December 19

Journey-through-the-Bible-with-us

READING FOR DECEMBER 19, 2025: ISAIAH 8, REVELATION 13, PSALM 126                       ISAIAH 8 God told Isaiah how to go about implementing his role for the immediate fulfillment of the famous prophecy of Isaiah 7: write plainly so all could read the word “Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” which means swift is the plunder, speedy is the prey. Two trusted believers were witnesses. Isaiah further followed God’s command by having sexual relations with his wife, who conceived and gave birth to a son with this name.  God said, before the boy knows how to talk, Assyria will plunder both the northern kingdom and Aram (also called Syria). 

Then God poetically describes how He provided for Israel with the gentle waters of Shiloah, but they rejected Him in favor of wicked foreign kings. So, God will bring on them the flood water of the Euphrates River, meaning the forces of Assyria, to overwhelm them completely. Assyria will also overflow into Judah but will not overwhelm them completely. It will flood them “up to the neck.” Immanuel (God with us) will still be true for them, both in terms of His judgment upon them and in terms of His presence among them in their partial survival. 

God tells the people of various lands (perhaps Israel, Judah, and Aram) to go ahead and develop a plan for success but know that it won’t work, because God is with them, in this case to judge the people. God further instructed Isaiah not to live or think like these unfaithful people. These coming catastrophes won’t be as a result of any enemy conspiracy. It’s God’s doing. Isaiah then and we today as God’s people are not to be fearful of the forces of evil, but to fear rightly our Holy God. He will be our sanctuary or protection if we fully trust and obey His word. He will either be our Lord and Savior or the cause of our stumbling and falling in this life and the next. Verses 14-15 are the basis for the complete fulfillment found in Jesus alone:“Offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a choice stone a precious cornerstone, And the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame.’ This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for unbelievers, ‘A stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief cornerstone,’ and, ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this they were also appointed’” (1 Pet. 2:5-8).

In light of this, Isaiah said to keep God’s word top of mind, not unopened on the shelf! Don’t look for truth or purpose with any other guru, spiritual or otherwise. He said if our lives and message don’t reflect accurately the Word of God, we will have no dawn, no hope—individu- ally or collectively as the people of God. Does the Word of God have that role in our private lives, our relationships with friends and family, and at Yorktown Methodist Church? 

REVELATION 13: An unholy trinity of three characters is the focus of chapter 13: the dragon, the beast out of the sea, and the beast out of the earth. These are sometimes referred to as Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet. The antichrist beast is said to have a head that has been 

READING FOR DECEMBER 19, 2025 CONTINUED: REVELATION 13, PSALM 126     healed from a fatal wound. There may be no other verse of scripture that has captured our imagination than the last verse of chapter 13. It is here that we read the number of the beast is 666. For centuries, people have tried to identify the antichrist by applying that number to people. These examples should remind us to be cautious in making such claims:

  • Emperor Nero, a notorious persecutor of the church: His name in Hebrew can add up to 666. 
  • Hitler: If you assign a value of 100 to the letter A, 101 to the letter B, and etc., “Hitler” adds up to 666.  
  • John Kennedy: He received 666 votes at the 1956 Dem. convention; he later died of a head wound.
  • Ronald Wilson Reagan: He had six letters in each name…666! He recovered from a near fatal wound.
  • Donald Trump: The address of Trump Tower is 666 and he recovered from a head wound.

Rather than trying to figure out the identity of the antichrist, this chapter has good advice for how we are to live when the world seems to be under the control of an antichrist spirit. Rev. 13:10 calls us to two things: patient endurance and faithfulness. No matter how bad things get around us, we remember from chapter 11 that Christ will ultimately reign over all the earth. In the end, evil will lose and Christ will win. We can patiently endure all the chaos before that ultimate victory. When Jesus spoke to the church in Philadelphia, he mentioned Satan’s work among them but called them to “endure patiently.” (3:10) Those who endure patiently will join with Jesus when he reigns. Paul says, "If we endure, we will also reign with him.” (2 Tim. 2:12)

We are also called to be faithful even when our faith is attacked. When Jesus spoke to the church in Smyrna, he told them that Satan would persecute them. But Jesus challenges the church to, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (2:10) Jesus told the church in Pergamum that they lived where Satan had his throne. A faithful servant named Antipas was killed for his faith. Jesus affirms them because they were faithful even in the midst of such attacks. (2:12-13) No matter how bad things get on the earth. Even when the time of the antichrist comes, we do not need to fear. We can choose patient endurance and faithfulness.                                                                                                                                 

PSALM 126 The Psalmist recalls how Israel felt after God restored them to a good position, possibly the return from the exile in Babylon. It was so great that it was like a dream, almost too good to be true. They couldn’t stop smiling. This good turn of events was noticed by other countries because it was unmistakably the work of the Lord, not man. Can we remember a time like this? Maybe we felt this way when we first got married or had our first child or landed that first real job. Let’s remember that time and thank God for it. Maybe the Lord has such a time ahead of us as a church body at Yorktown. Can we dream big enough? Verse four begins a plea for God to do it again. The Psalmist says they are currently in a desert, like the Negev. But God can bring refreshing streams to even that arid land. Do we feel we are in the Negev? Let’s pray that He brings streams our way. Note, that even though this is God’s doing, we have to sow the seed, maybe with tears, in order to reap with songs of joy. LET’S START SOWING THE SEED OF THE GOSPEL.