Meditations on Isaiah 42‑43

Pertaining to the Body of Christ Today 3/5/87

I believe God is speaking to His Body now and it is crucial that we hear and heed what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church. Many people here are experiencing tremendous attacks ‑ sickness, deaths, discouragements, all sorts of fear and bondage. I cry out, why aren't we doing the works Jesus did and even greater? Why is evil growing while the Church seems powerless to stem it? Why do it sit helplessly by with people who are drowning in despair, bondage to sickness and week because I cannot say "Such as I have give I you"? These things burn in my heart and have caused me to much seeking and praying. Let me record what I have heard in my spirit.

God recently opened up to me sections of Isaiah 42 and 43 both as a warning and an encouragement to the Body of Christ. in 42:14 He says that for a long time He has stood back and held His peace. He has let us go our own way! And what is that way? Remember how the disciples hearts became hardened when they did not consider the miracle of the loaves and the fishes ‑ And how the children of Israel floundered in the wilderness because the "did not become progressively acquainted with His ways"? For years the Body of Christ has no really considered Who He is and we have actually become, over a period of time, blind and dull to the things of God. Is. 42:19 says, "Who in all the world is as blind as my own people who are designed to be My messengers of truth? Who is so blind as My 'dedicated one' the 'servant of the Lord'"? "The Lord has magnified instruction and revelation and made it glorious. through it He planned to show the world that He is righteous. But this is a people robbed and plundered, all of them snared, hidden in houses of bondage they have become a prey with no one to say 'Restore them'." (vs.21‑22)

As the hearts of the Body gradually got hard, compromise and idolatry set in and as we got entangled in self interest and in the world we came again under the power of the prince of this world, losing the freedom from sin and evil that Jesus died to give us. in vs. 23, He goes on to say "Who is there among you who will give ear to this. Who will hear for the time to come?" Let us say now,"We will Lord!". For it was He who let us be robbed and hurt for we would not go where He sent us or listen to His laws according to vs. 24. And God says "But though set on fire and burned, they will not understand the reason why ‑ that it is God wanting them to repent." (vs. 25)

As I look at the Body of Christ today and even my own individual life, I see that this is an accurate description and I weep! But I also hear the good news. "And I will bring the blind by a way they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and not leave them forsaken." (Is 42:16) "Behold I am doing a new thing ‑ now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? (not the conditions of the promise) I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." (Is 43:19) Then He reminds us that it is He who blots out our transgressions for His own sake

(vs. 25). So therefore the Lord says, "Put Me in remembrance for we must talk about your sins. Plead your case for My forgiving you." (vs. 26) We must individually repent, but that is not enough. We must pray for the spirit and power of Elijah unto repentance to fall on the entire Body for we are one. We must stay in our closets until every eye that is blind to this tremendous need is opened ‑ we must stand in the gap, in love, and plead our case for them. And what is our case? It is the Cross of Christ!

I believe the Body of Christ has been robbed of much of the knowledge and therefore the power of what Jesus did at the Cross. He not only gave us forgiveness and eternal life, but power and authority over sin and darkness in this life. Enemy strongholds have been built up against the accurate knowledge of the nature of God so His people are living in fear and bondage, afraid to surrender to His Lordship because they don't correctly perceive Him. We must pray for we have been given mighty spiritual weapons for the tearing down of these strongholds. We whose eyes have been opened must fight this battle for our brethren. Satan cannot undo what Christ did at the cross but he can blind is and therefore make us unable to receive our full inheritance. It is time to listen and give heed not only to the state we are in and the need to repent but also to the great promises of a new thing God is about to do if we will only perceive it. "For I will pour out water upon him who is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring and My blessings upon your descendants." (Is 44:3)

Let us press on to know Him, to be the spotless Bride, to be the Church equipped and walking in the works prepared for her. May the Lord increase our vision and may we put God in remembrance and respond to "Who is there among you who will give ear to this and heed"? with "I will, Lord!"

While I was praying and weeping over this portion of Scripture, the heavens seemed to open for a moment to reveal a joyous thing. I don't know if I can adequately express it. It was a revelation of how God, in His foreknowledge, uses even evil to accomplish His purposes ‑ how He makes the enemy our servant so that we are more than conquerors, taking the spoils. In it I saw that just as a person coming out of a dark room into the sunlight is dazzled by the brightness, so it will be with the church as she comes out of darkness and blindness into the Light. The very state of darkness, the captivity and bondage will be the very tool to make her the radiant, strong Church that prevails. It was a overwhelming sense of God's goodness and sovereignty and the great, unfailing hope we have as His children.