Your Sons Like Poplars...

The Yhwh gave this to me a couple of weeks ago, and I just haven't had time to write about it yet, but this was such an encouragement and confirmation about what Yhwh is doing in these last days, and in our lives.

I was reading in Isaiah 45, and had gone back the enxt day, to read and study and chew on the text, but I wanted to start a chapter previous, to get more of the context and appreciate what the text was saying.  When I started reading in chapter 44, it said this:

 NAU Isaiah 44:1 "But now listen, O Jacob, My servant, And Israel, whom I have chosen:  2 Thus says the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you, 'Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen.  3 'For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants;  4 And they will spring up among the grass Like poplars by streams of water.'  5 "This one will say, 'I am the LORD'S'; And that one will call on the name of Jacob; And another will write on his hand, 'Belonging to the LORD,' And will name Israel's name with honor. 

The latter half of Isaiah is written all about the restoration of Israel in the last days.  Yhwh always tells Jacob/Israel now to be afraid, and that He is for them.  

3 'For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants;

In verse three, He says that He will "pour out water on thirsty land, and streams on dry ground."  The Word in Scripture is likened to Water, and dry, thirsty ground to people or lands where there is no hearing of the Word of the Yhwh.  As I was reading through this verse, it brought to mind imagery, both of Yhwh literally fulfilling this in the land of Israel, where there are already streams of living water flowing in previously dry stream beds.  But then we also have the spiritual component, because the phrase is complemented in the second stanza by saying He would pour pout His Spirit on your descendants.  The apostle Peter stated that this is what was happening on Pentecost, after the ascension of the resurrected Messiah, Yeshua ben Josef. 

4 And they will spring up among the grass Like poplars by streams of water.' 

Then I received another insight as I continued to read.  The imagery of trees planted by streams of water from Psalm 1.  "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the Torah  of Yhwh, and on His Torah He will meditate, day and night.  And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf never withers, in whatever he does, he prospers" (Ps. 1:1-3).

And so I picture all this dry, cracked waste land which we picture of ancient Egypt, and I think of John hte Baptist at the Jordan, with the scribes and the Pharisees looking on.  And he says to them, "God can raise up children from these stones!"  And I wonder if he is not drawing from this prophecy in Isaiah 44.

 4 And they will spring up among the grass Like poplars by streams of water.'  5 "This one will say, 'I am the LORD'S'; And that one will call on the name of Jacob; And another will write on his hand, 'Belonging to the LORD,' And will name Israel's name with honor. 

And so you have a picture of this vast waste land, dry and cracked, with sparse shoots of grass here and there, and all of a sudden, these Poplar trees begin to shoot up, not all together, but spaced apart, in random places... and they begin to grow large in height and strong, like trees planted by streams of water.  And the water is the Word, the Torah (which let's not forgot, was the only Word of God during the time of Yeshua and the apostles).  

So this passage is telling us that in the last days, in land stricken by a famine of the Word of the Yhwh, that He would pour out His Spirit on sons and daughters, and cause them to grow up like Poplars planted by streams of water, that is, full of strength and knowledge and understanding of the Word, the Torah... and that they would begin again to identify with Israel, and proclaiming to belong to the God of Israel.

And that has been me and my wife's experience with our beliefs and convictions, as we have studied about the return of the Messiah in the last days, and of his coming for His people.  And Abba has revealed these truths to us.  As He says in Ps. 25:14, "The secret (or counsel) of the Yhwh is for those who fear Him, and to them He will make known His covenant."