is right and wrong. If this is not done and those who are adults are acting like children in their thinking than there will be consequences for all those involved.
CHALLENGE: We need to have God fearing adults in control of any nation that wants to advance toward maturity. Leaders need to think properly from a Biblical perspective. Children need to learn from these types of adults.
DAILY SPIRITUAL LUNCH: Transitional Believers
: 8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. (4784 “provoke” [marah] means disobedient, contentious, rebellious, obstinate, to content against, or be refractory.
DEVOTION: Isaiah is stating the cast that the LORD has against HIS people, Israel. The LORD blames the leadership for leading the people astray. HE believes the mighty man is to blame. HE knows that those in leadership have the greater responsibility in their relationship to HIM. HE states that HE will put children in charge of adults. HE even says that HE will have “babes shall rule over them.”
In the time of judgment the siblings of the house will elect anyone who has clothes to be in leadership because they want some of what they have. Jerusalem will be in ruins during this time period.
Why? The LORD gives them the reason for HIS actions through the vision of Isaiah. There are two reasons. Reason one is that they talk against the LORD. They don’t want to take responsibility for the bad that is happening to them and so they blame God. They are bad mouthing God. The ones doing the talking are the leaders. Their words are negative. Reason two is that their actions are against the LORD. The LORD gave them instructions on how HE wanted them to act. They didn’t want to act the way HE told them. The Ten Commandments were given to help them understand what HE expected of them. There were other instructions through the prophets and other leaders. HE spoke to them in dreams and visions during this time period. HE even sent angels to communicate HIS message to them. One some occasions we even had the pre-incarnate Christ appear to them with instructions. They wanted no accountability for their actions.
So their words were against God and their actions were against God to show that they were disobedient to the LORD. Disobedience deserves judgment in the eyes of the LORD. Once you provoke the LORD to anger, there are consequences.
The New Testament states that we are not to be deceived into thinking that our actions will get a reaction from the LORD. Christ instructs the disciples in the fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees were going to have a great punishment for leading people away from the LORD.
Today those in leadership in our churches will receive the greater punishment if they are leading people away from the LORD. There are leaders in our churches who are just like the Pharisees and Sadducees that are claiming to be followers of the LORD but are not. They are false teachers that have entered the church. They go to the pulpit and teach everything but the Word of God. Their words and actions show that they are not genuine believers.
Those who are genuine believers need to go home from any church service and check out what the preacher said to see if it is truth from the Word of God. Anyone that we listen to on the radio or television needs to be checked as to their teaching on the Word of God. Each devotional that I send should be checked out in the Word of God.
CHALLENGE: It is very important to know your Bible in order that you may understand good Biblical teaching. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom from above to discern truth from falsehood.
DAILY SPIRITUAL SUPPER: Mature Believers
: 11 Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. (188 “woe” [’owy] means crying out, lamentation, alas, oh, or passionate cry of grief or despair.
DEVOTION: The country of Israel was covered with individuals who didn’t love the LORD. There was a remnant that loved the LORD. Isaiah taught the remnant, that loves the LORD, that they will be safe even during judgment.
The LORD is going to remove all the things that the wicked depend on. HE is going to take away their food and water. HE is going to take away all their prominent men. Those who are young are going to be their rulers. Everyone is going to be out for everything they can get themselves. Children will not obey their parents. There will be poverty everywhere. Even with all these circumstances the wicked will not go to the LORD. They will try to hide from the LORD. They will be acting like those in Sodom.
Isaiah informs them that they will reap what they sow in their life. The false leaders are going to “eat the fruit of their doings.” He says that women will rule over them, which will cause them to err.
However, through it all, the LORD stands up to plead with them to return to HIM. During HIS pleading HE is going to judge by taking away all their possessions that they count on.
There is a list of things that were going to be taken from them because of their rebellion against the LORD. They were counting on their money to see them through. HE uses the word “instead” to tell them that HE is going to replace all they have with poverty. HE is going to remove all the people and things they depend on. It will affect the entire city and land of Judah.
Isaiah is giving an account of what went wrong with Israel. They didn’t want to serve the LORD. They wanted to go their own way. In the Bible we have many occasions where this word is used to help people understand that they are in trouble with God.
We need to take the warnings from the lamentations of Scripture. It would be nice if we could learn from other people’s mistakes but we don’t. We have to learn them the hard way.
