Transcription
All right, if you open up to the beginning of Isaiah, I want you to see that there's an indictment in verses one through nine. So mark Isaiah one, one through nine, indictment. And then Isaiah one, ten through twenty, instruction. Indictment one through nine, instruction ten through twenty. And then know the verses, verses one through nine. That's good. I'm glad you asked. One through nine. Then verses ten through twenty, it will be not an indictment, but an instruction.
And then in twenty-one begins a recap. He starts to recap something, and it's actually going to be quite easy to follow. But let's start off by setting the book. And remember that in Isaiah, it says, verse one, one, the superscription of the book: "The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem." So you know that it, this is during the time of our first box. That is, it's under the Micah, Hosea time period of north and south divided kingdom. But his is toward Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the following reigns. Isaiah, Isaiah is actually 792 to 740 BC. Then Jotham, 750. He's co-regent by 750 and down to about 735. Ahaz, 735 to 750. Hezekiah, 715 down to 686. And at the end of the book, you're introduced just a little bit to Manasseh, who is 55 years, the longest-running Judean king. And that's the son of Hezekiah. Okay, so he's telling you, I was ministering between 792 and 686. In other words, I had a long, 50-plus year run of ministry during these kings.
Now let's just very quickly, light-handedly, touch it. Okay, verse two. I have two words next to it: "children rebelled." My children rebelled. "Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth, for the Lord speaks: Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against me." I raised children, they rebelled. "An ox knows its owner, a donkey knows its master's manger, but Israel does not know; my people do not understand." Essentially, they don't know their owner. They don't know who is in charge. "Alas, sinful nation, a people poured down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who acted corruptly. They have abandoned the Lord; they have despised the Holy One of Israel; they have turned away." Notice these three words in verse four: abandoned, despised, turned away. There's corruption that has caused them to be, to have turned away from God and turned away from his face. So, so we open up in Isaiah with this very strong condemnation, an indictment against the people.
Verse five: "Where will you be flogged? Where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion?" In other words, I've been spanking you. Do you need another spanking? Where do you need to be spanked this time? "The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is nothing sound." And it only bruises, welts, raw wounds—not pressed out or bandaged, not softened with oil. I have spanked you from top to bottom. You are absolutely blistered and welted all over. Where do you need to be spanked further before you get it? I have done everything I can to bring into economic pain, pain, hardship. I've messed with famine and weather. I've done everything I can to get you to see you are not walking with me. How can you not get it? "Your land is desolate, verse seven, cities are burned with fire; your fields or strangers; your fields strangers are devouring them in your presence." It is, it is desolation as overthrown by the strangers. "The daughter of Zion is left like a shack in the vineyard, like a little lean-to in the vineyard, like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city." Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have, we would be like Sodom and we would be like Gomorrah. We'd be gone. You forgot me, and I turned up the fire on you, and you are not listening. What do I need to do? Can you hear in God's voice not just an indictment of what they've done wrong, but he really wants them to listen? But he can't, he can't get it across to them that no matter what I try to do to you, you don't listen.
So he gives him some instruction. First, him, "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom." Now, obviously, when he says, "you rulers of Sodom," he's talking about Judah and Jerusalem, who are acting like Sodom did before it was destroyed. "Give ear to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah." "What are your multiplied sacrifices to me?" says the Lord. "I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats." He says, "Stop your false declarations, stop your false religion. Give me a relationship. I'm not interested in your public working for me without a walk with me." "When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me; no moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity in the solemn assembly. I hate your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them."
So when you spread out your hands in prayer, by the way, that's how we know what I told you earlier that we know that the position of prayer used to be the turning up of the hands. This is one of the ways we know it. "When you spread out your hands, seeking me, and I would..." (Micah 3:4) ...there because I think that's another place where you see this. "I will hide my eyes from you. I'm not gonna listen to your prayers. I'm not gonna, you, though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood." You turn your hands up, but they're not clean. I'm not going to listen to you.
