The Weapons of Our Warfare...

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.—2 Corinthians 10:3-6

Some mornings I wake up and life just feels heavier and harder...like I am walking through a thick, unrelenting cloud that makes any movement at all difficult. The weight of all those things that “aren’t right” in my life seems to be resting on my shoulders.  Sometimes the word of God can even magnify my grief because truth is sometimes hard to swallow.   It reminds me over and over that I am not in control of anything.  My life and the lives of those I love are in His hands.  Most of the time, I KNOW this is such a good thing, but on mornings like this, the eyes of my heart can get lost in the weeds and forget.  I look at the earthly and not the eternal.  

God used the words of 2 Corinthians 10 to speak encouragement and truth to me this morning.  My Spirit lifted and my heart rejoiced as I read them. This earthly battle is not mine to fight.  Both the battle and the victory are His.  I am weak, but He is strong.  I am insufficient, but He is my sufficiency. My weapons are powerless in the face of the spiritual.  His are not.  My job is to put divine truth to the lies that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. I am, by His gracious Spirit, to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. My weapons are not earthly, but are mighty in God because it is God who works in me both to will and to do for His good pleasure.  My job is to be obedient and do the next right thing...the results are ALWAYS up to Him. He is the God who performs all things for me and also makes perfect that which concerns me.  

Beloved, I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD I n the land of the living.  Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.  Wait, I say, on the LORD!   

Ending with Ephesians 6:10-19 from the Amplified Bible. 

In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [draw your strength from Him and be empowered through your union with Him] and in the power of His [boundless] might. 11 Put on the full armor of God [for His precepts are like the splendid armor of a heavily-armed soldier], so that you may be able to [successfully] stand up against all the schemes and the strategies and the deceits of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places. 13 Therefore, put on the complete armor of God, so that you will be able to [successfully] resist and stand your ground in the evil day [of danger], and having done everything [that the crisis demands], to stand firm [in your place, fully prepared, immovable, victorious]. 14 So stand firm and hold your ground, HAVING TIGHTENED THE WIDE BAND OF TRUTH (personal integrity, moral courage) AROUND YOUR WAIST and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (an upright heart), 15 and having strapped on YOUR FEET THE GOSPEL OF PEACE IN PREPARATION [to face the enemy with firm-footed stability and the readiness produced by the good news]. 16 Above all, lift up the [protective] shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

18 With all prayer and petition pray [with specific requests] at all times [on every occasion and in every season] in the Spirit, and with this in view, stay alert with all perseverance and petition [interceding in prayer] for all God's people.—Ephesians 6 10-18

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Isaiah 1:1-20.

Concerning Judah and Jerusalem 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 children and they have rebelled against Me. It is an appeal of God to inanimate creation to bear witness to the ingratitude that He had received, as if it were of no longer any use to speak to men. The appeal is stated very solemnly and impressively, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children," cared for them, loved them, fed them, "and they have rebelled against Me." The ingratitude of a child is something shocking — and the ingratitude of man to God is of that character.

3. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider. Men are more brutish than the beasts that perish! The lower animals, as men contemptuously call them, acknowledge the hand that feeds them, but men receive the bounty of God through long years and yet live as if there were no God at all — they feel no gratitude to Him whatever. Israel was God's peculiar people, highly favored and greatly indulged — and this made it all the worse for the Lord to be able to contrast them and the brute creation. "The ox knows his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel does not know, My people do not consider."

4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Thus the Prophet spoke to of his day and we may say much the same to of our own time. The professing Church of God has gone away backward, forsaken the Doctrines of the Truth of God and turned aside from the purity of its life. God have mercy upon the world when the Church, itself, becomes thus defiled!

5. Why should you be stricken any more? What is the use of chastisement to such people? It is supposed that punishment is always healthy and that we grow the better for it, but God says, "Why should you be stricken any more?"

5, 6. You will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. The nation had been so beaten that it was covered all over with bruises and sores. It seemed to be of no use to afflict Israel any more — and there are some persons in the world who have been chastened in every conceivable way and yet they are none the better. There are graves in the cemetery where those they love lie asleep. The house that was their joy has long ago been sold and they have not a roof to call their own. They have seen themselves at death's door by fever and by other diseases and yet all that God's rod has done for them has come to nothing. The old Roman lictors carried an axe bound up in a bundle of rods and, when the rods had been tried, and had failed, then came the axe. And if the milder forms of chastisement do not bring men to repentance, sooner or later will come the axe of destruction! Thus the Prophet says it was with sinful Israel —

7, 8. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. The land had been so harried and worried by invaders that it was little better than a poor shanty — the nation was comparable to a poor hut which the Arabs put up in the vineyard to sleep in — "As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city."

9. Except the LORD of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. And this is true of London as well as of Jerusalem! If there had not been a remnant of godly ones still left, "we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah."

10, 11. Hear the Word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the Law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? says the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat offed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. These people were a very religious people, although a very wicked people. It is a strange thing when nations have become demoralized and injustice reigns supreme at the same time — ritualism and outward pomp and external religion come to the front. This is a wretched business, to give God the husks when the kernel has long ago gone. What cares the Lord for "burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts.. . the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats," when men have left off doing that which is right in His sight? The Lord may well say to those who bring offerings to Him under such circumstances, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?"

12. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this at your hands, to tread My courts? "Who invited you to come to My courts?" asks God. "Who asked you to pretend to worship Me, when you are living in sin and your hearts are not reconciled to Me?"

13. Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination unto Me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn meeting. If you are hypocrites. If your hearts are not right with God you may multiply your Church attendance and your Chapel attendance and your sacraments, but all these are only a provoking of God to anger! There is nothing in it all that He could possibly accept — He cannot endure it! He says, "I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn meeting."

14. 15. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My Soul hates: they are a trouble unto Me, I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you: yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. This is plain speaking, but God never sends velvet-tongued men as His messengers. They who are called to testify for God speak out boldly — and faithfully denounce the sins of the day in which they live. Blessed be God for Isaiah and for men like he! When men are committing crimes, when they are oppressing the poor, when they are living in the daily practice of injustice, when they indulge in secret drunkenness, when their whole life is a lie, they may do what they will, but God will not hear their prayers! While we keep sin in our hearts, it is in vain for us to stretch out our hands unto God. He is a holy God and He seeks holy hearts and holy lives — nothing short of these can be acceptable to Him.

16, 17. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. This is what God asks for — "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this — To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world"

18-20. Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land: but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it. May the Holy Spirit make us willing and obedient that we may "eat the good of the land." And may none of us be found refusing God's gracious invitation and rebelling against His authority — lest we perish in our sins!