Notes on Isaiah 26
(Isa 26:1 KJV) In that day shall this song be
sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God
appoint for walls and bulwarks.
2 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation
which keepeth the truth may enter in.
3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose
mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
These prophetic words have refer to the reign
of Christ upon the earth. God Himself will provide safety around
Jerusalem. The gates will be open to all the righteous nations that
keep truth. This is the goal, the final dawn, the great day
and time of TRUE peace on the earth.
Verse three is a comfort to all believers. We
will be kept in perfect peace when we trust the Lord and when our
minds are kept upon the Lord continually. Whether we are
living in good times or times of trouble and persecution, we can
have perfect peace if we put our deepest trust in the Lord.
Living for God is not a one-time event. It is a
continual fellowship and walk with Him. If we forsake the worship of
God and stop seeking Him, then the promise of perfect peace and
stability are not automatically ours. It is ours only if our minds
is stayed on Him and trust in Him.
(Isa 26:4 KJV) Trust ye in the LORD for ever:
for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:
5 For he bringeth down them that dwell on high;
the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the
ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.
Take comfort you that are persecuted because
you believe in the Lord, because in the end the proud that rises
against the people of God will be laid to the ground. They will not
prevail.
No evil purposes will prevail. Anything that is
against the Word of God will come to nothing. Only His word will
stand and those that believe in His word shall stand also. Eternal
life and living in the eternal kingdom of God comes only to
believers in Jesus Christ. Jesus is God coming in the flesh to show
mankind the way of salvation. Only by faith in Him can we possibly
have that salvation. It is the plan of God to redeem mankind from
the fall. All mankind has fallen into sin. All have sinned. We are
all destined to be lost. We will be lost without the blood of Jesus
Christ covering our sins. In order to receive this we must recognize
our need to be saved. We must acknowledge that we have sinned and
are in need of a savior. When we turn to Jesus Christ, we then
become born again by the Spirit. His Holy Spirit is given to us to
abide with us continually so that we are not alone. Old things are
then passed away and we become a new creature in Christ. If you see
any that return to their old sins and begin to follow in their old
ways then they have either fallen away from their first love and
calling or else they never really received the new birth to start
with.
This is the reason you will see many who claim
to know Christ and still be cruel, full of hate, unforgiving,
greedy, full of pride, holier than thou, self-righteous etc. Simply
because they either were not saved from sin in the first place or
else they have left their first love and did not continue in
fellowship and worship of the Lord. It is a continual thing, not a
one-time event. We cannot eat once and expect it to be sufficient to
last all our lives. We must eat good foods continually to live. To
be an effectual believer in the Lord, we must abide with Him
continually. His word should be daily studied. Prayer should be the
first thing we do in the morning before anything else and the last
thing we do before retiring for the night. As we can't expect a
marriage to survive without continual fellowship and devotion to one
another, we can't expect our relationship to God to continue if we
never have anything to do with Him after we are first saved from
sin.
(Isa 26:6 KJV) The foot shall tread it down,
even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the just is uprightness: thou,
most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.
8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD,
have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and
to the remembrance of thee.
In the reign of Christ there will be
righteousness. There will be no evil or rebellion. Many of us are
waiting for this day to come. This should be our desire continually.
To see the Lord's coming.
(Isa 26:9 KJV) With my soul have I desired thee
in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early:
for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the
world will learn righteousness.
Our desire should be to seek Him always. To
seek His return, to seek His salvation, to seek to be filled with
His Spirit, to be filled with His love and to worship Him always.
(Isa 26:10 KJV) Let favour be showed to the
wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of
uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty
of the LORD.
There are some wicked who will not accept the
Lord and His salvation no matter how kind and good we are to them.
They do not fear the Lord and do not want to walk in His ways. Sadly
there are those who would rather hold on to their sins and prefer
unbelief to righteousness.
(Isa 26:11 KJV) LORD, when thy hand is lifted
up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their
envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour
them.
Their end is destruction and shame and they
will be devoured.
(Isa 26:12 KJV) LORD, thou wilt ordain peace
for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have
had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy
name.
God will be supreme and will not share His
glory with another. He will reign supreme.
(Isa 26:14 KJV) They are dead, they shall not
live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou
visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
Others who claim to be God or who have desired
the worship of man turning man away from the true God, will not
live. They are in hell. Idols of course will be destroyed forever.
There is only one God. That is God the Father and our Lord Jesus
Christ who will reign forever. Jesus existed before the creation of
the world. We see Him in the New Testament born in the flesh by Mary
the one chosen of God. He existed with the Father long before that.
He is actually God in the flesh. Emmanuel means "God with us." There
was no other way for God to reveal Himself to us. He had to come
Himself in the flesh and show us the way of salvation.
God gave mankind dominion over the earth. When
man sinned he actually gave his dominion over to Satan. Satan became
the god of this world. In order to get the dominion of the world
back into the hands of man, God had to come in the flesh and become
a man Himself thereby being the only natural man to not rebel
against God and sin. When Jesus was crucified, He suffered the
"wages of sin" death. Since He did not deserve this death because He
did not sin, His death could count for all who believe. By faith in
Him we can accept what He did for us and receive eternal life. His
death "which He did not deserve," served another purpose. He now had
the authority to take back the dominion over the earth and reign
continually. This will He do at His second coming. Men have tried to
rule the world before Him but they will not prevail, (only
temporarily), they will be cut off. Jesus is the only man who has
the right to rule and any He appoints to serve with Him. He was the
only man that did not sin and disobey God. He is actually the second
Adam who came to undo the damage that Adam did when he disobeyed
God.
(Isa 26:15 KJV) Thou hast increased the nation,
O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou
hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.
16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee,
they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth
near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her
pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
We return here to the state of the world before
the coming of Christ. It is pictured as being similar to a woman who
is in labor and struggling to bring forth a newborn baby. The whole
earth travails in pain and is reeling in despair. We need our God to
save us.
(Isa 26:18 KJV) We have been with child, we
have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have
not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the
inhabitants of the world fallen.
This further describes the state of the earth
before the coming of the Lord.
(Isa 26:19 KJV) Thy dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that
dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth
shall cast out the dead .
I love reading the Old Testament descriptions
of the resurrection. The dead shall rise again.
Another place is in Daniel 12
"2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame
and everlasting contempt.
3 And they that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
This shows that some will be saved and some
will be punished in everlasting contempt.
In the New Testament, we see 1000 years
separating these two resurrections although in the Old they appear
to be one event. We are reminded however that to the prophet they
appear to be one event, he does not see the valley of 1000 years
separating the two events.
In Revelation we see two events:
20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven,
having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand
years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and
shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the
nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and
after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,
and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that
were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and
which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had
received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again
until the thousand years were finished. This is the first
resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a
thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired,
Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which
are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth,
and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city:
and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and
there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those
things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in
it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and
they were judged every man according to their works.
By faith in Christ, we can be part of that
First resurrection.
(Isa 26:20 KJV) Come, my people, enter thou
into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it
were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his
place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the
earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her
slain.
This part will happen before reign of Christ.
He will come in judgment and rid the earth of evil. The tribulation
period right before His Second coming seems to be indicated here.
We should only fear these events if we are not
ready to meet the Lord. We don't have to fear them. WE can be ready
by receiving Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. Repent and turn from
sin and the old nature and be "Born Again" by His Spirit. This offer
of salvation is to all who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 27
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