So what does he say in verse sixteen? "Sir, word: Cleanse. Remove the evil of your deeds from my sight." Now circle the word at the end of verse sixteen: "cease." That's the word. Change. Cleanse. Change. In other words, I don't want to turn around and verify that I'm ready to bless you until you're ready to get cleaning and change what you're doing. And then in verse eighteen: "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they will be like wool." If you, circle the next word, "consent." That is, you have to choose and obey. So look what he says: cleanse, change, choose.
Now look at verse twenty: "But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." So what does God say? God said, "You're a mess. You have done everything possible to resist and rebel. I have spanked you every possible way. I don't know where else to spank you. And here's what I want to tell you: Stop giving me sacrifices and stop playing at religion. I'm not interested. Rather, cleanse your hands, change from your evil, choose me, obey what I say. If you refuse and if you rebel, you're finished." That's the first twenty verses. You just got it.
And in verse twenty-one, he recaps and says how the faithful city has become a harlot. Now he's talking about the sin of his people. Who's the faithful city? Judah is the area. What's the city? Jerusalem. How Jerusalem has become a harlot. In other words, how you have substituted a real relationship of marriage with me for a false marriage to some other god or some other thing. "She who was, who was full of justice, righteousness once lodged in her, but now murderers. Silver has become reduced in value; dross. Your drink is diluted with water." That is, the potency is gone. "Your rulers are rebels, your companions are thieves of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe, chases after reward. They do not defend the orphan, nor does the widow's plea come before them." In other words, they love money and they don't love justice. "The weak are trodden down."
And this is what I see. Therefore, here's the discipline of the people. "Therefore, the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares, 'Ah, I will relieve myself of my adversaries and avenge myself of my foes. I will also turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye.'" What does that mean? Anybody know? Smelting away your dross as with lye means what is smelting? Okay, so when you take metal and you dig it out of the ground, you melt the minerals. What happens is the top layer of the silver or the gold is dross, it's throwaway, it's the impurities. So you actually, you clear it off and you heat it and you clear it off and you heat it. And what you're doing is purifying it. Now, there's something else you can do. If you take and add a little bit of lye to it, it will cause the other impurities to gather and kind of coalesce around the lye, and it allows the dross to come up faster. So he says, "This is what I will do. This is how I'll deal with you."
Now, the interesting thing is that "I will smelt away your dross as with lye," and "I will remove all your alloy," all of your mixed metals, is what he's saying. "I'll get rid of everything that's not pure." "If you," he says, "then I will restore your judges as at the first, as at the beginning. After you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city." In other words, at some point, I can restore. And with the restoration of the people, I will give you the words faithfulness over your city. Zion will be redeemed with justice, and a repentant one with righteousness. "But transgressors and sinners will be crushed together, and those who forsake the Lord will come to an end." That's basically the book in short. I'm going to crush those who don't walk with me, and I'm going to restore those who I have set for restoration of my people.
