Isaiah and the Feast of Trumpets

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Once you understand that there is a Christian symbolism in the Holy Days, it’s not that hard to make connections in most cases. For example, on this day, the Feast of Trumpets, if you just get a concordance out and look up trumpets, you don’t find an awful lot to go on other than those seven trumpets of Revelation. And when you go there and you read those trumpets, you can say, well, I can perhaps see what this is driving at. You also can easily learn that The time of the resurrection from the dead is at the last trumpet, and the sounding of a trumpet, and particularly at the last one. And the only place I know of where you find that sequence so clear is in the book of Revelation. And so the resurrection takes place at the last of seven trumpets. And so does the return of Christ. Because the return of Christ and our rising to meet him in the air, all that is of a piece in the book of Revelation. Now, I’ve explored all those ideas in years gone by, and I’m not going to go through them again today. But recently I’ve been reading in the book of Isaiah. Some of you may realize that just as we have produced the Psalms on tape, that I’m currently going through the book of Isaiah in much the same way I went through the Psalms. And it’s been a fascinating experience both in the Psalms and in Isaiah because although I’ve read all this stuff before, it’s a different matter altogether when you read it aloud and you try to give interpretation to the reading. Now, by interpretation, I mean inflection, pauses, emphasis, you know, the rising and falling of the voice, all kinds of things we do in verbal communication that we simply can’t do in print. And whenever you begin to look at Isaiah to read it to someone to try to help them understand it, the result is you understand it better yourself. So it’s a long and difficult prophecy, and the term that I have decided to attach to it is the Messiah’s prophet, because I think more than any other prophet in the Old Testament, Isaiah is tied up with and linked to the Messiah. Now, I’m not really a student of literature, but I do know that there are certain forms of literature which one approaches differently from others. For example, you know, all of us know from our high school classes that we don’t read poetry the same way we read prose. That it’s different. The approach is different. The way you understand it is different. That you oftentimes try to feel poetry as well as to read it and to understand it. And I’m absolutely certain that one of our difficulties with scripture is we approach that scripture differently. as though it were a 20th century English prose. Which, kind of understandable we would approach it that way, because that’s the way it comes into our labs in our Bibles. But that is decidedly not the way that it was originally written. It’s all of us know, and it works for us up to a point. Now I’m not suggesting that the Bible is merely literature, far from it. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Holy Spirit would speak to and through a man in the literary forms of his day. Because those literary forms would be familiar to his readers. He himself would understand in many ways what it was he was trying to do. And so consequently, there is an approach, a literary approach, to the book of Isaiah and the other prophets that is worthwhile. The parables of Jesus are a literary device. They are similar, not quite the same, as allegories. And what is interesting about allegories, by the way, is that people see them differently. They will read it and they will see different interpretations upon the elements of the allegory. And people read Jesus’ parables in much the same way. And there have been times when I have wondered if one of the reasons why Jesus spoke in parables, one of the reasons why the Bible uses this structure, and one of the reasons why the prophets… written the way they are, is so that each of us can bring our own mind, our own heart, our own experiences to that reading, and therefore derive what is more personal to us than we otherwise might get from it. If it were hardcore, black and white, one, two, three, four, letter of the law, explanations of what God is trying to tell us. I think there’s also, of course, the problem that what God is trying to tell us is rather beyond us. We can grasp it up to a point, but a great deal of our difficulty is an awful lot of what he’s trying to tell us is over our heads for now, and will remain there for some little time to come. Now, the Hebrew prophecies are not allegories, and they’re not parables. They seem to me to be a literary type all of their own. And what I’m thinking is that as I read them, that I’m finding that you also have to bring your mind and your heart with you when you read. You know, this is not just a one-way thing with you. You bring yourself to the study of these books, and you need to realize that that is what you have done. And you also must come with the Holy Spirit, because without the Holy Spirit, you don’t have a chance. You simply don’t have a chance. You will always fall short. Now, there is one thing when you come to the prophets you must avoid. And that is making up your mind about what the prophecy means and considering it a settled issue. That is a sure way to get blindsided. A person has to approach the prophecies with an open mind and an open heart and a willingness to let God speak to us through the pages of the book. Now, I spoke about this a few weeks ago. Basically, a few weeks ago, I spoke to you about prophecy being like a river. And I spoke about the prophet Isaiah, and I developed some of the early chapters of Isaiah. But I was still at that time in the first part of the book of Isaiah. Since then, I’ve read my way entirely through the book. I’ve got nearly all of it on tape, but not quite. And there’s an awareness that’s been growing in my mind through these last