Bruise Control (Isaiah 42:1-17)

Does the name Todd Bentley ring a bell?

It would if you had ever been to one of his revival meetings. Had you gone forward he would have rang your bell!

Listen to ‘burly’ Todd Bentley describe a typical night of ministry:

I said “God, I prayed for like 100 crippled people. Not one?” He said “That’s because I want you to grab that lady’s crippled legs and bang them up and down on the platform like a baseball bat.” I walked up and I grabbed her legs and I started going BAM. I started banging them up and down on the platform. She got healed. And another time I’m thinking “God, Why isn’t the power of God moving?” He said “Because you haven’t kicked that woman in the face.” And there was this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. The gift of faith came on me. He said “Kick her in the face – with your biker boot!” I inched closer and I went like this. BAM. And just as my boot made contact with her nose she fell under the power of God.

Bentley was a key figure of the so-called Lakeland Revival in 2008. The meetings attracted up to 10,000 attendees nightly, 400,000 total in-person. Another 1.2 million watched via the Internet.

(Bentley has since been disgraced by scandal).

I have one word: Christlike.

Christians ought to be Christlike in all we do, especially ministry. Nothing about those meetings was remotely Christlike.

What was Christ like? 

One of the most well-known descriptions is in our text. Jesus “will not cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench” (42:2-3). We wouldn’t be wrong to use the word gentle to describe Jesus.

Let’s discover together how much we ‘like’ Christlikeness. I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 God The Father Gives You A Profile Of Church Age Christlikeness, and #2 God The Father Gives You A Profile Of Kingdom Age Christlikeness.

#1 – God The Father Gives You A Profile Of Church Age Christlikeness (v1-12)

Todd Bentley is a worst case scenario. The typical revival service features much tamer but no less ostentatious antics. You can expect folks to be slain in the Spirit, lots of sweating and screaming and shouting. Not Christlike.

Conservative believers, often cessationists when it comes to gifts of the Holy Spirit, can fall short of Christlikeness. They give God accolades, but they let you know that it is their time in the Word, their prayer life, their giving – in others words, their self effort – that unlocks the power of God. They are the ones whom A.W. Tozer would describe as not being able to recognize if the Holy Spirit withdrew from their gatherings. Not Christlike.

Isa 42:1  “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

This is the first of four of what scholars call Isaiah’s Servant Songs (49:1-13; 50:4-9; 52:13 – 53:12).    

If you were asked to sum-up Jesus’ earthly ministry in one word, “servant” would more then suffice. His entire mission is encapsulated in Philippians 2:7&8, where we read He “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Always and forever fully God, Jesus added humanity to His deity via the virgin birth. He said of His being in the world, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45).

We like to make two-column lists; Pros & Cons, for example. Make one with the titles, I Came to Be Served & I Came to Serve. Record your actions and attitudes in an average day. At home: Did I serve my wife the way Jesus serves me? Etc., etc.

The Father “uphold[s]” His Servant. The word means to strengthen, to sustain. Fully God and fully man, Jesus set aside the independent use of His deity and was strengthened and sustained by His Father. How much more can we trust the Father to sustain us, who are weak and prone to wander? In fact, we need preferential treatment.

God the Holy “Spirit” came upon Jesus when He was water baptized by His cousin, John the Baptist. Jesus applied these verses to Himself when He taught in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. There can be no doubt that the Servant being described by Isaiah is Jesus Christ.

“He will bring out justice to the Gentiles.” Israel may be the apple of God’s eye, but the salvation of Gentiles was always part of the plan.

Isaiah first mentioned “justice” in chapter one, “Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow” (v17). Justice is righteousness in action, and it is the responsibility of nations to uphold it.

These are things we yearn for, are they not? We are heartbroken as we see greater and greater lawlessness, lawmakers passing evil legislation, people calling good evil and evil good. There will be real justice when the Just One rules.

I skipped over “My Elect One.” The Doctrine of Election gets our blood boiling towards one another. The Calvinists & the Arminians are the theological version of the Hatfield’s & the McCoy’s.

Ask yourself this: Did Jesus need to be saved? Of course not!  What does it mean, then, that He was God’s Elect One? He was elect to His service, not for salvation. I would submit there are other election passages from which we argue about salvation when the context is service.

The Father was delighted with Jesus. He was His Servant, chosen for His very particular service, depending wholly upon the Father to sustain Him.

God delights in you and each of us has a particular path of serving God that He wants to reveal to us.

We are not delightful. But if we are in Christ, He will complete the work He has begun in us. He will present us blameless, unblemished to His Father. Even now, in our present state, God sees us finished and perfect. Michelangelo is quoted, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I [see] the angel in the marble and [carve] until I set him free.”

Isa 42:2  He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.

Jesus is not intimidating. He is not manipulating. He is not controlling. He is not abusive.

Isa 42:3  A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.

We have reeds growing out of our urban pond. Once one is bent, there’s no restoring it to its original condition. May as well break it off.

Jesus sees us as bruised reeds. Albert Barnes writes, “He will not make those already broken down with a sense of sin and with calamity, more wretched. He will not deepen their afflictions, or augment their trials, or multiply their sorrows. The sense is, that He will have an affectionate regard for the broken hearted, the humble, the penitent, and the afflicted.”

The “smoking flax” is the almost-spent wick of a lamp. He will not extinguish or quench it. He will supply it with the oil of grace to see it rekindled.

“He will bring forth justice for truth” can be interpreted as “He will make sure that justice is done.” When the Lord rules, politics will have no place in determining justice. No grey areas will interfere with what is right.

Isa 42:4  He will not fail nor be discouraged, Till He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”

Why does it take time for justice to spread to the “coastlands?” The Kingdom of God on earth that follows the Great Tribulation is initially populated by mortal survivors of those awful seven years. They will repopulate the earth. They and their offspring will be sinners needing salvation. There will be futile resistance to the rule of Jesus.

Isa 42:5  Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it:

God points us to special creation a lot in order to underscore His greatness and glory. Notice, too, the order of these statements. God created Heaven & earth so He could create mankind. You truly are His master work.

Isa 42:6  “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles,

These verses are applied to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (12:18-21). Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum points out, “The Servant was not merely to make a covenant. He was to be both the maker and the essence of the covenant itself.”

Isa 42:7  To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

There are a few notorious prisons: Lurigoncho, Shawshank, Rura Penthe. Without Jesus, you are like a blind man sitting in the dark in a locked cell deep inside a prison.

Jesus is the light Who sets spiritual captives free.

The Father said He would “hold [Jesus’] hand.” If we are to be like Jesus, we must allow Jesus to hold our hand. It suggests intimacy, but also direction & protection. Compare a parent holding a toddler’s hand.

Isa 42:8  I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.

There are a multitude of lower-case ‘g’ gods. Whether idols, images, or ideas, God alone is Almighty God.

Isa 42:9  Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the God of prophecy. He alone can and does predict the future with 100% accuracy.

Isa 42:10  Sing to the LORD a new song, And His praise from the ends of the earth, You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!

The words, “new song,” appear often in the Bible. It certainly has application to keeping our worship fresh by literally singing new songs. But here its deeper meaning is that we should walk in such a manner that we have new experiences of the grace, mercy, and love of God that are song-worthy.

Write a song!

Isa 42:11  Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, The villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing, Let them shout from the top of the mountains.

Isa 42:12  Let them give glory to the LORD, And declare His praise in the coastlands.

This is a lyrical way of saying that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.

You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, Gene. The Lord is not always gentle. He’s coming back to rule with a rod of iron, to judge the wicked and cast them alive into the Lake of Fire.”

You are correct, and we are going to see that in the next few verses.

But that’s in the future, after the church, is resurrected & raptured. It isn’t now; it is after now, after the Church Age. In the present we are to be like the Lord in His first coming. “Make me a servant…”

#2 – God The Father Gives You A Profile Of Kingdom Age Christlikeness (v13-17)

The descriptions of Jesus in the next verses are “Mighty man,” “man of war,” “lay waste the mountains and hills, dry up all their vegetation… make the rivers coastlands… dry up the pools.”

This is an abrupt change. It describes a future dispensation.

Isa 42:13  The LORD shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.

I can’t read this without thinking about Jesus in His return to earth as King of kings in Revelation 19. He joins the Battle of Armageddon and easily dispatches His enemies by the sharp sword coming from His mouth.

Isa 42:14  “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once.

The Lord doesn’t lose His temper and go off on unbelievers. He is longsuffering, not willing that any of Adam’s descendants perish.

Isa 42:15  I will lay waste the mountains and hills, And dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, And I will dry up the pools.

The Kingdom of God on earth will be glorious. Streams will suddenly break out in the desert.

It won’t be entirely blissful, however. As we said, folks born in the Millennium will be sinners in need of salvation. Ezekiel’s vision shows the priests making sin offerings during that time (40-46), and Zechariah  prophesies that some nations will sin by choosing not to attend the Feast of Tabernacles (14:18-19).

The physical changes the Lord makes in verse fifteen might be judgments upon disobedient nations in the thousand year Kingdom of God.

Isa 42:16  I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, And crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, And not forsake them.

Isa 42:17  They shall be turned back, They shall be greatly ashamed, Who trust in carved images, Who say to the molded images, ‘You are our gods.’

When “darkness [is made] light” the blind see. The folks in verse sixteen are converted and will be guided into the Lord’s truth in the future kingdom.

Idolaters, not so fast. “Turned back,” they will be “ashamed.”

We are reminded of the judgment that Jesus conducts at His return. He will separate the survivors of the Tribulation into national groups of believers and unbelievers. He calls the believers “sheep.” The unbelievers are “goats.”

The believing survivors enter in to the Kingdom as its first inhabitants. The unbelieving survivors are incarcerated, awaiting their eternal judgment.

In verse two we were told Jesus would not “raise His voice nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.” In verses thirteen and fourteen we read, “He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies… Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once.”

Your cat has over 100 vocalizations. The Lord has a limitless range of vocalizations. If you think this is an odd topic, remember that the apostle Paul said God the Holy Spirit “Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).

Isaiah says some of what comes out of Jesus’ mouth will be crying out and shouting out.

If you’ve had any experience with martial arts you learn to kiai, or kyup. It’s the shout you make while fighting. It has value in causing you to exhale & inhale at the proper time. But mostly it is for intimidation.

I’ll say this – If you can “cry like a woman in labor” you’ve got an advantage in a fight.

Jesus is “the lion of Judah.” An adult male lion’s roar can be heard up to 5 miles away. It’s so loud that a single roar can reach up to 114 decibels – that’s estimated to be 25x louder than a gasoline-powered lawnmower. It’s not just the volume. The experience of hearing a lion roar is terrifying.

I cannot begin to imagine an unconverted sinner seeing the Lord as a “mighty man of war,” crying out and shouting aloud.

Can you “pant and gasp at once?” Jesus can and it will stun those who witness it.

There are many legendary battle cries:

• The “rebel yell” was the notorious battle cry of Confederate forces during the Civil War. A Union officer described the banshee yel, “It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard – even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope.”
• The ancient Roman legions usually marched in silence to maintain order in their ranks, but once they encountered the enemy, their lines would erupt with intimidating war cries that some described as resembling the sound of a stampeding elephant.
• “Bonsai” & “Geronimo” & “Huzzah” are famous one-word battle cries. Go to any Revolutionary War reenactment and you’ll hear “Huzzah.”
• On the seventh day of the march around Jericho, “the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him” (6:4-5).
• Gideon instructed his reduced special force, “When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!’ ”

We have a battle cry: “Ready or not, ________.”

The Church Age ends with a “shout” and a trumpet blast when Jesus returns to resurrect & rapture the church.

Until He does, stay on mission. Go and preach the Gospel… Be ‘first-coming’ Christlike about it.

Against All gods (Isaiah 41:1-29)

It’s called ledge-dangling.

A staple in any action or adventure movie is the hero grabbing someone’s hand after they’ve fallen over a cliff or a railing, pulling them up to safety. The ledge-dangler commonly holds on by the fingertips of one hand.

Sam did it in The Return of the King as four-fingered Frodo gripped a ledge over the molten river inside Mount Doom.

BTW: Have you noticed that the ledge-dangler is always in the perfect spot for the hero to reach-out to them?

The majority of people do not have the strength to save a ledge-dangler with one arm. And unlike the movies, you only have a max of 60 seconds to do it. That was the finding of MythBusters. At or before the minute mark the dangler cannot hold on any longer and slips off.

The LORD is the strong-armed rescuer of Israel.

In our text the LORD told Israel, “I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” He reaches down to save them again and again.

Gentiles, too, need rescuing before. The LORD reaches-out to us with His powerful arm & hand. Tragically we sometimes prefer idols to God.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Your Idol Can’t Do Anything But Harm You, and #2 Your Lord Can Do Everything To Help You.

#1 – Your Idol Can’t Do Anything But Harm You (v1-7 & 8-20)

You’ll get the most out of these verses by admitting you have an idol or idols in your life:

• The apostle Paul described the Gentile converts in Thessalonica as “turning to God from idols” (First Thessalonians 1:9).
• The apostle John wrote, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (First John 5:21).

Turn from idols and then keep them in the rearview mirror.

Curiously, There is no single, agreed upon definition of an idol among Christians.

We commonly say, “Anything can become an idol.” That is a cop-out and unhelpful. Among the better definitions I came across were these:

• “Idolatry as is an attack on God’s exclusive rights to our love, trust and obedience.”
• “An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give.”
• “An idol is anything that replaces the one, true God.”
• “Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word.”

Martin Luther’s definition was, “Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is your God; trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and idol.”

If any of those speak to your heart, go with it. I don’t get them. I like this simple definition: “Idolatry refers to worshiping idols, images, or other ‘God-substitutes.’”

Let’s jump into the chapter and see God v. gods.

Isa 41:1  “Keep silence before Me, O coastlands, And let the people renew their strength! Let them come near, then let them speak; Let us come near together for judgment.

The LORD addressed all Gentile nations. He invited them to come and plead their case as to whether their idols were superior to Him.

As I read verses 2 & 3, try to guess the historical figure.

Isa 41:2  “Who raised up one from the east? Who in righteousness called him to His feet? Who gave the nations before him, And made him rule over kings? Who gave them as the dust to his sword, As driven stubble to his bow?

Isa 41:3  Who pursued them, and passed safely By the way that he had not gone with his feet?

This is King Cyrus of Medo-Persia, known to historians as Cyrus the Great. He will be mentioned by name a little later on (44:28 & 45:1).

Why introduce him now? Here is why:

Isa 41:4  Who has performed and done it, Calling the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the LORD, am the first; And with the last I am He.’ ”

“Calling the generations from the beginning” is a way of describing prophecy. Cyrus wasn’t even born yet the LORD called him by name and described his career.

It is said that Nostradamus predicted the rise of Adolph Hitler. It’s because he uses a similar word, “Hister.” Turns out Hister in Latin is the Danube River.

• You have Nostradamus saying, “Babel, babel, babel, Danube, blah, blah, blah.”
• You have the LORD introducing “Cyrus” nearly 200 years in advance.