"Surely you will be ashamed of the idols," that's the oaks, "which you have desired, and you will be embarrassed at the gardens," that's the groves where those festivals of fertility happened, "of what you have chosen. For you will be like an oak whose leaves fade away, or as a garden that has no water. The strong man will come will become tender; his work also a spark, thus they will both burn together and there will be none to quench them." I want you to see, he's playing on sacrifices. He says, "I want you to be embarrassed at those places of false sacrifices in the woods that you have, and I want you to know that my judgment will come. I'm gonna dry out the tinder of your forests, and your work, it's going to become like a spark that sets it all, and I'll burn it all." There's a very strong sense of judgment in chapter one. Everybody on that page, chapter one, my people have rebelled, and therefore I am really tired. God's people were taking supreme authority for granted. In the divine conquest, A.W. Tozer wrote this, listen to this: "While few would dare thus to voice their secret feelings, there are millions who have imbibed the notion that they hold in their hands the keys to heaven and hell. The whole content of modern man contributes to this idea. Man is made large, and God has made small. How deeply do men err who conceive of God as subject to our human will, or as standing respectfully to wait upon our human pleasure? Though He is condescending love, though He in condescending love may seem to place Himself at our disposal, yet never for the least division of a moment does He abdicate His throne or void His right as Lord of man and of nature. He is Majesty on high; to Him all angels cry aloud. The heaven and all the powers therein, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of His glory. Before Him prophet and patriarch and saint have knelt in breathless awe in adoration. Our God has now become our servant to wait on our will." "The Lord is my shepherd," we say, instead of "The Lord is my shepherd." And the difference is as wide as the world. Does that make sense? He says, "A modern man has taken the majesty of God and made him into a servant for us." How many people do you know that live like that? Whatever they do, God should just accommodate to what they think, and they're just hopeful that somehow because they think it's just, God will think it's just. But that sense of awe and holiness is extracted from people who redefine God. Remember what we learned from Nahum one? Who God is determines how you understand God's judgment. So Isaiah one, who God is, and the power and majesty of God should help you understand not only how he feels. Doesn't chapter one sound something like Hosea? You've rebelled, I've been beat up with with all the things you've done, and I have done what I can to get you to see it. You don't want to see it. It's very relational, very harlotry, very false relationship. Chapter one. I might even make a note if I were you, it sounds a lot like the fourteen chapters of Hosea. It's very rooted in the same idea.
Now, Isaiah two is about God's fulfillment of promises to Jerusalem and Judah. So if you've been feeling sort of beat down, Isaiah two is about the Millennium, and it's an introduction to some visions. "The word of the Lord, the word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." These are actually from chapters two, three, and four, a series of what appear to be visions of some sort. And the visions themselves sort of play out for how God, how God is looking at the people of Israel, all right, specifically Judah and Jerusalem. Here's what it says: "Now it will come about in the last days." Underline that one. Note the timing of what he's talking about. This can be last days, by the way. Can be anytime after what chapter and what book? In Israel terms, last days begins when Acts chapter two and the beginning of the shame of Israel. So in the last days, can be any time after Acts two, but all the way through into the Millennium. Right? So he says, "It will come about in the last days." Now, this is a statement that comes right out of the idea of Micah chapter four, verses one to three. "The mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains." What does that mean? What's the mountain of the house of the Lord? What's the house of the Lord? What's that? Okay, yes, but on earth, Zion. But what, what was the house? The building, the temple. So the Temple Mount will be established as the chief mountain of the world. So in the millennial period, all the nations of the world will look to Jerusalem for righteousness, and will look to Jerusalem to determine the pattern of right worship. The Temple Mount, and it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream into it. In the Millennial Kingdom, in the time when God comes and Jesus sits on the throne of David, the nations will see what God is doing through Israel. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't other nations. There are, and that doesn't mean everybody in the world is standing around singing Kumbaya around the fire. They all are doing what they're doing, but they recognize the place of God and to recognize the people of God. And Israel's shame is done during this period, right? "Never again will she," if they face shame. We already saw that in Zephaniah. And so it says, "And the many peoples will come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways, that we may walk in his paths.' For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." This is the exact same pattern as Micah chapter four. It's the same story again. "He will judge between the nations; he will render decisions for many peoples." So the United Nations authority will move to Jerusalem. Jesus will judge between the nations of the world. It won't be the UN judging, it will be Jesus judging. And it says, "And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks." This is the opposite of Joel 3:10. Remember Joel 3:10? They're gonna take their farm implements and make weapons. But in the Millennium, they're gonna take weapons and make them into farm implements. This is opposite of Joel 3:10. "They will bang or hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks." Now, what happens in the Millennium? "Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war."