several chapters of Isaiah that is related very much to the Feast of Trumpets and in ways that, frankly, in the last three months ago, I did not see and did not understand. Now, first of all, let me explain a couple of things about Isaiah. First of all, you will find people referring in the literature to first and second Isaiah. There’s a theory among scholars that there are two Isaiahs, two different individuals writing at two different periods of time, both of whom either are called Isaiah or call themselves Isaiah. The New Testament writers do not see that. They look at Isaiah as a single whole, and that’s the way I look at it. The reasons why scholars see it differently, when I look at it, I think those reasons are invalid. I won’t go into that. That’s a subject for another time. However, there is what I will call, for want of better terms for it, first and second Isaiah. First Isaiah leads up to and includes the historical section that ends with chapter 39. And second Isaiah, which we’ll call it, it’s like second Corinthians. You know, Paul wrote first Corinthians and second Corinthians. Isaiah wrote his book in two distinct phases of his life and of his ministry. Second Isaiah begins in chapter 40. What I was dealing with before was the early days of Isaiah, first Isaiah. This is pre-exile. This is long before Israel has gone into captivity. And in fact, at the time he begins to write, there’s a kind of a semi-civil war going on between Samaria in the north, who has become allied with Syria further north, and is coming rolling down on Jerusalem to fight against them. That battle came to nothing. We talked about that in an earlier sermon that I gave on the subject of Isaiah. Isaiah was writing also, was contemporary with that war, but he was anticipating an invasion not from Syria but from Assyria, a very different and much greater power to be reckoned with in the ancient world. The Assyrian Empire preceded the Babylonian Empire. They were of great power. Nineveh in those days was one of the greatest cities a man has ever seen, certainly up until that time and, frankly, a long way beyond that time. I’ve actually seen, I think, one of the gates of Nineveh in the Berlin Museum. It’s a fascinating thing to see these things people have brought from the past. But Nineveh was a great city, powerful empire. Well, the Assyrians came down and took Samaria. They took all the ten northern tribes of Israel away into captivity. They invaded Judah. They took Lachish. They took all sorts of the cities around about and left Jerusalem sitting alone surrounded by armies. The Egyptians, whom the Israelis at that time, the Jews, had been negotiating with to bail them out of the situation, came up into the country, and between the war between Egypt and Assyria that took place around Jerusalem, the whole landscape around them was devastated. But Jerusalem survived that war. Isaiah also, in that first Isaiah, sees Babylon a long way off, but he sees the kind of power they are going to be and the role they are ultimately going to play. Everything changes in 2nd Isaiah. Same man, but still a different tone, a different style, and perhaps even more important, a different objective. Now, early on in this second Isaiah, a new theme begins to develop. I’ve seen it called the servant theme in some scholarly literature because he will again and again refer to my servant, my servant, my servant. There’s something you need to know about that. The servant may be Israel, it may be Jerusalem, it may be Isaiah himself, and it may be the Messiah. It is all of these at one time or another throughout this particular section of Scripture as God talks. And it’s very difficult for the casual English prose reader to know where he is at all times in reading through this section of Isaiah. So the servant’s theme is developed. Isaiah 53 is a major landmark in this whole section because it speaks of a suffering servant. And this is a term you will see sometimes in commentaries and scholarly works. They’ll talk about the suffering servant theme in the book of Isaiah. The suffering Messiah, as we have come to see it. Now, all of us are familiar with multiple readings of this from Passover, from sermons about the passion of Jesus Christ. And I’ve been given to understand that Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion, actually starts with a citation from Isaiah 53, linking this chapter to the suffering of the Messiah. We’re going to come today to chapter 54, because once we have passed through in Isaiah the suffering of the Messiah, something has happened. Something new is beginning to develop, and it’s not immediately clear to the casual reader what it is. Isaiah 54 begins this way. Sing, O barren, you that did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who did not travail with child. You’re a woman who has never given birth. Okay? Sing. Break forth into singing. Cry aloud. For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. Odd. What’s he talking about here? How can that possibly be? Enlarge the place of your tent. If you’re writing to us today, you’d probably say, better put a new wing on your house. In fact, you better maybe get another house next door. Enlarge, stretch forth the curtains of your habitations. Don’t spare. Lengthen your cords. Strengthen your stakes. Drive them in deeper. For you shall break forth on the right hand and break forth on the left, and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles and cause even their desolate cities to be inhabited. Now, how is it possible for a desolate woman to have more children than a married wife? Adoption. You know, other people’s children can come into her life. He is saying, make your tent a lot bigger. You are going to inherit all the Gentiles. That’s what this passage of Scripture here is saying. Don’t miss that because it’s important as it develops further. Verse 9. And this is, by the way, a major point. In the New Testament, it is what the