100% accuracy in detailed prophecy sets the LORD apart from other gods and all idols.

I say “other gods” (with a lower-case ‘g’) because physical idols were understood by Jews & Gentiles alike to be representations of literal supernatural entities. Recall what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians. They were attending feasts in the pagan temples because they were the best steak houses in the Empire. Trouble was, the feasts involved idol worship and the perversions that accompanied it. Paul said, “the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons” (First Corinthians 10:22). Real evil was behind the idols.

The Second Commandment assumes there are lesser gods: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

We hesitate to say it, but there are other gods. They are lesser, evil supernatural beings who inhabit the unseen realm.

Isa 41:5  The coastlands saw it and feared, The ends of the earth were afraid; They drew near and came.

“Coastlands” is – are you ready? – a synecdoche. It is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole. God was challenging all Gentile nations.

Isa 41:6  Everyone helped his neighbor, And said to his brother, “Be of good courage!”

Rather than turn to the LORD in repentance, the nations form alliances in order to resist him.

Isa 41:7  So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith; He who smooths with the hammer inspired him who strikes the anvil, Saying, “It is ready for the soldering”; Then he fastened it with pegs, That it might not totter.

Their strategy was to have the master craftsmen from each nation cooperate in making the best idols possible from the most precious minerals and materials. Not even Cyrus could match their gods-squad (or so they thought).

Drop down to verse twenty-one.

Isa 41:21  “Present your case,” says the LORD. “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.

Isa 41:22  “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, That we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come.

Isa 41:23  Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods; Yes, do good or do evil, That we may be dismayed and see it together.

The LORD challenged the devotees of the idols to accurately predict the future,  or do something to show their superiority.

The LORD loves these challenges. Elijah immediately comes to mind. He took on 450 prophets of the god Baal in a survivor fire challenge.  They couldn’t get fire, but the LORD did, and then Elijah killed them.

Isa 41:24  Indeed you are nothing, And your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.

Harry Houdini used to go around exposing psychic fraud. God exposed the gods as defrauding their worshippers. It was abominable to the LORD that they would choose them over Him. They were no help to them, while He was ready to bless them for believing.

Isa 41:25  “I have raised up one from the north, And he shall come; From the rising of the sun he shall call on My name; And he shall come against princes as though mortar, As the potter treads clay.

Wait; didn’t God say that Cyrus would come from the east in verse two? He did. And doesn’t the sun rise in the east? It does. How, then, does the north fit?

Cyrus was Persian but conquered Media – hence Medo-Persia. Persia was east, Media was to the north. Thus Cyrus was from the east and the north. Pretty detailed, n’est-ce pas?

Isa 41:26  Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know? And former times, that we may say, ‘He is righteous’? Surely there is no one who shows, Surely there is no one who declares, Surely there is no one who hears your words.

Isa 41:27  The first time I said to Zion, ‘Look, there they are!’ And I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings.

Isa 41:28  For I looked, and there was no man; I looked among them, but there was no counselor, Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

Isa 41:29  Indeed they are all worthless; Their works are nothing; Their molded images are wind and confusion.

The word “righteous” in this usage means He is 100% “right” in His prophecies. It was a simple choice: God or gods? Do people still say, “No brainer?”

  

Idolatry refers to worshiping idols, images, or other God-substitutes. We should not assume that the literal worship of idols & images no longer exists. Roughly ½ of the world’s population, over 4B people, bow down to physical idols & images and the demons behind them.

God-substitutes are our struggles. Lists include things like wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A person will worship something, have no doubt. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.”

#2 – Your Lord Can Do Everything To Help You (v8-20)

Back to verse eight for insight about the LORD’s love for His servants.

Isa 41:8  ‘But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, The descendants of Abraham My friend.

I know that I sound like a broken record, but it is always important to point out that God will never cast away the nation of Israel. These verses were addressed to ethnic Jews, the descendants of Abraham through Jacob, patriarch of the twelve tribes.

Author Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Ill., does not view the re-establishment of the modern state of Israel as related to biblical prophecy.

Earlier this year, McKnight and co-author Cody Matchett released Revelation for the Rest of Us, in which they contend the Bible’s final book is about Christian discipleship for the church, then and today.

Isa 41:9  You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its farthest regions, And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away:

I submit that this describes the Last Days regathering of Israel from being scattered to “the ends of the earth,” to “the farthest regions.” He will never “cast [them] away.” No one can supersede or replace ethnic Israel. Their gifts and calling as God’s “servant” cannot be revoked. God will never forsake them, even in their backslidden unbelief.

Isa 41:10  Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

Next to verse ten write God Wanna’ Hold Your Hand.

I miss holding hands with the kids when they were little. Mostly it was a simple, loving gesture. But in parking lots (or WalMart) you hold their hands a lot tighter, right? You have superior strength to protect them.

When called to serve or to suffer, if we take stock of our own strength, we should always find it to be less than we thought, and less than we need. God forbid we would say to Jesus, “I got this!”

An anonymous commentator wrote,

Do we not remember seasons of labor and trial in which we received such special strength that we wondered at ourselves? In the midst of danger, we were calm; under bereavement, we were resigned; in slander, we were self-contained; and in sickness, we were patient. The fact is that God gives unexpected strength when unusual trials come upon us. We rise out of our feeble selves. My own weakness makes me shrink, but God’s promise makes me brave. Lord, strengthen me “according to Thy Word.”

Isa 41:11  “Behold, all those who were incensed against you Shall be ashamed and disgraced; They shall be as nothing, And those who strive with you shall perish.

Isa 41:12  You shall seek them and not find them – Those who contended with you. Those who war against you Shall be as nothing, As a nonexistent thing.

Despite the unprecedented hatred of the Jews, Israel will always prevail. It doesn’t mean they would not be conquered or taken captive. It meant they would endure to the end. Take a look back at Israel’s modern history and you see this prophecy fulfilled in the wars she has fought since 1948.

Isa 41:13  For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’

Isa 41:14  “Fear not, you worm Jacob, You men of Israel! I will help you,” says the LORD And your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Isa 41:15  “Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, And make the hills like chaff.

Isa 41:16  You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, And the whirlwind shall scatter them; You shall rejoice in the LORD, And glory in the Holy One of Israel.”

“Worms” isn’t derogatory. Boring into soil, worms help with crop health. What we have here, then, is an agricultural metaphor. Worms & threshers, of course, do different things. The point is this: Our strength is like bringing worms to an ag field, whereas the Lord can provide power on a scale way beyond what is natural.

Isa 41:17  “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, Their tongues fail for thirst. I, the LORD, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

Isa 41:18  I will open rivers in desolate heights, And fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, And the dry land springs of water.

Isa 41:19  I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, The myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine And the box tree together,

Isa 41:20  That they may see and know, And consider and understand together, That the hand of the LORD has done this, And the Holy One of Israel has created it.

These are miracles of preservation. Isaiah was again shown the future. The last 3½ years of the seven years of tribulation will feature the antichrist going all-out to murder every Jew on the planet. God’s “hand” will rescue them. As Jews flee from haters, God will miraculously provide the two things you need most in a desert: water & shade.

Do you fall a lot? I’m prone to falling. It’s just one of the many fun side effects of Parkinson’s. One or two times, as I was going down, I’ve yelled out, “I’m coming, Elizabeth!” (Because who doesn’t think of Fred Sanford at a time like that?).

I’ve avoided a full-scale fall a few times because there was something I could grab hold of

You see the lesson, right? If my hand is in the Lord’s hand, He won’t let me fall.

As Sam reached for Frodo, he said, “Give me your hand. Take my hand. Don’t you let go. Don’t let go… Reach.”

Does Jesus reach-out to you… Or do you reach-out to Him?

Yes; He does & You do.

Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. He said to him, “ ‘Stretch out your hand,’ and he stretched it out” (Mark 3:5). Jesus told the man to do what was not possible and he did it. So, yes: Jesus reaches out to us & we reach out to Him.

You’ve Got to Ask Yourself One Question: Do I Feel Awestruck? Well, Do Ya Pal? (Isaiah 40:12-31)

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Eiffel Tower, the Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal.

These are on most lists of extraordinary feats of engineering. If you grab the brochure while touristing any of these sites, you will be awed by numbers and comparisons. Hoover Dam, for instance:

Imagine a four-foot-wide sidewalk wrapped completely around the Earth at the equator. That’s a lot of concrete! That’s how much concrete it took to build the Hoover Dam. It’s amazing when you think about it. The dam is 726 feet tall and 1,244 feet long. That’s almost a quarter of a mile. At its base, the dam is a whopping 660 feet thick. That’s longer than two football fields stretched end-to-end! At its top, Hoover Dam is 45 feet thick. That may seem thin compared to its massive base, but it’s still nearly as wide as a four-lane highway. It is estimated to weigh 6,600,000 tons. More than 5,500,000 cubic yards of material were excavated.

Impressive.

Wanna talk about a few genuine marvels? The “waters,” the “heaven[s],” the “dust,” the “mountains,” the “hills,” and the heavenly “host.”

There is no building, or tomb, or canal, or dam, or tower that can compete with  its setting on the Earth in the universe created by God out of nothing in six days around six thousand years ago.

Every new marvel of human resourcefulness, we ought to smile and direct attention to our passage in Isaiah:

Isa 40:12  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales And the hills in a balance?

Isa 40:26  Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name…

We agree our God is awesome. Are we sufficiently awestruck? I’ll organize my comments around two questions: #1 Are You Awestruck At The Lord For His Creation? and, #2  Are You Awestruck With The Lord As His New Creation?

#1 – Are You Awestruck At The Lord For His Creation? (v12-20)

“The second half of the Book of Isaiah, consisting of the last twenty-seven chapters, is the sublimest and richest portion of Old Testament revelation.”

• The first thirty-nine chapters focused on the crisis that was in the present, the Assyrian threat of invasion.
• Chapters 40-66 looks 150yrs ahead to the prophesied crisis of Babylon and the 70yr captivity.

We learned in verse eleven that the LORD comforts us by reminding us of His coming for us. If you have any doubts that the Lord can comfort us while we patiently wait for Him, the remainder of chapter forty will drive them away.

Isa 40:12  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales And the hills in a balance?

I can hardly think of anything more insignificant than dust. Yet God used it to create the first man, arguably the greatest of His creations. It ought to humble us that our progenitor, Adam, was made not from anything precious. I recall a StarTrek original series episode in which something was removing all the fluids from the crew, leaving only a pile of minerals behind.

Think of yourself as the Peanuts character, Pigpen. A cloud of dust accompanies him wherever he goes. We are a little like that. Maybe not outwardly, but spiritually. The Lord cleanses us once-for-all by the Cross; and we need to daily be washed by the water of His Word because the world is a dirty, dusty place.

What is dust? According to the nearly infallible on-line resource that is Wikipedia, “Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of atmospheric particulates that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind, volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in homes is composed of about 20 – 50% dead skin cells.”

God knows about each sparrow that dies; He numbers the hairs on your head; He saves your tears in His bottle; and He can tell you how much dust there is by whatever measure you ask.

Our God is the creator and caretaker of dust – not some dead idol that merely collects dust.

Isa 40:13  Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has taught Him?

Do we not try to “direct” and “teach” the Lord rather than learn to be directed by the Spirit? Look at the way you pray. Do you, do I, extol God for His awesomeness… Or am I directing Him to do what I want done? Do we seek counsel from the ungodly?

Isa 40:14  With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, And showed Him the way of understanding?

I don’t know what the bidding was like to build some of the so-called Modern Marvels. I would guess that the architects and engineers who bid had credentials commensurate to the projects.

The God of the Bible is the only Person who is accredited to build universes and human beings. He alone has sufficient “knowledge… and understanding.”

What does “justice” have to do with it? Adam & Eve forfeited their rule over creation by disobeying God. God, Who is infinitely holy, cannot merely overlook sin, passed on to us as an inheritance and by imputation. God therefore devised a way of saving us by remaining both just and the justifier of sinners. That way is the death & resurrection of Jesus, the God-man, as the only acceptable sacrifice for sin and as our substitute. Do you believe that?

Isa 40:15  Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.

If you combined all the nations of the world, through all of human history, their power and might would be similar to a drop in the bucket of God. It’s a pretty big bucket. He created water and oceans and lakes and rivers and streams and aquifers. He is responsible for the morning dew and for the snowpack.

Do you dust-off your scale before getting on it? No, because it is insignificant to how much you will weigh. Nations are like “the small dust on the scales.”

Insignificant doesn’t mean unimportant. Nations, cultures, and geographic boundaries exist both now and in eternity.   

Isa 40:16  And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

If the famous forest and all its life could be burned it would fall short of a sacrifice that would honor the LORD.

Isa 40:17  All nations before Him are as nothing, And they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.

Nations are “nothing” and “worthless” when compared to God. Theologians explain the comparisons this way:

God is both transcendent over and immanent in, His world. These nineteenth-century words express the thought that on the one hand God is distinct from His world and does not need it. While on the other hand, He permeates the world in sustaining creative power, shaping and steering it in a way that keeps it on its planned course.

Isa 40:18  To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

Isa 40:19  The workman molds an image, The goldsmith overspreads it with gold, And the silversmith casts silver chains. [Idols were often hung from a ceiling by “chains”].

Isa 40:20  Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution Chooses a tree that will not rot; He seeks for himself a skillful workman To prepare a carved image that will not totter.

It’s almost comical to realize that your idol is man-made from the God-made elements. Any idol, therefore, is inferior to the LORD. Not only that, idolatry by definition is worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.

Idolatry is ultimately replacing obedience to God with your own passions and pursuits. It is a “Me first” approach to living. A life built on sand will not stand.

The apostle Paul regaled the Thessalonian believers for turning to God from idols. If you are not saved, you are an idolater.

Being awestruck with creation doesn’t mean we go camping more often, in order to marvel at the stellar heavens. God was telling His chosen nation that creation was a guarantee that His promises & plans for them, “plans to prosper [them] and not to harm [them], plans to give [them] a hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11) will most assuredly be fulfilled. The Creator didn’t create then walk away. He is involved, seeing to it all necessary things come to pass.

We have a guarantee as well. In the NT Book of Ephesians, we read that “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (1:13-14). Regarding the word “guarantee” Warren Wiersbe writes,

“[The word] means ‘engagement ring.’ Isn’t an engagement ring an assurance – a guarantee – that the promises made will be kept? Our relationship to God through Christ is a personal experience of love. He is the Bridegroom and His church is the bride. We know that He will come and claim His bride because He has given us His promise and His Spirit as [our] engagement ring. What greater assurance could we want?”

Be awestruck about this: God the Holy Spirit permanently indwells you, making you the Temple of God on earth. You might think, “I’m no Sistine Chapel or Norte Dame Cathedral. No, I’m a much greater Temple.

#2  – Are You Awestruck With The Lord As His New Creation? (v21-31)

We could have, and maybe should have, started with verse twenty-seven. God addresses “Jacob” and “Israel,” saying, “Why do you say, O Jacob, And speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, And my just claim is passed over by my God”?

