{"id":7210,"date":"2020-11-29T10:23:27","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T16:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5351"},"modified":"2020-11-29T10:23:27","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T16:23:27","slug":"devotional-on-isaiah-113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-isaiah-113\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Isaiah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1280px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-tAt6X6h_Fuw\/X8K1PySxkVI\/AAAAAAABHtY\/8fUA5QZaY4QeNOliAqvmAsqobfaZ1n-OgCPcBGAsYHg\/s1280\/Mo%2BRanch%2BHunt%2BTx%2B11-28-2006%2B11-42-50%2BAM.JPG\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Texas Hill Country &#8211; 2006<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nTwigs and forests<br \/>\nIsaiah 11: The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him.<br \/>\nThe flow from current events to spiritual events of the future makes some passages hard to read.  Isaiah has declared that the army of their enemy, Assyria, was used of God to purge his people, but went too far.  He pictures Assyria as a great forest filled with huge trees.  However, for all its majesty, that forest will be leveled because of the anger of God.  Then, with no real segue Isaiah continues with his &#8220;forest&#8221; illustration, proclaiming that out of the remains of Judah just one small twig will spring up. Compared to the great \u201cforest\u201d that is Assyria, this green twig might seem insignificant. That \u201ctwig,\u201d though, will be overshadowed by the Spirit of God. It will grow to such a size that all the forests of the world will seem small in comparison and that \u201ctwig\u201d will reach out in wisdom, understanding, direction, strength, and knowledge. I don\u2019t know what Isaiah or his contemporaries thought of the unexpected direction of this prophecy, but to a Christian reader it makes perfect sense. The army of Assyria is long gone, only of interest to historians and archeologists. However, that \u201ctwig\u201d \u2014 the one who sprang up as a helpless baby in Bethlehem so long ago \u2014 well, his Kingdom continues to flourish to this very day.<br \/>\nTake Away: \u201cAnd he shall reign for ever and ever more.  Hallelujah!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twigs and forests Isaiah 11: The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him. The flow from current events to spiritual events of the future makes some passages hard to read. Isaiah has declared that the army of their enemy, Assyria, was used of God to purge his people, but went too far. He pictures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,7],"tags":[131,425,678,871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7210"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14928,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7210\/revisions\/14928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}