(Isaiah 40:15a) “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales”
Last week in CNBC Online a headline read; “China wants 10 small Pacific nations to sign on to ‘game-changing’ security agreement.” According to the article China wants ten small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what one leader warns is a “game-changing” bid by Beijing to wrest control of the region. This of course affirms China’s expansionist agenda for the South Pacific region but clearly China has a much bigger picture in view. Of course the invasion and annexation of Taiwan is on China’s radar no doubts.
While this is happening in the South pacific region the U.S. allies in north-eastern Syria are increasingly worried about Turkey’s pledge to launch a new round of military operations in the region, warning it could embolden and even strengthen the Islamic State terror group. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the new round of operations last week, pledging to expand existing 30-kilometer-deep security zones on the Syrian side of the Turkish border that could spell disaster in Syria.
Iran is pushing ahead with its nuclear programme at a rapid rate alarming the moderate Arab states on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula. America and the European Union are pushing to re-negotiate the nuclear deal with Iran while radical Iranians can be seen on video chanting “death to Israel” and “death to America!” What an irony!
Then you have Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine which it would seem is not coming to an end anytime soon and already we have a war brewing in Europe which may well see other nations drawn into the conflict as they were in WW1 and WW2. We do know from the Word of God that a major world war is coming and we see this described in the Book of Revelation Chapter 9:13-21. It is a middle-eastern conflict that sees a military force of 200 million come across the Euphrates River with devastating fire power. This war is a judgement of God upon the nations of the world that are in rebellion against Him.
Even after a third of mankind has been killed by what could be describing nuclear exchanges and the fallout accompanying it, men still do not repent of their idolatry, worship of demons, their murders, their magic arts (obsession with the occult), their sexual immorality and their thefts.
Then there is Israel, the nation that is God’s prophetic time-clock for the nations. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble lies ahead for the people of Israel, a time that will eclipse the holocaust but a remnant will survive (Zechariah 13:8-9) (Isaiah 10:20-23) (Romans 9:27-29). The only sanity in all of this is the return of the Messiah our Lord Jesus who will destroy all opposition and set up His Messianic Davidic kingdom on earth where He will reign from Jerusalem over the nations that have survived this time of the Big Trouble (Jeremiah 30:1-10) (Psalm 2:8-9).
Today our world is racked by “the birth pains” of wars, rumours of wars, conflict between nations and conflict within nations. It is racked by great earthquakes in various places, famines, pestilence and fearful events on earth. We also see an increase in meteors passing by earth and solar flares increasing and the weather patterns changing across the face of the planet. People from every walk of life are in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the nations upon the seas of adversity and trouble.
Now when these matters are viewed from the human perspective there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for the world. However, as we see the Day of the Lord approaching that will culminate with the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus, as New Covenant believers we do not despair like the rest of the pagan world, but we have the assurance from the blessed Holy Spirit that God still has everything under control, and He does you know regardless of how we feel!
Remember we live by faith and not by sight and so we fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 5:7) (2 Corinthians 4:18). As so Isaiah writes; “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales” (Isaiah 40:15a). Our God is the great and awesome God whose will always prevails!
As He also speaks through the prophet Isaiah; “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’ I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it” (Isaiah 46:9-11).
Let us remember that He is our God and worthy of our worship and allegiance especially when we do not feel spiritual and are in heaviness through manifold temptations and difficulties (1 Peter 1:6). As the psalmist writes; “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care” (Psalm 95:6-7).
Do you really believe that He cares for you? He does you know!
We live in an anxious world and anxiety is a very real experience for us as believers in the Messiah our Lord Jesus, especially as we see the nations in turmoil and the threat of possibly WW3 on the horizon. Did not the apostle Peter write; “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast (casting continuously) all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7).
King David often suffered anxiety and even bouts of depression at times and he had every reason to do so when you read his life’s experiences. He writes; “If I say, “My foot is slipping,” Your loving devotion, O LORD, supports me. When anxiety overwhelms me, Your consolation delights my soul” (Psalm 94:18-19).
Brothers and sisters it is through endurance and the comfort of the scriptures that we have real hope embedded in our hearts and supernatural consolation from the blessed Holy Spirit Himself. This hope is not “I hope so” but a deep certainty and conviction that God will never abandon us. As we read; “For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
If anyone suffered it was godly Job, and if ever a man was afflicted he was and added to this was his so called ‘faith prosperity friends’ and ‘comforters’ who saw his affliction as something he had brought on Himself and something even God had put on him inferring that Job had sinned and lacked faith. Here is what Job said; “When He is at work in the north, I cannot behold Him; when He turns to the south, I cannot see Him. Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:9-10).
When the children of Israel were faced with the Red Sea and pursued by the Egyptians hell-bent on their demise Moses said to the people; “Do not be afraid. Stand firm (still) and you will see the LORD’s salvation, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:13-14). They were not only to stand still but also to be still before the Lord.
Did our Lord Jesus not encourage us when He said; that when these “birth pains” in the world begin to take place, to stand up and not to buckle over at the knees with fear, but to lift up our heads in anticipation of our rescue from this present evil age, looking skyward with expectant faith for our deliverance because our redemption will be drawing near (Matthew 24:6-8) (Luke 21:28).
God does not want us to be too comfortable in this present evil age. Yes He promises to supply our needs, and if we walk by faith and not by sight moment by moment in the power of the Holy Spirit, seeking to give ourselves to Him, He will give Himself to us and supply all our needs. The more of ourselves we give to Him the more of Himself He will give to us!
One way this will become our ever deepening experience and a spiritual reality that will grow is to take communion every morning before the activities of the day commence. The bread and the wine will remind us of the Lord Jesus’ constant care for us and especially His atoning blood by which we are justified, cleansed, redeemed, forgiven, sanctified and by which our conscience is purged, and by that same blood we have a new and living way opened for us to approach the very throne room of God (Hebrews 10:19). Added to this it is only the blood of the Messiah that will protect us from the wrath to come! (Romans 5:9) Make much of the blood of the Messiah! “The Life is in the Blood!” (Leviticus 17:14).
Taking Communion will remind us of these great eternal Biblical truths and when we claim and confess these truths over our lives by faith and proclamation and make them ours we will find the spiritual strength we need to fight off the lures of the world, the flesh with its passions and desires, the devious deceptions of the devil and the anxiety, and the weight of sin that so easily besets us and drive him out of our affairs! (James 4:7).
Our God is a great and awesome God and even though the nations rage around us Isaiah tells us; “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales.”
