Isaiah 31 GOD, NOT EGYPT The warnings of the Lord through Isaiah in chapter thirty didn’t move the king of Judah and his advisors to repentance, so Isaiah was instructed by the Lord to repeat the same warning. A recapitulation of the previous chapter is given in this chapter in an abbreviated form. It is common to human beings to have to be told again and again things they do not want to hear. For some reason part of human nature resists what someone else tells them to do, especially if it is to act in faith rather than by sight. “The just shall live by faith.” “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” It is not only “the substance (realization) of things hoped for,” but it is also “the evidence (confidence) of things not seen.”
For the leaders of Judah to turn back to an alliance with the Egyptians, is like believers today turning back into the world to escape the pressure of holy living in an ungodly world, hoping to find what they think is significance in life. Disaster comes to those who trust human strength and compromising alliances rather than to put their trust in God. People of faith who are committed to God and His word, know that temporary worldly success does not last. Instead of being a blessing, it is bondage to an ungodly system and the sins that make it attractive to the carnal man.
God is faithful to us, but our attitudes and actions may make it necessary for Him to withhold what He had intended for us. There is no lasting profit to the works of the flesh and the attractions of the world. The devil uses both of them to attempt to keep us from “glorifying God in our bodies and spirits which are His.” The power and value of that which is of the world is very short-lived and cannot be compared to the power of the Lord and the value of eternal things.
In Isaiah’s day the power of the Assyrians seemed unstoppable until the Lord stepped in and destroyed the Assyrian army in one night. That will happen again to nations allied against the Jews. But God will defend Jerusalem without help from any man or nation. He is as bold and as invincible as a lion. He is as watchful over His own as a bird is over her young in the nest. The “flaming fire” of divine vengeance on those who don’t know God, and don’t want to know God, will take place in the future in a similar way as happened to the Assyrians.
When the Jews respond to the call to repentance of sin, the rejection of idolatry and a willing heart to turn to the Lord, He will act on their behalf. To put away all that is evil in practice and belief, involves discarding all competing spiritual counterfeits and committing without reservation to the Lord. When that action is genuine, we have the assurance that God will do what is needed. He will deal with our enemies. No army or nation of our choosing will defeat the enemy, but an act of divine intervention will leave no question to the people of God, whether they be us now, or the Jews in the future as to who the Deliverer is. He is the Lord God.
The “stronghold” of Assyria fled from their attempt to capture Jerusalem when the “ensign” or banner of the Lord was raised over His people. In the future day of His appearing all nations will recognize that the reason such a despised people as the children of Israel has survived while other empires have long since passed into oblivion, is because of the grace, mercy and power of God. He keeps His covenant. Covenants of men and nations like Egypt fail.