2024-10-15 The Lord Is Victorious

Isaiah 25:3  “Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee4  For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.  5  Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low.

Isaiah continues to tell us why “the strong people glorify” the LORD and “the city of the terrible nations shall fear” Him.  In speaking words of praise to the LORD, he tells us that the LORD “shalt bring down the noise of strangers”; that is, those who are “strange” (adversaries) to the Lord, His Word, His Church, and His people.  These “strangers” usually make a lot of hateful “noise”.  In a loud, public way, these “strangers” distort the truth of God, deceitfully undermine the Lord’s people and make false charges against them, seek to shun them and push them out of their sight, and will even do them physical harm if they can.  But, “as the heat in a dry place” scorches and causes the plants to wither and fall down and die, so shall the Lord do the these “strangers”.  The “heat” of our Lord’s wrath against the “strangers” will also be like the sweltering heat, of a midsummer day, heat that is trapped upon the earth by overhanging clouds; this miserable heat wilts and drains away all energy; so, shall the Lord do to these hateful “strangers” who so viciously oppose God.  As the branches of the trees wilt and droop in such awful heat, so “the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low”; that is, “brought low” to the ground making them ineffective against the Lord and His people. When God moves against these evil “strangers”, He defeats them every time.  Thus, we are greatly encouraged, and we energetically worship and declare the Glory of our Lord, and sing “Victory In Jesus” (Eugene M. Bartlett).