God addresses the descendants of Abraham, the twelve tribes born from Jacob, the nation of Israel. They currently faced the Assyrian threat. In their future they would be captives in Babylon. After that, their pilgrimage on earth would be a rough & rocky road through history.

It continues to this very day. I’m not talking only about the war. Antisemitism is at a fever pitch. In Sydney, Australia, outside the Opera House, thousands of people chanted, “Gas the Jews.”

Suffering on the scale of Israel’s generates doubts. Those doubts eventually lead to a lament that God no longer looks upon them with love, and has taken away their “claim” to His promises and given them to others – the Gentile nations of the world.

It is not possible for any of God’s promises for plans for ethnic Israel to fail.

Isa 40:21  Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

Isa 40:22  It is He who sits above the circle of the earth…

I see in this a reference to God’s special creation of the universe:

• It speaks of “the beginning,” as “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
• “Foundations” have to do with the perfect placement of the earth in the greater universe around us.
• The “circle of the earth” probably refers to the horizon.

I don’t care what unbelievers say. There is design in the universe, and design requires a designer.

A quick word about creation. There are old earth creationists and young earth creationists:

• God could have created the world over billions of years. Last week a story suggested the universe is now twice as old as scientist had previously speculated – 26b yrs.
• He could have done it in six 24hr days & nights.

We favor the young earth teaching.

It makes the most biblical sense with the reading of Genesis from a literal, historical, grammatical point of view. If the earth seems billions of years old, it is because God created it with the appearance of age. Take Adam for example. When the LORD formed him from the dust of the earth, he looked like he’d been alive for a while. He wasn’t an infant or a toddler. He wasn’t an awkward adolescent. He might have only been 5minutes old, but he looked like a mature man.

Isa 40:22  It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

The heavens are like a wilderness within which God condescends to live in a tent, e.g. the wilderness Tabernacle and later, the Temple.

Isa 40:23  He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.

Isa 40:24  Scarcely shall they be planted, Scarcely shall they be sown, Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, When He will also blow on them, And they will wither, And the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.

The Bible presents a series of human empires that interact with Israel: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome are prominent. God raised them up to chastise the Jews. Each of them would fail, mostly because the would swell with pride.

You are born dying, deteriorating, decaying. At best you’ve got 100 years before you die, but you could die at any moment.

No one looks forward to waiting in line, or at an office. It is not uncommon to complain about it, saying something like, “My appointment was at 3pm and it is 4:15pm now.”

There is one appointment you are more than happy to wait for.

You have an appointment with death. “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Isa 40:25  “To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.

Isa 40:26  Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, By the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing.

You think you’re something? Maybe when compared to other people. But can you both number & name all the celestial bodies in the universe?

Isa 40:28  Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

In plain language God was saying, “I won’t give up on you!” He won’t become exasperated and toss away His chosen people.

God may not, but humans will. Antisemitism is to be expected from the world. What about the Church?  After the apostles died, Jew-hating became a majority opinion in the church. Origen (185-251AD) maintained that “the blood of Jesus [falls] not only upon those who lived then but also upon all generations of the Jewish people following afterwards until the end of the world.” St. Gregory of Nyssa (died 394AD) called the Jews “confederates of the devil… Sanhedrin of demons, accursed, utterly vile… enemies of all that is good.” In the late fourth century St. John Chrysostom described Jews saying “[T]hey murder their offspring and immolate them to the devil.” “For the crime of deicide, there is “no expiation possible… no pardon.” He concluded ominously that the Jews are like an old plow horse that is “marked for slaughter.

Skip ahead many centuries. The Great Reformer, Martin Luther, wrote The Jews and their Lies. Among other things he said, “Their synagogues should be set on fire, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed.”

Isa 40:29  He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.

Isa 40:30  Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,

Isa 40:31  But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Spiritual burn-out has become a popular topic in the church. The main solution being suggested is that you take time off from serving the Lord to ‘recharge.’ Pastors, for example, are taking sabbaticals. One organization that assists pastors says (unashamedly), “A true Sabbatical is a season of Sabbath for prolonged rest. It’s like stringing together a number of Sabbath days. It’s an extended time in which you do no work. You do no pastoring, no leading, no ministering, no visioning the future of the church, no sermon planning. You don’t try to accomplish anything big. You just do nothing!”

The Jews were described as “weak, having “no might,” “faint,” and “weary.” Then in verse thirty-one there is a dramatic change. “But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.”

What made the difference? Was it a sabbatical? “But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength.” The word for “wait” is better rendered hope. We can think of it as hopeful waiting. It is having hope in the Lord’s coming while we wait for Him.

Our verses compare us to “eagles.” Jeremiah made a similar exhortation using horses: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, Then how can you contend with horses?” (12:5a).

God expected Jeremiah to have the spiritual energy of a man who could outrun horses.

Burn-out? Think about it. If you are a believer, you are permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. He is an endless, immediate source of oil for your flame. You can ‘fly like an eagle’ and outrun horses to the extent you yield to Him and are led by Him.

The apostle Paul claimed that “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (Second Corinthians 5:7). Albert Barnes commented, “There is a change produced in the renewed heart of man that is equivalent to the act of creation, and that bears a strong resemblance to it – a change, so to speak, as if the man was made over again, and had become new.”

It is mind-blowing, but Paul understood the conversion of a sinner to be as much a working of God as was creation itself. “The change is so great as to make it proper to say that he is a new man. He has new views, new motives, new principles, new objects and plans of life. He seeks new purposes, and he lives for new ends.”

We sing that we are “filled with wonder, awestruck wonder,” at the mention of the Lord’s name. Because we remain in our bodies of flesh, with their propensity to sin, things seem to peak, then fade as we walk with the Lord. We are told, for instance, that we can & do leave our first love.

The same is true of our being filled with awestruck wonder at the mention of the name of Jesus.

If it has been a while since you’ve been awestruck, you can get it back, because our God IS the awesome God.

Isaiah 40:1-11 – Hey Judah, Let Me Into Your Heart, Then I Can Start To Make It Better

A half-pound of linguini with marinara sauce covered with a copious amount of Parmesan cheese accompanied by garlic bread

Chase that with a slice of my mom’s recipe NY cheesecake and you’ve got my comfort food.

What is your go-to comfort food?

Jesus often spoke of His comfort food:

• When tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread, a fasting Jesus quoted the Bible, “MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.”
• He told the Jewish leaders, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

If the Word of God is bread, then the next twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah are a comfort food feast.

Isaiah’s first course is the comfort derived from the Lord’s coming:

• Verse one: “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
• Verse three: “Prepare the way of the Lord,” because He is coming.

“Comfort” and “Coming” go together like peanut butter & chocolate, or soup & salad. The apostle Paul paired them when he gave the believers in Thessalonica a teaching about the Lord coming to resurrect and rapture them, then telling them to “Comfort one another with these words” (4:13-18).

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1God Speaks “Comfort, Comfort,” and #2 You Speak “Coming, Coming.”

#1 – God Speaks “Comfort, Comfort” (v1-2)

After thirty-nine chapters, the nation of Judah finally turned back to God from idols. It was time for the LORD to comfort His chosen nation.

Isa 40:1  “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God.

Repetition emphasizes something important. Today we might say, “Here ye, Here ye,” or “Pizza! Pizza!”

Contrary to their reputation as being a slough of despond, the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah are glorious. Sure, there is a lot of talk about judgment. But grace is on every page, too.

You can’t dispute, however, that chapters forty through sixty-six are full-throttle comfort. Just for fun, I did something I’d never recommend. I opened a Bible randomly in Isaiah 40-66, and without looking, pointed to a verse. When I opened the Bible all the way, I found I was in chapter sixty-one, with my finger on verse four: “And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations.” Encouraging? I’ll say!

That’s the way it’s going to be from here on.

You might need comfort. You might need correction, or convincing, or chastening. Maybe a reproof; maybe a rebuke. The Lord knows what you need and when. If the Lord isn’t comforting you the way you want, you can be sure it is the way He wants, in order to grow you and to mature you. The apostle Paul wrote, He “comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ” (Second Corinthians 1:4-5).

Comforters are made – forged in fiery trials and troubles.

If you are a fan of Iron Man, think back to when Tony Stark made the original Iron Man armor out of a bunch of junk while he was being held captive. Over time he perfected the suit. We don’t always give Jesus much to work with, nevertheless He is busy every day, completing the work He has begun in us. We are all a little bit clunky this side of eternity. “Now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (First John 3:2).

Isa 40:2  “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.”

“Speak comfort to Jerusalem” is better translated, “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” It is tender; it is intimate.

You can be helped, touched, moved by many things. I still cry when Lightning McQueen stops short of the finish line and helps the King finish the race. But Jesus is the only Person Who can speak to your heart. He alone can discern between your soul and your spirit. All other comfort is false and fleshly.

When you are talking to someone about Jesus, while appealing to logic and

intellect is OK, don’t forget God is using you as His voice to speak to their heart.

The Assyrian invasion had “ended,” and very dramatically at that. That isn’t the “warfare” Isaiah  was referring to. The Jews had been at war against God on account of their “iniquity,” their sin. It is why God sent  Assyria in the first place. The LORD wanted Isaiah to comfort them with the truth that they were reconciled to Him.

The good people at gotquestions.org say, “Reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship to a harmonious state after a dispute; it is the bringing of accord out of discord between two parties. Christian reconciliation is the work of God through Christ by which He restores mankind to a favorable relationship with Himself.”

Christians have been reconciled to God. “You were his enemies, separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault” (Colossians 1:21-22 NLT).

“For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.” A restitution, or fine, to double the amount of the wrong done was almost the normal standard of punishment under the Law of Moses (Exodus 22:4, 7). Here the same thought is presented in its opposite aspect. Israel has received “double for all her sins,” and therefore would receive double blessings upon repenting.

Are you burdened by your past? Is the devil constantly throwing your sins in your face? If you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive them and to cleanse you. Earlier in Isaiah we saw that after Judah repented, God called her His virgin daughter. She had, in fact, been committing spiritual adultery. That’s what I call double blessing.

The LORD instructed His prophet to “comfort, comfort” Judah. What word would you choose for our nation?

I’ll mention one thing, and hopefully you will understand I am only stating something obvious, not partisan. Many believers have historically voted based on a single issue – Abortion. Unless I’ve got it wrong (and I don’t think I do), if things play out as they are projected to, the next presidential election will be the first I can remember in which there is no ProLife candidate to vote for:

• President Biden is not ProLife, nor is the Democratic Party.
• Dark horse candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr had to walk back comments that made him sound ProLife. His campaign was quick to say that “Mr. Kennedy’s position on abortion is that it is always the woman’s right to choose.”
• President Trump is the presumptive Republican candidate, He told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press that he thinks he can negotiate a settlement that will please everyone by allowing abortion only through the first 15 weeks.

What word is God speaking to our nation? I don’t think it is “comfort, comfort.”

#2 – You Speak “Coming, Coming” (v3-11)

Isaiah will be talking quite a lot about Babylon. The rise of Babylon and its direct effects on Judah were still 150 years in the future to Isaiah. Everything from this point on, then, is prophecy. It is sometimes near prophecy, but it is often farther out.

You will also notice that Isaiah speaks as if he was there, in the future. He could because God would faithfully fulfill every prophecy.

Isa 40:3  The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.

Isa 40:4  Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth;

We’ve jumped to the first century and the ministry of John the Baptist. All four Gospel’s applied this prophecy to him. These were the words he would use to announce to the Jewish people that their King had arrived, and therefore their Kingdom had come.

We don’t know for how long John lived in the “wilderness,” but we can assume he had a rough, unkempt exterior. He ate locusts dipped in honey. Go to israelmenu.com and click on Food, then Health & Energy Bars. You can order ready-to-eat whole Israeli locusts sourced from the banks of the Jordan.

The road construction exaggerates the leveling or smoothing out of the roads on which a dignitary would travel when he came to visit an area. Today an equivalent is, “roll out the red carpet.”

Isa 40:5  The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

“All flesh” did not “see… together” “the glory of the LORD… revealed” in His first century coming. This  looks forward to the Kingdom of God on Earth. In the Revelation we learn it will be a one-thousand year rule over the Earth, hence it is commonly referred to as the Millennium, or the Millennial Kingdom.

One of the LORD’s unconditional, it’s gonna happen, promises to the physical descendants of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac & Jacob was that the Jews would rule over the nations of the Earth from Jerusalem with a descendant of King David on the throne.

Here is where it gets wonderfully mysterious. John the Baptist and Jesus both announced, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Jesus came, fulfilling Messianic prophecies. He made the nation of Israel a genuine offer of their Kingdom with Him as King. The leadership of the nation decided instead to crucify Him.

Jesus considered the offer of the Kingdom on Earth to be genuine; the Jews could have received Him.

How could that be? Don’t know, but listen to Jesus:

• Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). That is a genuine offer rejected by free choice on the part of the nation.
• The Jews believed that the prophet Elijah would precede the coming of their Messiah and announce Him. Jesus said, “If you are willing to receive it, [John] is Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:14). Later He had an exchange with His disciples in which He said, “ ‘Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist’ ” (Matthew 17:11-13).

The offer of the physical Kingdom of God on Earth was genuine. Let God be God in terms of How?

Isa 40:6  The voice said, “Cry out!”

This “voice,” probably God’s, gave the command, probably to Isaiah, to “cry out.”

Isa 40:6  The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

Isa 40:7  The grass withers, the flower fades, Because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.

Isa 40:8  The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

We wither and fade like grass and flowers. Why? Ask your dad & mom. Your original dad & mom. Adam & Eve’s disobedience brought a curse on God’s magnificent creation.

The emphasis here is on “loveliness” because the Word of God promises restoration of creation. Creation, and everything in it is deteriorating now, but the Lord will reverse that, and totally restore all things.

The apostle Paul wrote, “that creation would be set free from decay and would share in the glorious freedom of [God’s] children” (Romans 8:21).

Isa 40:9  O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

“Zion” is “Jerusalem.” The LORD commissions them to “Go, tell it on the mountain.” Starting in Jerusalem, then moving out to “the cities of Judah,” they are to preach “good tidings,” i.e., the Gospel.

What is the Gospel? The word itself means, “good news.” It is the good news is that Jesus added humanity to His deity, in order to die on the cross as a sacrifice and substitute for the human race. In doing so he can give sinners His righteousness as He takes upon himself your sin. You are saved when you believe Jesus.

This could be looking far ahead to the Time of Jacob’s Trouble that is most commonly called the Great Tribulation:

• God will raise-up a ministry team we call the Two Witnesses. For the first 3½ years of that 7yr period these two guys will be invincible as they go about sharing the Gospel.
• God will raise-up a salvation army numbering 144,000. They are ethnic Jews, 12,000 from twelve of the tribes of Israel.

“Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid…” That sounds a little like the Day of Pentecost. God the Holy Spirit came as promised and immediately the disciples – all of them Jews – received a new power and boldness to share Jesus with unbelievers. They feared only God.

