24 The Lord
of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed,
so shall it stand, 25 that I will break the Assyrian in my
land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his yoke shall depart from
them, and his burden from their shoulder.”
26 This is the purpose that is purposed concerning
the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the
nations. 27 For the Lord
of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and
who will turn it back? (Isaiah 14)
Let me go
through this phrase-by-phrase to show what encouragement is here for all who
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“The LORD of hosts
has sworn:” (vs 24)
That is it, end
of story, nothing more to say. This is not powerful and unchangeable just
become someone has “sworn” instead of promised, claimed, suggested, or boasted.
This is not true just because God swore it instead of declared it, or announced
it. This is true because “the LORD of
hosts” is the one who swore what he would do. The whole message of God’s
word is clear, including the united testimony of creation and the cherubim, that
the LORD of hosts is sitting on the throne of heaven, the throne of the whole
of spiritual reality, the throne of the whole universe, and no one can stand
against him, or cause even one thought or suggestion of his word to fail.
“As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I
have purposed, so shall it stand.” (vs 24).
This is some
of the beautiful rhyming parallelism of the Hebrew language. This phrase rhymes
in thought with the declaration, “The LORD
of hosts has sworn.” Also, within this declaration, the two thoughts also
rhyme with each other. Whatever God has planned will be in reality all that it
was on the divine blueprint. Whatever God has purposed to do will stand in real
time, space, matter, and everything spiritual, exactly as God sees it in his
divine mind.
This is the
hope of the child of God, that things will be the way our Father has purposed
and planned, not the way the enemies of God have declared. Even when God’s
enemies have every earthly appearance of success, God’s plans and purposes will
still prevail. When God purposed and planned to deliver Israel out of their
slavery in Egypt, it did not matter how much the Pharaoh increased the workload
of the Israelites, or how much the Egyptian magicians could mimic the signs and
wonders performed by Moses, or how big the Egyptian army was when they gathered
Israel against the shores of the Red Sea, the end of the matter was exactly
what God said, that the Egyptian army was destroyed, and the people of God were
delivered.
The same is
true when all God’s enemies rose up against his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thought they could destroy him through crucifixion. Why not get rid of him in
the most painful, humiliating way possible? And yet, even at Jesus’ death, the
curtain to the Most Holy Place of the temple was torn in two, signifying that
the man who had just died, had successfully completed the work God gave him to
do. The way to God was now open, not through a hopeless lifetime of keeping
every nuance and facet of the law, with all its rules, and offerings, and
sacrifices, but now through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through
faith in his name.
However, the
signs that accompanied Jesus’ death, proving that God was at work in the redemption
of his people, were shadowed in the even greater glory that came three days
later when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The message was clear: God
had purposed to give his Son a kingdom of brothers. God had planned that his
Son would be the “firstborn over many
brothers”,[1]
and so he could not gather together a brotherhood of believers without also
including his Son who had died to make such a gathering possible.
God raised his
Son from the dead, showing everyone, for all time, for all of eternity, that
God will do what he planned, and complete what he purposed. He had declared
seven hundred years earlier that his Son would “see his offspring”[2] and “see and be satisfied”,[3] so he made it so. The same God who said, “Let there be light, and there was light”[4] called Jesus out of the grave, and it was so. It was so then, and
it will be true of every other thing God has planned and purposed.
“that I will break
the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his
yoke shall depart from them, and his burden from their shoulder.” (vs 26)
This statement
applied specifically to the mighty Assyrian army at the time, but is a
fill-in-the-blank promise that applies to all God’s enemies. On one side of
this rhyming parallelism is the declaration of what God will do, that he will
break his enemies and trample them underfoot. On the other side of the parallel
thoughts is the effect God’s work will have, which is that the yoke of
oppression the Assyrians had place on God’s people would depart from Israel,
and the Assyrian’s burden of slavery and captivity would be lifted from their
shoulders.
