The Word To Live By: 10-25-25
Phil Waggoner
And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, and He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear. Isaiah 11:3
The Word to live by: Isaiah 11:1-5 is prophecy of the first coming of Jesus and how He will operate on the earth. Verses 6-16 are referring to the second coming. It is what Jesus did and how He did it when He walked among men that we are to live by and mimic. To begin with, He delighted in the fear of the Lord. Another way of saying this would be He was led by His respect and honoring of the Word of God. I heard a man say a very long time ago, “If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, don’t do or say anything you can’t see Jesus doing or saying, and treat people the way you would want to be treated.” That’s not always the easiest thing to do. But if you will follow the second part of that scripture, “He will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear,” you will be a long way down the road. Remember in 2 Corinthians 5:7, when Paul told the Corinthians that they were to walk by faith and not by sight? That’s what it means - not judge by what your eyes see and instead, make a decision by what your ears hear. You walk by faith in the Word of God, not by what you see and hear around you when it doesn’t line up with the Word. In John 5:19, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” “Oh! Look at that! I’m having a vision of God raising the dead. I guess I’ll go do that.” No, the Bible says He was a human being like you and me. He got His information about God from the Word just like you and I do. He did and said what He saw in the Word. When He was confronted by a situation that wasn’t right, He spoke to it and kept moving forward. “Are you sure you’re not making this up?” Yep. Verse 4 of Isaiah 11, “But with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.” A better way of saying that would be, “He will slay wickedness with the authority of His words.” He has given His children the same authority to use His Word as Jesus had. Use it on wickedness, not on people.
Read through the Bible in a year: 1 Thessalonians 4; Isaiah 20-22; Psalms 115;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 25, Luke 15:1-16, Hebrews 3
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160