Isaiah 65
Notes
Transcript
Final Call Don’t Ignore God
Final Call Don’t Ignore God
Good evening everyone...
Here we are back for another Wednesday night in the book of Isaiah, and we are almost finished.
Tonight and next week will conclude the study and then we will be moving on to our next study.
There is a great truth for every human being today, you can live your life any way you want too..
But know this, if you ignore God, there will be a price to pay…no reward.
Verse 1 Isa 65:1
1 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that was not called by my name.
Remember in the past there were some who complained that God had hid his face from his people, they had not heard from here. But now is the rest of the story.
But God was not hidden, He was there, ready for those to call, so God is defending himself against those false accusations that some said he did not care for his people.
God is always ready for his people to call upon him, to seek Him and his face. He is willing to answer...
But He clearly says, no one called to me and no one sought me...
God told them, here am I, Here am I.. this clearly tells us that God was frustrated with the lack of care from His so called people.
If people do not call upon the name of the Lord, If they do not seek his face, well it is no surprise they feel distant, disconnected from God.
You cannot love someone you are not in love with..
Verse 2 Isa 65:2
2 I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
God says that he even spread out his hands to them, he opened his arms offering to help, to care for them..
It wasnt once, but “all the day” the Lord says…
May that me me think so much of Jesus in Matthew 23:37
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
God said he opened his arms to a rebellious people.. he didn’t refer to them as His people here, no just a rebellious people.
They are rebellious because they walked in a way that wasn’t good, they followed their own devices..
These people were not once who followed the ways of the Lord. They forsook God for the sadly perverse way of their own desires. The walked in evil ways, they followed after their thoughts and the worst they rejected God.
Verse 3 Isa 65:3
3 a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and making offerings on bricks;
God calls them a people who provoke me, they acted evil in front of God, it is before his face, in front of God out in the open …
The phrase sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks indicated they pagan, unholy worship that they were participating in...
sacrificing animals to foreign gods, calling upon these false gods in hopes of finding favor when God was right there.
God is there, they know, they know to do right and instead they do differently satisfying the desires of their own flesh...
Look at humanity sins of satisfying the sins of desire, things that make them feel good that seem right to them...
Verse 4 Isa 65:4
4 who sit in tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat pig’s flesh,
and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
Isaiah tells us they are in the tombs… they were not supposed to be anyplace were the dead were. But they went there, it was secret, private
They spent the night in these places and we know from archaeologically in Syria and other areas around in there would secret cults who offered things to the dead and to the underworld.
Even some who offered pigs in their offerings and ate the flesh, do raw as a act toward worship. These were cults and practices tied to the worship of Molech.
Molech as one of the main gods who were worshipped in Babylon.
Verse 5 Isa 65:5
5 who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all the day.
These people, who say .... they claim they are holy…they do not want others to come close to them and defile them. Some think these may have been ones who were partaking in Asherah worship…
Its ironic, they are anything but holy, only God is holy and pure, without sin.
But God says there is smoke in His nostrils, a fire that burns all day…There is a two fold thought here… one is, they should have lived right, they would be in Israel and they would be managing the worship due him. Incense and other offerings that would have risen as a sweet smelling fragrance..
13 Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.
Instead their smoke is an irritant, God will not keep silent… they were worshipping false gods and it was blasphemous.
Verse 6 Isa 65:6-7
6 Behold, it is written before me:
“I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their lap
7 both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they made offerings on the mountains
and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their lap
payment for their former deeds.”
When you see behold here, it is like mamma saying when your Daddy gets home, he is gonna spank you
Behold, this is what the Lord will do… I will not be silent, i will not ignore your sin and evil deeds. Instead God says I will repay…Judgment is coming.
I will pour it into their lap, they will be judged.
And at the beginning of verse 7, God says I will punish for your sins and your parents sin...
Both generations in captivity will be punished, those who sinned on the mountain tops or those just one the hills.. They will suffer the consequences for their sins...
Now verses 8-16 brings us to a new section…
Verse 8 Isa 65:8
8 Thus says the Lord:
“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants’ sake,
and not destroy them all.
So this begins with a message from God.
God did not intend on destroying them completely, but he would not save them all either. The verse is built around the idea of a farmer who represents God.
Late in the grape season the grape pickers trim the vines, but as they d this they find some clusters that are dried up and sour as well as a few clusters that still have a few grape with juice in them.
Most vineyard owners would tell the pickers to not destroy the whole cluster because of a few dead ones.. There was still good that could come from the cluster.
God will act like the grape pickers, for the sake of some, God will not destroy them all, but not all can be used either..
God desired to use them all, but not all were good.
Verses 9-10 Isa 65:9-10
9 I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
and my servants shall dwell there.
10 Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
for my people who have sought me.
God says I will still have children from Jacob.. some will be saved in the end… both presently some of the children will come out of captivity and some will be saved on the last day… we could say there is a dual meaning here.
But in the future, some will arrive back in their own land from far away lands. These people will inherit the land of God’s people.
God refers to these as His chosen… my servants.
The Sharon plain refers to the western part of the country, from the coastal plains inward were areas more fertile where the people could grow crops and find abundance.
These places would be for the people who sought after him, these are true covenant people. For what they say and do will match up in that day.
Verses 11-12 Isa 65:11-12
11 But you who forsake the Lord,
who forget my holy mountain,
who set a table for Fortune
and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you to the sword,
and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer;
when I spoke, you did not listen,
but you did what was evil in my eyes
and chose what I did not delight in.”
