FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN - ISIS

“FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN” - ISIS

Isaiah 45:6

Sunday Evening Service

July 20, 2014, the Year of Our Lord

Pastor Carolyn Sissom

(This is a burden which came)  

Isaiah 45:5-6:  “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me; I girded you, though you have not known Me; That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west that there is none beside Me.  I am the Lord, and there is none else.”

Out of the present day Syrian civil war a Terrorist regime by the name of ISIS arose.  The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are a self-proclaimed caliphate.

This group claims religious authority over all Muslims.  They aspire to bring the Muslim inhabited regions of the world under its direct control.   The area they aspire to rule is known as the Levant region in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait, and southern Turkey.

This area is the crossroads of Western Asian, Eastern Mediterranean, North-East Africa, and North West of the Arabian plate.

These are Sunni Muslims who have acted with brutal violence directed at Shia Muslims and Christians.

They are equipped with stolen U.S.A. uniforms, artillery, helicopters and a stolen air cargo plane.  This group is reported to be only 4000 in number.

Levant means “rising of the sun in the east” and “the place of rising”.

Isaiah 59:18-19: “According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; to the islands He will repay recompense.  So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun.  When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

In chapter 59, the prophet preaches a message declaring the Lord’s displeasure with the wide-spread iniquity.

2-3:  ‘Your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.  Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness.  None call for justice, nor any plead for truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

God looked in vain for some champion of the oppressed to arise, but found no one to resist the unrighteous and protect the innocent.

59:4: “None call for justice, nor any plead for truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

59:16: “He says there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him.”

When there is no leader to intervene in order to bring deliverance and establish righteousness, then God intervenes.  In the time when the people of God are up against overwhelming odds because of the onslaught of the enemy, the Spirit of the Lord will come to their assistance by raising up an “armed defense” against him.

59:17:  “For he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon His head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.”

The theme of God’s power from the rising of the sun to the going down lays stress upon God’s control of creation, history (past, present and future) and all nations of the earth.

The prophet pictures God as bringing the nations and pagan deities to court, and throwing a challenge to them to which they have no reply. 

The first challenge is addressed to the nations in general.  They are challenged to say who it was had raised God’s deliverer, Cyrus to prominence and given him victory after victory.  (The principle of God’s sovereignty of election).

Isa. 41:25: “I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon My name; and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay.” 

It was certainly none of the defeated nations who had done so.  It was of course the Lord, Israel’s God, who had controlled human history from its inception up till now. 

Israel’s oppressors are reduced to trembling.  Israel in turn has nothing to fear.  God promises His people all the help and strength they need, reminding them of His goodness long ago to Abraham, who had been safely guided from Babylonia to Palestine just as the exiles now would be, for they too were designated as God’s servant, God’s chosen people.

Joshua 12:1: “These are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan toward the rising of the sun, from the river Arnon to mount Hermon, and all the plain on the east.”

Joshua and his army defeated 31 kings of Canaan on the west side of Jordan toward the rising of the sun.

Psalm 113:1-2:  “Praise you the Lord, Praise, O you servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord.  Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.  From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised.”

In this Psalm, the phrase from the “rising of the Sun” is clearly meant “from east to west” or the whole world.   Yet it also clearly means the Lord is supreme over all nations.

Psa. 50:1: “The mighty God, even the Lord, has spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.  Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.  He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge his people.  Gather My saints together to Me those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.  The heavens shall declare His righteousness; for God is judge himself, Selah.”

In this Psalm, the singer addresses himself in the Name of God to the whole earth.  His lesson is that forgetfulness of God issues grave peril, while remembrance of God ensures the blessing of salvation.

God is seen as coming in righteousness to judge His people.

Mal. 1:11: “For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered to My name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, says the Lord of host.”

As I explored the Biblical metaphor of “the rising of the sun in the east” in the context that this is the meaning of “Levant” as well as “the place of rising”, the scriptures are clear of God’s sovereignty over the “Levant region” as well as the whole world.

The Lord Jesus’ judgment of righteousness is upon ISIS by their acts of evil.

ISIS hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web…Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.  Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.  The way of peace they do not know; and there is no judgment in their goings; they have crooked paths, whosoever goes therein shall not know peace….and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment….He put on righteousness, as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak… (vs. 19) So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun.  when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries, Inc.