Isa 40:10  Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, And His work before Him.

When will this be? Well, it doesn’t match what we know about Jesus’ first century coming. There were no people accompanying Him whom He had “made safe” and “taken in war.” This sounds more like a description of the Return of the King at the end of the 7yr Time of Jacob’s Trouble to establish the promised Kingdom. The people “taken in war” might be the captives to sin Jesus has set free in His war against the forces of evil.

Isa 40:11  He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom, And gently lead those who are with young.

The last words of God to Jonah is a question. “Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people, who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?” (4:11 NASB).

Animals? Really??? Yep, God is an animal lover. I came across this quote: “It is no surprise that Christian abolitionists like William Wilberforce and Hannah More also vigorously campaigned against animal cruelty. Care for animals is a mark of godliness: ‘Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel’ ” (Proverbs 12:10).

Will your pets be in Heaven? Dallas Seminary, professor Dr. Michael Svigel writes, “How about in the renewed heavens and earth, we will be given authority to resurrect our favorite pets.”

God can use the treatment of shepherds for their sheep to illustrate His treatment of you because He is compassionate and caring for animals.

At the conclusion of His discourse on the Great Tribulation, found in Matthew 25, Jesus compares Himself to a Shepherd. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left” (v31-33).

The “goats” and the “sheep” are mortals who survive the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

The goats represent unbelievers. They are taking away two with your future judgment. The sheep are the believers who are invited to become the first citizens of the Millennial Kingdom.

We need a quick lesson in Bible math. The descendants of Jacob numbered 70 persons when they went to Goshen. They remained there 400 years and grew to 600,000 able-bodied men, plus women and children when they left to follow Moses.

How many believers will survive the Tribulation? Seventy? 70k? 700,000k? 7mil? More like a couple billion. The Revelation indicates over 50% of population. Current population is 8bil+.

In one thousand years, given perfect conditions, the population will be “whose number is as the sand of the sea” (Revelation 20:8).

You are invited to a future feast. It’s a wedding feast, called in the Bible, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:7-8).

Church Age believers will be resurrected & raptured. In Heaven, we will receive our rewards and will be “ready.” The Great Tribulation ends when Jesus returns with us. A wedding feast on Earth follows,  “the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

Thomas Ice writes, “Just as the wedding ceremony and the wedding reception of our day are separate events. In fact, these two events are often held at two different locations, just as the marriage of the Lamb will be in Heaven right before the [Return of the King], while the marriage supper of the Lamb will commence with the beginning of the Millennium.”

Until then… Comfort one another by emphasizing Jesus’ coming.

Carry Off My Wayward Sons (Isaiah 38-39)

🎬 Han Solo is killed and Princess Leia continues fighting against the Empire.

🎬 John Connor becomes a new US Senator as Sarah Connor cheers for him.

🎬 Alan, Ellie and the children finally make their way to a helicopter. But the hungry T-Rex arrives just in time to kill them all in an absolute bloodbath.

Those are the proposed alternate endings to The Return of the Jedi, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park.

Our text in Isaiah is famous for its alternate ending.

• The LORD sent the prophet Isaiah to announce to King Hezekiah of Judah, “Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live’ ” (38:1).
• Hezekiah prayed, and the LORD sent Isaiah back to say, “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years” (38:4-5).

The LORD chose an alternate ending in which Hezekiah doesn’t die for 15 years.

By the time we dismiss, you might think it would have been better for Hezekiah to die.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 It Is Far Better For You To Die, and #2 It Can Be Far Worse For You To Live.

#1 – It Is Better For You To Die (Chapter 38)

Before you think I’ve gone too far, remember the apostle Paul said, “For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1:23).

King Hezekiah of Judah, a good king, was on his deathbed. I feel sorry for him – not because he was dying, but because he knew so little about death. He feared it, and that fear stoked his fervency to live.   

Isa 38:1  In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death…

“Those days” are before the LORD defeated the Assyrian army in chapter thirty-seven. Look at verse six: “I will [in the future] deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria.”

Isa 38:1  … And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ ”

Isaiah was blunt. He worded his announcement in a way it was impossible to misunderstand. “You will die; you won’t live.”

When you talk about death, be blunt. Not rude, but straightforward and without euphemisms like, “Passed away,” or “No longer with us,” or “Gone to a better place.”

Isa 38:2  Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD,

It was the only posture Hezekiah could assume, since he was confined to his bed.

Isa 38:3  and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

God’s chosen nation of Israel was promised earthly blessings for obedience. They were promised a king and a kingdom. The kingdom promises involve real estate in the Holy Land and a physical descendant of David to sit on the throne in Jerusalem. He will rule nations of the Earth. It was therefore quite right for Hezekiah to pray as he did. He wasn’t boasting.

Hezekiah’s prayer is not a good model for us.

In the Church Age in which we live, we should not expect material and physical blessing for obedience. Our blessings are spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. God provides all we need to live godly lives as His martyrs.

We, too, anticipate the future, physical kingdom. In fact, we are told in several spots that we will rule with the Lord. But for now we are living stones, being built up as a spiritual house.

Isa 38:4  And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,

Isa 38:5  “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.

Isa 38:6  I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city.” ’

In the parallel account in Second Kings we’re told, “And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him” (20:4).

Isa 38:7  And this is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken:

Isa 38:8  Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.” So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.’

Asking for signs was common in Old Testament times. We talk more about being led as we seek the Lord in prayer and the Word.

• God told Hezekiah he was going to die. Not just eventually, but from this illness, and soon.
• God told Hezekiah he was not going to die; he’d be healed and have fifteen more years to live.

If you meditate on this long enough, smoke will start coming out of your ears. That might be an exaggeration; but it is quite the conundrum. There are deep theological truths to be pondered. Divine healing is one. We also see effective prayer… God’s sovereignty… God’s foreknowledge and foreordination… And God’s providence. There is a miracle thrown in, too, just for good measure.

Any attempt to reconcile “You’re going to die, You’re not going to die,” must allow for two things:

1. Hezekiah’s condition was terminal. It was his time to die. This wasn’t a test to see what he would do or say. It wasn’t a close call, or a wake-up call. The LORD wasn’t trying to psyche him out. There is no other way to read Isaiah’s blunt announcement.
2. God acted on Hezekiah’s prayer. He decided to add 15 years to Hezekiah’s life. His doing so was not a matter of some kind of meticulous pre-determinism. It was not inevitable, but evitable! It was, in fact, choosing an alternate ending.

Alternate endings are not infrequent in God’s Word. Jonah delivered God’s message to the city of Nineveh. “He cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

The king of Assyria led the people in repentance.  “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it” (3:10). It wasn’t he alternate ending Jonah wanted.

If God cannot “relent” from what He says He is going to do, does it diminish Him? It does. It means everything that happens is God’s will. Gordon H. Clark puts it like this: “If a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it.”

If God can “relent” from what He says He is going to do, does it diminish Him? It doesn’t. It enhances Him. It reveals that He is so GOD that His sovereignty can allow for mankind’s free will without affecting the overall program of redemption.

I don’t want to be someone who diminishes God because I need to fit Him into a system of theology.

BTW: When faced with two or more biblical alternatives on something that is nonessential, do yourself and everyone else a favor and choose one that promotes the Lord as compassionate, long-suffering with sinners, not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to eternal life.

Isa 38:9  This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

I forget that Hezekiah was musical. Some scholars believe he wrote as many as ten of the Psalms. This “writing” may be meant to be sung.

Hezekiah’s “writing” about his healing needs little commentary. I’ll highlight a few ways the Church  differs from Hezekiah’s understanding of death.

Isa 38:10  I said, “In the prime of my life I shall go to the gates of Sheol; I am deprived of the remainder of my years.”

If a believer dies young, is he or she is deprived? Entering Heaven is no deprivation. We have the revelation that God prepares a grand entrance for us.

Isa 38:11  I said, “I shall not see YAH, The LORD in the land of the living; I shall observe man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

He regretted he would no longer see God “in the land of the living.” We can’t wait until we don’t see through a glass darkly but are face-to-face with Jesus.

Hezekiah was sad because he would not “observe man… among the inhabitants of the world.” He didn’t know that he would see and fellowship with David and Abraham and Noah, etc.

Isa 38:12  My life span is gone, Taken from me like a shepherd’s tent; I have cut off my life like a weaver. He cuts me off from the loom; From day until night You make an end of me.

His life was like a well-used “shepherd’s tent.” We are all about thinking we are tents. That is, our current bodies. Unlike Hezekiah, we can’t wait to be rid of our current bodies for the new & improved eternal model. “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven” (First Corinthians 5:1-2).

When a believer dies in the Church Age, he or she is absent from their physical body, but immediately present with the Lord. We have an excitement to move on to Heaven. It is home.

Isa 38:13  I have considered until morning – Like a lion, So He breaks all my bones; From day until night You make an end of me.

One of the ways I do not want to die is having a “lion” crush my bones.

Hezekiah was experiencing 24/7 pain. He felt as though God were giving him a slow death.

Life is a slow death that can become sudden death.

We are always one heartbeat away from either death or the rapture:

• Both can be said to be imminent.
• Both immediately usher us into the physical presence of Jesus.

Isa 38:14  Like a crane or a swallow, so I chattered; I mourned like a dove; My eyes fail from looking upward. O LORD, I am oppressed; Undertake for me!

If you were to ask him, “How are you today?” he’d answer, “Oppressed,” as he moaned.

In verses fifteen through twenty, Hezekiah notes his response to the LORD healing him.

Isa 38:15  “What shall I say? He has both spoken to me, And He Himself has done it. I shall walk carefully all my years In the bitterness of my soul.

Isa 38:16  O Lord, by these things men live; And in all these things is the life of my spirit; So You will restore me and make me live.

Isa 38:17  Indeed it was for my own peace That I had great bitterness; But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

Isa 38:18  For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.

Isa 38:19  The living, the living man, he shall praise You, As I do this day; The father shall make known Your truth to the children.

Isa 38:20  “The LORD was ready to save me; Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments All the days of our life, in the house of the LORD.”

Tucked away in this lyric are a number of promises Hezekiah made as his response to the LORD’s graciousness:

• He says he will “walk carefully” in “bitterness of soul.” That is, he will take his walk seriously, and not waste the extra years God granted. Yeah, that didn’t happen.
• He repents that “it was for his own peace” that he wanted to be healed, not for the good of the nation. Yeah, we’ll see he cares little for the nation.
• As a “father” he would “make known” the LORD to his children. Nope. He was a complete failure there. His son Manasseh would be maybe the worst king ever, reigning for 55 years.

Isa 38:21  Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.”

I have to believe they had already tried this common treatment. The LORD’s prescription, coupled with a sign, is what makes it miraculous.   

Isa 38:22  And Hezekiah had [before this] said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

We’ll see the “sign” in a moment.

Hezekiah said that death cannot praise God, only a living man can (v18-19). Sure, once you’re dead, someone needs to take your place in the choir. It doesn’t mean that death is a defeat. The voices of martyrs cry out in every generation.

Our NT attitude is much different. We are to adopt the advice given by the apostle Paul, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1:21&23).

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Never fear dying, beloved. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a Christian has to be anxious about. Fear living – that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo.”

#2 – Healing You Might Be A Problem For You (Chapter 39)

Bo Jackson, Mark Spitz, Bjorn Borg, and Joe Lewis have something in common.

They each were failures in their comeback attempts.

Hezekiah wasn’t the same after getting up from his deathbed. Knowing he had fifteen more years had a decidedly negative affect on him. He committed a huge foreign policy gaffe, and his attitude about it should shock us. As suggested earlier, it might have been better if he had died.

Isa 39:1  At that time Merodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.

Babylon would conquer Assyria and replace her as God’s hand of discipline against the nations, including Israel.

Isa 39:2  And Hezekiah was pleased with them, and showed them the house of his treasures – the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory – all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

US presidents are known for their policies. The New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, etc. We could accurately call Hezekiah’s, the Pride Policy.

Isa 39:3  Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where did they come to you?” So Hezekiah said, “They came to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

Isa 39:4  And he said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.”

He asked probing questions. Hezekiah was thus made to confess what he had done.

Isa 39:5  Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:

Isa 39:6  ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the LORD.

Looking forward almost 200 years, Isaiah said Babylon would conquer Judah. The Angel of the LORD and His mighty “hosts” of angels would not engage.

Isa 39:7  ‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”

Think about some idolatrous Babylonian monarch taking your boys, making them eunuchs, feeding them food forbidden by the Law of Moses, and demanding they worship idols. Would you be enraged? Not Hezekiah. He was ‘as cool as the other side of the pillow.’

Isa 39:8  So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good!” For he said, “At least there will be peace and truth in my days.”

This is top five, at least, in most selfish statements in the Bible.

What happened to the Hezekiah who went face-to-the-wall in prayer? That guy was gone. He coasted for the next fifteen years. He had guaranteed security.

1. Have you ever said, “If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything?” You are one symptom away from a life-altering diagnosis.
2. How about this one: “I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich. Rich is better!” There is no security in money; not really.

Physical security can hinder your relationship with God. Prosperity is a trap.

God heals. Pray for healing, but in the context of believing that “to die is gain.”

I want to mention another, fantastic alternate ending. The apostle Paul, in First Corinthians, said: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1:9-11).

God’s gift of salvation is the alternate ending He desires for every one of us.

My God’s Better Than Your gods, My God’s Better Than Yours My God’s Better ‘Cause He Rules Over Nations My God’s Better Than Yours (Ephesians 37:21-38)

It was the only two-part episode in the original Star Trek series.

The Menagerie told the story of Captain Christopher Pike’s encounter with the Talosians – humanoid aliens with the power to create illusions indistinguishable from reality.

They kidnap Pike hoping he will mate with a beautiful woman, Vina, and produce a race of slaves who will reclaim the war-damaged surface of their planet, Talos IV.

Pike outsmarts them. Before he beams back to the USS Enterprise, Pike is shown that Vina’s beautiful appearance is an illusion. In reality she was severely injured in a crash and was terribly deformed. Vina elects to stay on the planet where she will continue in the illusion.

Fast forward a few years. Pike suffers an accident that leaves him a scarred head sticking out of a fully enclosed wheelchair. He can answer“Yes” or “No” with the aid of a device operated by his brainwaves. Mr. Spock risks his career to return Pike to Talos IV where he and Vina can be together enjoyng the illusion of perfect health.

Pike looked upon Vina and did not see her true condition; He saw her as beautiful.

In verse twenty-two God is talking to the King of Assyria and says, “The virgin, the daughter of Zion, Has despised you, laughed you to scorn; The daughter of Jerusalem Has shaken her head behind your back!”

The LORD compares the Jews to a beautiful virgin who has the maturity to reject King Sennacherib of Assyria as a thoroughly unworthy suitor.

God looked upon the Jews and did not see them in their true condition; He saw  them as beautiful, pure, and virginal.

In their case, it was no illusion. In response to King Hezekiah’s repentance for himself and the nation the LORD cleansed them and restored them.

