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CHAPTER 2
THE FORESEEN SPIRITUAL SAGA
FROM SOME 2700 YEARS AGO
Applied to the Heart of Today
THE EMINENT ACCESSIBILITY OF CHRIST Isaiah 65:1
Isaiah 65:1 starts with a startling declaration. God is being found by those who had not sought Him, and He made Himself amazingly available to a people who had no history in revelation and tradition from Himself! It was as if millions were being given away, when poverty had preceded! WHY ? It was because He had given so much for so long to a people who had slipped away so far so often, that He was now turning in a grand sweep by a direct and universal sweep of mercy, to others. There was a certain lapse in His mercies to the resistance-prone rebels who had broken the covenant, and reached a climax of corruption, though they would return; and there was a certain thrust of His kindnesses to other people who had never been found.
THE BLIGHT OF WHAT IS NOT RIGHT, THOUGH INSTRUCTED 65:2-7
Consider such a case. How often do you feel, It is enough! Some malady has stricken your business, personality, those whom you hold dear, your dreams and aspirations, your body ... It is sufficient, your spirit calls. But it is not yet finished! Hence a tension can arise. WHY is God (if you believe in Him) NOT acting in more mercy! the strident may ask. Be sure, there is a reason. There is always a reason. One of the chief reasons is this, that if people do not receive the mercy as supplied, then they become baseless, ready to founder or lack of foundation, comparable in seed terms, to mere chaff, which of course is far more susceptible than is seed, to being merely dispersed by the wind. Such is the point at the end of Psalm 1.
One select reason is this: that while HE has long been calling you, you have not responded. That is the reason regarding ancient Israel, and in particular Judah, here. Moreover, there had been some responses, but in the nation, these were fitful, though intense at certain periods. This is precisely so in Britain and the USA, remarkable at certain periods, for revivals of an intensive nature, even to the point of making profound changes in the nation concerned! Indeed, at times the whole nation had a feeling of a certain zest which, if countered by many in much, yet left a testimony of salt and savour now hard to find at any official level in those nations.
Australia is following now hard on them in this, moving from a certain flavour in the Preamble of the Constitution, regarding reliance on God Almighty, to the current dissavour, dissociation and disbelief, which is becoming oh so fashionable! so that many are capitulating, as if to their daughters becoming whores. The moral horror is no less! Why worry! they say as God is left out of practical teaching, logic is massacred, reasonableness is disregarded, and scientific method is harassed as if it too were a rebel! (cf. Scientific Method ..., and Progress, Regress ... Ch. 3, *4 ).
This is so reminiscent of the plight and flight of ancient Israel, that it brings sadness to the heart to see such rebellion, sanctified by the mantra, Culture! culture for ever, the new god to worship! Watch that Australian Constitution for removal of the reference to Almighty God, and replacement with something concerning man or some section of the human race. Satan is racing to dismember everything of God, and to bring it to nature or man, and eventually of course, to one man, the antichrist (II Thessalonians 2).
Why ? The reason is so very simple. Man is made by God for God, and without Him is like a car without road or tyres. It bumps along ludicrously, a real 'killer'. Man does not care to notice. One could add to the three nations as modern examples of Isaiah 65:1, much of Europe, Russia a case long synthesised into practical atheism and nationalism or whatever else seems good, while China has rejected God as a commission. In all this, one speaks of the nation, not elements of the population which serve Christ, in some cases a not insignificant minority. Much of the Middle East and Asia follows a false prophet (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6), or various other associations of gods or subliminal beings.
This world in some cases more than others, has LONG been informed, given Christian testimony to the only figure to stand sinless among all those who proclaim a message for man with supernatural claims, in the name of God. It has squandered its inheritance, flounced into wars, gleamed its desires into wantonry, and now limps and at times whimpers, when delusions of national or international desire do not warp its spiritual consciousness completedly.
