◄ What Does Isaiah 28:5 Mean? ►

In that day the LORD of hosts will become a beautiful crown And a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people;

Isaiah 28:5(NASB)

Verse of the Day

The prophets of old wrote of the coming Messiah Who would fight for Israel in their hour of greatest need, crush their enemies, set up His kingdom in the holy city of Jerusalem, seated on the throne of His father David. And yet the same prophets foretold that He be wounded for their transgressions, bruised for their iniquities, and would die a criminal's death before rising from the dead.

The prophets of old did not see the twin-peaks of Calvary and His Second Coming, with the Church dispensation nestling between these two majestic peaks (stretching from the Cross to His Second Coming and Kingdom rule) which was why the disciples asked the Lord before His Ascension: "Will You at this time set up Your kingdom?" Like the prophets of old, they did not understand the mystery of the coming 2000-year long Church age (from Pentecost to the Rapture of the Body of Christ), and the unique privileges (which in general were revealed to Paul), that believers in this Church age are afforded.

But it was not for them, nor is it for us to know when Jesus is going to set up His eternal rule on earth. But like us, Christ's disciples had to learn that the Cross precedes the Crown; Calvary is before the Kingdom. But in between those two mountain peaks, nestles the dispensation of the grace of God, which includes both the Church age in which we live (which was hidden from the prophets in time past), and a time of great judgement (the time of Jacob's Trouble; the coming Tribulation Period) about which the prophets of old wrote.

But that great and terrible Day of the Lord has two contrasting aspects: first a bitter Tribulation followed a beautiful Millennial Kingdom. First the time of Jacob's Trouble, then the promised time when: "The LORD of hosts will become a beautiful crown and a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people Israel," as described in this verse by Isaiah the prophet. First God's judgement, then God's grace.

The Day of the Lord will first come as a thief in the night when for seven years, the wrath of God will be poured out in fullest measure on a God-hating, Christ-rejecting, sinful world with its prime objective to open the eyes of a blinded Israel to the identity of their promised Messiah and to save a multitude of Gentiles without number: "So that the nations will know that I AM THE LORD and there is no other."

And as foretold by many prophets, in that day the LORD of hosts will become a beautiful crown and a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people. But before the Lord returns to earth in the splendour of His majesty and in power and great glory, the little remnant of Israel will first acknowledge the Lord Jesus as their Messiah-King and God of the universe, shouting in ecstatic harmony: "Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!"

My Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You that Your plans and purposes will never fail and that nothing happens in our lives that is not known or permitted by You, for our eternal benefit and to Your greater praise and glory. Until that great day when Jesus comes in the clouds to rescue the Church from the wrath that is to be poured out on a Christ-rejecting, sinful world, I pray that I may be salt and light to those whom You place in my path. This I ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.