"Come, house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. For you have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob, because they're filled with influences from the east." I think he's talking about the Arameans. He, he goes back and he calls the Jewish people and he says, "Listen, Jacob, when you're tempted to be like the world, you're missing where your kingdom is. It's over here. It's in that Millennial Kingdom, and it's coming." "These ones from the east, are they soothsayers like the Philistines in First Samuel six? Are they striking bargains with the children of foreigners like alliances? And there's their land has also been filled with silver and gold and riches, and there's no end to their treasures. Their land has also been filled with horses; they have war machines; there's no end to their chariots." You know what he's doing? He goes backwards. He says, "Look at the Millennium. Now look at what's gonna happen to draw all the nations into a great time of war before it." Now, if you were telling the story, you'd put verses five and six and seven before the Millennium because that's when it goes. But he's doing a cycle. He's coming back around. He says, "Look at what God is gonna do. You're gonna have the, you're gonna have the temple, you're gonna have the nations coming to you. Oh, don't forget, don't be like the nations because they're gonna turn on you and there's going to be warfare." He's going backwards in time. "Their land has been filled with idols, false gods; they worship the work of their hands, that which their fingers have made. So the common man has been humbled, and the man of importance has been abased." He's talking about how the Tribulation will break them down. And then it says, "But do not forgive them. Enter the rock, hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord, from the splendor of His majesty." There it is. Do you see the word "terror of the Lord"? The Tribulation Period is referred to as the time of Jacob's trouble, or the time of the terror of God. And he says, "The proud look of man will be abased, the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day." Now, he starts off telling you how good it's gonna be at the end, then it goes back to the beginning of it and takes you back into judgment. I feel kind of robbed because I really like the, the really part, the good part where we get to have all these wonderful things going on, right? And then we go back in the judgment. And he says, "The Lord alone is going to be exalted."
And then he stops in verse twelve and says, "This is just, it's just that the Lord of Hosts do this." "For the Lord of Hosts will have a day of reckoning." By the way, "the Lord of Hosts" is severe, or it's followed. It's the word for the Lord of the armies. This is the armies of heaven. This is his military title. "It is right and against everyone who is proud and lofty, everyone who's lifted up, that he may be abased. It will be against all the Cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up, the Oaks of Bashan, the lofty mountains, the hills that are lifted up, the high towers, the fortified walls, the ships of Tarshish, the beautiful crafts. The pride of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be abased, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day." I want you to circle the end of verse eleven and the end of verse seventeen. It's a repetition: "and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day." And "the Lord alone will be exalted in that day." In fact, in verse eighteen, "the idols will vanish." And where will they vanish? "Men will go into caves and rocks, into the holes of the ground, before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty, and He arises to make the earth tremble."
Hold your place right there and go to Revelation chapter six. Somebody read Revelation 6:15-17. "Revelation 6:15-17: the presence of Him who sits on the throne from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath is come." So you see in Revelation six, a time when the Tribulation Period begins. It begins in 6:00 and goes to 19. And you see that in the beginning of it, all of a sudden people are going into the earth and saying, "Close up the caves, hide us in here, give us safety underground." And this is something that comes right out of the idea of Isaiah in chapter two, verse nineteen: "In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats their idols of silver and idols of gold. They'll give up their idols and they'll run for the caves which they made for themselves." Verse twenty-one: "In order to go into the caverns of the rocks, of the clefts of the cliffs, before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble." So this time period clearly is a worldwide time of tribulation when men are running for caves, when they're throwing away the economic system because they're just trying to survive this incredible wrath of God. It's clear to me that the first part of chapter two is the blessing of the Millennium, but the last part of chapter two is the terror of the Lord that gets them there, the terror of the Lord among the nations of the Tribulation Period.
