God desires all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4). Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Isaiah 11:1-5 precisely and incontestably, talks about Jesus Christ, followed by verses 6-9 being the prophecy outlined in this book. After that, verses 10-12 point again to Jesus Christ. Based on our findings above, we can surely attest the word Lord in verse 9 to Jesus Christ the Saviour of this world. Isaiah 11:9 says, “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord (Jesus Christ) as the waters cover the sea”.
Therefore, what it means to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord is to deeply, dearly, accurately and indisputably know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour by putting on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge, according to the image of him who created us (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:17-32). As Paul instructs us in his various epistles, we need to gain the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord and be found in him (Philippians 3:8-11). That, as God’s children, we should be rooted in him, be alive in him, be hidden in him and be complete in him. Without Jesus we are nothing and just as we were with God, now in Christ, we live, move and have our being.
This means studying the ministry of Jesus Christ, including the minute details of everything he said and did when he came on earth. It means putting on the character of Jesus, talking his language, doing his works and worshipping the Father the same way he did (1 John 2:3-6). It means representing Jesus Christ and his kingdom, the same way an Ambassador represents his country (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Paul teaches us more about the meaning of Isaiah 11:9. He tells us what Jesus Christ himself did beforehand, to help his workers accomplish the work outlined in this book, that is, the work of filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. Jesus Christ filled his workers with gifts. Every seasoned Christian is a worker of Christ therefore we are all included on this list. He made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, in order to equip the saints for works of ministry. His ultimate goal was to build up the body of Christ, in such a way that we all:
(1) Reach unity in the faith and
(2) In the knowledge of the Son of God, as we
(3) Mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.
Once we are filled, the result will be the following:
1) We will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.
2) Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head.
3) From him the whole body, fitted and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love through the work of each individual part (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Once we get to this level then we start operating in Isaiah 11:9 where no one harms anybody. Jesus never harmed anybody. He never hurt anyone. He didn’t hate a soul. He gave hope to everybody. He touched and loved everyone, even those who were universally detested, Jesus amazed all by touching them. This is the epitome of the prophecy we are praying for in this book, “zero-hurt”. “zero-hate” and “zero-harm” environment, based on what our King, our Master, our Saviour and our Lord taught us. He did not only teach but he lived by example by practising what he taught.
The Pharisees on the other hand, were egotistical, therefore, they didn’t see any need for Jesus Christ. To this group he dealt with them according to what they deserved. Being filled with the knowledge of the Lord also means knowing God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This book has tried by all means to lay a firm foundation for you to get started on your journey of knowing the Godhead better. The good news is that as we spend time in prayer and also reading the Bible the Holy Spirit helps us to know the Godhead within a short period of time.
God deposits knowledge about himself into us by the power of his Spirit. In today’s language I can say, all information about the Godhead and the kingdom is downloaded into you from heaven, at a speed that will surprise you. You just happen to know things and you wonder how they came into you. Once this knowledge has come into you then you will become a different person, because you will be filled. You can never remain the same after the download. You will immediately go into the field and start harvesting others for the kingdom of God. Paul did the same the moment Jesus visited him. He was immediately seen teaching others and they were all surprised (Acts 9:20-21). That is what the power of the Holy Spirit does.
Once you are filled with the knowledge of the Lord, you become like Jesus. You will not hate, harm or hurt anyone. You will stop bullying others at school. At home you will start respecting everyone who is older than you. In the workplace, you will stop being a difficult person to work with, you will respect the views of others and you will accept correction. In the streets, being filled with the knowledge of the Lord means that, you will agree to dissolve your gang and turn it into a Bible study group instead. You will live in peace, without fear of other gang members. You will stop selling drugs because they destroy lives, instead you will preach Jesus Christ to your clients, because he has the power to restore the destroyed lives. Your clients will exchange drugs for the king of kings, Jesus Christ, who has the power to kill permanently the craving for drugs.