Individuals face the same potential charges. Have YOU seen, heard, experienced something of the loveliness of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, sole testimony to truth that is verified and validated*1 ? Have you become lukewarm as a profession, with a slighting shrug on your shoulders and an indifference in your heart, with squashed hopes, squelched dreams leading to a pseudo-cynicism or worse ? Have morals become optional to you, and the satisfaction of your self a substitute for the fear of God ? (cf. News 19). Then you have much to fear. From him or her to whom much is given, much is expected. INFORMED dalliance after exposure to the Gospel is worse than arsenic (John 154:22ff.).
Israel for its part had multiplied useless sacrifices, ignored the law of God, and at that, many had presumed to make themselves appear so ultra-holy, among others, that it was all but sickening. God refers back to Deuteronomy 32:32-34 where His detestation and prepared action to censure this evil development had been revealed earlier. It was nothing new; it had simply reached its due time: NOW! Let us learn from history: the more so, when it is already interpreted by God.
Before we leave this point, note the concept of measure (65:7). "Therefore I will measure their former work into their bosom." Invisible things are not subject to ordinary measurement, but there is such a thing as spiritual measurement, concerning the degree of audacity, unbelief, arrogance, strutting action shown, as if any god were a nincompoop, though the Creator Himself made you, and this vain dismissal from mind or heart, perrformed while making freewill offerings to lust and the like. Disbelief has a whole orchestra, and its spiritual decibels can be spiritually measured and the results apportioned. Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind is a biblical principle (Hosea 8:7).
Where is mercy, then, you ask ? It is where it is given (Isaiah 55, Galatians 6:14), where it MAY be found, in the Messiah Jesus Christ, sent for the purpose of unlimited provision of the same (John 3:15-18), and duly crucified, as God made use of evil in love, to secure good, even for those if so be, who actually did the evil. It is this provision which is the basis of pardon for those who receive His ransom from the results of sin, and renewal in the ways of righteousness by grace alone, through faith (Romans 3:23-27, Titus 3:3ff.). In our text in Isaiah 65, this mercy follows, coming into sight quickly.
THE RESTORATION OF THE REMNANT OF THE ABOVE 65:8-10
Thus, there is to be a successful mission to SOME, called the remnant, who will return to their land after the horrors of receiving the measure of judgment. Why so ? It is because the mercy they were rejecting, along with faith, in a fire-sale in their spirits, minds and consciences, was no longer applicable. It would come again at length. Yes, it was to come; but what of the interim for the nation ? What was it like ? it resembled a diplomat who connived with the country of his mission, and lied about the nation that sent him, thus creating havoc and abuse, evil and confusion.
THE CURSE ON THE
DEFORMATION THAT REFUSES REFORMATION 65:11-16
It is always sad to see a young person fail, turned from the track of truth by an attack of mental, spiritual or physical lust, desire unbridled, thrust misplaced, rampancy active in place of reason. To Israel as all can see, this happened. 40 years or so after the murder of Jesus Christ, how many were made as if litter in Jerusalem by the blood lust of Rome! How desolate the city! They had not learned from their earlier destruction in the 6th century B.C., from which Jeremiah sought in vain to turn them (as in Jeremiah 17), almost to the last possible moment; but they did not heed him. Indeed what a picture of judgment with his tears and desolation of heart for the nation which did not cease to provoke the Lord, he had shown in Lamentations.
Christ likewise wept before the next case, His sacrifice, accomplished by the Jewish national religious body in association with Rome, the place to find pardon, but also the site for severance of Israel till it repents, as predicted to come in Zechariah 12:10-13:1 for example. The cause and effect relationship is found in Micah 5:1-3.
Likewise those among the Gentiles (or as a remnant amid the Jews - such as the apostles!) who found the Lord by His Gospel (as in Isaiah 49-55), would rejoice, eating spiritual food and quaffing spiritual drink (cf. John 6:47ff.), even finding that once-for- all sacrifice for their sins and that Spirit of holiness which the Lord sends like water to the desolate, who believe in Him (John 4:14, 7:37ff., Isaiah 44). And the water of life, which rises up, it does not stay there, but travels through them to a thirsty land! and if thirst all but ceases, yet the flow is there.
