A Call To The Remnant

Isa 59:19 When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. 

What a tremendous promise from the Lord in His Word. Now there are two different ways this can be read given that there was no punctuation in Hebrew. It could read “When the enemy shall come in…….like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” We often ask the Lord to flood our hearts or flood our lands will revival glory. Let the heavens be rent and pour down your mercy upon us. It’s a lovely thought, but it really does not fit the context of Isa chapter 59. The enemy has indeed come in like a flood and the saints have to raise up a standard. They face overwhelming odds and all seems lost. God will deliver His own. The Lord Jesus Christ will come again. The standard represents a flag. Every battalion has its colors, has its flags, and they flutter over every battle. Every tribe of Israel had a flag that represented who they were (Num 1:52) We the saints have our own flag and the emblem upon it is the cross. God lifted up His very own Standard, He lifted up the Lord Jesus on the cross for the deliverance of men’s souls.

The Standard separates men. It draws its own and they rally under it. The wicked reject this Standard.Their iniquities have separated them from god. His face is hidden from them because of their sin. They search for light but they find only darkness. They stumble at noonday as if it is dusk and the shades of grey overtake their minds as they grope along the wall headed towards a ditch. They have turned their backs on God, and righteousness stand afar off. For them, truth has fallen in the street. They are determined to hunt down everyone who has departed from evil and who have rallied under the Standard, the flag that represents Calvary. And when there is found no one to stand for God’s people, God comes. He pours out His Spirit upon us and He puts His words in our mouths. And the Spirit of the Living God shall not depart from us even as we march through the valley of the shadow of death. For the Lord our God walked this very path before we ever did. He broke the chains of hell and death and destroyed the power of sin. We stand eternally under the cross of Calvary where our Lord defeated all of hell’s fury. Stand today brothers and sisters, this is our call to arms.