In the church, being filled with the knowledge of the Lord means that, you will stop judging and condemning others but will embrace them because they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Being filled with the knowledge of the Lord also means that, you will make every effort to be there for your aged parents even if they are in a care home, you will persevere to visit them every other week. You will treat others just as you would want them to treat you. You will stop stealing, you will stop gossiping, you will stop cheating, the list goes on. The Holy Spirit will convict you in any other area that you need change. Therefore, take time to learn as to how the Holy Spirit speaks to you. He can speak to you through a ‘feeling’ that comes on your body, or in a dream, or a vision, or an audible voice or a thought that keeps on coming into your mind.
To understand more on being filled we will start by looking at how other people from the Old Testament were filled with the Spirit of God and what they did thereafter. In Exodus 30:25 – 30, Moses was given instructions on how to make anointing oil that was used to anoint people with a special calling and also to anoint articles and furnishings for worship. People with special calling included priests, prophets and kings. The anointing oil acted as a cleanser so that once cleansed God’s presence would come upon that person. God cannot look at sin therefore cleansing had to start and then God’s Spirit came to settle on that individual or vessel that had been cleansed. Habakkuk 1:13 educates us about the nature of God. It says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong-doing” (Habakkuk 1:13). Exodus 30:29 teaches us more on how people and vessels of worship were made holy, “You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy”. Today you and I are cleansed by the blood of Jesus and once we become clean, the Holy Spirit indwells us. The Holy Spirit cannot come upon a dirty or sinful person. God will not attach himself to sin. His sight cannot stand sin as we have been taught by Habakkuk 1:13 above. Therefore, the blood of Jesus, in our time, comes first to remove all impurities on a person then the Spirit of God comes to live in that person.
The process of accepting Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord washes our sins away with his blood and we become blameless before God. I believe that everyone in the new covenant has a special calling in them because we are all filled with the Spirit of God in the same manner that the prophets, priests and kings were filled in the Old Testament. In this New Covenant we are all holy, I don’t see any reason why we cannot be, and as Exodus 30:29 states, whatever touches us becomes holy too because the presence of God is on us and in us at all times. We are all anointed like the generations in the Old Testament who were called for special office. God says to us in Leviticus 20:8 “Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy”. His presence makes us holy. For this reason, the Bible tells us that we are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Also, in 1 John 2:27 we are told to keep away from evil and wickedness for holiness lives in us. “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him”.
The New Testament believer is filled to overflowing with all goodness and power. Considering the sevenfold Spirit of God that is already in you, surely, you can only walk in victory. 1 John 2:27 told us already that we do not need anyone to teach us because Jesus Christ anointed us by depositing the teacher, the Holy Spirit who is sevenfold. To understand this power, we have to read Exodus 31 and see how Bezalel was empowered to do the work chosen for him through the Spirit of God.
Let us understand what it means to be filled by looking at a practical example. We will take our example of being filled from the first king of the Jews, Saul, in 1 Samuel chapter 10. Prophet Samuel was told by God to anoint Saul for the special office of a king. In verse six of that chapter Samuel tells Saul that he would prophesy together with others on his way home and the spirit of God would come upon him with power and might and he would be transformed into a different person. In verse ten we are told that the moment he turned away from Samuel to go his way, God changed the heart of Saul, he turned him into a different person. Now let us see some of the decisions he made which showed signs of being transformed into a different person.
As you may know, when a leader is chosen, not everyone believes in him at first sight or shall we say, at first announcement. That is what happened, some of the people rejected and ridiculed him when Samuel announced Saul as their leader. In 1 Samuel 11 Saul leads and wins a battle and in verse 12 his supporters try to ‘poison’ his mind by reminding him of the rejection he faced when his leadership was first announced by prophet Samuel. “The people then said to Samuel, “Who was it that asked, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Turn these men over to us so that we may put them to death” (1 Samuel 11:12).