So let's stop and see if we can start to define some time periods because what you'll see is that, let's start at the cross, okay? And let's go forward. Obviously, there was a proclamation that Jesus would come. He died on the cross. Three days later, he was raised. A month or so later, he has taken up to the clouds, the Ascension, and he goes up. But the Spirit of God comes down. Okay? That's a dove. Come on, work with me here. Okay? So we're going to, we've got the Spirit of God that comes down, and the beginning of the church age starts. A period of shame, and that period of shame that was defined in Joel chapter two, and we've looked at now in Zephaniah, and we're seeing it again. And we saw it in Acts chapter two. We saw that Joel two and Acts two are the mentioning of the same thing. First Corinthians twelve to fourteen says that the coming of the speaking in other languages was the symbol of that shame. So this is the period of time we call, for the church, the church age. But for Israel, it's a time of shame. It's a time of embarrassment. The next thing that happens in the prophetic calendar is the removal of these guys. Church goes up, and God's attention comes back to Israel. What's happening to the church? There's a party. So we are with the Lord. What's happening on earth? Tribulation. And what is its purpose? To get Israel to end their shame. When all the nations of the world make them a target, all the nations will come against them because they will want to destroy them. Nation of Israel will find themselves with their back to the sea, they cannot escape. They are the target of the earth. And when they get to the place, after a period of seven years, where it's terrible, all of a sudden, coming from the clouds on a horse, okay, comes One who is with King of Kings and Lord of Lords, written on His thigh, and all who went with Him come back with Him. So you have the church this way, you have Israel this way, converging here, and that's the end of shame. So the beginning of the kingdom, the beginning of the kingdom is the end of their shame. The first part of Isaiah two is here. The second part of Isaiah two is here, is during the Tribulation Period. Does that make sense? Now, we're going to see this a thousand times. This is just one.
Okay, go to chapter three, and I want to show you that in chapter three, you continue to be now in the Tribulation. You were here, a little taste of Kingdom. Jesus becomes the UN, everybody gets righteousness from Jerusalem. Oh, I remind you how they got there. Terrible Tribulation, upset stomach, people running for the clefts of the rocks. All right, let's pick up the clefts of the rocks theme. Tribulation. And by the way, chapter three double bounces. Chapter three talks about both a captivity and a tribulation. One is a symbol of the other, right?
"So, behold, the Lord God of Hosts." What is that title? This is armies. "The Lord," this is his military title, "the God of Hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support." The supply of bread, supply of water, mighty man, warrior, judge, prophet, diviner, elder, captain of fifty, honorable man, counselor, artisan, skillful enchanter. "And I will make mere lads their princes." So here's what he says: "I'm gonna remove your sustenance. I'm gonna take away your brain trust. And all your adults, and you're gonna have little kids to rule on your throne." That's a symbol of the captivity, right? People being led away. But it's also a symbol of something that happens in the Tribulation Period. It's a double balance. I'll show you how I know that later. But for right now, just stay with me. Verse five: "The people will be oppressed, each one by his neighbor, each one by his neighbor. And the youth will storm against the elder, the inferior against the honorable." So all of the honor of place people is gone. And verse six: "There will be false family honor. When a man lays hold of his brother in his father's house, saying, 'You have a cloak; you shall be our ruler, and these ruins will be under your charge.'" It's all mockery. He says, "There's nothing really to honor the people anymore." "He will protest on that day, saying, 'I will not be your healer, for in my house there is neither bread nor cloak.'" Nobody wants to rule. He said, "It's going to come down to it, nobody's gonna want to lead." I want you to watch. In the Tribulation Period, you're going to see the same thing. There's going to be an abdication of leadership. Leadership will become, people don't want to be the leader. "You should not appoint me ruler over the people, for verse eight, Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen. Why? Because their speech and their actions are against the Lord, to rebel against His glorious presence. The expression of their faces bears witness against them, and they display their sin like Sodom; they do not even conceal it." Their heart is so hard, they don't even hide their sin anymore. Can you believe that we would get to a place in our society where people would just not even hide sin? They would just blatantly say, "Oh yeah, that's me. Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I cheat on my wife. Yep, no big deal." Yes, you can see it. And you can see how as it tilts toward the end, you can already see a lot of these things starting to emerge. Leadership is at an all-time low. It's hard to find anybody who wants to lead because they, they sack anybody who does lead. Look, you'd have to be an idiot to want to run this country. They're going to comb through your garbage and everything you've ever written on the internet, and they're going to turn it into a bunch of bullet points and make you look bad. And the truth is that as it gets worse and worse and worse, fewer people will have the hunger for fame that will cause them to rise up.
