Title: Ex 15:11, "Who is like Thee among the gods, O LORD
Author: Theodore S. Enke

Sunday, August 16, 2026

1 Kings 11:13, However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen." 
	We pick up, once again, this morning with our consideration as to how The Lord made the every provision for the fulfillment of His promise to David. This was for the Messiah, the Promised One from the lineage of King David to sit upon the throne of all creation forever and forever. There was that complete working might of God in place to go forward despite the whims and the foibles of humanity. God would surely and bring forth that divinely guaranteed and pledged One Who would establish shalom within the chaos that is at work in this creation. What was done to try to subvert and hinder the power of God would be utterly destroyed in the Christ to come! 
	One of the great prophets who would declare this tremendous  working power of God is Isaiah. We have a couple of passages before us this morning which brings forth this reality of the One Who would fulfill this great promise of God for those who would but call upon His name. We begin with the well-known passage of Isa 9:6+7.
	Isa 9:6+7, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. 
	Such a wonderful and marvelous prophecy of the One Who was to come. There would be nothing of this realm which would tarnish His Eternal Dominion over the whole of God’s creation. All that has been made will be the recipient of the justice and the righteous judgment of God Almighty forever and forevermore. 
	This was a passage that brought great comfort to the Hebrew nation as they would undergo the trials and the tribulations and the persecutions of this age. 
	However, they would take it in the manner in which fire and brimstone would reign forth upon the enemies of God. It was not fully evident to them that Yahweh had a far greater and much more expressive manner of dealing with those considered to be the enemies of the King. Those adversaries would be put into the embrace of the love and the forgiveness of God despite all our unworthiness and our insincerity and our befuddled means of making such a mess in the midst of the beauty of God’s creation. 
He would send forth His Only Begotten Son to redeem and to express that which would shake the core, foundational pillars of this age. He shattered the reign of ugliness and injustice and violent malfeasance with the expressed heart of the Love and the grace and the mercy and the compassion of Almighty Yahweh in full display! Nothing of this realm will stand against the manifested and endlessly lavished Love of God reigning down from the heights of His Glory and His Majesty!
Then, to King Hezekiah was given this prophetic utterance concerning the threat that was imminent with the coming assault of the king of Assyria. The known world of the Middle Eastern civilizations had fallen to this mighty army swarming forth like army ants, in dominance and conquest. That army was unimpeded by any of the nations that were being overwhelmed. 
Hezekiah was crying out to the Lord for the sake of Jehovah’s testimony in the midst of this approaching doom. It was a matter of the witness that The Lord God Almighty was, in fact and in deed, the only true and living God among all the gods of the surrounding nations. There was a promise made by God to Hezekiah that was utterly vital to the fulfillment of that which had been sworn to David those many decades ago. We find this recorded in Isa 37:32-35. 
Isa 37:32-35, "For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this."' "Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, 'He shall not come to this city, or shoot an arrow there; neither shall he come before it with a shield, nor throw up a mound against it. 'By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,' declares the Lord. 'For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake.'" 
	The Lord had much at stake in the preservation of the lineage of King David upon the throne of Judah. He had set this small tribe aside as the means by which the Messiah, the Promised One, The Christ would be forthcoming for the sake of the establishment of the eternal kingdom of God within the hearts and lives of all creation. 
	To Him, to the Anointed and Promised One would be the majesty and the glory and the praise of all that is created. Many myriads of people would call upon His name as they walked on this earth. Every person will have to bow and honor Him in the revelation of His awesome and miraculous work of salvation. This could only come into fruition by the Hand of God working and establishing and maintaining that which was the divine plan from before eternity.
	However, as the Prophet Isaiah would fully declare, there was a great cost that was necessary for this Kingship of God to become the fulfillment of the manifested heart of Jehovah unto the humanity whom He had created. The Only Begotten would have to bear the sin and the guilt of those whom He came to save. He would undergo the just sentence of death against the sin. He would pay that final and ultimate cost of the disobedience of mankind. 
	This would be despite the fact that He was absolutely perfect in every aspect, and guiltless before the throne of judgment. He would willingly take upon Himself, with no sin in His own walk on this earth, all that we would heap upon His suffered and afflicted body and soul even unto death, death on the cross!
	Please turn to Isa 53 as we will read together that which was so necessary for the redemption of human kind from the sin and the shame of our disobedient and rebellious and vile nature of selfish exaltation. Jesus was the willing Suffering Servant Who is proclaimed in this well known passage of scripture that cuts to the core of our beings with the cost of our redemption by His blood shed for the likes of us.
	Isa 53, Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. 
	We now turn to the Prophet Jeremiah as he too proclaimed the fact that no matter what this world tried to do to derail the plan of God. Nothing would stop The Lord from carrying out His Great Promise! 
	There might be those times when things were not as obvious and the working power of God would be hidden from the prying eyes of creation, but it would still happen just as Yahweh had always proclaimed! There would be no way for the power of this age to stop what God was doing in the giving of His Only Begotten Son, the Son of David, Jesus Our Lord and Our Savior. 
	He now sits on the throne, not just of the descendants of the tribes of Israel, but of the very stretches of His creation. Just as each day rolls into each night and nothing of this world can stop that law of nature from proceeding forward, so will the working might of God be done, in heaven as it is on this earth!
	Please listen to what The Lord declares to us through the prophet in Jer 33, verses 17-26. Jer 33:17-26, "For thus says the Lord, 'David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually.'" And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, "Thus says the Lord, 'If you can break My covenant for the day, and My covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers. 'As the host of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.'" And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, "Have you not observed what this people have spoken, saying, 'The two families which the Lord chose, He has rejected them'? Thus they despise My people, no longer are they as a nation in their sight. "Thus says the Lord, 'If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.'" 
	Then, after the fullness of the time had been accomplished, God ordained that humanities’ need for redemption had come. The promise, by which the saints of the Old Testament times had lived their lives, looking forward to The Messiah, was at hand. There would be sent forth the Only Begotten of The Father to bring salvation and adoption into the Beth Ab, the family of God. This was proclaimed by the arch angel to the young virgin, as recounted in Luke 1:30-33.
	Luke 1:30-33, And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. "And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end." 
	Through all the humanly tragic history of the people of God with all the countless attempts of the enemy to derail and set aside the Promise that God had made to the descendents of David, despite all the conquests of the people and the utter destruction of those northern tribes of Israel, there was the bright light of the power of God set to reveal His eternal truth. He would utterly shine away the darkness that was seemingly overwhelming the hopes and the faith of that remnant of a people who loved and trusted Jehovah above all else! 
	The Christ was come! The promise was accomplished! The Father sent forth His Only Son, to be born in the lineage of David to manifest the truth and the life and the love and the eternal sovereignty of God Most High. 
	This was proclaimed by Zacharias, as recounted in Luke 1:68-75, as he was reveling and thanking God at the birth of his son, John. There was the recognition that the Christ was imminent and that all that was recorded in the writing of the Book of God’s Word had come to realization and implementation. The new born son of this high priest would be the one to go before The Messiah and to prepare the way of the Lord. 
	God’s promise was done! The truth was firmly established! God’s plan of the redemption of a people unto Himself was at hand!
Luke 1:68-75 ,"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant — As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old — Salvation from our enemies, And from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. 
It is in Jesus, The Only Begotten Son of God, from the tribe of Judah, in the house of David, that all the promises and the prophecies and the mercy and the love of God are brought into being! He is the culmination of that which was promised! He is the hope and the future of all that is to come into place through the majesty and the splendor and the omnipotence of Yahweh, now and evermore! So be it!
However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Luke 1:68+69. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant — Amen.