This chapter is talking to the people of God who do not care to act like they are HIS children. We can sometimes act as if we are not saved and that is the time the “woes” come into our lives. Remember that the LORD chastens HIS people and judges those who are outside of HIS kingdom.
CHALLENGE: Ask the LORD to give you insight into HIS teachings, so that, judgment is not a part of your learning process. At least, not most of the time.
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: 15 What mean you that you beat MY people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts (2912 “grind” [tachan] means crush, to oppress someone, or conceived of in terms of grinding the person or a part of the person, extreme oppression)
DEVOTION: Here the LORD is warning against taking advantage of the poor. It is like grinding their faces in the fact that they are poor and have no power to fight back against their treatment by others.
The ones who are facing this treatment are usually the widows, orphans as well as the poor. Leaders are supposed to be the ones that are helping the poor instead of taking advantage of them.
This is done to batter them into submission instead of helping them to face what is going on and encourage them to do better. To help them was what the LORD wanted the leaders to do instead of taking advantage of them.
Today we find that this can even happen in the church. We need to be helping the poor to do better with what they have and help them to receive more, so that, they can live a life that has blessings instead of cursing.
CHALLENGE: True leaders are the ones that are willing to help the poor move forward in their lives instead of feeling put down at every turn. The choice is given to those who have to help those who don’t have or have to answer to the LORD for their actions.
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DISCIPLINES OF THE FAITH:
BODY
Chastity (Purity in living)
Fasting (Time alone with LORD without eating or drinking)
Sacrifice (Giving up something we want to serve the LORD)
Submission (Willing to listen to others and LORD)
Solitude (Going to a quiet place without anyone)
SOUL
Fellowship (Gathering together around the Word of God)
Frugality (wise use of resources)
Journalizing (Writing down what you have learned from the LORD)
Study and Meditation (Thinking through your study in the Word)
Secrecy (Doing your good deeds without others knowing but God)
SPIRIT
Celebration (Gathering around a special occasion to worship LORD)
Confession (Tell the LORD we are sorry for our sins on a daily basis)
Prayer (Conversation with God on a personal level)
Silence (Letting the LORD deal with some problems and needs)
Worship (Time to praise the LORD alone or in a group)
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DOCTRINES OF THE FAITH:
Scripture (66 inerrant books of the Bible)
God the Father (First person of the Godhead)
Lord – Adonai (Owner, Master) verse 1, 15, 17, 18
LORD – Jehovah (Covenant keeping, Personal) verse 1, 8, 13- 17
LORD of hosts verse 1
Judge verse 13, 14
GOD – Jehovah (Covenant keeping, Personal) verse 15
Lord GOD of hosts verse 15
Lord will smite with a scab verse 17
God the Son (Second person of the Godhead –God/man, Messiah)
God the Holy Spirit (Third person of the Godhead – our comforter)
Trinity (Three persons of the Godhead who are co-equal = ONE God)
Angels (Created before the foundation of the world – Good and Evil)
Man (Created on the sixth twenty-four hour period of creation)
Children verse 4, 12
Babies for rulers verse 4
Neighbor verse 5
Brother verse 6
Sodom verse 9
Women verse 12
Sin (Missing the mark set by God on man and angels)
Child will behave proudly against ancient verse 5
Base against the honoourable verse 5
Not be a healer verse 7
Tongue against the LORD verse 8
Actions against the LORD verse 8, 10
Provoke the LORD verse 8
Countenance does witness against them verse 9
Sin verse 9
Evil verse 9
Wicked verse 11
Children are their oppressors verse 12
Women will rule verse 12
Spoil the poor verse 14, 15
Beat people verse 15
Grind the faces of the poor verse 15
Daughters of Zion are haughty verse 16, 17
walk with stretched forth necks
wanton eyes
walking and mincing as they go
making a tinkling with their feet
discover their secret parts
Salvation (Provided by Christ’s death on the cross for our sins)
Honorable verse 5
Righteous verse 10
Israel (Old Testament people of God)
Jerusalem verse 1, 8
ruined
Judah verse 1, 8
fallen
Stay and the staff taken away verse 1- 4
Stay of bread
Stay of bread
Mighty men
Man of war
Judge
Prophet
Prudent
Ancient
captain of fifty
Honourable man
Counsellor
Cunning artificer
Eloquent orator
Children with be their princes
Babes will rule over them
People will be oppressed verse 5
Leaders shall cause you to err verse 14
Ancients of his people verse 14
Daughters of Zion verse 16, 17
Jewelry taken away verse 16- 24
Church (New Testament people of God)
Last Things (Future Events)
In that day verse 7, 18
Take away the bravery of
their tinkling ornaments
their cauls
their round tires like the moon
chains
bracelets
mufflers
bonnets
ornaments of the legs
headbands
tablets
earrings
rings
nose jewels
changeable suits of apparel
mantles
wimples
crisping pins
glasses
fine linen
hoods
veils
instead of sweet smell there shall be stink
instead of a girdle a rent
instead of well set hair baldness
instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth
burning instead of beauty
men shall fall by the sword
gates shall lament and mourn
she shall be desolate
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QUOTES regarding passage
4. Boys (those without experience or maturity, as Jer. 1:6) and children (ta‘ălûlîm, only elsewhere at 66:4, possibly ‘capriciousness’ or ‘ruthlessness’): leaders behaving with the unpredictability and thoughtless cruelty of children. (Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, p. 64). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.)
