Isaiah 29:1-14

We now take a look at Isaiah's second woe for Jerusalem. The first woe dealt with pride and drunkenness. This woe deals with hypocritical religious activity displayed in her empty worship. God has no desire for hypocritical empty worship. His response of judgment, designed to discipline not destroy, will be both stunning and brutal.God responds with images of warfare. God will distress, encamp, lay siege and raise up siegeworks all around Jerusalem. This is God's response to empty, hypocritical religious activity. The outcome for those who choose pride, hypocrisy and disobedience will be spiritual blindness. They will stagger like a drunk without consuming intoxication drink. They will fall into a deep supernatural sleep that God will put upon them. Even more, they will become spiritually illiterate. There will be a famine of the hearing of the word of God.All of this has been written for our learning. Pride, hypocrisy and disobedience sadly fills much of the church today. In so many cases, the wisdom of man is considered to be superior to the word of God. The miserable, poor, blind, naked church of Laodicea is growing like a weed.As believers we must remember that Jesus is coming soon. The judgment of God has begun in the house of God. Soon his judgment will be poured out on this Christ rejecting world in a way beyond our ability to imagine. All this must precede the return of Jesus. For us as His followers, we must remain true to Jesus Christ and His word. We must remain faithful and obedient to the death. We must keep our hand to the plough and never look back. Maranatha!

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1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.

2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.

3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.

4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.

5 Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.

6 Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.

8 It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.

9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

10 For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.