Ought To Get Your Knees A'knocking

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word:

 

Isa 21:1 The burden against the Wilderness of the Sea. As whirlwinds in the South pass through, So it comes from the desert, from a terrible land. 2 A distressing vision is declared to me; The treacherous dealer deals treacherously, And the plunderer plunders. Go up, O Elam! Besiege, O Media! All its sighing I have made to cease. 3 Therefore my loins are filled with pain; Pangs have taken hold of me, like the pangs of a woman in labor. I was distressed when I heard it; I was dismayed when I saw it. 4 My heart wavered, fearfulness frightened me; The night for which I longed He turned into fear for me.

 

What kind of vision is this? What has the Lord showed Isaiah that “distressed” him? What was it that “filled his loins with pain?” What caused him to actually experience pains similar to childbirth? He was “distressed, dismayed, wavering, frightened,” and the deliverance that he longed for turned into fear!”

This was the burden against the “Wilderness of the Sea,” which is a reference to Babylon. Babylon that great city, which is the forever symbol in the Bible of opulence and material wealth.

In this prophecy, Isaiah is stunned by the sudden turnaround for this great city. It would be as sudden as a dust storm rising up in the desert. The Medes would overrun it and take it in one night. Isaiah saw the end of Balshazzar and his company on that fateful night when they were partying using the holy utensils from the temple of God, mocking God.

It was then that the mysterious hand showed up and wrote on the wall and wrote these words:  MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. And Daniel interpreted them for the wicked king!

 26 "This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it;  27 "TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; 28 "PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."

The appearance of this mysterious hand set the kings knees to knocking mirroring Isaiah’s reaction of terror! Da 5:5 In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. 6 Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other.

 What should you and I make of this? The same thing Isaiah did. He said ; The night for which I longed He turned into fear for me.

The lesson is this. The end will come suddenly. Unbelievers will be partying and whooping it up with no regard to God, even mocking Him. It will be as in the days of Noah: Jesus said in Mt 24:37 "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  38 "For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,  39 "and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

As redeemed followers of Jesus we like Isaiah ought to be longing for that Day of deliverance, and at the same time a spirit of fear should overtake us as we consider the end of those who rejected  and mocked God!

 

Oh beloved have a holy fear of what will happen suddenly to those who reject the saving grace of God and get on your knees and pray! Pray for God’s gift of repentance and saving grace to come to them before it’s too late. The handwriting is on the wall, and unless they have a change of heart they will spend eternity in hell!

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word