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In contrast with these people who were considered wise and mighty the Lord would raise up foolish, weak leadership. Inexperienced boys and children (3:4; cf. Ecc. 10:16, niv marg.) would be unable to stop oppression and conflict (Isa. 3:5). Anybody who could be grabbed would be placed in charge of the people, his only qualification (v. 6) being that he owned a cloak. But the only thing over which he would rule anyway would be a heap of ruins. The leaders would have no solution to the problem shortages the people would face (v. 7). Isaiah was speaking of the coming devastation of Judah by the Babylonian army. (Martin, J. A. (1985). Isaiah. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 1040). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)
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3:4 Because of the Lord’s judgment on Judah, the shrewd, ungodly leaders would be replaced by children and babes, meaning inexperienced and incompetent leaders. (Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (Is 3:4). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.)
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4. And I will give children. Not children in respect to age so much as in regard to talent for governing. I will commit the land to the government of weak and imbecile princes. This would naturally occur when the wise and great were removed; comp. Eccl. 10:16: ‘Wo to thee, O land, when thy king is a child;’ comp. Isa. 3:12.
And babes shall rule, &c. That is, babes in experience and knowledge. This was fully accomplished in the succession of weak and wicked princes that succeeded Isaiah, until the time of Zedekiah, the last of them, when the temple was taken by Nebuchadnezzar.—Lowth. (Barnes, A. (1851). Notes on the Old Testament: Isaiah (Vol. 1, pp. 98–99). London: Blackie & Son.)
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The covenant people and the one-time holy city had gone so far from the path of obedience that God Himself prepared them for the vengeance decreed by weakening their means of defence. Children were their princes and babes ruled over them. Their leaders, in other words, were like infants unable to control themselves, much less to guide others aright, so disorder and confusion prevailed in place of orderly government. When God is dethroned, anarchy always results. (Ironside, H. A. (1952). Expository notes on the prophet Isaiah. (p. 24). Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers.)
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Attached to this general denunciation are some satiric descriptions, in the third chapter, of the anarchy to which society in Jerusalem is fast being reduced under its childish and effeminate king. (Smith, G. A. (1903). The Book of Isaiah. In W. Robertson Nicoll (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible: Psalms to Isaiah (Vol. 3, p. 623). Hartford, CT: S.S. Scranton Co.)
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Ver. 4. And I will give children to be their princes, &c.] Either in age, or in understanding, who are really so, or act like such; and in either sense, when this is the case, it is an unhappiness to a nation, Eccl. 10:16: and babes shall rule over them; which is the same as before. The Targum is, “the weak shall rule over them;” such who are weak in their intellectuals, or are of mean pusillanimous spirits, effeminate, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; and so as children are opposed to the ancient, that should be taken away, these are opposed to men of might and courage, who would now be wanting: or men of illusions, as in the margin; such as were subtle as foxes, and should deceive them, and impose upon them, and were audacious and impudent, and would mock at them, and despise them. So Jarchi and Abarbinel; and according to this sense of the word the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, mockers shall rule over them. (Gill, J. (1810). An Exposition of the Old Testament (Vol. 5, p. 18). London: Mathews and Leigh.)
