Well, I was 5 hours at the cancer center today while my mother got her chemo treatment. I was ready for a long haul and even got a pair of pants mended while we waited. But I came home TIRED. Too tired to marshall enough words for a blog post so how about a few verses the Lord has recently brought to my attention that lately?

The Old Testament scriptures were written for our instruction says, , the Jews representing the soul of the church age believer. All their battles which were external and physical are analogous to the challenges and invisible struggles we face as Church age believers.

From Isaiah chapter 2, where the house of Jacob has been abandoned by the Lord …

…because they are filled with influences from the east…their land has also been filled with idols; They worship the work of their hands, That which their fingers have made…

The Lord of the Armies will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up …

And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. But the idols will completely vanish. And men will go into caves of rocks, and into holes of the ground before the terror of the Lord, and before the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble…

Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

From Isaiah Ch 30

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit… Who proceed down to Egypt (a type of the world), without consulting Me, to take refuge in the safety of Pharoah and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt…”

They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys and their treasures on camels’ humps, to a people who cannot profit them; Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty…for this is a rebellious people (the Jews), false sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord. Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions, (OT communication of doctrine);” And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right (ie, what the Lord is actually saying), (but) speak to us in pleasant words, prophesy illusions.  Get out of the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Since you have rejected this word, and have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, therefore this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant. And whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar; so ruthlessly shattered that a sherd will not be found among its pieces to take fire from a hearth or to scoop water from a cistern.”

For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said, “In repentance (change your thinking; return) and rest you shall be delivered, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

But you were not willing. And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses.” (We have our own plans and schemes by which we’ll solve the problem!)

Therefore you shall flee!

“And we will ride on swift horses,”

Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.  One thousand (of you) shall flee at the threat of one man… until you are left as a flagpole on a mountain top, and as a signal (of your stupidity) on a hill (for all to see).

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you (if only you’d change your mind and pay attention to His word)

For the Lord is a God of justice; how happy are all those who long for Him.