From yesterday in Isaiah 37:18-20<\/p>\n
18\u00a0<\/span>Truly, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>,\u00a0the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,<\/span>\u00a019\u00a0<\/span>and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men\u2019s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.<\/span>\u00a020\u00a0<\/span>So now, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the\u00a0Lord<\/span>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
All the world is falling into the grasp and control of the Assyrian empire. No god but the Assyrian gods may remain. They are found to be false and inferior. For the sake of The Name<\/em>, however, God Almighty stopped Assyria at Jerusalem at this time.<\/p>\n
What I think about in this is how very narrow the escape seems to be for Jerusalem. The narrative in Isaiah 37 does not talk about a mighty throng of people gathering together to pray for God’s mercy and\u00a0humbling seeking him. We only hear of Isaiah, son of Amoz, and Hezekiah, the king, as well as a few of his officials. The one thing we did hear about the people were there guards on the walls who obeyed by remaining silent when the messenger of Assyria brought them words of doubt and temptation.<\/p>\n
When Jesus gave the Parable of the Persistent Widow <\/em>(Luke 18),<\/em>\u00a0he asked a powerful question<\/p>\n
…when the Son of Man comes,\u00a0will he find faith on earth?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Will we conform to the world? Will we give in to apathy, lusts, pleasures, hopelessness, and despair?<\/p>\n
As he is going to his death, here is Jesus desire and call to us (John 17).<\/p>\n
20\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI do not\u00a0ask for these only, but also for those\u00a0who will believe in me through their word,<\/span><\/span>\u00a021\u00a0<\/span>that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that\u00a0they also may be in\u00a0us, so that the world\u00a0may believe that you have sent me.<\/span><\/span>22\u00a0<\/span>The glory that you have given me\u00a0I have given to them,\u00a0that they may be one even as we are one,<\/span><\/span>\u00a023\u00a0<\/span>I in them and you in me,\u00a0that they may become perfectly one,\u00a0so that the world may know that you sent me and\u00a0loved them even as\u00a0you loved me.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He calls us to unity in Him.\u00a0That is, each of us yielding up to the Spirit of God within us and choosing to walk in togetherness with one another by His power. In this, we demonstrate the glory of God that the world may know<\/strong><\/span><\/em> Jesus Christ is the one and only Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n
This is our critical mission on this earth. An enemy is here already and will reveal himself fully in the coming days (Revelation 13).<\/p>\n
5\u00a0<\/span>And the beast was given\u00a0a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for\u00a0forty-two months.<\/span>\u00a06\u00a0<\/span>It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling,\u00a0that is, those who dwell in heaven.<\/span>\u00a07\u00a0<\/span>Also it was allowed\u00a0to make war on the saints and to conquer them.\u00a0And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,<\/span>\u00a08\u00a0<\/span>and all\u00a0who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in\u00a0the book of life of\u00a0the Lamb\u00a0who was slain.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It is going to get really bad. Will we notice? Will we be among those who conform to receive the temporal benefits given to us by the prince of this world–the beast, the dragon? Will we be steamrolled under his granted powers?<\/p>\n
We don’t have to fail. We don’t have to be steamrolled. Using the weapons of war given us in Ephesians 6, unified, God shows us seven times in Revelation 2 and 3 that we can conquer and in that there are great rewards. The question is, will we.<\/p>\n
…when the Son of Man comes,\u00a0will he find faith on earth?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From yesterday in Isaiah 37:18-20 18\u00a0Truly, O\u00a0Lord,\u00a0the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,\u00a019\u00a0and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men\u2019s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.\u00a020\u00a0So now, O\u00a0Lord\u00a0our God, save us from his hand, that all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}