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FROM MY READING:
(Remember the only author that I totally agree with is the HOLY SPIRIT in the inerrant WORD OF GOD called THE BIBLE! All other I try to gleam what I can to help me grow in the LORD!!)
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Revelation 2
Jesus sends prophetic messages to four churches.
INSIGHT
Jesus commends the church of Ephesus for the good work that they have done. Nevertheless, He commands them to repent and return to their “first love” (v. 4). Unless they seek forgiveness, they will experience the chastening of God. In the face of impending persecution, Jesus offers words of encouragement and hope to the church in Smyrna (v. 10). Addressing the church in Pergamos, our Lord warns the people not to tolerate evil. The same message is sent to the church in Thyatira. Unless they repent, Jesus warns that He will judge them quickly and severely. (Quiet Walk)
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God’s Standards ___________________________________________________
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There He sits at God’s right hand – a living man, our representative and advocate and great High Priest. Believing this, we ought to be the most fearless, the most relaxed, the happiest and most God-assured people in the whole world! (p. 4,
As for myself, I have learned to talk back to him on this score, I say, “Yes, Devil, sin is terrible – but I remind you that I got it from you! And I remind you, Devil, that everything good – forgiveness and cleansing and blessing – everything that is good I have freely received from Jesus Christ!
Everything that is bad and that is against me, I got from the devil – so why should he have the effrontery and the brass to argue with me about it? Yet he will do it because he is the devil, and he is committed to keeping God’s children shut up in a little cage, their wings clipped so that they can never fly! (p. 4,5, I Talk Back to the Devil by A. W. Tozer)
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THE URGENT NEED FOR REVIVAL TODAY
And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. Mark 9:28-29
The church is so constituted that every member matters, and matters in a very vital sense. So I call attention to this whole subject [of revival] partly because I sense there is a curious tendency today for members of the Christian Church to feel and to think that they themselves can do very little, and so they tend to look to others to do all that is needed for them. This, of course, is something that is characteristic of the whole of life today. For instance, men and women no longer take exercise in sport as they used to. Instead, people tend to sit in crowds and just watch other people play. There was a time when people provided their own pleasure, but now the radio and television provide their entertainment and pleasure for them. And I fear that the tendency is even manifesting itself in the Christian church. More and more we see evidence that people are just sitting back in crowds while one or two people are expected to do everything.
Now that, of course, is a complete denial of the New Testament doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ, where every single member has responsibility and has a function and matters, and matters in a most vital sense. You can read the apostle’s great expositions of that doctrine, for example in 1 Corinthians 12, where you find that he says that our less comely parts are as important as the more comely parts, that every part of the body is to function and is to be ready for the Master’s use, and always to be usable.
Unless we as individual Christians are feeling a grave concern about the state of the church and the world today, we are very poor Christians indeed.
A Thought to Ponder
The church is so constituted that every member matters, and matters in a very vital sense.
(From Revival, p. 8., by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones)
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The Furtherance of the Gospel
“But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” (Philippians 1:12)
The infrequently used word “furtherance” (meaning simply “advancement”) occurs elsewhere only in Philippians 1:25, where Paul speaks of the “furtherance and joy of faith,” which he hoped to see in the Christians at Philippi, and in 1 Timothy 4:15, where it is translated “profiting.” There, Paul urged young Timothy to continue studying the things of God “that thy profiting may appear to all.”
Paul wrote this epistle while he was unjustly imprisoned in a Roman jail, and no doubt he remembered the time when he had first met many of his Philippian Christian friends as a result of being imprisoned and beaten in a Philippian jail (Acts 16:12-40). In fact, he had often been imprisoned (2 Corinthians 11:23) and had suffered severely in many other ways for “the furtherance of the gospel.”
Indeed, during the two years or more he was a prisoner in Rome, he not only taught God’s Word to many who visited him there (Acts 28:30-31) but also wrote at least four of his inspired epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon—possibly even Hebrews). And these have been of untold blessing to millions down through the years. In ways that Paul could never have imagined, it was true indeed that these things that had happened to him had “fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.”
The apostle Paul had the spiritual insight to realize that what seemed like great problems and difficulties could be used by God to the “advancement” of the gospel. Rather than complaining or even quitting when the Christian life gets hard, we must remember that God can make even “the wrath of man” to bring praise to Him (Psalm 76:10).
(HMM, The Institute for Creation Research)
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