A leader who is not filled with the knowledge of the Lord would jump into this opportunity to kill his enemies openly because the people have suggested it. A leader who is not filled with the knowledge of Lord thinks that killing them would ensure his position safe for as long as it takes. Other leaders kill their opposition in the night when no one is watching but for Saul they gave him a green light to have them killed in broad day light. Look at the response of the person who knows the heart of his Maker and acts in the same way that his Creator would have dealt with his creation.
1 Samuel 11:13
“But Saul said, “No one will be put to death today, for this day the Lord has rescued Israel.””
This is the answer of a person who walks in the fullness of the Lord. He keeps no grudges. He is a leader of those who love him and those who do not love him for God created them all and gave that land as their inheritance to live together. He is, as we would say today, a President of those who voted for him and those who did not vote for him. When he received the anointing, the Spirit of God came upon him and changed him into a different person. He prophesied according to Joel 2:28 and all his decisions were now based on the love of God and not on his ego. This is what you and I are expected to do once we are filled with the knowledge of the Lord.
When people saw what Saul did, they learnt something from their leader which they practiced later on Saul himself. Saul had no idea that what he had done on that day had been a seed planted that would save him in days to come. It does not mean that when you are filled with the Spirit of God you won’t make mistakes. It is how you deal with those mistakes that sets you apart from the filled and the empty. Saul made a rushed vow in 1 Samuel 14:
“Now the men of Israel were in distress that day, for Saul had placed the troops under an oath, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food before evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.” So none of the troops tasted any food”.
Guess what happened on that day, his son Jonathan tasted a little honey and it brought trouble on them all. The words of the father came rushing out again and in those days a leader had to honour his word (Judges 11:34-35). This is what Saul said in verse 44, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if you do not die, Jonathan”.
However, the teaching he demonstrated by forgiving the opposition, saved the life of his son that day. “The people said to him, “Should Jonathan die, he who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel? Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help.” So the men rescued Jonathan, and he was not put to death” (1 Samuel 14:45).
What a powerful and practical demonstration of what being filled means. Saul saved the lives of the people who once opposed him because he was filled. The people saved Jonathan, the son of Saul because they were filled. Now you and I can see plainly that what we want to achieve by praying for the manifestation Isaiah 11:9 is very feasible. The good we do to others will always come back and save us. Our good behaviour is observed by others and in the days to come they do what they saw us do. It means we become different by the power of the Almighty God. We throw away anger, ego, selfishness, competitive minds and we accept correction no matter what position we hold in society. It means we respect and regard all life and we quickly let go of hurts by embracing the love displayed by Jesus when he was on earth, that of being quick to forgive and slow to anger.
The prophecy in Isaiah 11:6-9 cannot take place by our own plans and power without Jesus Christ himself. Therefore, we collectively undertake to help each other draw the power of Jesus Christ into every life that we know. As we do that, we also pray for one another to see the light. I am convinced that you are able to read this book because you went to school. I want you to remember days when your teacher would struggle to explain something to a group of 3-4 individuals who could not grasp something and yet on your side, you understood the moment it was initially explained. But you would see the others struggling and you wondered how their minds could not fathom the simple. The same thing happens with the light of God. Light was the first thing that God created but more than half the world population cannot see it. The only light they see is the sun and the moon and the stars which were made to mark the seasons and the days (Genesis 1:14). The real light is Jesus Christ, but they cannot see him. Therefore, it is the duty of every enlightened person to reach one and command light to shine forth out of every darkened heart (2 Corinthians 4:6). For this reason, Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples of everyone so that each disciple would reach one. This is not the work of the clergy but us the congregants.
