Isaiah 42:1. Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles.
Oh Friends, it’s a fact, a blessing; we’ve been granted one more day of life on Mother Earth to enjoy all her bountiful pleasures! All praise and thanks be to the great God we serve and worship, for without His invaluable input, we’d now be mere dust! And I won’t get into much preamble because I have a lot of interesting and enlightening scripture to share. Hopefully this will be the last day for this particular Bit since some of you like to have a different Bit every day. But sometimes that’s just not possible, for some Bits, like this one, have so much to say that you can’t get everything from them in one sitting, especially with the short attention spans of today. (smile) Now here’s our fabulous Bit: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect (my chosen one), in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgement (justice) to the Gentiles.’ Ah mih people, though I knew this scripture before, in dissecting it over the last few days, I’ve learned even more than I expected. That’s the beauty of studying God’s Word! There’s always so much more to it than what meets the naked eye! Now let’s check out the last part of the Bit: ‘I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgement (justice) to the Gentiles.’ And the first scripture dealing with that comes from good, ole Isaiah, re the righteous reign of the branch of Jesse: ‘And there shall come forth a rod (shoot) out of the stem (stock or trunk) of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots (bear fruit). And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.’ (Is.11:1-2) Yuh hear all the different spirits, or strengths with which that Branch of Jesse will be endowed? But first and foremost, the overseer Spirit of the Lord, which encompasses all the others. And I want us to specifically note the last one, ‘the fear of the Lord,’ because though Jesus was a part of the Godhead, down here on earth there’s one thing He did above all others; that’s revere and respect His heavenly Father. Now in light of that, how could we, mere mortals, not do likewise eh, especially if we claim to be followers of Christ? And that’s one of the major problems of our day; not enough people hold Almighty God in true reverence. We tend to write Him off as being unimportant, irrelevant to our modern times. But that’s a major mistake my Friends, a lie perpetrated by the evil, cunning Lucifer. No wonder our world is in such a mess! Anyway, the next scripture about putting His Spirit on His elect, is one we well know and have already covered. That’s when Jesus was baptized, and when He came up out of the water; ‘lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.’ (Matt.3:16) Then we have the revealing testimony of John the Baptist on that very situation: ‘And John bare record (witness), saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode (remained) upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record (witness) that this is the Son of God.’ (John 1:32-34) Oh my brethren, there’s absolutely no disputing that testimony! Later on, during a dispute between a group of Jews and the disciples of John the Baptist, re purifying, John again testified to Jesus being the true Son of God, telling them that Jesus must increase while he decreases, because his purpose was only to introduce Jesus to the world. ‘For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father LOVETH the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.’ (John 3:34-35) That means Friends, that the Lord doesn’t or rather didn’t play stingy with the giving of His Spirit to Jesus. Likewise He’ll be very generous in giving His Spirit to us, who believe in His Son. That brings us to an interesting comment from the scholars. ‘God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him:’ Some manuscripts read: ‘He gives the Spirit without measure,’ which would then refer to the sending of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5, 11:15-16; John 7:37-39) And we going to end with that last reference to the giving of the Holy Spirit. Hear these marvellous, inspiring words of Jesus! ‘In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly (heart) shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ (John 7:37-39) By the way, the scripture that Jesus referred to there was a prophecy of Moses: ‘The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.’ (Deut.18:15) And that’s it for today Friends. I sure hope that you all got something worthwhile from the teaching today. I know that I did. Please ponder it in all seriousness. There was actually some more stuff I wanted to share on the Spirit, but will leave that for another day. Don’t need any criticisms about it being too long and involved. (smile) So till we meet again, God willing, let’s truly LOVE our God; sincerely LIVE our Faith and faithfully SPREAD His Word. Much LOVE!…what a drastic, but wonderful change occurs in man…when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in him…
SCRIP-BITS 