Meanwhile, the Lord as we saw in Isaiah 65:1, brought mercy to those who had not sought Him, who rejoiced. In contrast, those who had the NAME of being servants of God (as in Isaiah 43:21) would lament, leaving their name "as a curse to My chosen," (Isaiah 65:15). The RESULT is a certain purge, purification. If people are going to praise and bless God, it is through reality and repentance and restoration, not through mixtures such as the WCC today exemplifies*2, of truth and folly, allying this world's cultures with Christ. If there is to be blessing, let it now be direct and directed by the Spirit of God through the Bible to the Lord (cf. Isaiah 59:21). There is the divine blessing, not in vague entreaties to varying parties with varying convictions or lacks, toward varying things, all to be in a muddle, like stirred up dirt in a puddle.
PHASE ONE
OF THE TIME OF TRANSFORMATION 65:17-26
Indeed the prediction was clear in Isaiah 65:1, that God would not only bring the Gospel direct to this world, but in 65:17, that he would make a new heavens and earth (as in Revelation 20, Isaiah 65:51:6, Matthew 24:35). Phase I appears in this part of Isaiah 65, at verses 18-28, matching the millenium of Psalm 72 and Revelation 20:1-6, a time of blessing for those who had not worn the worn-out cultural follies of the beast, the cultural king of the Age. It is not heaven (Isaiah 65:20), but the site for the Lord returning with His people (I Thessalonians 3:13), first taken as in Matthew 24, and then coming with Him at the 'opening' of the new Age, as far from New Age philosophy as wood from wisdom. Here as in Isaiah 11, is another presentation concerning it.
"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea."
Here"My elect will long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain nor bring forth children for trouble," 65:22-23.
That is not the case in the present epoch! where, in substance, the opposite is found in the mental manipulation of children and the poison presented to young minds in the name of the State, thus making its coming absorption into the hands of the antichrist increasingly to be just a matter of form.
Already, unnatural naturalism is made a magical substitution for causation in any situation that requires that one consider God, in vast layers of State teaching, so that it is as if spiritual blindness is becoming a professional requirement, first of all. That is now, and has long been so in this nation.
Thus the blessed case of Isaiah 65:22-23 is certainly not yet; but it will come, just as the phases of seasons come in the year; this comes in the march of epochs. In this time, "the wolf and the lamb will feed together," Isaiah 65:25.To be sure, this phenomenon has been found in this Age, but not as a rule! This spoken of in Isaiah 65 as above, is anti-curse time... It will come and go when the next phase of the finale comes, with judgment and the removal entirely of this present heaven and earth, not without drama (II Peter 3). It is a fitting end for those who have continually denied its beginning, and judgment threatens those anaesthetised to the earlier judgments (II Peter 3:5) which leave their signs in the very rock and sedimentation masses and morasses. as in the vast planation surfaces to be found on it, together with the remnants left on mountain-tops...
God STATES just as overwhelming evidence confirms, that there was a flood over the whole earth. The issue is partly mesmerised pseudo-science, infected with cultural sense of impossibilities and erratic methods unsubstantiated; but more and beyond this, the CAUSE of this mesmerism, a very distinct desire not to believe, or to placate unbelief (cf. News 1).
As Romans 1:17ff. and Ephesians 2 and 4 indicate, man is inclined to wrestle the truth down to the ground as far as his will and intense desire against, revulsion is concerned. Man was created; fell; and except restored, continues in his early vein, more and more vain and arrogant towards God. Whether in some it be bluff, in others fear, in some self-affirmation, in others, the desire to have no-one able to tell them the truth, desiring reliance on their own summations, bent to their own preferred prejudices ... the cases vary in specifics, yet the aversion could almost be measured in some cases, if there were a spiritual seismograph. God however knows better than that could tell, and desire for darkness or toleration of it has its own reward.
If you want it, it is available.