book of Acts is all about. The story of the book of Acts is the breakout of the Christian faith from being merely a Jewish sect into being a religion for all people. Because up until this time, the Jews had never seen it that way. As far as we can tell, no one in Israel had ever seen it that way. In fact, scholars writing about Isaiah and the reason why they think 2nd Isaiah was written later is because they say the conversion of the heathen was beyond the horizon of any 7th century prophet. In other words, there’s no way Isaiah could have seen forth or understood or grasped or even thought about the conversion of the heathen. But in fact, that is what this verse is all about. And not only that, it’s not only beyond the horizon of a seventh century prophet, it’s beyond the horizons of a first century prophet. Because the Jews, when Jesus came on the scene, would never have accepted the idea of the conversion of the Gentiles. Their whole idea was you had to become a Jew all the way. Circumcision, the whole nine yards. All right, this is a major point. Isaiah 4, verse 9. For this is as the waters of Noah to me, as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no longer go over the earth. So I have sworn that I would not be wroth with you nor rebuke you. This is something new. God is saying there’s coming a point in time where he will no longer do that. For the mountains shall depart. Now we’re coming to something entirely new. We’re not talking about a covenant that is going to pass away, a covenant that’s going to become old and no longer be needed. We’re talking about a permanent covenant. Oh, you afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted. Behold, I will lay your stones with fair colors, lay your foundations with sapphires. I’ll make your battlements rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels and all your walls of precious stones. Does that call anything to your mind? Reads a lot like Revelation 22, doesn’t it? In the New Jerusalem that comes down, where every one of the gates is a pearl, and the foundations are all laid out, 12 foundations of precious stones and so forth. Here it is, back in Isaiah 54. This is addressed to a mystical Jerusalem. But one of the fascinating themes that persists through here is the calling of the Gentiles. Isaiah 55, verse 12. This also will be a familiar passage of Scripture. Oh, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters. And he that has no money, come, buy, eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to me. Eat you that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Now, you might not immediately grasp this, but what he’s talking about here is that anyone can come. Here’s the way Jesus said it. John 7, verse 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But he spoke of the Holy Spirit. Verse 3. Incline your ear and come to me and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Even the sure mercies of David. Now, what in the world does David have to do with this? David is dead, buried. They could go out and look at his tomb. What is he talking about when he said, I’m going to make an everlasting covenant, not one that will get old and pass away, one that will last forever, and it’s going to be the sure mercies of my servant David. Well, you have to understand, the Messiah was of David’s house, and consequently, he would have borne the name David, among others. And what he is talking about here is, I’m going to make a new covenant with you, the sure mercies of the Messiah, if I may read it to you that way. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people. Remember, David’s dead. It’s a descendant of David he’s talking about. Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know, and nations that knew you not shall run to you because of the Lord your God and for the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you. Now I looked, and I could not find a single translation that, if it caught it, felt it was important to mention it. The word for nations in chapter 5 is the Hebrew word translated elsewhere, Gentiles. And, of course, the context of it, Makes it clear that is what he’s talking about. You shall call a nation that you didn’t know, and the Gentiles that know you not shall run to you because of the Lord your God and for the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. It’s fascinating to realize it, but Isaiah is continually marching his way through this idea. We’re kicking the doors open. This is not going to be just a Jewish religion. It’s not going to only be Israel that worships God. You had your chance to be the only nation that did that. Although that was never, I think, God’s intention that they be the only people that did that. But they had failed. He says, now we’re calling everyone. Ho, everyone that thirsts, come. Now, what follows in here is one of the really beautiful passages. I was looking for the music and couldn’t find it. Seek you the Lord while he may be found. Call you upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. It’s a beautiful air set to that, I mean, that this is set to in some of the Christian music, and I’d like to have found it. Now passing on down to Isaiah 56, verse 6, which is carrying the theme on. Now, one of the problems with Isaiah, as you read it, is because of the extent of the poetry and the explanatory poetry that is included in it, you often will lose the thread. But the thread that keeps dragging its way all the way through this is this one here, verse 6. The sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of Jehovah to be his servants and everyone that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it and takes hold of my covenant This is an idea that was not only foreign in Isaiah’s day, it was still foreign in first century Judaism. The stranger who actually will keep the Sabbath from polluting it will lay hold on my covenant. I’ll be his God and he’ll be one of my people. I think this is