Concerning us, one commentator put it this way: “When we come to Jesus for salvation, we are made completely new. We are said to be ‘in’ Christ. We are reconciled with God and counted as righteous before Him. Rather than seeing our sinfulness, God sees the righteousness of His Son.”

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 You Will Be The Object Of The World’s Rage, and #2 You Are The Object Of The Lord’s Rapture.

#1 – You Will Be The Object Of The World’s Rage (v21-29)

Unruly airline passengers, disorderly customers, enraged drivers – it’s all on easily accessible video.

• The last time I was at the DMV there were notices posted about what will happen if you become unruly.
• At our veterinarian’s office there are notices to remain calm lest you be asked to leave and never return.

Psalm 2 asks and answers, “Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed” (v1&2).

King Sennacherib was angry. Twice in these verses God mentioned his “rage” (v28&29). He is typical of both the anger of nations against God and of individual unbelievers who think themselves as their own ‘gods.’

Let’s get up to speed. The Assyrian army was camped outside the walls of Jerusalem. Their negotiator had urged them to surrender, mocking and ridiculing the idea the the LORD would deliver them. A second contact was made by a letter sent from Sennacherib to Hezekiah. It was full of boasting, bloviating, blathering, blustering, braggadocio, bravado, bragging, bullying, blithering, babbling, and blasphemy.

Hezekiah sent his team to see Isaiah and get the LORD’s direction. He took Sennacherib’s letter and spread it out before the LORD. He prayed, wearing sackcloth, indicating his repentance.   

Isa 37:21  Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

Isa 37:22  this is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him: “The virgin, the daughter of Zion, Has despised you, laughed you to scorn; The daughter of Jerusalem Has shaken her head behind your back!

We’ve talked about God’s seemingly off-topic answers to prayer and queries. When Joshua asked the Angel of the Lord if He was for or against Israel in the battle for Jericho, He answered, “No.”

In His typically wonderful way, the LORD’s answer to Hezekiah was, “You are my beautiful virgin daughter.”

If you think about it, that was an answer. It was the most incredible answer. Since God saw Judah that way, of course He was going to intervene to keep His promises to them.

We’ve all heard some variation of, “God always answers your prayers one of three ways: Yes, No, or Wait.” That’s not wrong. Better is to expect the Lord to answer with some articulation of His love for you, His mercy, His grace, and your future with Him.

Isa 37:23  “Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice, And lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

Sennacherib did not make the blunder of getting involved in a land war in Asia. But he did err in thinking the God of Israel was another local deity, no different from the so-called ‘gods’ of the nations he had easily conquered.

Isa 37:24  By your servants you have reproached the Lord, And said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, To the limits of Lebanon; I will cut down its tall cedars And its choice cypress trees; I will enter its farthest height, To its fruitful forest.

Isa 37:25  I have dug and drunk water, And with the soles of my feet I have dried up All the brooks of defense.’

Sennacherib was starting to see himself as what we would call a demigod:

• He pictured himself using all the best cedars of Lebanon to build his kingdom.
• He pictured himself stepping into the rivers associated with nations, e.g., the Nile, and absorbing their power.

Isa 37:26  “Did you not hear long ago How I made it, From ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass, That you should be For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

Isa 37:27  Therefore their inhabitants had little power; They were dismayed and confounded; They were as the grass of the field And the green herb, As the grass on the housetops And grain blighted before it is grown.

Clubber Lang was a hungry-for-a-shot-at-the-title boxer. He accused Rocky of ducking a title fight with him, calling the champs opponents “chumps.” Rocky’s manager, Mick, reluctantly confirmed it.

The LORD told Sennacherib that all the nations he had defeated were chumps. Not only that, verse twenty-six establishes that the reason Assyria had been successful was because the LORD chose her at His discretion to discipline other nations.

Isa 37:28  “But I know your dwelling place, Your going out and your coming in, And your rage against Me.

Isa 37:29  Because your rage against Me and your tumult Have come up to My ears, Therefore I will put My hook in your nose And My bridle in your lips, And I will turn you back By the way which you came.” ’

Instead of being humbled that the LORD had chosen him to serve as His arm of discipline, Sennacherib turned against Him. His “rage” grew. God would deal with him.

The LORD describes His efforts to direct Sennacherib two ways: “A hook in the nose,” and a “bridle” in his lips. It’s what you would have seen from Heaven’s point of view.

In the previous verses, Sennacherib heard a rumor and a spirit from the LORD troubled him. He thus returned to Nineveh. It is a picture for us of God’s interventions into human history to accomplish the program of redeeming the human race.

God is over every nation. That does not mean nations have no free will or responsibility. I’ve referred to Jeremiah 18:7-10 many times in our studies in Isaiah. Jeremiah conveys that God’s actions toward a nation or people are contingent on their behavior, implying that if they turn from evil, He may relent from harm, but if they do evil, He may reconsider blessings promised to them.

The Lord is coming to establish a physical, one thousand year rule over the nations. We call it the Millennium, or the Millennial Kingdom. We are premillennial, meaning the Lord will return before those thousand years.

Jesus is not currently ruling the way He will when He physically returns. For one thing, it is very obvious that the devil is not confined the way he will be during the Millennium. Nevertheless He is over the nations when it comes to furthering and fulfilling His plan of redeeming the human race and His creation.

Have you heard of the ‘Romans Road to Salvation’? It is a set of verses from the Book of Romans that many believers share when witnessing.

Unbelievers can develop severe ‘Romans road rage’ against us.

#2 – You Are The Object Of The Lord’s Rapture (v30-38)

“Rapture” is how we describe Jesus returning to take the Church home before the 7yr Time of Jacob’s Trouble that is more commonly called the Great Tribulation.

Today we are using the word in its ordinary meaning, ecstatic joy or delight; joyful ecstasy. A variant is “enraptured,” meaning delight beyond measure.

You are the delight of Jesus; He is enraptured with you.

Isa 37:30  “This shall be a sign to you: You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, And the second year what springs from the same; Also in the third year sow and reap, Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.

Life would get back to normal. Normal is good. The final line in The Lord of the Rings, uttered by Sam, is, “Well, I’m back.” Back to normal.

Isa 37:31  And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah Shall again take root downward, And bear fruit upward.

Their most important growth would not be agricultural. It would be spiritual and individual. Their spiritual “roots” will go “downward” and deep, and they will bear much “fruit”

It’s fun to play with the wording:

1. “If you’re rooted, you’ll be fruited.”
2. “No root, no fruit.”
3. “Take root, Bear fruit.”
4. “If you’re root-n’, you’ll be fruit-tootin’ ”

Isa 37:32  For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, And those who escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

This verse seems out of context. The LORD has been describing the 8^th century invasion of Assyria. In the next verse, thirty-three, He clearly continues to address the current situation. But in verse thirty-two the “remnant” is going “out” from “Mount Zion” to “escape.”

We jump forward to a future time when a remnant of Jews will need to make a rapid escape from Jerusalem. Jesus told it this way:

Mat 24:15  “Therefore when you see the ‘ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand),

Mat 24:16  “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Mat 24:17  Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.

Mat 24:18  And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes.

Mat 24:19  But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!

Mat 24:20  And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.

Mat 24:21  For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

In the Revelation we are told that at that future time, the devil will be cast down to earth and being “enraged” he seeks to exterminate the Jews (12:12-17). “Why do the nations rage?” They take on the likeness of the god of this world

For the space of one verse, Isaiah transports the Jews to their far-future, to the last 1260 days prior to the return of the King. At the very mid-point of the Tribulation, the antichrist reveals his intention to murder every Jew. God protects them – a remnant. At His return, “all Israel is saved.”

Isa 37:33  “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, Nor shoot an arrow there, Nor come before it with shield, Nor build a siege mound against it.

Isa 37:34  By the way that he came, By the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ Says the LORD.

Isa 37:35  ‘For I will defend this city, to save it For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”

What does King David have to do with this? God made an unconditional covenant with David. God promised David and Israel that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David and the tribe of Judah and would establish a kingdom that would endure forever. The LORD’s intervention in the 8^th century kept this and the other covenants intact.

Isa 37:36  Then the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses – all dead.

The “Angel of the LORD” was an appearance of Jesus before His incarnation as the God-man.

My favorite non-explanation of what occurred is that there was an infestation of rats, carrying something like the Plague. They fatally bit the soldiers.

Could that be what happened? Sure. It’s too bad we always think we need to have a natural explanation for the miraculous.

Isa 37:37  So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.

Isa 37:38  Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

What does Ararat suggest to you? It is the traditional resting place of Noah’s Ark.

Get this: Rabbis have passed down a story that “Nisroch” is said to be derived from the Hebrew word “neser.” “Neser” was the name given to a plank of wood discovered by Sennacherib on his return to Assyria. As the legend goes, the plank was originally part of Noah’s Ark. Upon his return, Sennacherib worshiped it as an idol.

On her wedding day, quadriplegic Joni Eareckson felt terribly awkward. Her bridesmaids struggled to get her paralyzed body into her wedding gown. This is how she described it:

“No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn’t fit well. Then, as I was wheeling into the church, I glanced down and noticed that I’d accidentally run over the hem of my dress, leaving a greasy tire mark. My paralyzed hands couldn’t hold the bouquet of daisies that lay off-center on my lap. And my chair, though decorated for the wedding, was still a big, clunky gray machine with belts, gears, and ball bearings. I certainly didn’t feel like the picture-perfect bride in a bridal magazine.

“I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken in front. There he was, standing tall and stately in his formal attire. I saw him looking for me, craning his neck to look up the aisle. My face flushed, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to be with him. I had seen my beloved. The love in Ken’s face had washed away all my feelings of unworthiness. I was his pure and perfect bride.”

Jesus is more than waiting for you:

• He is, right now, “[sanctifying] and [cleansing you] with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).
• He is at any moment coming for you, to “present [you] to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that [you] should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27).   
• He will return with us. William MacDonald writes, “When He returns with you, amazed onlookers will gasp as they see what He has been able to do with such unpromising human beings!”

I once called the ‘Romans Road’ an on-ramp. It gets you onto the narrow way that is life. If you are not a believer, listen carefully to these directions to Heaven: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Fearful Days Are Gone, He’s-a-Goin’ Home, Sennacherib Just-a Wrote Me A Letter (Isaiah 37:1-20)

Bud Light took a beating over its decision to partner with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

It is one of the more dramatic examples of the phenomena that is Cancel Culture. One definition of it explains, “Cancel Culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (thereby canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel Culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”

It may be a recent social media phenomena but Cancel Culture got its start  6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden.

The devil came to our parents and challenged God’s Word. He accusingly asked, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ ” He answered his own accusation, saying, “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Adam and Eve didn’t know the extent of their disobedience, but it was an attempt to cancel God and be like Him. Instead they became more like the devil.

King Sennacherib of Assyria wrote a letter to King Hezekiah of Judah. The pagan king announced his intention to ‘cancel’ the Jews.

The LORD intervened in a big way. Hezekiah exercised a simple faith in the LORD. We’re going to call it, Conquer Culture.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 The Devil Wants To Cancel You, and #2 The Lord Wants To Conquer-ize You.

#1 – The Devil Wants To Cancel You (v1-13)

The devil is acknowledged as the god of this world. As if that isn’t bad enough, we see evidence in the Bible that ⅓ of created angels threw in with him in his rebellion against God. He is aided & abetted by “principalities… powers… the rulers of the darkness of this age… [and] spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” (Ephesians 6:12).

Previously in Isaiah… The Assyrian army marched to Jerusalem, destroying 46 outlying cities along their way. They surrounded the city with 185,000 of the most savage, barbaric warriors ever fielded. A spokesman for the King of Assyria, titled “the Rabshakeh,” had parleyed with representatives of King Hezekiah of Judah. The Assyrian taunted, ridiculed, mocked, and in every way possible belittled the Jews and any trust they might put in God.

Believers in Jesus Christ are constantly besieged. Human wisdom in the form of religions, philosophies, politics, and psychologies continue to announce the supposed cancellation of biblical Christianity.

King Hezekiah’s representatives returned and reported to him what had occurred.

Isa 37:1  And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

• The tearing of clothing is an outward representation of the rending of your heart.
• Sackcloth was a type of cloth made of black goat’s hair that was thick, rough, and coarse material.

I came across a 2022 article in which the author said, “I believe that it is time to revive this ancient practice of wearing sackcloth.” He went on to suggest a way we can do it:

“One way to begin with wearing sackcloth is to cut out a small square of sackcloth and attach it to your clothing with a safety pin, much in the way that small ribbons have been worn at different times to raise awareness.”

What do you think?

Isa 37:2  Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

Isa 37:3  And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth.

They sought out God’s prophet. Remember when US presidents sought out Billy Graham? From Harry Truman to Barack Obama – 12 presidents, spanning an almost unbelievable 67yrs. He warned of judgment if we failed to repent as a nation.

He had an anointing. It is troubling that there was no one to take up his ‘mantle’ (so to speak). President Trump’s spiritual advisor was Paula White, a woman pastor who teaches the health & wealth false gospel. That troubles me.

If God did not intervene against Assyria, it would constitute a failed birth. It’s more than an illustration. In the Book of the Revelation, there is a terrifying scene in which a great red dragon seeks to devour a child that was to be born. The child is born and caught-up to Heaven. The woman flees into the wilderness where she is kept safe for the next 3½yrs, despite the dragon’s best efforts to murder her (12:1-6).

The Bible identifies the dragon as Satan; the woman as the nation of Israel; her child as Jesus; the 3½yrs as the last half of the Great Tribulation. Satan will try one more time to exterminate every Jew. God preserves His remnant. When that time ends, and Jesus returns, all Israel who survives will be saved.

If the 8^th century Jews fell to Assyria, the future birth depicted in the Revelation would be in jeopardy.

Isa 37:4  It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

Don’t make too much of Hezekiah identifying the LORD as “your God.” He was saved. “Your God” acknowledges the truth that Isaiah had been faithful for many decades, while the Jews were stiff-necked idol worshippers.

God always acts to spare a “remnant” of Jews. National, ethnic Israel is central to human history and a future Kingdom of God on the Earth.

Isa 37:5  So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

Isa 37:6  And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

“Do not fear,” or “fear not,” or “do not be afraid” occur a lot in the Bible. It ought to become easier & easier for us to believe it.

Everyone knows the famous presidential encouragement, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Is that true? It sounds like something the Sphinx would say in the film, Mystery Men.

Jesus gave us His bottom line on fear when He said, “Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5). If you are not in Christ, you should lose control of your muscles and bodily functions at the prospect of an eternity of conscious torment in the Lake of Fire.

Isa 37:7  Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”

God sent a spirit:

1. First, the spirit did not possess him. It influenced him.
2. Second, this was a war-time secret operation that the LORD green lit.

How many films have you seen, or documentaries, about wartime secret missions that trick the enemy?There’s one out now, Operation Mincemeat. It depicts the successful British WWII deception operation disguising the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily.

Isa 37:8  Then the Rabshakeh returned [home], and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish.