THE SPIRITUAL PITH, ZEST AND DYNAMIC 66:1-5
Isaiah 65 over, God next in Isaiah 66 indicates something of the crucial ingredients of worship. The point is not the magnificence of any building for Him in any residential sense: heaven itself is His throne, the whole earth serving more as a footstool! He does not need a footstool in which to live. That is to mix symbol with reality, a useless confusion. Can YOU give God rest! Isaiah's message is far otherwise.
It is rather a matter of your looking, through what has been made by God, and His word, to HIM! You need to act in a lowly manner, being realistic, not being rich in your self-estimation, but poor in spirit, ready for revelation, seeking for grace; and you need to displace your former ways, repenting with due sense of desolation as one fundamentally astray. Further you need to take the WORD of God as that of the ultimate handbook for the car that is you! You did not make it, and the manufacturer desires to tell you about you! Indeed, since you are no car or mere potential carcass, you had better listen! You are a responsible person and will be held so! Tremble then at His word and become a repentant receiver of His word, His Gospel and His grace, yes of Himself as both your Lord and Saviour (Isaiah 66:3, cf. Isaiah 44:1ff.).
Such is the teaching of the Lord in substance, at the outset of Isaiah 66.
Sacrifice! Symbol has now given way to substance, and the Messiah is the ONLY sacrifice that counts, summing up all and replacing it (as in Isaiah 49-55, rendering repetitive sacrifice obsolete, as in Hebrews 8). In fact, the time is coming when the lordly bigots who have blighted the remnant of believers whether amid Israel or the nations (cf. Isaiah 66:20ff.), will be ashamed, and their superior tilts of the nose will be shown for the degradation which they illustrated (66:5). They will be ashamed.
That day is near, as in Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32, Joel 3, Habakkuk 3, Ezekiel 38-39, reaching its epitome as in Revelation 19. Judgment does not wait forever.
The truth also, it is near; but many a heart is far off. Israel was warned repeatedly and has suffered much. Certainly it is to be restored, but do not forget their interim; they assuredly will not do so.
Whether currently you be therefore unbelieving, Jew or Gentile, your position now is all one. You return to the Lord who created you and provided for your free redemption or you do not. If you want history, in essence, to repeat itself in your own case, you are free to let it do so.
Dispossession of what in any case you did not have, you may say, is no great loss. Yet the testimony has been AROUND, whatever you did with it; it has been near for many, and when rejected, it is far off, as many of Israel have been for nearly 2 millenia. That is time. The issue now is eternity. The same love and mercy of the same God is available direct in one Messiah, murdered and raised, to come and judge. The short-circuit of His offer leaves a long circuit of misspent life, congratulating or condemning itself, as if this counted. The truth counts, and to this there is no counter.
Lord willing, on a future day, we may proceed further on in Isaiah 66, to
THE DIVIDING OF THE
WAYS and
THE DEEP PITEOUSNESS OF MERCY 66:5-13,
with the finale in unity in commission of Jew and Gentile with one Gospel moving in urgent mercy toward the day of calamity, with the way of Gospel and the way of disregard in high contrast (Isaiah 66:19-24).
{You may now wish to find Part II, which is in Chapter 4 below.}
NOTES
See on verification and validity, such samples as:
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS
(a large, multi-phase work).
TMR 5, 7 , It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, esp. *1A (method),
The Bright Light ... 7,
Repent or Perish, Ch. 7, pp. 152ff.; Ch. 2;
Christ, the Wisdom ... Ch. 6; Barbs ... 29, 19;
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-3; SMR 3,
Little Things Ch. 5, Wake Up World! ... Ch. 5, End-Note 1A,
Tender Times ... Ch. 11;
Barbs ... 29, 19;
TMR 9, Grand Biblical Perspectives Ch. 7,
What is the Chaff to the Wheat! Chs. 3, 4 (method); 10, 11,
Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Sections 2, 3, *3, 8.
See News 121, 122, SMR pp. 685, 696, 721, 723, 743, 750, 867-868, 919, 922, 956-957, 1031C, 1060.