LIFT HIGH THE BANNER

Isaiah 59:19-21

So shall they fear

The name of the Lord from the west,

And His glory from the rising of the sun;

When the enemy comes in like a flood, 

The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a 

standard against him.

"The Redeemer will  come to Zion, 

And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob",

Says the LORD.

"As for Me", says the LORD, "this is My covenant with them:

My Spirit who is upon you, and My words 

which I have put in your mouth,

shall not depart from your mouth,

nor from the mouth of your descendants,

nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants,"

says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."

These powerful words were spoken by the prophet Isaiah some seven hundred years before their fulfillment in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of the Living God from His humble birth in a dirty stable in Bethlehem to His death on a Roman cross at Calvary and triumphant subsequent resurrection three days later. Isaiah's messianic prophecies of the life and ministry of Jesus make His book a most inspiring account to be read and re-read and studied.

I first heard a message preached from the above verses and following verses in Isaiah 60 some fifty years ago, as a very young Christian, newly baptized in the Holy Spirit - via a taped message by Derek Prince, one of the foremost Bible teachers from the Pentecostal and Charismatic streams of ministry during the second half of the twentieth century. A former Kings College and Cambridge scholar and professor, his Bible teaching was profound, yet explained with such clarity as to be understood by all who had "ears to hear what the Lord was saying to them."

So shall they fear

The name of the Lord from the west,

And His glory from the rising of the sun;

These words of Isaiah were expressed slightly differently, but with the same import, by Habakkuk, one of the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament, in Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,

As the waters cover the sea.

For those of us living in the twenty-first century, this truth is becoming a greater reality with each passing year.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ - the GOOD NEWS of salvation from sin and freedom won in Christ - with signs and wonders following the preaching of the Word of God, is being attested to upon every continent and to the far flung islands  of the seas. The Lordship of Christ is being proclaimed and countless lives are being transformed by the miracle working power of the Holy Spirit of God.

When the enemy comes in like a flood, 

The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a

standard against him.

It does not take much spiritual discernment to realize and acknowledge that, in the times in which we are living, the enemy [Satan] is coming in like a flood. As Isaiah says in chapter 60:2 of these times

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,

And deep darkness the people;

One only has to look at the news of the day in any part of the world to see that Satan is alive and well on planet Earth. In western nations, such as my own nation of Australia, in many aspects of society, increasingly the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 5:20 with its sombre warning is relevant to our day: 
Woe to those who call evil good,
and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light
for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter!

Lest one is inclined to a state of despair concerning the intensity of evil encroaching upon our nation and indeed all nations, the second part of verse 19 of Isaiah 59 gives great hope for the future for those committed fully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It says: When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.
Referring back again to the message I heard all those years ago by Derek Prince, I remember him saying, in reference to this verse, in an ancient army, there would be a "standard bearer" who would go out in front of the army. He would hold up "the standard" or banner, or flag identifying clearly that particular army. As he held up the standard, it would be a signal for all the scattered troops to gather to the standard as one fighting unit, ready and equipped to advance in battle.
The Standard Bearer for the church is the Holy Spirit, and the standard that the Holy Spirit is lifting up is the  Lord Jesus Christ
……………………...to be continued