Isaiah 10:17
17 And the light ['owr] of Israel [Yisra'el] shall
be for a fire, ['esh] and his Holy One [qadowsh] for a flame: [lehabah] and
it shall burn [ba`ar] and devour ['akal] his thorns [shayith] and
his briers [shamiyr] in one ['echad] day; [yowm] KJV-Interlinear
17 And the
light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame, And it will burn
and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day. NASB
The God of Israel, who we
know as Jesus Christ, who was back then the promised Messiah, the Son of God,
who walked in the Garden with Adam, who talked with Abraham, who led the
Israelites out of Egypt, who appointed David, who was born Jesus and went to
the Cross to provide salvation for all of mankind. Who is the ruler, the sovereign of all that
is, who controls history, who gives life and takes life in accordance with the
divine plan.
And so, as Israel will be
destroyed by these words, and which was destroyed in due course at the hand of Assyria.
That same God, will destroy
Assyria as completely and thoroughly, and even more so, than they destroyed Israel.
God is a fire. God is a flame. The fire is the burning light that provides
warmth and heat and light by which to see and understand life. The flame is that same fire that can devour
and destroy.
As Israel will be and was
destroyed and absorbed into the conquering nations around it, but will survive
throughout the ages until the Second Advent, it will not be so for Assyria. Once Assyria is destroyed, it will fade into
oblivion and history never to rise again.
And on a single day, at
the Second Advent, and this is a literal single day for that future event, then
Jesus Christ will destroy not only the region to the north of Israel, but all
of the world as evil will be defeated and obliterated, making way for the Kingdom
of God here on the earth, which we call the Millennium.
Back in Isaiah’s day,
Assyria fell, but not in the space of a day, but over the course of many
battles and years.
To devour the thorns and
briers, means to utterly destroy the country.
Not even the weeds will survive.
That means total and complete destruction. All evil, all peoples in the invading forces,
and in opposition toward God, who are alive at the Second Advent, will be
destroyed. At the Second Advent there will
not be even a single evil survivor.
During the seven years of
the Tribulation, the entire population of the world, which may be in the many
billions of people by that time (we are over seven billion now), will be totally
reduced to a very, very small number. Perhaps
only a few hundred or a few thousand believers that will survive to the end of
the Tribulation.
