God's ways, his path, law and word.
That's what it says. These are things that are important to God now and will be into the millennial reign and they should be critical to us. We as Christians should say, no, I want to know God's ways. Teach me your way, O Lord.
I want to know what route to take on his behalf. And the law of the Lord, which comes from the word of God. But there's more to the word of God than print. It is Jesus Christ.
He is the word of God. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah Chapter 2 with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. Isaiah Chapter 2, Israel's Future Hope. Not a very exciting title, but a very exciting chapter.
A lot of them are going to really be exciting, at least to me. Chapters 1 through 6 are mingled rebukes and promises. And promises are a big part. As God is saying, this is not the whole story. I'm judging this group of apostates and idolaters. That's not the whole story.
And that is a critical feature. And he alternates, Isaiah does, between, in this chapter, between the glory of Jerusalem and the coming judgments. As for those judgments, you know, I would think that when a believer goes to a church where the word of God is preached, one of the thoughts, recurring thoughts, is, boy, I wish so-and-so was here to hear this.
I wish I could play this back for someone at work or school or wherever. Then pray that. If you're looking for some direction in prayer, if you're saying, you know, in my prayer life, I really, you know, don't really know what to add to it, and I'm looking for someone, add that. That the things that are moving to you from God's Word through God's system of the church, which stir others, bring them the church so that they can hear it. This first verse now, we go to of Isaiah chapter 2. The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Well, in verse 1, he spoke of seeing a vision. Here, he speaks of the word that he saw. And of course, it's what God revealed to him. And there's Isaiah, somewhere in his office with the oil lamp in the evening, and the windows open in the day.
It's just a recording for humanity, the Word of God. Verse 2, now it should come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of Yahweh's house should be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall follow him. Exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.
Interesting. The temple's still around when he's writing this. He's speaking of another temple at another time. And here, verse 2 through 5, almost word for word, is repeated in Micah chapter 4.
And I like these little lessons that come out of the scripture. Micah quotes Isaiah, because Isaiah, he's the older. Micah was a contemporary, but he was a younger prophet than Isaiah. Isaiah says this is what he saw.
He saw the Word. Micah doesn't say that. He just publishes what Isaiah has in his prophecy. And what I like about that is here you have one prophet in Isaiah being admired by another prophet. Well, that's not always the case.
Well, it is the case here. It was that important to Micah what Isaiah's saying through verses 2 through 5 that he put in his book also in chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. These promises of a glorious future for Zion under the Messiah. The prophets like us, they were hungry and thirsty for God to come to. They wanted God's kingdom set up just as much as we do. I think the prophets enjoyed writing about the future. They had to address the sordid presence of the present age, the behavior of the apostates, which oftentimes was the majority.
They certainly often held the majority of power. And the prophet says the nations will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the world. Go grab some person down in the street that's not a believer and say, do you know Jerusalem is going to be the center? You know, everyone, not everyone, but a lot of these people out there are pushing for globalization, one-world government. Well, it's going to be a one-world government. It's going to be a global government under Christ, the King, and not until then. Even Antichrist, who set it up a little bit, it would be fuzzy, and then he's going to meet with rebellion because he's going to be a creep, that's why.
And so are the other people that he's ruling over, and he creeps too. The ten horns, all of them rotten. And anyway, yet to be fulfilled, these things, some of these things, as we know, in the latter days, the latter days to the Jews was an exciting topic, just like the rapture in the latter days is for us also. The messianic kingdom, the Jew couldn't wait for that. And as you know, when we go through the gospels, they're asking, are you going to set up your kingdom now, Lord?
You know, they wanted it. We want the rapture. I don't want the rapture so much.
It's a mixed thing, and I'll tell you from the scriptures that I'm not the only one. Well, James said, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. So he's saying, when God returns, when Christ returns, just establish your hearts with that thought of his coming. So it's an exciting facet of our faith, the second coming of Christ, first for his church, then seven years later with his church.
