Friday - Isaiah 10 - I'll Deal with You Later

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OD chose to use the evil Assyrians to punish the Jews of northern Palestine.  Some observers have struggled to understand the strategy, but God described His plan from the beginning.  Isaiah 10:5-6 record the words of God concerning the Assyrians.  They were destined to be used by God for His purposes, even though they had no idea that such was the case (Isaiah 10:7).  They were as guilty of ungodliness as were the Jews whom they were executing (Isaiah 10:8-11).  The Assyrians had no respect for Jehovah.  So, according to Isaiah 10:12, God intended to deal severely with the Assyrians when once He was through using them.  Their self-centered pride was no more tolerable than were the errors of Israel.

In Isaiah 10:15 we are reminded that a hammer is nothing without a carpenter.  An axe is nothing without a lumberjack... and so on and so forth.  Assyria had no power that wasn't given to her by God.  Any influence, skill, wealth, strength or opportunity which they had was due to God's active superintendence over them.  Their story was not the main story at hand.  They were not the big name on the stage.  God simply chose to use them for a task on His “to do” list, that's all.  Such is the plight of the enemies of God.  When we men live our lives without God, we will still function as pawns, but the blessings & belongingness which faith grasps will never be realized.

The fact is, even as the Assyrians were assigned the task of beating the Jews into a pulp, God reminded His people that the Assyrians were not worthy of fear... He alone was worthy of that honor (Isaiah 10:24- 25).  He had already picked out an opponent for the Assyrians who would derail their conquering train soon enough (Isaiah 10:26).