Read: Isaiah 1:1-2:22; 2 Corinthians 10:1-18; Psalm 52:1-9; Proverbs 22:26-27
Isaiah prophesied during the most critical time in Israel and Judah’s history. They had both experienced 50 years of natural prosperity, but spiritual decline. Jeroboam had led Israel to worship pagan gods while Judah had began in faith but had fallen into private idolatry while maintaining the outward show of piety. The wealthy oppressed the poor, women neglected their families in search of pleasure, and the priests and prophets became drunk and pleasers of man.
In the world, Rome was founded and the Greeks were having their first Olympic games. Assyria was looking at conquering the south and the west and Asia was looking beyond their borders. Isaiah was a student of world affairs and could see what was happening. Then, Assyria took Samaria, the capital of Israel.
Isaiah was sent to declare how displeased God was with the sin of his people and the nations. He called God’s people back to God. He began with calling out the sins of Judah. They had forgotten their creator and God. They were like an open sore that had not been cared for.
Their cities had been burned, their borders had been breached, and they were overcome with strangers. (Sounds like America.) Isaiah says that unless God had left them a remnant they would be like Sodom and Gomorrah.
God had grown tired of their fake worship and mixture of pagan with the holy. They went through the motions of worship, but their hearts were far from him. He begs them to turn back to the Lord an put away their sins and seek to do good to one another and to him.
He tells them that God can forgive their sins and purify them if they return to the Lord.
Because they had become such a sinful place with unrighteous leaders, God would take out the ones who judged wrongly and replace them with righteous judges. He will clean up their city and Jerusalem will one day be called the city of righteousness, justice and faithfulness.
In the last days, which we are in, the Lord will be exalted and many will come to worship him and want to walk in his ways. God will judge the nations with his word. They will take their weapons of war and use them as instruments of harvest. War will be a thing of the past.
The Day of the Lord will be an awesome day when they will turn from the desire to be like the pagan nations of the east and be humbled under the glory of God. In that day all the proud will be humbled. Everything man had esteemed as precious will pass away and every knee will bow before the terror of the Lord and his majesty. People will throw away their idols and stop worshiping man.
Paul is experiencing his own war with man’s opinion. He was being accused of walking in the flesh. He said he did walk in the flesh because he was flesh and blood, but he did not fight according to his flesh. Paul wrote that his weapons and our weapons are not fleshly but spiritual and they destroy strongholds of the enemy. They destroy every argument and opinion that is against who God is. Paul explains that he takes every thought he has and puts it under Christ’s authority and is ready to punish his own disobedience.
He claims that the authority Christ gave him as their leader was to build them up, and not destroy them. He was accused of being hard and strong in his letters, but weak in presence. He told them that he was the same in the flesh as in his letters. He had brought them the gospel and his only hope is that they grow in their faith and that they spread the gospel he had give them.
Lord, may we not glory in our flesh but use our weapons you have given us to fight and destroy the strongholds of the enemy. We trust in what you are doing in the earth and know that you are our stronghold.
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