Devotional Thoughts

Isaiah 11:1    "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots" We have seen Isaiah leading up to the revelation of Jesus Christ through the preceding chapters. We read back in chapter 7:14, "... a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Then in chapter 9:6,  "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."  In today's passage, the Lord is narrowing this identification down to the house of Jesse, which  brings us to the place where we know the Messiah would come from the seed of David.  It was necessary that the Redeemer would come in human flesh because the sin debt had been incurred by a human. God chose to bring His Son as a child through the seed of Abraham and on down through David.   Paul state

Exodus 12:1-4    "And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb."   In chapter eleven, the LORD told Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron that He was going to move through the land of Egypt around midnight. This would indicate the time of the coming of a new day. In this new day, He was going to destroy the firstborn out of every house in the land of Egypt. This would be a new day because this time Pharaoh would send them out of the land with everything they had. In

Isaiah 10:20-21    "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God." We saw in the first chapter of this book that Isaiah prophesied during the reign of several kings. One of those kings was Ahaz. He was perhaps one of the most wicked kings to every reign in Judah. He made idols and placed them throughout the city of Jerusalem. He cut to pieces various vessels in the temple. He drew people away from true worship by building high places where they could go into the groves and privately sacrifice to those idols.     In the first verses of this tenth chapter of Isaiah, God speaks of His judgment against Israel and Judah because of this idolatry. He talks of tearing down idols that had been built. He talks of using the king o

Exodus 11:4-10    "And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger. And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. And Moses a

In one of the great Psalms of thanksgiving, the writer asked a most pertinent question. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me” (Psalm 116:12) ? We may observe two elements in this question. The psalmist acknowledges having received many benefits, or blessings, at the hand of the Lord. For the believer, to be the receiver of blessings from the Lord is a fact beyond question. That is one facet of a proper perception of reality. However, for the unbeliever, or even for the nominal believer, such things come in the course of nature, or as a matter of deserving them. But to fail to see that such benefits and blessings come from the Lord is to lose touch with reality. The other element of the question is that the writer expresses a sense of obligation to the Lord and reveals a desire to do something in response to the amazing goodness of God to him. It is the reflex of the godly heart to desire to do something in response to the perceived go