Isa 37:9  And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you.” So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Isa 37:10  “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

Isa 37:11  Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered?

Isa 37:12  Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

Isa 37:13  Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’ ”

Sennacherib’s return to Nineveh was a sign to Judah that God’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s safety was trustworthy.

I’d bet most of us have received a letter that troubled us deeply:

• Maybe it was a notice of Eviction or Foreclosure.
• Maybe it was a proverbial ‘pink slip’ in your paycheck, informing you that your employment was terminated.
• Maybe you were served with divorce papers.
• Maybe it was your medical test results, confirming a terminal diagnosis.

Have you ever used the designation, In care of? It means you are sending the letter or package to an addressee that is accepting it for someone else. People often use the abbreviation c/o.

These types of letters are addressed to Jesus c/o His followers.

They are attacks on Him – on His character, on His nature. The enemy wants to get at Him through you. Times I have faith, if I receive, say, a pink slip, I immediately go to the Lord and say, “This is for You!”

Cast your cares upon Jesus, because He cares for you.

#2 – The Lord Will Conquer-ize You (v14-20)

Read verse thirty-six. “Then the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses – all dead” (v36).

That’s some successful Conquer Culture!

If you are saved in Christ, the apostle Paul proclaimed, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Wow! I’m a conqueror. Gene the Conqueror.

But what are “all these things” I conquer?

Paul listed “Tribulation… distress… persecution… famine… nakedness… peril, or sword? As it is written: “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER” (8:35-36).

These things, and others like them, are not conquered by avoidance. They are conquered by acceptance. Paul wrote about a severe trial, calling it a thorn in his flesh. When God told Paul it was His Will for him, Paul enjoyed the Lord’s enabling to have joy and testify of His everlasting love. That’s why I coined the word, conquer-ized. I don’t conquer apart from God’s empowering & enabling. I am rendered a conqueror, made one, by Jesus.

Take the case of the first Church Age martyr, Stephen the Deacon. As rocks pelted his body, “he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59-60).

Stephen acted like a believer. He could because he received the Holy Spirit’s permanent indwelling when he believed.

We have, too! (More on that in a minute)

Isa 37:14  And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

He put on his best sackcloth, then took it to the Temple and said, “LORD, this came in care of me for You!”

Isa 37:15  Then Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying:

Isa 37:16  “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

Hezekiah reminds us that God dwelt with His nation – His glory that is – in the Holy of Holies. The Ark of the Covenant was there, with a lid called the Mercy Seat. Cherubim were carved into the lid, one on each end.

Isa 37:17  Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.

King Hezekiah reinforces the truth that this was really against God – on the “living God.”

The people who persecute Christians are doing it to Jesus. He’s not on earth right now; we are. Its open season on believers.

Every enemy in a movie worth his or her salt at some point jeopardizes the people that the hero loves. You are so beloved of the Lord Jesus that the devil trains his weapons on you.

Isa 37:18  Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,

Isa 37:19  and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands – wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them.

The Assyrian’s made it a point to enter the temple or holy place of their enemies and burn the idols that represented the gods of those cultures they had cancelled.

The real power in Judah was the living God. The real power in any nation ought to be the living God.

Isa 37:20  Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.”

History is headed toward a time described this way by a mighty angel in the Revelation: “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (11:15).

Speaking of nations… In the future Kingdom, and in eternity, there will continue to be identifiable “nations.”

• In Revelation 12:5 we are told Jesus will “rule all nations.”
• In Revelation 15:4 we are told “all nations shall come and worship” Jesus.
• In Revelation 21:4 we read about the “nations of those who are saved.”
• In Revelation 22:2 we read, “In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

I just began reading a book on the future Kingdom & eternity by Michael Vlach (rhymes with block). He is a well-respected conservative dispensational professor. He writes: “In addition to the individual and spiritual, God is working to restore every area of creation. And eternal life is embodied existence on a restored earth where God’s people live and thrive in His presence and experience vibrant social and cultural interactions with each other.”

We will be talking more about this as we go on in Isaiah.

How are we conquer-ized? On the Day of Pentecost after Jesus rose from the dead, He sent the Church a promised gift. He sent them the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. It is one of the promises of the New Covenant God made with the nation of Israel. Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all mention the New Covenant. Ezekiel says it promises a new heart, a new spirit, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

If the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit was a future promise to Israel, then Israelites in the OT did not have the experience His permanent indwelling. You don’t promise a future blessing if everyone already has access to it.

When Israel’s leaders rejected their Messiah, the New Covenant promises to them were put on hold. Mean time, the Church has begun to partake of the promises. We do not replace or supersede Israel in doing so. They will enter into the New Covenant blessings as well, in the future.

There is an episode in the Book of Acts in which the apostle Paul encounters some disciples of John the Baptist. He can sense that something is not quite right about them. He issues this challenge question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (19:2). They “believed,” and were thus saved by grace through faith, but they had not received the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. Paul “laid hands on them, [and] the Holy Spirit came upon them” (v6).

The Gospel is always the same: You are saved by grace through faith; not by works. But it is crystal clear that the Holy Spirit’s operation in the world is not always the same.

Why is this important? It is not simply important, it is vital. When you & I believed, we received the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. We are thereby enabled and empowered by Him to obey God.

I mentioned Stephen. The Bible says that he had the “face of an angel” as he was being persecuted and martyred. You can’t make ‘angel face.’ It isn’t make-up. It comes from within, from the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Stephen was no more, no less, saintly than any other believer. Since the Holy Spirit is a Person, not a force, you have Him in the same measure as Stephen.

Think on this: At the time of his martyrdom Stephen had walked with Jesus for only 4yrs.

Don’t be discouraged. Even Paul said he had not attained, but he was pressing forward.

R. A. Torrey wrote, “If we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal power or influence, then our thought will constantly be, ‘How can I get hold of and use the Holy Spirit?’ But if we think of Him in the biblical way as a divine Person, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely tender, then our thought will constantly be, ‘How can the Holy Spirit get hold of and use me?’”

Adding Insult To Invasion (Isaiah 36)

It was called propaganda, then psychological warfare, then PSYOPs.

They are tactics intended to reduce an opponent’s morale and will to fight. Disinformation, misinformation, manipulation, and the dissemination of persuasive messages can do more damage than bullets and bombs.

In everyday language we refer to this as being psyched-out, or someone ‘getting into our head.’

Isaiah recorded a textbook example of satanic PSYOPs.

The Assyrian army was encamped around Jerusalem. Their Rabshakeh met with Jewish representatives. He employed PSYOPs to frighten the Jews into surrender.

There is a major satanic PSYOP in the third chapter of the Bible. The serpent, who is later identified as the devil – Satan – did a real number on our parents. He used misinformation, disinformation, outright lies, manipulation, deception, maybe shape-shifting, to psyche them out and achieve his sinister objective.

You know what I’m going to say next:

The serpent wages psychological warfare against us.

He is the accuser, the greatest liar in the history of lying, playing a long con.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 You Counter Satan’s PSYOPs With Confidence, and #2 You Counter Satan’s PSYOPs By Repentance.

#1 – You Counter Satan’s PSYOPs With Confidence (v1-10)

• After eleven years and twenty-one feature films, the Avengers finally defeated Thanos. It was quite the build-up to the End Game.
• After thirty-five chapters spanning four kings of Judah, the prophesied invasion by the Assyrian army was at Jerusalem’s gates.

No city or city-state or nation had been able to withstand the Assyrian advance. Humanly speaking, Judah’s situation was hopeless.

They would have been at the mercy of Assyria if not for the LORD’s mercy upon them.

Isa 36:1  Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

Historians report that they conquered forty-six cities en route to Jerusalem. Assyria was a juggernaut.

The United States is not Isaiah’s intended audience. We can, however, glean from him as long as we are careful not to go beyond what is uniquely Jewish.   

The enemy advance against God’s people was destroying city after city. Our enemy, the devil, advances against countries, cities, and institutions. Most universities in the US, for example, were established as institutions of faith:

• Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth were Puritan.
• The College of William and Mary was Church of England.
• Princeton was Presbyterian.
• Rutgers University was Dutch Reformed.   

Forbes magazine said of them, “For almost all of these and similar elite schools, the answer to grow with the times and the country was to leave their religious legacy in the microfiche files.”

Satan is advancing in the US.

In 2019 the Pew Research Center noted, “In the US, the decline of Christianity continues at a rapid pace.”

He is psyching people out:

• The confusing world of gender, transgender, gender dysphoria, etc., has people abandoning basic human biology. It’s as if the devil is coming to folks and saying, “Has God really assigned your gender?” “Did God really make you male and female?”
• A federal court in Maryland ruled that parents do not have a “fundamental right” to opt their children out of classroom instruction in LGBTQ+. It’s as if the devil is coming to school boards and judges, and saying, “Has God really given parents authority over their children?”

If you are old enough, or, if you studied history, you are familiar with the word blitzkrieg. It was a strategy of rapid advance against the enemy that was employed by the Germans. After decades of making important but slow inroads against Christianity, it seems like the devil is in blitzkrieg mode now. It seems like almost every day there is something new, satanic, to challenge our biblical values.

Isa 36:2  Then the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field.

He is the Rabshakeh. It is a title, not his name. He was a field commander, probably the equivalent to our rank of General. Lachish was the latest city to fall in his advance to Jerusalem.

Isa 36:3  And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

We would call this an official delegation under a flag of truce. You’ve seen this reenacted on the big screen anytime there is a medieval battle brewing. Representatives come out from each army and try to psyche-out one another.

Isa 36:4  Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?

Isa 36:5  I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

This is PsycheWarfare 101. He immediately disrespected Hezekiah by refusing to call him king while simultaneously calling his king, “the great king.” Then he pointed out that whatever “plans and power for war” they made had failed 46 times.

The Rabshakeh didn’t realize it, but he undermined his entire PSYOP when he, not once but twice, asked the Jews where their “confidence” and “trust” lie that they would dare to defy him. It was like a coded message within the message. A sensitive spiritual ear could hear, “remember when you trusted the LORD? It’s not too late to trust Him and put your confidence in Him.”

In fact, that is precisely what is going to happen in this narrative. The Jews trust the LORD and in their renewed confidence, they become observers of the battle rather than participants.

Christians sing about the Lord fighting our battles for us. It isn’t a “Let go & Let God,” do nothing response. It is active submission.

When Joshua went out to reconnoiter Jericho prior to the battle, suddenly someone else was there. Joshua asked, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” The man said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” (Joshua 5:13-14).

It was Jesus, in a pre-incarnation theophany called the Angel of the Lord. We must find Joshua’s heart and respond appropriately. It is hard but rewarding spiritual work.

Isa 36:6  Look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis understood PSYOPs. Among his many unsettling quotes, he said, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

Judah had an alliance with Egypt. Egypt was no help. It was another part of the failed plans of the Jews.

Isa 36:7  “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’

The Assyrians didn’t study their enemy. They thought the “high places and… altars” that Hezekiah had “taken away” were places where they worshipped Jehovah. By removing these, they thought Hezekiah was blaspheming. These, however, were the high places and altars where the Jews worshipped idols. If the Assyrians had realized this, they may have been more careful. It signaled a return to God. Historically, when the Jews were right with God, no one could stop them. The exploits of Jehovah on behalf of His people were well-known.

If you GOOGLE ‘the strategies of Satan,’ you’ll be directed to hundreds of sites that are all over the map, each having its own unique list. Do this instead. Study Ephesians 6:10-17. It is the famous passage about the armor of God we are to wear in order “to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Go through the articles of your uniform. Is there something you are not wearing? Something on backwards? Some important item that you haven’t maintained? It is rare, but every once in a while a police officer will report for duty without their sidearm. We could compare it to neglecting the sword of the Spirit, which is our offensive weapon, the Word of God.

Isa 36:8  Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses – if you are able on your part to put riders on them!

Rabshakeh demanded tribute as a public demonstration that Jerusalem was conquered. It is common to humble or even humiliate those you’ve conquered. At the end of WW2, Emperor Hirohito of Japan publicly declared that he was not a living god and that the concept of the Emperor’s divinity was not true.

I think the offer of two-thousand horses was pure sarcasm. He was saying that Assyria was so powerful it would give Judah two thousand-horses to even the battle.

Isa 36:9  How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

This was a playground taunt. They could defeat Judah with one arm tied behind their backs.

Isa 36:10  Have I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

In chapter eight we read, “Inasmuch as these people [the Jews] refused The waters of Shiloah that flow softly, And rejoice in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son; Now therefore, behold, the Lord brings up over them The waters of the River, strong and mighty – The king of Assyria and all his glory” (8:6-7).

The LORD did indeed use nations to discipline the nations of Israel and Judah. This was the worst taunt because the Jews knew it was true. The LORD was behind this invasion. It was discipline.

You might think it strange for me to say this, but the Jews were in a great spot. There was no earthly help; they must rely upon heavenly hope. There was no one to call upon but the LORD. It was “repent or die” time.

If you feel like you are involved in psychological warfare, it’s because you are. Somewhere in the devil’s op against you is a message, a reminder, a teaching, an encouragement, an exhortation. Listen for it and watch the devil’s plan backfire.

#2 – You Counter Satan’s PSYOPs By Repentance (v11-22)

He is Captain Kenneth Rich and his primary military specialty is PSYOPs. He earned his psychology degree from Berkeley and worked on various research projects involving the inducement of paranoia by means of low frequency radio waves. He enlisted in the Army and was posted to the Deceptive Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, and there continued his pioneering work in the field of wave-induced behavior modification.

His colleagues call him Psyche-Out. You can purchase his action figure on eBay for around $50. He joined the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toy line  in 1987.

See what I did there? I psyched you out

Isa 36:11  Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

Morale was already at an all-time low as soldiers and citizens looked out upon a seemingly invincible foe. If everyone understood these mocking taunts, there would be no way to spin this as being not as bad as it seemed.

Isa 36:12  But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

In the 2011 feature film The Help, do you recall how Minny, a maid in the civil-rights-era deep South, exacts her revenge for being unjustly fired? She serves her former boss a poop-filled version of her famous chocolate pie.

Poop pie would be on Judah’s menu if they were determined to resist.

Isa 36:13  Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

Isa 36:14  Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you;

Isa 36:15  nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’

He says, Don’t “let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD.” This is a second misspeak by him. The reason Assyria was at the gates was precisely because they had quit trusting in the LORD. Their deliverance was one prayer of repentance away.

Alan Redpath said, “It is Satan’s delight to tell me that once he’s got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to God. And I know that if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to forgive me.”

Isa 36:16  Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;

Isa 36:17  until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Extreme evil is lurking behind these words. Rabshakeh promised the Jews could remain on their land, be a nation, in peace. With no segue he tells them that they will be relocated. No longer in their land, they would intermarry with Assyrians and other conquered peoples. They would lose their unique identity as God’s chosen nation.

This part of Rabshakeh’s psyche-out smacked of Satan. He hates the Jews and targets them specifically. He has tried many times to exterminate them.