This tells the
people of God that their deliverance does not rest in them, but on God. This is
why God emphasized that we must call on him. We do not need to perform for him,
or impress him, or join our forces to his. God has done too many things through
the weakness of his people for us to think that he needs our help. The reality
is that he waits for us to call on him, in fact, works in us to give us the will
and the expression of calling on him,[5]
and then comes to our rescue because we called. God declares that, “When he calls to me, I
will answer him”.[6]This was true three thousand years ago, stands true today, and will
be proven true to the very end.
“This is the purpose
that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is
stretched out over all the nations.” (vs 26)
When God
speaks a plan or purpose, it applies to everything. It is not isolated in the
way that a nation has momentary success against other nations, but falls into
decline and disappears from history. It is not restricted to success against
some enemies but not others. When God has purposes, they cover everything. They
include every enemy that needs to be defeated in the earthly and spiritual realms.
They include every event, every moment of time, every nuance of location, and
any numbers of beings that could be included. God’s purposes cover the whole
earth, and everything that is on, around, over or under the earth.
At the same
time, God’s hand is stretched out over all the nations. His hand will protect
Israel because this was the nation that he promised to Abraham. His hand will
destroy every enemy of Israel, because his hand is stretched out over all the
nations. None is excluded. It does not matter whether this is a physical nation
with a specific location, or a particular people group intent on taking over the
whole world. God has promised that even the antichrist and all his emissaries
will be destroyed. The red dragon and his minions will be cast into the lake of
fire. No one who comes against the LORD will stand.
“For the LORD of
hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who
will turn it back?” (vs 27)
Now the
contrast is complete. When it is the LORD of hosts who has purposed something,
there is no one who can annul it, defeat it, erase it, overpower it, or
anything else that would describe even the red dragon’s attempt to destroy God’s
people and his creation. When it is the LORD of hosts who stretches out his
hand to do something for his people, or against his enemies, there is no one,
not even Satan himself, who can turn it back.
This has
become very special for me in the understanding of how God set out to create a
people in his own image and likeness. Satan thought he could defeat God by
leading the first man into sin.[7] God
immediately promised that there would be an “offspring”
of a woman who would come and crush the serpent’s head while experiencing the
bruising of his heel.[8]
This spoke of the way Jesus would come and crush Satan’s dominion over
humanity, but through his own suffering and death.
One thing that
fascinates me in this is that God promised that the offspring would be of the
woman. It could not be of a man, because then the son would inherit the sin
nature. Instead, God would fulfill his plans by first promising this sign: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,”[9]
and then fulfilling that by sending his own Son into the world through a baby conceived
by the Holy Spirit.[10]
To consider how many centuries of time had passed, how many other prophecies
were added to the mix, how there was no conflict in any of the prophecies, and
no failure in any of their fulfillments, verified time and again that no one
has ever been able to annul even one nuance of a purpose God has made, or turn
back one thing that God stretched out his hand to do.
I love the way
this narrative concludes: “What will one answer the messengers of the nation? ‘The Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find
refuge.’”[11] Now that is hope! If the LORD of hosts has founded Zion, founded
his kingdom, who can shake his people off their foundation? If the LORD of
hosts, he who is enthroned over the cherubim, is the refuge, how could we not
find safety in him no matter how afflicted we feel?
What
God announced to the Assyrians was fulfilled in their defeat. They are gone;
God’s people remain. There will be antichrists, and enemies galore. There will
be all kinds of world events that show that the creation is “groaning together in the pains of
childbirth”[12] waiting “with eager longing
for the revealing of the sons of God.”[13]What God did to so many enemies as recorded throughout Scripture
will continue to be fulfilled against all his enemies until death, hell and the
grave, along with the red dragon and his followers, will all be cast into the
lake of fire as the final fulfillment of their defeat, and all God’s children
will be fully transformed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as
God had planned and purposed before the beginning of time.
From
my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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