But Paul, Paul addresses this mingled blessing. I am hard pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with Christ far better, he says. Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. I have a desire to stay and reach as many people with the gospel as I can and within the sphere of ministry that I have. And then the other part is the rapture, to be with Christ.
And so I'm not alone in that sentiment. The great apostle Paul wanted to be with Christ more than anything, but he also could see that he had a ministry from Christ right here, right now, and I think we should balance that out. And on a bad day, say, oh Lord, Maranatha, that's really not, that's less than right, as I should say it that way. I'm not trying to sound self-righteous, but we're trying to self-righteous, but we're not looking for the rapture as an escape portal. When the rapture comes, you know what it's going to signal? Hell on earth, the great tribulation.
So it'll be, woohoo, I'm out of here. Yes, but what about those left behind? Well, they should have repented. Well, a lot of them never heard the gospel, and it's going to be a rough ride for everybody. Well, anyway, that's a little perspective on the Jews listening to the prophet write about the coming Messiah, and we're able to identify with that. Jerusalem, where the temple was, as I mentioned, and where the millennial temple will be, and so elaborate is this temple. Ezekiel in chapters 40 through 43, he talks about the temple. Incidentally, there's one little section, a little verse, he talks about the priests. They're supposed to trim their beards. Just saying. That's what the Bible says. You don't trim your beard, you know that God is siding against you. Okay, it's a little humor mixed in. It does talk about that.
I just thought it was kind of cute, you know. Anyhow, coming back to this, the Lord's house in Zion. Jerusalem, Zion, very high, on the mountain, it says. And this is a recurring theme attached to the house of the Lord, the mount of God.
It's in the Psalms, it's in the prophets, and Isaiah, of course, one of the prophets that speaks of it. And the ancient Israelites, they viewed Zion as a superior place of worship. You know, when you get to your New Testament, still they're talking about going up to Jerusalem, regardless of which direction they're coming from. You can come coming from the north, you know, it's not, we're going down to Jerusalem. No, we're going up to Jerusalem. And not only because it was elevated, they were taller places. You could leave, you could come from Mount Hermon, the tallest mountain in the region, and you still would be going up to Jerusalem, because that's where it was in their hearts.
And we should see it that way, too. Now, they're going to be geographical alterations by God. They're in Jerusalem on the earth, period. The desert will bloom again, that's one. But concerning Jerusalem, Zechariah tells us, in that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
Can you imagine it? Which faces Jerusalem on the east. You can go to the Mount of Olives today and you look across the Kidron Valley and there's Jerusalem, marred by that dome, which is in the wrong place, and there is darkness about that thing. You're not even allowed to pray up there. What kind of crazy thing is that?
They're so insensitive, so insecure. Anyway, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley. Half of the mountain shall be moved toward the north and half of it toward the south. So the elevation of Jerusalem, which is exalted now, will be increased further. Now, this throne of Messiah, I love this verse out of Corinthians, then comes the end.
I like Paul just, then comes the end. Everyone who is, well, I'm on the wrong verse, I'm reading from Zechariah, we get to that one. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom of God to the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. You can't even tell in writing how much wickedness world rulers have been guilty of. Even presidents of the United States, some of them, many of them, most despicable actions covered up, of course, so that you know, so you got this image of them. Boy, I like that president.
Yeah, if you knew half the story, I mean, he usually comes out 50 years after their death, somebody begins to research it and publish it. But anyhow, that's going to be gone. Micah chapter 4, so Yahweh will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on even forever.
I like how he just punches that through. Yahweh will rule from Mount Zion from now on forever. It's final, it's authoritative in a blessed way. And of course, Isaiah 9, the kingdom will be upon his shoulders, just as the Bible's loaded with this. And it says here in verse 2, and shall be exalted above the hills and all the nations shall flow to it.
Well, the metaphor of nations flowing to it, it won't be a tour stop, although there'll be things that you want to see. It will be worship and it will be global. And there'll be no anti-nation against Christ, not until a thousand years have passed.
