Third Sunday Meditation: The Need For Intercession

"For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood,

contending only with physical opponents, but against

the despotisms, against the powers, against the master

spirits who are the world rulers (the driving force behind)

this present darkness...

"Pray at all times, on every occasion, in every season

in the Spirit, with all manner of prayer and entreaty.

To that end keep alert and watch with strong purpose

and perseverance, interceding in behalf of all the saints,

God's consecrated people.

Ephesians 6:12, 18

The Prophet Isaiah

Gustave Dore

This Sunday's meditation comes from the first

chapter of the Book of Isaiah.

The national and international developments during

the prophet's lifetime provide the essential background

for understanding his message to the nation and people of Israel.

The prophet's warning to his nation, which had succumbed to an unprecedented

level of depravity and lawlessness, remains a strong and relevant message for

the world today, and greatly expresses the need for the true believers in Messiah

to stand in intercessory prayer on behalf of their own individual nations and people

in these dark and troubling times, where acts of profound and appalling

human and spiritual wickedness are on the increase with every passing day.

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

CHAPTER ONE

The vision, seen by spiritual perception of Isaiah, son

of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah, the kingdom, and

Jerusalem, its capital, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, 

Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear, O heavens and give ear, O earth!

For the Lord has spoken: I have nourished and brought up

sons and they have made them great and exalted, but they

have rebelled against Me and broken away from Me.

The ox instinctively knows his owner, and the donkey

his master's crib, but Israel does not know or recognize Me

as Lord.  My people do not consider or understand.

Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity,

offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly!

They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised and

shown contempt and provoked the Holy One of Israel

to anger, they have become utterly estranged.

Why should you be stricken and punished any more

since it brings no correction? You will revolt more and more.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no

soundness or health in the nation's body, but wounds and

bruises and fresh and bleeding stripes; they have not been

pressed out and closed up or bound up or softened with oil.

No one has troubled to seek a remedy.

Because of your detestable disobedience your country lies

desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land-strangers

devour it in your very presence-and it is desolate, as

overthrown by aliens.

And the Daughter of Zion, Jerusalem, is left like a 

deserted booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a garden of

cucumbers, like a besieged city, spared, but in

the midst of desolation.

Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant

of survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and we should

have been like Gomorrah.

Hear, O Jerusalem, the word of the Lord, you rulers and judges

of another Sodom! Give ear to the law and the teaching of

our God, you people of another Gomorrah!

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me,

unless they are offerings of the heart? says the Lord.

I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the

fat of the fed beasts without obedience; and I do not

delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs,

or of he-goats without righteousness.

When you come to appear before Me,

who requires of you that your unholy feet

trample My courts?

Bring no more offerings of vanity; your hollow

offering of incense is abomination to Me; the New Moon

and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure-

it is iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting.

Your New Moon festivals and your hypocritical appointed

feasts My soul hates. They are an oppressive burden to Me;

I am weary of bearing them.

And when you spread forth your hands in prayer,

imploring help, I will hide My eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.

Your hands are full of blood!

Wash yourselves, and make yourselves clean;

put away the evil of your own doings from before My eyes!

Cease to do evil.

Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and

correct the oppressor.  Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

How the faithful city has become an idolatrous harlot,

she who was full of justice! Uprightness and right standing

with God once lodged in her-but now murderers.

Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves; everyone

loves bribes and runs after compensation and rewards.

They judge not for the fatherless nor defend them,

neither does the cause of the widow come to them,

for they delay or turn a deaf ear.

Therefore says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty 

One of Israel, Ah, I will appease Myself on My adversaries 

and avenge Myself on My enemies.

And I will bring My hand again upon you and thoroughly

purge away your dross as with lye and take away all your tin or alloy.

And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as

at the beginning; afterward you shall be called the City of Righteousness,

the Faithful City.

Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her returned converts

with righteousness and in right standing with God.

But the crushing and destruction of rebels and sinners

shall be together, and they who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

For you will be ashamed of the folly and degradation of the oak

or terebinth trees in which you found idolatrous pleasure, and you

will blush with shame for the idolatrous worship which you

practice in the passion-inflaming gardens which you have chosen.

For you will be like an oak or terebinth whose leaf withers,

and like a garden that has no water.

And the strong shall become like tow and become tinder, and

his work like a spark, and they shall both burn together,

with none to quench them.

Derek Prince
(1915-2003)