Then it says, "Say to the righteous, 'It will go well with you, for they will eat of the fruit of their actions.'" "Woe to the wicked! It will be bad for them, for what he deserves will be done to him." "O my people, their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O my people, those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your path." He said, "There's nobody decent left to rule the place, and the people that are ruling you, don't lead you, and the whole thing is falling apart." So God judges. Do you see the words "God will judge" above verse thirteen? It's kind of funny because half the book could have "God will judge" above it, okay? But here's what he's really saying. The basis of God's judgment is in verse fourteen. So you might put the basis of judgment there. "The Lord enters into judgment with the elders. It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses." "What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the face of the poor?" declares the Lord of Hosts. He says, "I am turning against you because you are turning against the weakest of your people." Let me say it this way, cut through all the words. God has a very, very strong judgment against people that would crush the innocent. In this country, after more than 50 million unborn children have been allowed to be killed, God has a severe punishment for those who do not value those who cannot speak for themselves. Let's just say that the word "pride" fits in verse sixteen, and the idolatrous decorations fit in seventeen. And it says, verse eighteen: "In that day the Lord will take away their beauty of their anklets, headbands, crescent ornaments." Crescent ornaments in verse eighteen is the moon god, by the way. You'll see the moon god who has appeared all the way through human history, now appears on the top of every mosque, the crescent. You'll see it on half, yep, probably ten percent of the flags of the world have a crescent on them. It's been around for generations. "Dangling earrings, bracelets, veils, headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, amulets, finger rings, nose rings, festal robes, outer tunics, cloaks, money purses, hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans, and veils." God says, "I'm going to take away every one of your nice little dangly features. I'm going to take away all your jewelry. I'm going to take away all your stuff, all the luxuries of your life." By the way, he includes underwear as a luxury, okay? Which I thought was kind of interesting. I mean, I could probably live without a nose ring. I'd really like underwear, but that's me. Verse twenty-four: "Now it will come about that instead of the sweet perfume there will be putrefaction; you'll stink. Instead of a belt, you'll wear a rope. And instead of well-set hair, they'll have a plucked-out scalp. Instead of fine clothes, and you'll be wearing sackcloth and branding." Instead of beauty. In other words, like a slave, like an animal. "Your men will fall by the sword, your mighty ones in battle. And her gates will lament and mourn, and deserted she will sit on the ground alone and undefended." That's what she'll be. Okay? Do you see it? The second half of two and three give you a very, very strong sense of the tribulation. It will break down, grind down, steal away, tear away, and leave them hurting, leave them with nothing.
Now take a breath, because chapter four, we go back to the Millennium. Finally, we get some good stuff. Do you see what what he's doing? Really good, really bad, really good, really bad. And that's what he's doing. He's wandering you back and forth between these two things. Watch it. And verse, there's only six verses, and then we'll take a break, okay? Chapter four. Put Millennium at the top of chapter four. "For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes; only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.'" What they're saying is, so many guys have died in battle that there are seven women who just want to marry the guy to get his name, but they'll pay their own bills. Verse two: "In that day the Branch of the Lord." Put a box around the term. "The Branch of the Lord" is one of the Messianic titles. He's called the Branch of the Lord, a Messianic title. That is the word "shute" or branch. You'll see it again in 11:1. You'll see it again in 53:2. "The Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel." Do you see it? Whatever time period this is, the survivors of Israel are those who are in it. And that Messiah is in it. It will become about them. "When he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem." I would write next to verse three, Matthew 24:13. Verse four: "When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from former times by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night." For all glory will be a canopy. In other words, the temple will swell up with so many sacrifices that a smoke column will rise up, and all night long people will be celebrating at the temple, and you'll have this incredible glory of the Lord that glows over the city. And there'll be a shelter to give shade from heat by day and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. Do you see something of Exodus 16 and the and the GPS system with the cloud by day and the and the pillar of fire by night? It's like that. He's not saying that they're going anywhere. He's saying that the glory of the Lord will sit over top of His temple. So chapter four is clearly all here. It's all about the Branch, the survivors of Israel, those who make it through to here, and the Messiah, and the Messianic and Millennial Kingdom.
"Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard." This is in verses one to four. "What I did for my vineyard, my well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removing its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. And he built a tower in the middle of it; he also hewed out a wine vat in it. And he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only." Circle the word "worthless ones" in verse two. "Now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard than what I have done? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones?" What does God saying? He's saying the story of my people is: I, I gave them a good land, I dug it all up, I fertilized it, I grew for it, I gave it everything possible, and I got back worthless stuff. And why? So in verses five, six, and seven, he goes from what I did to what I'm going to do. "What I will do." So let me tell you what I am going to do with my vineyard. "I will remove its hedges, and it will be consumed. I will break down its walls, and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it waste; it will not be pruned or hoed, and briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it." "For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His delightful plant." "Thus He looked for justice, but behold, there was bloodshed. He looked for righteousness, behold, a cry of distress." God's song was Isaiah has to come out and sing a song, and it's not a catchy tune, but it's: "I gave you everything, and I got back slop. I put together everything for you. Why didn't I get anything good back?" That song, those seven verses, is "Unto whom much is given, much is therefore required." That's what that is. It's a song of: I gave you a lot, I expected a lot, I invested a lot with you. You're gonna find Jesus uses it like, "I gave you so many talents, and you went and did what with them?"
Verse eight: "Woe." Verse eleven: "Woe." Verse eighteen: "Woe." Verse twenty: "Woe." Verse twenty-one: "Woe." Verse twenty-two: "Woe." Got it. There's six woes, and this is going to be important because later on, you're gonna see this pattern show up again in books like Revelation, where these woes are offered. Okay? Now, don't worry about what was he doing with "woe." Just put it this way: this was like, "Let me share something with you. Hi. Let me share a second thing." It's a heavy-weighted, "watch out." So this is a picture of the tribulation and the tribulation and the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions that have come and swept into the land. Look what he says: "Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until there's no more room." What's wrong with doing that? What's wrong with building so that you have to live alone in the midst of the land? "In my ears, the Lord of Hosts has sworn, 'Surely many houses shall become desolate, even great and fine ones without occupants.'" He said, "Look, I know you guys. You're out there, and you spend your whole life building houses and barns and fields. Woe to the person who spends all that and then wakes up and realizes they've been emptied by warfare and there's nothing there." This is woe to the man who has a driveway full of cars and no hat, no family left. Because here's the thing, what are you going to do with your six cars when your kids have left you and your wife has left you with your children? "Woe to the one who ends up desolate or emptied."
Go down to verse eleven: "Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them. Their banquets are accompanied by the lyre and the harp, tambourine, flute, and wine, but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord, nor do they consider the work of His hands." This is the drunk party with no worship, no reverence, no interest in the spiritual life, all interest in the pleasures that they can dump in themselves. "Now, therefore, my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge, and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched, parched with thirst. They have no understanding of why I'm destroying them." I'm destroying them because the key people in their society have left walking with me and instead are just trying to deal with what they want.