Isa 36:18  Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Isa 36:19  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

Isa 36:20  Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

Sennacherib was Assyria’s king. God-after-god had fallen. Rabshakeh was confident the LORD would fall. But he doesn’t say “The gods of Assyria will prevail.” He says Sennacherib will prevail against all gods, including the LORD. It’s subtle, but the king of Assyria was claiming to be god.

Back in chapter fourteen Satan said, “I will be like the Most High” (v14). He enjoys playing ‘God’ by influencing the kings of the world to do his bidding.

“It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.”

Those are the words of George Soros from a 2004 L.A. Times interview that has just resurfaced.

Isa 36:21  But they held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”

Albert Barnes writes, “There are circumstances when it is proper to maintain a profound silence in the presence of revilers and blasphemers, and when we should withdraw from them, and go and spread the case before the Lord.”

Isa 36:22  Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

The Rabshakeh’s insults contributed to Judah’s repenting. They tore their clothes, and in the very next chapter we read, “And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.”

The outward manifestation of wearing sackcloth symbolized inward repentance. The prophet Joel gives us the inner look when he writes, “Now, therefore,” says the LORD, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm” (2:12-13).

Maybe we can start the Sackcloth Squad?

Ancient Jews at times pulled on their hair and beards to illustrate the internal suffering. They tore their clothes. They wore sackcloth. They put ashes on themselves and sat on the ground. Not just when someone died; repentance before God was another reason to mourn.

C.S. Lewis said, “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.”

• If you are not in Christ, an unbeliever, you are on the broad path that leads to destruction. God calls upon you to repent.
• If you are in Christ, a believer, Satan will try every possible sigh up to stumble, you, or have you turn aside. Keep following your map. Walk with the Lord and discover the good works set before you.

Holy Rollin’ Down The Highway (Isaiah 35)

I call him Peter Parkinson.

Peter is a drawing that you see on Parkinson’s Disease websites. It’s an illustration to help you quickly understand the physical symptoms and manifestations of the disease.

Peter is usually an old, balding man. He’s stooped over, with a cane. Going clockwise around him are written the description of his symptoms: Masked face, speech changes, loss of the sense of smell, forward tilt of the trunk, reduced arm swing, hand tremor, slightly flexed hip & knees, tremors of the legs, flexed elbows & wrists, back rigidity, balance & coordination problems, and slowness of movement.

Isaiah similarly illustrated the spiritual condition of Israel.

• They had “weak hands,” and “feeble knees” (v3).
• They were “fearful-hearted” (v4).
• They were “blind,” “deaf,” “lame,” and “dumb” (v5-6).
• They were “parched” and “thirsty” (v7).

The LORD ministered to them by directing their gaze to the far future. He let them know that their descendants would inherit the promised Kingdom of God on Earth.

God uses future prophecy to encourage, to edify, and to equip us.

• Is anyone suffering, physically or spiritually, with weak hands, feeble knees, or a fearful heart?
• Are there any here who remain blind, deaf, lame, and dumb to the call of Jesus?
• Who among us is not parched and thirsty from walking out in the desert that is this fallen, and thereby evil, world?

I’ll organize my comments around two questions: #1 Wherein Lies Your Hope?, and #2 Whereto Leads Your Highway?

#1 – Wherein Lies Your Hope? (v1-7)

These ten verses are uncomplicated. They announce Israel’s future enjoyment of their Messiah in the earthly Kingdom God promised them. Their Kingdom is an unconditional, physical promise God made to King David to establish his throne forever.

You can get lost in the language of Bible prophecy. The terms can be strange sounding, and more often than not, a person or place or event has many names. Today we are talking about the Kingdom of God on Earth that follows the 7yrs of Tribulation on Earth. According to the Revelation it lasts one-thousand years, so we call it the Millennial Kingdom, or the Millennium.

It isn’t Heaven; it is on Earth. At the Return of the King (AKA The Second Coming), Jesus will identify the believing citizens of the Gentile nations who survive the Tribulation. They will enter the Kingdom in their mortal bodies as its first inhabitants.

When God’s people were struggling or suffering, He often met their need by revealing their future. The Church in general has gotten away from that method of encouragement. Prophecy is seen as a niche hobby among certain conspiracy-oriented individuals or groups. Very few think it valuable to promote a healthy and holy spiritual heart.

I ran across a quote in my reading that struck me positively:

“Eschatology, as religious doctrine about ‘last things,’ is faith in final resolutions. It is the hope of believing people that the incompleteness of their present experience of God will be resolved, their present thirst for God fulfilled, their present need for

release and salvation realized. It is faith in the resolution of the unresolved, in the tying-up of all the loose ends that mar the life of the believer in the world. It is the expectation, despite uncertainties, that our choices and patterns of action in this present human life will find lasting relevance in the retribution – for good or ill – administered by a God who is good and wise and powerful, the expectation that God’s provident action in history will be shown, in the end, to have a consistency and purposefulness that reflect His goodness.”

Bible prophecy is not impractical. We focus on what is coming in order to get through what is here.

The southern Jewish kingdom of Judah was besieged by the arrogant, aggressive Assyrian army. Isaiah comforts them by jumping ahead to what would occur centuries later, beyond our time.

Isa 35:1  The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;

A better reading of verse one is, “Thirsty deserts will be glad; barren lands will celebrate and blossom with flowers.”

Although God in His goodness allowed a great deal of beauty to survive, the transformation of the Earth to a cursed desert is part of His just penalty for human sin. God’s creation is groaning under this curse every single moment (Romans 8:19-23).

If Hwy 58 survives the Great Tribulation, when you come down from Tehachapi to Mojave, you’ll see signs that say, Glad Desert Ahead. Everywhere along the road will be a vista point from which you are surrounded by the beauty of the Lord’s restorative work.

Isa 35:2  It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, Even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, The excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, The excellency of our God.

These were what we call vacation destinations. In the future earthly Kingdom, everywhere you go will be a breathtakingly beautiful vacation spot. Except Riverdale.

There are some incredible places on Earth. I want to say, “Imagine what they will look like in the future Kingdom,” but that would suggest that we can imagine it. Our descriptions fall short. The Lord’s restoration will have two things unique to His workmanship which we cannot fathom until we see them:

1. “The glory of the Lord.” While it is true that “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1), we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
2. “The excellency of our God.” The Earth and everything in it are suffering from the curse. Still, we can see from the single cell to the galaxies the meticulousness of His work. It will pale compared to the attention to detail Jesus pays to His Kingdom work.

Isa 35:3  Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees.

Isa 35:4  Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.”

We could draw an illustration of Joe or Jane Christian, noting on it the symptoms Isaiah listed:

• “Weak hands.” If you are a believer you are compared to a builder, a farmer, a steward, a soldier. All involve hard work with your hands. Over time, your hands can weaken, or suffer permanent damage.
• We automatically associate “knees” with kneeling to pray – even though I’d guess most of us do not kneel to pray very often? The easiest way to make a Christian feel awful is to point out that they do not pray enough. That wasn’t Isaiah’s point.
• There is certainly a lot in our surroundings to cause us to fear. It has gotten so bad that we are legalizing crime. Police in Oakland, California, now suggest residents carry air horns to deter criminals, an alarming indication of the escalating crime rates plaguing the city.

The Lord’s exhortation is to “strengthen,” and “make firm,” and “be strong, do not fear.” There is no instruction as to how you do this. There is no plan, no steps. That can only mean one thing: We don’t need instruction, and there is a single step.

There is a scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that might help us gain perspective. When the attack on the city of Gondor begins, Denethor shouts, “Abandon your posts! Flee! Flee for your lives!” Gandalf hits him on the head with his staff and counter-commands, “Prepare for battle! Return to your posts!” It is presented to the soldiers as an option, and they have a decision to make. You see their faces as they struggle to decide. They obey Gandalf, even though it will likely cost them their lives.

There was nothing to do but obey or disobey. Later Gandalf will encourage them again, saying, “You are soldiers of Gondor!”  You are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Or you could say builders, farmers, stewards, etc. Be who you are.

I must add that this is a process. Truth be told, half the time I follow Denethor’s advice. The more I realize I can obey Jesus, because God the Holy Spirit is indwelling me, the more “strengthened” I am.

“Strengthen,” “make firm, “be strong and do not fear” – that’s a solid biblical counseling session.

During the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian’s we can see Isaiah going around the walls of Jerusalem, into the towers, and saying, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.”

Isa 35:5  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

Isa 35:6  Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing…

If you didn’t know these words were about the future, and I asked you what they describe, you’d likely think of Jesus in His first coming. He did all these things as proof He was Israel’s Messiah. Despite all that and so much more, the nation rejected Him.

Their rejection cannot affect God’s unconditional promises to Israel.

I cannot emphasize enough that national, ethnic Israel is the apple of God’s eye. He did not and cannot abandon them in favor of the Church.

The future Kingdom is another unique age. It will feature the healing of all handicaps and conditions.

Isa 35:6  …For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert.

Isa 35:7  The parched ground shall become a pool, And the thirsty land springs of water; In the habitation of jackals, where each lay, There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

These things will happen – literally, physically, historically. Though you may draw analogies and illustrations for living from this, it isn’t allegorical or metaphorical.

Jesus will come; Jesus will deliver you.

When? Maybe He’ll wait another hour or day; or month or year; maybe a lifetime. In any case we need a strong ethic of suffering.

Disease is as good an illustration as any. A little background first. We mentioned that, when Jesus was on Earth, He healed pretty much everyone from everything – even occasionally bringing a person back to life. It was to prove that He was the King of the long-promised Kingdom.

His approximately 3½yrs of ministry were a unique time. Before Jesus came, there were miracles of healing and folks raised from the dead, but not very often. In the current Church Age, Jesus heals, but not as often. We pray for healing, but the honest truth is that very few are healed. It isn’t their fault; it isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault because it is the way God has designed this dispensation. He desires to be glorified in our weaknesses, being strengthened by Him.

I’ll let Martin Luther say it: “In our sad condition [sometimes] our only consolation is the expectancy of another life.” As much as I have wanted to tell folks that they are going to recover or be healed outright, I’ve often led with, “You’re going to die if God doesn’t intervene.” Then we talk about what to expect beyond their disease when an “entrance will be supplied to [them] abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (Second Peter 1:11).

I think that blind, deaf, lame, and mute is more  descriptive of the spiritual state of unbelievers.  While it would seem that a person in this condition, can do nothing, several times in the Scriptures such an unbelieving person is encouraged by Jesus to see, hear, speak, and walk:

• In the Revelation Jesus tells the Laodiceans, “you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (3:17). He immediately tells them to do what seems impossible, to “buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see” (3:18).
• Later in Isaiah we will read, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price” (55:1).

Your only hope in this life is Jesus in the next. Thomas Fuller said, “If it were not for [future] hope, the heart would break.” Then Spurgeon reminds us, “Do not look to your hope, but to Christ, the source of your hope.”

#2 – Whereto Leads Your Highway? (v8-10)

In high school I got into lots of trouble with Steve Kasler. Mostly because his ‘64 Chevy Malibu in original meadow green with a 327 and four on the floor was the fastest car in the Tri-Cities area. We’d cruise E Street looking for cars to drag race, then head to Marshall Blvd.

In a sad irony, in 1993 Steve was killed in a car accident while driving at an excessive speed.

He was the son of Richard Kasler. In the 1970s and 1980s everywhere you drove in Southern California there was massive freeway construction. On the side of those ginormous water tankers was stenciled, KASLER CORP. They built freeways.

Jesus is going to build a spectacular highway.

Isa 35:8  A highway shall be there, and a road, And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, But it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, Shall not go astray.

Some commentators say that the Highway of Holiness does not need to be a literal highway; they say the point of the prophecy is that God will remove all obstacles and ‘smooth the way’ for His people, enabling them to access the blessings of the Kingdom.

We know that people from every corner of the globe will make physical pilgrimage to the Lord in Jerusalem in the future Kingdom.

There must be roads to Jerusalem that link-up with the Highway of Holiness.

The expression, “All roads lead to Rome,” was kinda true. They built 50,000 miles of hard surfaced highways that extended from Britain to the Tigris-Euphrates river system, and from the Danube River to Spain and Northern Africa. That’s about the amount of paved road you’ll find in Maine.

What do you think: High Speed Rail? Monorail system? People Mover? Self-driving Tesla? Uber? We don’t know that there will be vehicles.

In this context “holiness” simply describes a believer. There isn’t a standard of holiness they must prove. There is no holiness toll.

Unbelievers won’t have the same access. Seems we will know who is and is not a believer.

Who are the “fools?” A paraphrase version renders it, ”those who go on it will not be turned out of the way by the foolish.” Those who have no business being on the road will not cause traffic jams & accidents. No road rage!

Isa 35:9  No lion shall be there, Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there,

Travel was mostly by foot, and extraordinarily dangerous. Wild beasts, especially “lions,” were no joke. Elsewhere in Isaiah we learn that in the Millennium animals will have no animosity towards humans. They will not be carnivores. No predators will stalk the Highway of Holiness.

Isa 35:10  And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah’s immediate audience was exclusively Jewish. The “ransomed of the LORD” are Jews who believe God and receive Jesus. Only Jews can be described as those who “return” to Jerusalem. They were dispersed by God all over the globe, but gathered together again and return to their homeland.

That happened not too long ago and continues as Jews return to Israel.

Isaiah was describing Jews, but Gentiles will also pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

“They shall obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” is a promise to all the citizens of the Millennial Kingdom.

Are you sighing & sorrowing? The “God of all comfort” comforts by directing your heart to consider the future.

The believers in the church in Thessalonica were expecting Jesus to come for them at any moment. As they waited, some among them died. The living were grieving. How did the apostle Paul comfort them? He gave them additional prophetic insights regarding the pretribulation resurrection & rapture of the Church.

Can you think too much upon the future promises of God? Not really. In fact, the more you look to the future, the better. C.S. Lewis said, “I have discovered that the people who believe most strongly in the next life do the most good in the present one.”

The Lord is coming with “vengeance” & “recompense.”

• His final “vengeance” is the Second Death for all who refuse His gracious offers of salvation.
• His “recompense” are rewards the Lord wants to distribute to believers.

J.C. Ryle said, “Let us remember, there is One who daily records all we do for Him, and sees more beauty in His servants’ work than His servants do themselves. And then shall His faithful witnesses discover, to their wonder and surprise, that there never was a word spoken on their Master’s behalf, which does not receive a reward.”

The General Assembly Of The Indicted Nations (Isaiah 34)

• One time he was sprayed by a hose.
• Another time he had to chase after a woman who tried to evade him on her riding lawnmower.
• He always has an empty pizza box in his car in case he pretends he’s delivering dinner.

Who is he? He is a Process Server attempting to serve a subpoena to summon a person to appear in court.

I’ve been served twice. Don’t worry; I was served as a witness, not a defendant. I didn’t attempt evasion, so there’s no humorous anecdote.

In our text, the LORD issues a summons.

The CSB version of verse one reads, “You nations, come here and listen; you peoples, pay attention! Let the Earth and all that fills it hear, the world and all that comes from it.”

