Isaiah 13
The Day of the Lord!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, December 29.
After celebrating God’s coming victory over the Assyrian Empire in Isaiah 12, two future empires are named in Isaiah 13. This is Isaiah’s first oracle about the Babylonian Empire, which would destroy Jerusalem in 586 BC, and bring the people of God into exile. Within his prophecy about Babylon, Isaiah named the Medes who, together with the Persians, would conquer the Babylonian Empire (17-22), and be the ones to release the Israelite exiles from their seventy years of captivity, allowing them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. The prophecies of Isaiah are amazing, and you start to see how his book must be read as a companion work to the history books of Israel. If God can so accurately forecast the international affairs of the ancient world through the prophet Isaiah, is it a stretch for you to take Him at His Word for the day of the Lord? Isaiah described the day of the Lord in excruciating detail in Isaiah 13:6-16:
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt. … Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it. … Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. …
Seize the moment and trust Jesus, who commands His followers in Matthew 24:42, “be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.” Until that day, the Holy Spirit has empowered you, as a member of Christ’s church, to live as His witness (Acts 1:7-8).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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