Go down to verse eighteen. Let's do the other "woe." "Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes, who say, 'Let him make speed; let him hasten his work that we may see it; let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass, that we may know it.'" It's interesting. What is he? He says, "Woe to the one who runs around trying to speed up the judgment of God. Bring it down, bring it down, bring down that judgment. Don't you know how serious this will be?" Honestly, you know what verse eighteen and nineteen is really about? Woe to the people who talk about God's judgment but don't actually believe how powerful it's going to be. They, they become it becomes familiar to them. "Oh yes, there's going to be a terrible tribulation, and God's going to judge us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And they don't see the power and the weight of it. By the way, do you see the word "speed" in verse nineteen? That's the word "mohair." Remember "mohair," "she'll hush," "paz," "speeds," "booty," "hasten," "spoil"? That's the word "mohair." If you hear it in Israel, it means hurry up. Verse twenty: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil." Stop right there because that's a great verse. They turn ethics inside out. Here's what I want you to know: the faster we proclaim wrong right, the faster we will proclaim right wrong. And here's the it. So woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, whose substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. In other words, eventually you stop being able to tell the difference between what's right and what's wrong, and what's good and what's bad, and what's bitter and what's sweet, and what's dark and what's light. You can't tell anymore. "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." These are people that make up new rules. Won't do the people will make up their own rules. Then in verse twenty-two: "Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink." These are people who are proud addicts. By the way, you don't have to go much past the past television to find these people. People who literally get drunk on TV and think it's hilarious, who are proud of their own inability to contain themselves. I remember years ago, a basketball player who was who was HIV positive, and there was a big scandal, and he had slept with like a hundred and forty women, and he's on ESPN bragging about it. That's that's a guy who can't control himself. And instead of instead of taking control and discipline as a benefit, we take the guy who, who's out there, who's edgy, who can't control himself, and make him the important one. "They justify the wicked for a bribe, take away the rights of the ones who are in the right." In other words, they anesthetize not only their minds, they anesthetize the truth. They put a dulling sense on the truth. Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into flame, so the root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust. What is the key problem? I want you, the second half of verse twenty-four, put a box around the key problem: "is they have rejected the law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel." At the end of it, when a society rejects God's Word, it makes up its own rules, and the rules become perverse in a short period of time. And all of a sudden, people can sit around and be proud of their drunkenness or proud of their lewdness, and it no longer is is wrong. Mark my words, it won't be that many more years before we're gonna read all kinds of medical studies on how good pornography is for you. I'm not kidding. We're gonna find doctors that are gonna run around saying this. You know why? Because people want it, and people want it, we will find science, science that will help to make it okay. It's healthy, it's normal, it's right. You already can find that in Cosmopolitan. But wait till it gets to the science journals where young people are actually encouraged in that way. I think you already see it when you can walk into a middle school and show them how to use a condom. You have to ask yourself, what kind of people are running the school? You have to ask yourself that question. Why would you run around telling somebody, "Don't do something," but if you're gonna do it, "Wrong, let me tell you how to do it"? Does anybody think that's a wise strategy? But here's the thing, the answer you will receive if you go into that school today is, "Well, you can't expect people to do what's right." Really? Then why do you, why don't you just fail them now? Because if they're gonna cheat on every test, what's the point? Don't look at them and tell them they have to eat healthy in the lunchroom, but here's how to have sex. That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. You mean to tell me if you can't manage your body well enough to abstain from one thing, you're going to eat healthy? Can anybody tell me how that's supposed to work? Because the lack of discipline in one area will become the lack of discipline in the other. That's the way I see it. Now, I don't know what logic they're using, but it's not the logic that I understand. All I'm saying here is on the count of this, "the anger of the Lord has burned against his people; he has stretched out his hand and against them struck them down. The mountains quaked; their corpses lay in the refuse in the middle of the streets." For all this, "his anger is not spent, but his hand is still stretched out." He says, "Look, I want you to understand, when you reject my word, you're gonna end up killing each other, and I'm going to end up standing back, looking at your streets, and recognizing that you have brutalized people. There will be no shame in brutalizing people." Now, that's that's when he, verse twenty-six, "lifts up a standard to the distant nations and he whistles, and they go into captivity." This is both a picture of the captivity and a picture of the tribulation. I don't have to to you.