Followers do not reach anyone; they sit at the same church and same seat until they die. Have you ever fought for a seat in church and someone tells you that for twenty years they were sitting on that chair? How can one be a learner for 20 years without graduating into another level or moving into the workplace? These are typical followers. Why not phone a friend who has a problem going to church, make an appointment and go and preach in their home until they are comfortable to go into church every Sunday. Someone said to me it was difficult for him to sit by himself in church, it would be better if I sat with him. What would happen is that the day I tell him I was not going to church, he would choose not to go that Sunday. It was a strange thing to me though, but we are all different. As I said earlier in this book, the current school system is not for everyone that is why even in developed countries we still have people who cannot read or write. The way we do church, that is people going to a building may not be for everybody but if we real want everyone to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord we have to incorporate different methods that are comfortable for many to adopt. Conducting home based family churches would be a starting point. That is, encouraging families to assemble on their own or with their neighbours or cousins or all immediate family members coming together in one house and worshipping together would help many to start from the basics. Once they are comfortable, they can then all join a local church as a group. Even in the workplace, budgeting 30 minutes for corporate worship would help others to learn how to relate to God. In the school, the morning assemble would help greatly to share the word of God.
The whole prophecy is about knowing God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. For this prophecy to be realised we have to adopt a different strategy from what we have been doing so far. Instead of waiting for people to come to church to learn about their Maker the congregants should go out to preach and all churches will be filled with people in the long run. The message would then be changed to the basics so that all those who are coming to the knowledge of their Lord would know him better. As it is right now, new people come to church, and do not understand much because the priest can preach on anything in the Bible. Only those who know the Bible benefit much. So, going back to Sunday school lessons would be beneficial for many new people. Secondly there are Alpha courses everywhere, we would encourage the new members to join and learn from them and be given an opportunity to ask questions. These are free courses that anyone can attend from anywhere in the world. You can google ‘Alpha course near me’ and you will definitely find one.
Let us recap the steps to starting your walk with the Lord:
1) Receive Jesus as your personal Saviour
You do this by confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead as we are taught by Romans 9:10. All you have to say is, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” There is a jailer in Acts 16:25-34 who asked his prisoners, namely, Paul and Silas, how he could be saved. This is after God had sent a tremor like an earthquake that opened all prison doors. The jailer woke up from his sleep and when he saw prison doors opened, thought the prisoners had escaped so he took his sword to kill himself because these were high profile and sought-after prisoners. He could not stand being interrogated by his superiors over the matter. Paul and Silas’s answer was so simple, they said to him, believe in Jesus Christ and you would be saved. People of this planet earth, this is all we ought to do, “believe in Jesus”, and we will be saved.
2) Receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit
You need power from above. The Holy Spirit marks you or seals you as a candidate for heaven. His work is to teach you and guide you. His work is to bring messages from God for you. He is an invisible person who lives with you. You have to learn how to communicate and relate to him. Remember he is with you when you are with him that is how he works. You have to draw yourself close to him and he will do the rest for you. If you ignore him, he will ignore you too. If you say to him, “good morning or good afternoon or good night Holy Spirit” he will definitely fellowship with you. Talk to him as you would talk to a friend and tell him all your concerns, he will solve them for you, for there is nothing impossible with him.
3) Read your Bible daily
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Jesus Christ is your teacher and he knows to teach better by far than all the teachers of the world combined. However, he teaches you from the Bible. Take your Bible and say, “Lord Jesus, teach me something new from what I am about to read, something that I have never heard anyone preach before. Amen” You will be amazed with the knowledge that will fill you up inside without knowing how it entered your mind. Reading the Bible helps to know more about the Kingdom of God. Desire to get the teaching directly from God.
4) Teach others about Jesus
Bring others to the same knowledge you now have and pray for their hearts not to be hardened. Go with them to the nearest church where full time workers would minister to them.
5) Do acts of kindness
Find something that you are passionate about and sacrifice your time to doing it and by so doing you will be helping others as well.
Call to prayer
May the Lord direct every human being’s heart into the love of God and into the patience of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5). Lord Jesus, we are kindly asking you, from the depth of our hearts, to wash everyone in the land of the living, with your blood and to fill each human being with your presence and with your character, so that we can live in peace without harming, hurting or hating each other. May the prophecy recorded in Isaiah 11:9 come to pass in our generation. In your name we ask you according to John 14:14. Amen.
This is chapter 14 of the book “Would you like to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord” Click here to read the whole book.