And then there'll be this flash of a moment, it won't last. Zechariah 14 again, Zechariah again, 14 verse 6, I previously read 14.4, and it shall come to pass everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go down from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, or Yahweh of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And these symbolic feasts will be to educate the people about the cross, what took place. Just because they survived the millennial, the great tribulation, doesn't mean they have knowledge of God.
We'll come back to that one. But here, everyone who is left, look at, you see those little lines between those little spaces of words? Everyone who is left, because there will be myriads of people dead, gone. These are the survivors, and they will be a remnant of Gentile and Jews alike. This will be a remnant of humanity that makes it through the great tribulation. It will be so catastrophic, 9-1-1 will be useless.
It won't be the first time, I mean, you know, the blitz of London, and we just get overwhelmed with bombs. Well, the great tribulation is going to just eclipse all of those things very easily. So, again, imagine the Jewish temple would become the center of worldwide worship to the Lord, and genuine, genuine worship for a long time. What's happening here, as Isaiah writes, in this paragraph, this chapter, probably belongs to a portion of Hezekiah's reign, or Ahaz, probably Ahaz, a wicked king.
Uzziah and Ahaz, they built up Jerusalem substantially, and allowed it to have this economic success. It factors into the apostasy. But the Jews were adopting the nothing gods of the Gentiles.
That's the rebuke that's in this chapter, and chapter one, and throughout Isaiah. They were adapting the gods of the Gentiles, but the day is coming when the Gentiles will abandon their idols and adopt the God of the Jews. There would be a switch around, and so the prophet is saying, you don't know what you've got. You people are ruining yourselves with these fictitious Gentile gods that you're fawning all over.
Put them all in your house, and look at my idol, expensive ones. And when it's all said and done, don't you know your little nothing gods will be still nothing, and the only true God will be standing? And the Gentiles will come and worship in front of your eyes as a people, as a people, because as individuals, you know, they die and they go, and they won't experience this, and many of them will be in hell, and the apostates will. And so the prophet within this is saying, do you know what you're going to do? You're going to do this, is saying, do you know what you have right now? In his day, he's writing to his people, don't you know you've got the real God?
Can't you see it? The New Testament, Paul appealed to the church. You know, I get a lot of mail with how to grow your church, pastor, or how to give a leadership meeting, pastor.
What do I need them? I get so, I don't get reanimated, but internally it's like, man, you, is this what you think of the church? You think pastors are too stupid to know that from the Bible, how to lead, how to pastor, that they need some agency to come along and tell us?
We're too moronic to go to the Bible to learn anything. We need to give you money so you can teach us. Send your people to learn how to lead. Why? You just mess them all up.
We can do that right here, not mess them up. Not that part. So Paul has a similar problem. He says to the Christians, do you not know that we shall judge the angels?
How much more things that pertain to this life? Paul is saying, you go into the courts to sue one another? Don't you understand? You're Christians. You've got the word of God. You should be dealing with these things without the world. But you're running to the world to sue each other. What a wonderful witness that is.
You don't know what you got. That's what Isaiah is saying, that's what Paul is saying, and that's what I would say all these little pamphlets I get on, you know, or one of my favorites, you know, pastors that need counseling. I serve the Lord, and he is a wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and if I need counseling, I probably should quit. That sounds harsh, it sounds self-righteous, and I don't mean to sound that way, but there's an other part of it that I don't apologize for us for one moment.
I'm not being high-minded. I just believe that the word of God has the word of life, all of it, and you want to know about behavior, whether you're in the pulpit or the pew, you go to the God's word, and if that bothers a person, I'll ask them. But as for me in my house, what does that mean? As for me in my house, when we're in trouble, we'll seek some agency.
We'll study the lessons from the scripture, but we won't apply them to our lives. We'll seek some agency. All right, enough about that. Okay, two more things. No, no, verse three.
And I'm in the minority, incidentally, I know. Okay, verse three. Many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, the house of God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word from Yahweh, from Jerusalem.