really a fascinating section. Even the apostles did not warm up to this idea initially. Even they did not warm up to it. In fact, God finally had to knock a man down on the road to Damascus. His name was Paul. And let him lie blind for three days, not eating, not drinking, and say, you’re going to carry my word to the Gentiles. As far as we know, he had already worked on Peter. And Peter had come to the place to where he realized that he should not call any man uncommon or unclean. It was a tremendous breakthrough. Peter, when he was speaking to these people, visually the Holy Spirit fell on them. And he says, well, now who can forbid baptism to these people, seeing they have received the Holy Spirit just like we do? God had to miraculously show this rather stubborn man that, yes, you can go to the Gentiles. He had to knock Paul down to the road to Damascus and commission him to go to the Gentiles. Why did he have to do this? Because if he hadn’t done it, the apostles would never have gotten around to it. And the story of the book of Acts is the story of this breakout. Even them, he says, the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their bird offerings, their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. You’re not going to put a sign up in there and say Gentiles can’t come past this point. I’m not going to have that. My house shall be a house of prayer for all people. And do you recall Jesus cited this scripture on the day when he cleansed the temple? Isaiah 59, breaking in the middle of a thought in verse 13. In transgressing and lying against the Lord, in departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood, uttering from the heart words of falsehood, judgment is turned away backward, justice stands far off, and truth is fallen in the street. Equity, fairness can’t get in the door. Yea, truth fails, and the person who would depart from evil makes himself a prey. In other words, they try to kill him. There are times when I feel this passage here is an apt description of our society. Truth has fallen in the street. Equity and fairness can’t get in the door and try to get away from evil and they’ll be all over you. And the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no man, and he wondered that there was no intercessor. This same theme is developed in the other prophets. God comes down and looks around and says, how come there’s nobody standing up for what’s right here? Why is it no one’s standing in the gap? Why is there no intercessor? Why am I not hearing people crying out to me day after day? Why aren’t people standing up in the marketplace and condemning this behavior? And so… His arm brought salvation to him. His righteousness, it sustained him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, a helmet of salvation on his head, and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak. You realize this is warfare. He is girding himself for war. Helmet, shield, getting ready to fight. According to their deeds… accordingly he will repay. Fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, to the islands he will repay recompense. So, what’s the result of this going to be? They will fear the name of the Lord from the west. They’ll fear his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him and… The Redeemer shall come to Zion. Guess where we have found ourselves? The return of Christ. The day that we celebrate today. Here it is, all the way back in the book of Isaiah. The Redeemer shall come to Zion, unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant, which is with them, saith the Lord. With who? Those who turn from transgression in Jacob. This is who? My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. Now at this point, we’re starting to come into the events of the day of the Lord. Now, we look to the day of the resurrection. Isaiah 60, verse 1. And this is one of my favorite passages in all of Isaiah. Arise, shine, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen again. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Man, what an image this is. The implications here are enormous. He said that you are going to come up, arise, start shining, for the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. I mean, put it this way. You have risen with the glory of the Lord upon you. And therefore, your light reaches out to the Gentiles. We’ll come to see this is a kind of resurrection chapter. And after all has been said and done, God’s people come to this. Verse 4. Lift up your eyes round about and see. All they gather themselves together. They come to you. Your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be nursed at your sight. All these people from the Gentiles, finally at long last, given the chance, given the opening, given the chance to see God’s glory, repent and come to your side. Then you shall see and flow together, and your hearts shall fear and be enlarged and Because the abundance of the sea shall be converted to you. The forces of the Gentiles shall come to you. Wow. You know, if you understand what’s talking about here, we have come down, we’re reaching way out into the future to the return of Christ. Violence shall no more be heard in your land. Verse 18. Wasting nor destruction within your borders. You shall call your walls salvation. Call your gates praise. The sun shall be no more your light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light to you, but the Lord shall be unto you an everlasting light, and your God your glory. It’s kind of a shocking thing to say. You don’t need the sun. You don’t need the moon. Because wherever you go, it will be light. The Lord shall give you an everlasting light, and your God your glory. The sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. Your people also shall be righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time. We have a few little ones around us, and he says the little ones will become a thousand. The small one will become a strong nation. Isaiah 61. One day, Jesus said something very much like this. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. I don’t know if you focus on this, but very shortly after the events of this day, there’s a 10-day period, which the Jewish approach to this is days of judgment. And on the 10th day, All captives are released. Everyone goes back to their home. The Jubilee year begins. All is set free. It is the acceptable year of the Lord. It’s also the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise in place of the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And there’s work to be done. They shall build the old waste. They’ll raise up the former desolations. They shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks. The sons of the aliens shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But you shall be named sons. the priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the ministers of our God. You will eat the riches of the Gentiles and boast yourself in them. For your shame you shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be through them. Now, throughout all the years of Israel’s tribulations and troubles, and they were many, there were people near them who made it all worse. They had, sure, they had the Assyrians and the people in Samaria to deal with. And later on they had the Assyrians to deal with. And still later they had the Babylonians to deal with. But there were people who could have given them refuge when they fled from Jerusalem and did not. There were people who could have been kind to them and were not. There were people who didn’t have to be mean-spirited toward them but were. These people lived on the other side of the Jordan River, a little bit to the south. The children of Ammon were immediately on the other side of the Jordan River. The children of Moab, if you look at the Dead Sea, there is a river called Arnon that comes in from the east side. South of that river is the land of Moab, and south of Moab is the region of Esau or Edom. These people were considerably less than kind to Israel. And so when the Messiah comes, he has a certain unfinished work to be done. In Isaiah 63, verse 1, Who is this that comes from Edom? with dyed garments from Bozrah? Who is this glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, comes the answer, mighty to save. Then comes the question, why are you red in your apparel and your garments like a man that treads the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, comes the answer, and of the people there was no one with me. For I will tread them in my anger and trample them in my fury. And their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments. I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart and the year of my redeemed is come. It’s time for me to do something about these people. You know, this is something you must never allow yourself to forget. God does avenge his people upon evildoers. He really does. And the examples of it in the Bible are those examples people oftentimes look at and say, I can’t worship a God like that. Well, I’m sorry that you don’t care for justice. He’ll give a hang for judgment. Egypt killed all the firstborn, all of them, all of the male children of the Israelites over a period of time. God only took in retribution for that injustice the firstborn of the Egyptians. And there are many other examples. But God can’t let this sort of thing stand. He can’t let Edom and Esau sit down there having drunk the blood of children and let them get away with it. So he goes down there, figuratively speaking, and treads that winepress. He said, “…I looked and there was no one to help, and I really wondered that there was no one to uphold. So my own arm has brought salvation to me. My fury it upheld me, and I will tread down the people in my anger and make them drunk in my fury.” I will bring down their strength to the earth. Now, when I read that, I thought, there’s something about that that’s familiar. And it’s Revelation chapter 14. I looked and lo, a lamb stood on Mount Zion with him 144,000, having his father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the voice of many waters and the voice of great thunder. And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. They sang a new song before the throne, before the four beasts and the elders. No man could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth. Revelation 14, verse 8. There followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Verse 15. Another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud. Thrust in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he that sat upon the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple in heaven, having a sharp sickle. Another angel came out from the altar that had the power over fire, and he cried with a loud voice to him that had the sickle, Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth. Her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle to the earth, gathered the vine of the earth, cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress even to the horse’s bridles by the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs. Now, where it comes in, I can’t isolate this in clear, simple prose for you. all I begin to see is there are these connections between the events of the last days and the prophecies of Isaiah, where there is winepress, the grapes of wrath. I suppose that book takes its title from this idea, that the grapes of God’s wrath have got to be treading out, and they will be. Verse 17, For behold, I create new heavens and new earth. We’re back now in Isaiah. The former shall not be remembered or come to mind. Now, right in the middle of nowhere in the book of Isaiah, you’d be lost and wonder where this came from. We find ourselves thrust far into the future in Revelation 21, where it says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. The connection is there. Verse 18. Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people. The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. Harkens back to Revelation again. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There’ll be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. Be glad forever in this. There shall be no more there an infant of days nor an old man that has not filled his days. The child shall die a hundred years old. The sinner being a hundred years old, well, he’s out of luck. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They’ll plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They’ll not build and somebody else live in it. They’ll not plant and have someone else eat it. No, like the days of a tree are the days of my people. They will long enjoy the work of their hands.” They will not labor in vain. They will not bring forth for trouble. They are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with him. And this verse 24 is just incredible. It says, It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. And you know, one of the greatest encouragements of my life have been not only my own incidents, but the incidents other people have told me about this, where they prayed and asked for help from God. And when the help came and when the answer to prayer came, it was evident that the answer to that prayer had to be sent well before the prayer was made. Before they called, God answered. And this is really a tremendous encouragement. While they were speaking, I heard. And I’ll never forget until my dying day, a woman wrote me a letter once, and she said, you know, I wrote to you folks, and I asked for a prayer cloth to be sent to me. And I went out to them, and we had the custom of anointing a cloth and sending it to the person so they could lay it on themselves and pray. It was like the Apostle Paul with his thing of napkins or aprons from his body that were taken to the sick, and they recovered. The woman said, I wrote the letter asking for it. I went out and I put it in the mailbox and walking back to my house, I was healed. The letter was in the mailbox. While she was speaking, God heard. While she was writing her letter, God heard. All he waited for her to do was to take that one step before he acted. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. The dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains, saith the Lord. Anybody have any question about where we are in time? Clear enough, isn’t it? Where we have found ourselves. We have come from the passion in chapter 53 through the book of Acts with all of its emphasis on let’s reach out to the Gentiles, which is not finished, by the way, even yet. down to the return of Christ and the events that are going to take place after the return of Christ. And yet, when you read through Isaiah, there is so much additional material sandwiched in here that it’s very, very easy to lose the thread. Perhaps God wants some people to lose the thread. I pray that we won’t. Isaiah 66, we’re getting close to the end. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, The earth is my footstool. Where’s the house you’re going to build for me? Big deal. You know, I know that God allowed Solomon to build the house. I know he honored that decision that Solomon made. But, you know, and Solomon himself says, I know that God’s not going to live. The heavens can’t contain you, how much less this house that I have built. And I think God would say, you’re going to build a house for me. Where is the place of my rest? I’ve made all these things. All these things have been, saith the Lord. But to this man will I look. Don’t think about going out there and building a house for me. Don’t think about going out there and building monuments and edifices and all these things. I’m not going to look to you. I’m not going to admire you for that work. I will look to this man, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at my word. And, you know, if you read God’s word and you take it for what he says, there’s reason to tremble. And this is the man God will look to. Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at his word. Your brethren that hated you. Your brethren that cast you out for my name’s sake. While they said, let the Lord be glorified. He will appear to your joy and their shame. You realize what he’s talking about? He’s talking about people who are our religious brothers. They’re religious people. They’re our brothers. And they cast us out saying that they are… Let the Lord be glorified in this act of casting us poor sinners out. He will appear to your joy. They will be ashamed. Verse 22. For as the new heavens and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed… and your name remain. Who? He who is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembles at his word. The one who comes to God hat in hand, humbly asking for forgiveness. The man who puts his trust in God. Not the one who builds monuments, not the one who does great works to be seen of other people, but he who is poor and of a contrite spirit. Your name will remain as long as the new heavens and the new earth. And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh, not just Israel, not just the Jews, all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me. For their worms shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched. They shall be an abhorring to all flesh. Thus ends this incredible prophecy of Isaiah, which it seems to me is an appropriate study for the Feast of Trumpets. Now there’s something that Jesus said is in Matthew 13. Some people wonder exactly what it is that he’s driving at here. In chapter 13, verse 49, he said, And Jesus said, And the disciples said, And then he said, Therefore every scribe who is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man who is a householder who brings out of his treasure things old and new. I guess in a way I’ve headed backwards. In the past, I brought out of my treasure things new. Today, things old.