Arise O' Bride And
Put On Thy Strength
by Joanne Smith
“A WAKE, AWAKE; put on thy strength, 0 Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, 0 Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, 0 Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 0 captive daughter of Zion.” (Isaiah 52:1 & 2)
These two verses from Isaiah are the beginning of six chapters (52-58) the Lord gave to Terry (my husband) and I as we started our life of faith together. Over the years these Scriptures have served as a great source of promise, hope, comfort and strength to us. I was an infant in Christ at the time, with no Scriptural background, so you can imagine my excitement when I first read these chapters and thought they were written just for me. The Word of God is truly alive. The Word of God is Jesus!
During the week prior to The Open Door Fellowship's first meeting at place called Grotonwood in Groton MA., I was praying and asking the Lord what He would have me do; what my part should be! I kept hearing Isaiah 52-58 in that still small voice in my heart. "Oh that? - I always go to that, aren't there other Scriptures, Lord?" "No, this is who you are and what you are all about" is what he spoke to my heart. But it soon became evident He just didn't mean me alone, He meant the whole body of Christ today.
I thought I knew these chapters by heart but, as usual, my eyes were once again opened to the wonder of His prophetic word. Isaiah is speaking to the Church just as sure as he was speaking to his people, Israel. The similarities between the Church and Israel are many in the Scriptures. They are brought to culmination, however, in Revelation 21: 9 & 10 when an angel appeared to John saying "Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." The angel carried him in the spirit to a great mountain and showed him "that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto stone most precious even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." This city has a great wall with twelve gates with the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The wall of the city also had twelve foundations with the names of the apostles of the Lamb. We, the Bride, can take Isaiah's words personally because as we see in this great and marvelous passage from Revelation that the Bride and (New)Jerusalem are one.
More than an exhortation, I believe Isaiah's words are a command for the Bride to heed in these last days. These are not passive words, these are very active words - WAKE-UP, BE STRONG, PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON AND SWEEP YOUR HOUSE CLEAN!
Paul tells us in Rom. 13:11 "that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." and again in 1 Cor. 15:34 "Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame." This is the same exhortation Isaiah is giving to his people when he says "no more shall come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean"!
Strength is something we are to put on, and not sit around and wait for someone else to put it on for us. It is at our fingertips, all we have to do is don them. Paul tells us in I Cor. 16:13 to "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." and then again in Eph. 6:10 "... be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." The Lord commanded Joshua to be strong and courageous three times before going in to possess the Promised Land. Put on thy strength my friends! The Lord, through His word, has equipped us with ‘beautiful garments’ to wear and help us be strong - but like strength, take them, put them on, cloth your spirit in them, wear them daily. In several places Scripture instructs us to ‘put on’ various things. Paul exhorts us in Rom. 13:12 & 14 "that the night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light" and to "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ; and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." He also tells us "to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (Eph. 4:24) In Col. 3:9 & 10 he persuades us "to put off the old man with his deeds; and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Paul goes on to say in vs. 13 & 14 "put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
Perhaps the most prominent of these "putting on" Scriptures is Eph. 6.11-17 where we are instructed to put on the whole armour of God, having our loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, taking the shield of faith, to quench the fiery darts of the wicked, to take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God so that we may be able to withstand in the evil day.
Lastly, Isaiah says there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised or the unclean.
Who are the uncircumcised? Paul tells us in Eph. 2. "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands. That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." So, the uncircumcised are those who are lost from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Who then are the circumcised? Paul continues in Eph. 2 "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." He goes on to say that Christ has broken down the wall of partition between us (Jew & Gentile, Circumcised & Uncircumcised) and that through him we both now have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Where in times past we were strangers and foreigners to God's promises, we are now "fitly framed together growing unto an holy temple in the Lord." (Remember the scene from Revelation described earlier?) "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." (Phil. 3:3) The Scriptures also tell us that we "are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead."
Let the Bride put on the garments of strength and live the life of one circumcised in heart. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down O Jerusalem: loose the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.