This is magnificent. The many people shall come. These are millennial Jews and Gentiles. Now, we'll be the government, the representatives of Christ in government, kings and priests. The Jews will be the priests at the temple, and we will be the the delegated authority in the various places of the world.
We'll be here for these things. Isaiah, he sees God reaching out to the Gentiles, something that Israel just never could learn to do, and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, the pilgrimages to global pilgrimages to Jerusalem. So I guess if free enterprise is still available, I'm going to invest in a tour guide, you know, getting people to Jerusalem and back. All right, anyway, well, somebody's got to get them there.
Why not make a few bucks, right? Anyway, I'm just having fun. And anyway, the physical dawn of Christ on earth will be in Jerusalem. Now, there remains three glorious experiences for the believer.
There's the life in heaven. Then the second one is the millennial reign of Christ on earth for about a thousand years. And then there is the eternal new heavens and earth after the kingdom age, when God finally has his quota of those who love him even before ever seeing him by faith.
Isaiah 65 is a beautiful verse. For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind. God is going to be so busy throwing out new things we won't even think about the past. I can't wait. I've already started forgetting.
I forget a lot of things. Anyway, to the house of the God of Jacob. God's house is the focus. But on behalf of human beings, that's why. That's where we come in. Otherwise, you know, why have us there?
Why die for us? Well, we're important to God. God's word will go forth from Jerusalem to rule the nations. I don't know how many Christians miss out on these things from Isaiah or any of the prophets.
How many of them just miss out? He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. Survivors of the great tribulation and those subsequently born to them, there will be marriages and births in the great tribulation period. There will be newcomers. They will not have automatic knowledge of God.
They still have to learn. They'll have a head start. There won't be, you know, the devil around. The flesh will still be there but not as strong as it was. The world or order of rebellion will be gone. You just only really will have the flesh to deal with and that will be drastically dimmed down.
The strength that it has now won't be present. God's ways, his path, law, and word, that's what it says. These are things that are important to God now and will be into the millennial reign and they should be critical to us. We as Christians should say, no, I want to know God's ways. Teach me your way, O Lord. I want to know what route to take on his behalf and the law of the Lord, which comes from the word of God, but there's more to the word of God than print. It is Jesus Christ.
He is the word of God. This alone should teach us about our lives now as Christians. When you feel like, you know, I don't see the use of the study of the Bible, you got to punch through that stuff. You can't let the flesh and the world and the circumstances of life take away from you your zest and even if you don't have it emotionally, do your duty and that will make hell really disappointed. To find a Christian who is advancing without, you know, the emotions is just, what can hell do to that?
Because he stops a lot of people by just dimming down the emotions. Oh, I don't feel like it. Well, I don't feel like it. I'm going to do it anyway. You won't get three cheers in hell for that.
You get them from the angels though. Anyway, Isaiah, he uses this term Zion more than anybody in the scripture. It doesn't show up much in the New Testament.
It's there a few times. Verse 4, he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Again, God's mountain, the center of international justice or global justice. And I love this verse from Timothy and I think you would too. He who is the blessed and only potent Tate, King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the true benevolent dictator. He dictates something to us.
It is because it is good and it is right. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Well, no more munitions plants, so that'll be it.
Everything will be redirected to good food and farming and things like that. This is an inversion, a switch from Joel. Joel probably wrote before Isaiah. Joel says, beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say I am strong. That's not a verse for the Christians.
That is God, through Joel, taunting his opponents. So, no, no, no, go ahead. Get ready for war. You want to fight with me? I'm going to judge you. You want to resist this?
I'll tell you what you need to do. Beat your plowshares into swords, because I'm going to mess you up. That's what that's happening there in Joel. Here, God is going the other way.
He is announcing the coming end of wars. And so that's interesting. And so when, when Joel says, let the weak say, we have a Christian song, let the weak say, I am strong in the Lord.
Well, that's true. But if you're using the verse in Joel, you've made a stretch that you might want to just try to forget. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new additions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.