Now this verse speaks to the opposite people, to those who sought their own ways and such..They substituted pagan worship for the worship of the one true God
Fortune and Destiny references to the Syrian and Phoenician Gad and the Arabian Meni. There are gods who were responsible for a persons fortune in the future.
God response to this in verse 12 is that God himself will determine their destiny… a play on words
He will deliver these people to the sword so that they will be slaughtered. Their will be a military conquest in which their pagan gods cannot help them, let alone save them.
They will be judged harshly since they abandoned the God who called them. He called them but they did not answer the Lord.
Instead they did what was right in their own eyes and chose what the Lord had forbidden. They purposefully abandoned the Lord and his ways..
Verses 13-14 Isa 65:13-14
13 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, my servants shall eat,
but you shall be hungry;
behold, my servants shall drink,
but you shall be thirsty;
behold, my servants shall rejoice,
but you shall be put to shame;
14 behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart,
but you shall cry out for pain of heart
and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
Therefore, on account of what I have said to you… here is what you should expect..
It is really the idea of blessings and cursings, my servant will eat and you will be hungry, they will drink but you will thirst… In a future time, some will enjoy the blessings of the Lord and some will be put to shame, they are cursed and separated from God.
My servant will rejoice but you will cry out in pain. One will respond on account of the goodness they will experience. The others who forsook the Lord, sorrow and mourning will be their experience.
Verse 15-16 Isa 65:15-16
15 You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse,
and the Lord God will put you to death,
but his servants he will call by another name,
16 so that he who blesses himself in the land
shall bless himself by the God of truth,
and he who takes an oath in the land
shall swear by the God of truth;
because the former troubles are forgotten
and are hidden from my eyes.
One beautiful point is when God called people, he often changed their names, no longer did they bear the names associated with the curse, he gave them a new name.
At the time when God’s servants and Jerusalem get new names and everyone takes an oath by the name of God, people will be living in a new point in history. Existence in the kingdom of God where God alone is honored and glorified will cause a change of perspective and a new orientation to life.
At that time in God’s kingdom, when everything is transformed, the past troubles of life will be forgotten and hidden from memory.
Although one could easily understand how God’s servants who are living in God’s presence in this new world would quickly forget about all the terrible events of the past, this verse seems to state that God himself will put the events of the former sinful world behind him and concentrate on life in the new world he will create for his saints.
Now the last section, verses 17-25
Verse 17 Isa 65:17
17 “For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
So here we see a new work of God set in place, and new heaven and earth… The former things, will be put out of mind.
Like I just previous posted, the former things are no longer remembered, God has placed them behind us so that our only focus and thought is where we are now.
Verse 18 Isa 65:18
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
What will the reaction be of these new things, There will be rejoicing… I do think that in His presence and in that city how could you not rejoice. We are no longer troubled by anything, gladness is our state,,,
When God creates, he doesn’t just patch up a few things so that everything looks good on the outside;
No, God starts all over again from the beginning and creates everything brand new from top to bottom.
His grand creative work will be worldwide, including all of the heavens and every part of the earth, all peoples, all nations, all aspects of nature, all places, and all relationships that God has with the things that he creates.
What can we say but glory.....
Verse 19 Isa 65:19
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
The sound of rejoicing dominates the city, People are glad and they rejoice because of all that God has done..
A new city and a holy people will bring joy to our God
Verse 20 Isa 65:20
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
No more will this time be touched by sin, no more will there be a child that dies, or a old man who does not live out the full length of his days.
And if someone didnt live a 100 yrs.. people would think they would be accursed...
Verse 21 Isa 65:21
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
I love this, it says at this time they will live life to the fullest, building homes, planting vineyards and eating what they planted...
No more have and have nots at this time, all will enjoy this...
Verse 22 Isa 65:22
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
No longer will one make and another inhabit, speaking of the times when there were large land owners who acquired the homes of others in times of trials
No more days like this...
Instead, men is compared to trees, having long days, as a tree lives a long life so will the creation of God.
And it says that God’s people will enjoy the work of their hands… death is not there to cut life short, sin not there to hurt people
There is joy and satisfaction...
Verse 23 Isa 65:23
23 They shall not labor in vain
or bear children for calamity,
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,
and their descendants with them.
The final description of God’s blessings, tells us what will not happen, The people will be rewarded for their work because all of their efforts will not be wasted or fall away. No one will take what others have worked so hard ot accomplish.
The children coming into this world will not experience death and sorrow will no longer visit families… Their children will be blessed because they are destined to receive and know the Lord’s blessings, not a curse.
The fact that these children will experience these blessings implies that this period will last for many generations.
Verse 24 Isa 65:24
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
God promises care and close personnel attention to the needs of his people.
In the past people complained that God did not answer, but her he knows their need before they ask and while they are speaking he has heard.
How wonderful a promise like this… They will know His love and care perfectly.
Verse 25 Isa 65:25
25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.
Perfect peace at this time, no treats to anything that the wolf and the lamb can lie down together
A perfect picture of peace…
Animals no longer desire to eat or hurt one another, the lion will be a vegeterian on that day....
This new setting finds all things in harmony. Those things that were formerly enemies, now enjoy the presence of the other. It is like a return to the time of the garden before the curse fell.
The snake will not be allowed to eat normal food but will suffer the humiliation of eating dirt just like some of God’s other enemies did
9 May desert tribes bow down before him,
and his enemies lick the dust!
Now we are not said that the snake is Satan here, but it might be.. but we know when God established His kingdom, on the new earth there will be peace and harmony in all thngs
