YOU HAVE THE STRONGEST ALLY

(A series in the book of Isaiah: Chapter 26)

Maybe many times, you have thought that you are at a great disadvantage because you are just feeling so inadequate and a failure. It seems that you are just hoping for nothing because where you are is just so impossible of getting out.

When you are in a bondage and you are being ruled by foreigners in your country is worse and it is much worse when you are taken out of your country and treated just like the lowest slave. This would have been the situation of God's people in the prophecy spoken by Isaiah against God’s people. They would be under the tyranny of foreign nations and yes, they would struggle. However, God promised that time that it would not be forever. God promised that He would destroy all the oppressing nations and He would vindicate all the injustice done against His people.

The best promise was that evil would be destroyed forever. This theme continued in Isaiah chapter 26 where God’s perfect attribute was honored by those who experienced God’s perfect and steadfast promise. The theme here is giving all the glory to God who is perfect. It was honoring God’s perfection and God as the very source of all the good things that happened to them.

The words written in Isaiah chapter 26 are just like a testimony of who God is by how they experienced Him. God is He because He revealed Himself to be. He is not God for those He did not reveal but He is God for what God has revealed to those not just trusted, not just steadfast but in the original language it says like steadied, meaning not just a declaration of a quality of being strong but rather it entails CONSISTENCY WITH GOD. But this is not about the person’s loyalty to stay with God but the work of God to make the sincere believer stay with Him through the efforts and works of the Holy Spirit. All the attributes related to the man in this chapter are given credit not by man’s superior character but rather by God’s doing. Isaiah 26:12,

“Lord, you establish peace for us;

ALL THAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED YOU HAVE DONE FOR US.”

This is just the best PRAISE LINE I have ever found in the Bible. That all the good things that have happened in the loves of the believer it is because of God. They have stood strong amidst the difficulties not because they saw themselves faithful but they saw the hands of God faithful towards them. It was all in all God.

Honestly, I am truly ashamed many times in the past I have claimed and seen myself faithful and a conqueror only to see myself wallowed in the mud of pride, self-sufficiency, and hypocrisy. It was the worse time of my life believing that I was good enough. Believe me or not it was really the most horrible time, yes people praise you, people tell you are the Godliest and the holiest person they have ever seen. It seems that many people’s desire for Godliness is just fulfilled in you. It seems that you just have all that people are dreaming of in terms of their religion. People idolize you and want to be like you in your little world. Many people think this is the best life in the world that one can have when people look at you as a perfect Christian. To me, with the life I have now, it is unknown and unnoticed but richly experiencing my God I could never be happier. It is the best life I could ever live in my life. It is only in the presence of a God who would always do His best to be the best God that I could ever choose to serve—nothing more nothing else. Nothing luxurious, nothing pomp, but plain simplicity, plain reality, and plain love.

Friends, whatever we are going through we have the strongest Ally. Why, because we have the perfect God whose peace is perfect, whose faithfulness is as strong as the rock. Isaiah 26:3-4,

3You will keep in perfect peace

those whose minds are steadfast,

because they trust in you.

4 Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

The God who is with us is the strongest Ally in our battles. The Ally that will keep you in perfect peace. The Ally that will keep you in the strongest protection. This is not about taking away our bad circumstances but proving that amidst the bad circumstances HE IS THERE.

FRIENDS, CALL IT WHATEVER YOU WANT. GOD IS PERFECT AND HE IS YOUR ALLY!