Read Isa. 9:1-3
No matter what time in the timeline of life we are living God always encourages his people with hope. Today Isaiah gets to look into the future where all this judgment and discipline is over and the people have waken up to God and he has healed their land. He speaks of Zebulun and Naphtali because they are the tribes in Galilee that felt the devastation of Assyria's invasion and were ultimately taken captive. He is prophesying Jesus' coming. Matthew 4:16 quotes Isaiah: "the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up." This was fulfilled when Jesus started telling the people to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Jesus walked along the land of Zebulun and Naphtali and called his disciples and did many miraculous displays of the kingdom. He walked around calling light into darkness, healing into decay, and life into death. He put this kingdom into the hearts of his disciples and if we are his disciples he put it into us too. We are not preaching the kingdom till we are demonstrating its power. The same thing will happen in his second coming. Everyone will look upon him and see that he is the Son of God and that God is Our Salvation and the light will come on for them. The joy he speaks of in verse 3 has to do with the joy of spoiling the kingdom of Satan's. He is the strong man in Mark 3:27 that has to be bound before we can spoil his house and get back everything he stole from us. Jesus came bringing us that power to defeat the enemy. I Co. 15:22 says that Jesus is reigning from heaven till he has put all enemies under his feet and the last one will be death. We are the vessels he is going to use to put all his enemies under his feet. We have to fight in his name. We should never, never, never be afraid of the power of the enemy. God will not put us in a battle we can't win through Him.
Lord, let us be viligant and fight for your name's sake and pull down the kingdoms of the devil.
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