Jesus Christ is returning to Earth. He is coming at the end of the 7yr Time of Jacob’s Trouble that we most often call the Great Tribulation. At some point between His return and the beginning of the Kingdom of God on Earth, Jesus will summon the Gentile nations of the world in order to identify who of the survivors of the Tribulation will enter the Kingdom in their mortal bodies.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 You Will See The Carnage At The Lord’s Coming, and #2 You Will See The Captives After The Lord’s Coming.

#1 – You Will See The Carnage At The Lord’s Coming (v1-10)

Would you believe me if I told you that the phrase, ‘Second Coming,’ never occurs in the Bible? Not once?

While there are hundreds of references to the Lord’s glorious return, no Bible writer called it the Second Coming.

It’s not wrong to call the Lord’s return the Second Coming. I’m sure I will continue to do so. It might be more accurate to call it the Return of the King. You could go Greek; the Greek word parousia (pair-oo-see-ah) is a noun that means a coming or a presence. Our friends at gotquestions.org say:

Primarily this word refers to the Coming of the Lord Jesus. It can refer to either His Second Coming at the END of the 7-year Tribulation period, or to His coming to [resurrect and] rapture His Church PRIOR to the 7-year Tribulation. You have to look at the context to determine whether it refers to His appearing in the air to rapture the Church, or whether it refers to His Second Coming back to Earth to setup His Millennial Kingdom.

Isaiah wrote about the Return-of-the-King parousia.

Isa 34:1  Come near, you nations, to hear; And heed, you people! Let the Earth hear, and all that is in it, The world and all things that come forth from it.

Heaven issues a summons, a notice to appear, to the Gentile “nations” of Earth. Another summons goes out to “the Earth,” identified as “all the things that come forth from it.” This prophecy is global and cosmic in its scope.

Isa 34:2  For the indignation of the LORD is against all nations, And His fury against all their armies; He has utterly destroyed them, He has given them over to the slaughter.

The Lord has “indignation” against “all nations” that persecuted or would not help His people, Israel. Jesus will utterly destroy all their “armies,” but not the nations themselves. Nations will continue to exist in eternity. They are mentioned three times in the Revelation, in eternity (21:2&26; 22:2).

Isa 34:3  Also their slain shall be thrown out; Their stench shall rise from their corpses, And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

If you thought “carnage” was too harsh a word in my outline, it is mild compared to Isaiah’s description. Another Bible translation reads, “Their dead bodies will be left to rot and stink; their blood will flow down the mountains.” It is repulsive.

It’s painful to read this. It’s nearly unbearable to realize that this will only be the beginning of their suffering. While their bodies are left to rot on earth, the wicked dead, are in Hades. They will be resurrected to be judged, then thrown into the Lake of Fire, conscious and tormented forever.

Why so brutal? Sin is ugly. When Jesus returns, and He destroys the armies, we see in their slain condition something of what “the wages of sin” looks like.

Thomas Watson said, “Let them fear death who do not fear sin.”

Isa 34:4  All the host of Heaven shall be dissolved, And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; All their host shall fall down As the leaf falls from the vine, And as fruit falling from a fig tree.

At the Lords return, there will be disturbances in the stellar heavens. This is a poetic description of some of their power and effect.

Isa 34:5  For My sword shall be bathed in Heaven; Indeed it shall come down on Edom, And on the people of My curse, for judgment.

The language here makes it sound like Jesus polished-up His ceremonial sword. The ESV translates it more realistically, as do most modern versions: “For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.”

The Lord said something similar in Deuteronomy, “I will make My arrows drunk with blood, And My sword shall devour flesh, With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the heads of the leaders of the enemy” (32:42).

The Bible isn’t portraying Jesus with a sword in His hand, hacking away at enemy soldiers. His return is described in Revelation nineteen, where we read, “out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations… [they] were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh” (v15&21). Jesus kills with the power of the Word of God.

It was said of Jesus that no one ever spoke like Him. He spoke with authority, every word true, with power to deliver and save. His words were beautiful, wondrous. They pierced your heart. They forgave, they blessed even His enemies. But for those who do not wish to hear Him, His words proclaim your perishing in the Second Death.

Isa 34:6  The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, It is made overflowing with fatness, With the blood of lambs and goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

The priests in the Temple sprinkled the blood of the animal that was sacrificed, and burned its fat.

Isaiah employs it as a metaphor. Albert Barnes explained, “These were the animals which were usually offered in sacrifice to God among the Jews. Yet it is evident that they denote here people.”

Jesus sacrificed Himself on the Cross at Calvary as a substitute for every member of the human race. Salvation is available to all men. You need only believe God and He will count it for righteousness.

Without His substitution, you face judgement for your sin, alone and in your own body, by your own works that fall far short of you getting into Heaven.

Do you use TurboTax? I always refuse to pay extra to be represented if we get audited. If we get audited… I hope I don’t regret it.

You and I require expert representation at the Cross.

Isa 34:7  The wild oxen shall come down with them, And the young bulls with the mighty bulls; Their land shall be soaked with blood, And their dust saturated with fatness.”

Isaiah employed illustrations, e.g., animals representing men, but this is no allegory. Blood will be shed.

Isa 34:8  For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, The year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Isa 34:9  Its streams shall be turned into pitch, And its dust into brimstone; Its land shall become burning pitch.

Isa 34:10  It shall not be quenched night or day; Its smoke shall ascend forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; No one shall pass through it forever and ever.

“Day” and “year” describe periods. “Forever” means until the end of that age, or as we might say, until the end of the dispensation of the Millennial Kingdom.

In The Lion King, Scar convinces Simba to take Nalla to the off-limits dangerous and mysterious Elephant Graveyard. They can see it afar off.

Here in verses eight, nine, & ten, Isaiah indicates that the region of Bozrah, in Edom, will not be restored in the Millennium. It will continually burn throughout that time. I wasn’t ready for that, but it’s true. The Millennium will be wonderful, but not perfect. It can’t be perfect because there will be mortals in it. Thus there will be things in it that won’t be in eternity.

Why Edom? Why Bozrah? Jesus taught His disciples about the future Tribulation in Matthew twenty-four. The antichrist will enter the rebuilt Jewish Temple to defile it. At that moment, Jesus warned the Jews to flee to the wilderness with nothing but the clothes they are wearing.

Commentators believe they will go to Petra. It is the fortress-city in the land of Edom. (Petra was rediscovered in 1812 in what is Southern Jordan today).

In the rock fortress of Petra, God will miraculously protect the Jews over the final 1260 days of the Tribulation. He will defeat part of antichrist’s army at Bozrah. Listen to this from Isaiah chapter sixty-three:

Isa 63:1  Who is this who comes from Edom, With [blood stained] garments from Bozrah, This One who is glorious in His apparel, Traveling in the greatness of His strength? – “I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”

This is the same event in chapter thirty-four, the parousia, with additional details.

Isaiah sees Jesus bloodstained from battle at Bozrah. There are a number of scholars we trust who believe that Jesus will first return to Bozrah, not the more commonly held belief that He returns to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus’ return reads like a military campaign. Wherever you think He returns first, there are several movements. The Bozrah-first contingent, for example, identify eight stages.

1. The gathering and staging of all the world’s armies at Armageddon.
2. God destroys Babylon, antichrist’s capital.
3. Jerusalem is attacked, and half the city falls.
4. The armies of the antichrist attack the Jews in Edom holed up in Bozrah.
5. Israel calls upon Jesus as their Messiah and experiences national regeneration.
6. The King returns to Bozrah and defeats antichrist’s forces. All Israel is saved.   
7. The armies of the world are destroyed from Bozrah all the way to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
8. Jesus ascends the Mount of Olives in triumph.

Exact timelines for Bible events can be difficult to determine. Hold to them loosely.

We are not mentioned in this text. We couldn’t be mentioned because Isaiah didn’t know about the Church.

The apostle Paul states that the Church was a mystery until he revealed it.

God distinguishes between three groups: The nation of Israel, the Gentile nations, and the Church (First Corinthians 10:32). The Church has not replaced or superseded Israel. The rebirth of national Israel in May of 1948 is all the proof you should need that the Lord has not cast off the Jews in favor of the Church.

The Lord will gather us to Himself in His parousia, the one we call the Rapture, prior to the Tribulation. We are in this chapter, parousia-ing with the Lord.

#2 – You Will See Captives After The Lord’s Coming (v11-17)

Pelicans, porcupines, owls, ravens, jackals, ostriches, wild beasts of the desert, wild goats, the arrow snake, and hawks; Other Bible translations mention vultures, hyenas, dragons, wildcats, buzzards, skunks, and Sonic; Commentators redefine some of these animals as cormorants, bitterns, eagles, crows, foxes, and wolves.

Is this the Bible, or Doctor Doolittle?

Look at verse twelve. “They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, But none shall be there, and all its princes shall be nothing.” The nation of Edom will cease to exist in the future Kingdom of Jesus on Earth. Its lands will become the deserted, desolate habitation of these various creatures.

You guys are pretty sharp, so you noticed I failed to mention one creature, obviously the most intriguing one listed: “The night creature shall rest there, And find for herself a place of rest.”

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says, “The term [‘night creature’ or] ‘night-monster’ is a hypothetical translation of the Hebrew term Lilith, used once only. The lil, or ghost, was a night-demon of terrible and baleful influence upon men.”

A medieval Jewish text, The Alphabet of Ben Sira, mythologically describes Lilith as Adam’s first wife. She disobeyed both her husband and God by asserting her equality to Adam. (She was the first to abandon complimentarianism for egalitarianism!).

Isaiah’s intended audience would have understood from his inclusion of the night-monster that the beasts Isaiah listed were symbolic of various supernatural creatures.

If you’ve watched the film version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you remember the sacrifice of Aslan. Jadis, the White Queen, was surrounded by multitudes of weird creatures that represented evil supernaturals.

Throughout the Millennial Kingdom, folks will be able to see the Elephant Graveyard, so to speak. Evil supernaturals will be contained there. Will it be like a zoo??

Verses eleven through fifteen list the animals and reinforce their confinement and the desolation of the land of Edom during the Millennium.

If you are still having difficulty thinking that Isaiah was referring to supernatural beings, remember that at the Cross, we are told, in Psalm twenty-two, “Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me with their mouths, Like a raging and roaring lion” (v12-13). These, of course, were not bulls and lions. They represented the demonic forces attacking the Lord.

The Bible is a supernatural book. There is an awful lot going on in the supernatural realm that we do not know about. And that’s fine, we don’t need to know about it. Or I should say, all we need to know about it is that Jesus defeated all supernatural evil creatures on the Cross when He died.

Isa 34:16  “Search from the book of the LORD, and read: Not one of these shall fail; Not one shall lack her mate. For My mouth has commanded it, and His Spirit has gathered them.

Every prophecy of the Lord will be fulfilled. Only He can talk about the future in the past tense.

It’s interesting to think of God the Holy Spirit as the One who gathers, i.e., arrests and incarcerates, these demonic forces. It’s not what we normally think of Him doing, is it?

Isa 34:17  He has cast the lot for them, And His hand has divided it among them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever; From generation to generation they shall dwell in it.”

“Casting the lot” and “dividing” was the method God employed when He originally apportioned the Promised Land to the various tribes. The Jews did not think of it as a chance rolling of the dice. God made His will known to Israel through it.

It’s not how we discover God’s will today. You’ll never hear at our Board Meetings,“Come on, come on, papa needs a new building!” as we toss the dice.

Not “forever,” but for the length of the Kingdom of God on Earth, Edom will be the habitation of the night-monster & her evil groupies.

I’d like to explain something about the thousand year kingdom, the Millennium, the Kingdom of God on Earth. When Jesus returns, there will be multitudes of humans who have survived the horrors of the Tribulation. At some point before the thousand years begins, the Lord will separate believers and unbelievers. The scene can be found at the end of Matthew twenty-five. It is famously referred to as the Sheep & Goat Judgment:

• The survivors of the nations who helped Israel during the Tribulation – believers – are the sheep.
• The survivors of the nations who persecuted Israel during the Tribulation – unbelievers – are the goats.

To the sheep, the Lord says, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

BTW: You probably know people who say that the resurrection & rapture occur after the Tribulation, i.e., post-tribulation. They see it as simultaneous with the Second Coming. One insurmountable difficulty with the postTrib rapture is that there would be no believing Gentile human beings on Earth to go into the Kingdom.

The Millennium must begin with saved mortal humans. As they reproduce, their children are born with a sin nature, needing to be saved by believing in Jesus. It almost defies comprehension, but multitudes of these will reject salvation. They join with Satan at the end of the thousand years in a final rebellion against God.

The rebellion will be short-lived. “They came up across the breadth of the Earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:19-20).

Next, the unbelieving dead, from all of time, will be raised to stand before the Great White Throne of God to determine the degrees of their punishment in the Lake of Fire.

Never in my lifetime have so many End Times prophecies seemed as ‘fulfillable’ as they are today:

• Israel is back in her land.
• The Jews are ready right now to reinstate the ministries of the Temple. They wouldn’t need a full blown temple. The Tabernacle in the wilderness was only 15 feet wide by 45 feet long, and it was a tent.
• Global tyrannical government is the desire of many.
• A cashless, global economy accessed by hand or head could become universal anytime.
• Artificial Intelligence is expanding knowledge exponentially.
• AI could certainly power the image of antichrist that is predicted to have “life.”

The stage is being set for the Tribulation.

The question is, Will you be on the stage? Or will you be in Heaven, the audience, having been raptured?

The Eight Stages of the Campaign of Armageddon

Based on the work of: Fruchtenbaum, Hindson, Ice, LaHaye, Et al.

1. The gathering of all the world’s armies at Armageddon. Joel 3:9-11; Psalm 2:1-6; Revelation 16:12-16
2. God destroys Babylon, Antichrist’s capital. Isaiah 13-14, Jeremiah 50-51; Zechariah 5:5-11; Rev. 17-18
3. Jerusalem is attacked, and half the city falls. Micah 4:11-5:1; Zechariah 12-14
4. The armies of the Antichrist attack the Jews hidden in Petra/Bozrah. Jeremiah 49:13-14; Micah 2:12
5. Israel is regenerated and accepts Jesus as their Messiah. Psalm 79:1-13; 80:1-19; Isaiah 64:1-12; Hosea 6:1-13; Joel 2:28-32; Zechariah 12:10; 13:7-9; Romans 11:25-27
6. Jesus rescues redeemed Israel hidden away at Petra/Bozrah. (Not the Mt of Olives – Acts 1:10-11) Isaiah 34:1-7; 63:1-6; Habakkuk 3:3; Micah 2:12-1
7. The armies of the world are destroyed from Petra/Bozrah to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Jeremiah 49:20-22; Zechariah 14:12-15; Joel 3:12-13, 2Thessalonians 2:8, Isaiah 14:3-11, 16-21
8. The victory ascent by Jesus up the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14:3-5; Joel 3:14-17; Matthew 24:29-31, Revelation 16:17-21; 19:11-21