We are in the middle of Isaiah’s sixth WOE. A series of judgments, pronouncements of doom, that encompass chapters 28 through 35 of this vast Book, today known as Isaiah’s Prophecy, Isaiah’s Corpus.
God has just pronounced doom (destruction) upon the little Nations of Moab and Edom. (They may merely be representatives of all the nations of the world, in the great Tribulation period yet to come.) Verse 6 … “For the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.”)
Birds and wild animals will inhabit that land, once so dedicated to a virulent hatred of Israel! Verse 11 … “But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.”
God and nature, His very creation … “They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.” Verses 12-14 … land once bustling with people and their many activities! Even vegetation is involved now, “thorns and nettles and brambles.”
Did you know Isaiah’s prophecies were this precise regarding the animal and vegetable world? And I thought the Book of Job had a lot to say about God’s little (and big) creatures!
Now we come to our Text for today. Isaiah 34:15-16, more animals … “There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate. SEEK YE OUT THE BOOK OF THE LORD, AND READ: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.”
Let me tell you what God just commanded. “Out of all these precise promises about animals (particularly birds) … study them, check them out in their entirety … and see if God has not kept His Word to the maximum!”
The challenge of today’s Text … go back and read Isaiah’s “Book,” his Portion in the Word of God! Read these (six) “Woes” carefully … and prove that “none of these (predictions, precise as they are) shall fail!”
Even down to the mating practices of these little creatures, particularly the vultures! “None shall want her mate.” If God’s Mouth commands something … write it down … it WILL come to pass!
Wow!
A Bible challenge to examine God’s Word, especially in the area of it’s prophecies (even the minute ones) and delightfully discover God always keeps His Word!
What a Lesson!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
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