Their cruelty would move the Lord to action. That's what he says in verse 13, the Lord stands up to plead. He's mindful of these things.
The politicians, their aides, their advocates, their corrupt appointees are all going to be accountable. That's what God is saying. He doesn't have to say this to every generation through people in that generation. They are to repeat it. He only has to repeat it. He only has to say it one time. His habit is two or three times for the witness.
They conveniently tell themselves that it will all work out because it's always worked out. I didn't get this far being a nice guy. You won't be getting to heaven being that kind of guy.
How about that? Well, you don't believe it. What does the Bible say? Well, Ecclesiastes 8.11. Because judgment is not instant, the guilty think they're getting away with it and it's going to be okay. So God is selling man in his Bible and penitent souls do not recover from the wrath of God.
There is no recovery on that level of wrath. And that is what the prophet is trying to say. Verse 12. What did Paul say? What Christian would say? Well, I object to any of this. This is New Testament theology.
It's just laid out for us in detail. Verse 12. As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them, O my people, those who lead you cause you to error and destroy the way of your paths. Wicked Ahaz is likely the king at this time. It doesn't have to be. It could have been a good king on the throne and Isaiah could see through it.
He knew there was trouble in the palace all the time. Well, God's ideal is that men should not be led by women. And on spiritual matters, most certainly.
It doesn't mean women can't contribute. I have to develop this. I wish I could just make the statement everybody go, we got you.
We know what you mean. But no, can't do it that way. Deborah pointed this out to Barak. He said, you know what, you know, go fight the, I think it was the mole bites. Go take them out. And he says, well, okay, but you got to come with me. He said, well, if I go with you, you're going to miss out. The prophecy is, Barak, you go with them, not take me with you. But I'll go with you. And he says, okay. That's what the book of Judges, they're all messed up.
There's a connection there. The New Testament does not reverse that. The New Testament does not reverse this nor apologize for it.
This is the ideal. However, too many professed Christian men have abused this. Understatement alert. Understatement, I'm telling you, you can't use words to express how damaging some Christian men have been to their wives and children because they have been tyrants and using the Bible to cover. Well, I'm the head of the house. The Bible says, and they're just moronic and they're evil. But there are other men who just really want to do the right thing, take care of their wives, take care of their children in every way that they can.
And under those ideal conditions, it is a better system. Somebody's got to be in charge. And, you know, again, so the women pastors, how do you do that if she's married? Does she go home and she sub submits to her husband? She comes to church, he submits to her.
It's like putting on changing hats. I mean, it doesn't make sense. And yet it is practiced. It is practiced in a lot of churches when it is explicit in Scripture, both explicit and through just reason, as I just gave you. The wife, wives submit to your husbands. How does she do that if she is the pastor and she is not? So I got a little bit more to say on this, because if you teach this in one of the universities in Western civilization, you will be attacked physically, more than likely.
Get somebody to walk you to your car and call a tow truck, by the way, because they're going to vandalize it. You teach this in the Muslim world and you'll find it grossly abused, and it is grossly abused. And this should be no more offensive to women, God's system, than the fact that men can't bear children. You don't find any men going, well, that's not fair, God. I should be able to have children too.
Well, we've seen what you ladies go through. We would never make such a request. So in other words, there are rules. And in that case, you can't alter it. It's forced. But on the other case, it's voluntary.
You either submit to the teaching or you don't. What he is also saying here, woven into this caricature, is that one, male leaders lack manliness. Two, the women are pulling the strings behind the scenes. Their husbands are leaders and they're really the ones calling the shots through their influence.
All of that is going on, has gone on, is a part of society. Now that doesn't mean a man can't say to his wife, listen, you're better at the checkbook than I am. You take the lead on that.
And that's delegation and that's fair and that's, you know, it works out, you're in rhythm that way. But when the man says, well, I don't want to raise the kids and I don't want to be the boss and I don't want you asking me the hard questions and me having to make a hard decision, God forbid that I should have to make a difficult decision or an unpopular one. You cannot lead if you cannot make unpopular decisions. Because your decisions aren't made based on popularity, it's based on what's right. And this is the problem Israel was having.
You had people that were making decisions in government that weren't right, but they were popular. Well, let's let the diviners in and the soothsayers too. I mean, soothsayers have something to say.
It is sooth. It's so stupid, it's the stupidest word in the English language. Anyway, coming back to this, this again is caricature. It is intended without humor. He's not trying to be funny. He's not making jokes. He's trying to point out how absurd the people are from departing what God has clearly laid out as his pattern.
So anyway, that's just, that's the way it is. Verse 13, Yahweh stands up to plead and stands to judge the people. Verse 14, Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and princes for you have eaten up the vineyard and plunder and the plunder of the poor is in your house.
So their houses were dens of thieves. Their cruelty would move the Lord to action. That's where he says, verse 13, the Lord stands up to plead. He's mindful of these things.
The politicians, their aides, their advocates, their corrupt appointees are all going to be accountable. That's what God is saying. He doesn't have to say this to every generation through people in that generation. They are to repeat it. He only has to say it one time.
His habit is two or three times for the witness. Isaiah lays it out right here. It is every bit of scripture as God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son.
It is every bit of scripture as that. You cannot redact God and say, you know what, I don't care for that one. We'll skip it. Pass. Thus says the Lord.
Pass. Moses lays out the law. That's what they were doing, actually, when they made a golden calf. We opt out of that one, Moses, and we know what happened. Anyway, for you have eaten up the vineyard.
The vineyard here represents the nation Israel. We get that in chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. Verse 15 now, what do you mean by crushing my people and grinding their faces? The faces of the poor, says the Lord Yahweh of hosts. So a metaphor depicting the action of a millstone unmercifully grinding its grist into powder for and make flour out of it.
The accountability is definite. Verse 16, moreover, Yahweh says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet. Now you can't, I know last time we did this, I made the comments, they're not like mincing onions or carrots. It's their prance. Pride of the negative type, which is arrogance, to demand, to be recognized as accomplishing things when you have actually not, not only not accommodated, but contributed to the failure of things as arrogance, this vain self-centeredness. God did not care for this behavior then and he doesn't care for it now. As triviality, a more merciless exposure, God is saying this is trivial stuff and he slams it so hard here.
You say, I don't know if anybody has slammed vanity this hard. Solomon may have been perplexed with vanity, but Isaiah is very clear about it and he's this type of vanity. So here he's saying their parade is actually quite ugly and absurd and you've got to see these, these are the wives and family members of these politicians that were anti-God and this is how they were living. I want to open this up a little bit more, but if you look at the repugnant background of verse 15 again, what do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?
Well, these are the people that also were a part of it. When a society rots, it's not just the men and it's not just the women, it's both. It takes, it takes them both to completely rot a kingdom or a nation and Isaiah has already called out some of the men and now he's calling out the women. He will get back to the men and everybody else as he moves through his prophecies. So he says, and walk without stretched necks.
He has nothing but scorn for this flagrant display of vanity. There's nothing good to say about this. They were dedicated to receiving attention. Imagine if they had today's technology. Oh wait, they do.
The same spirit that was alive. We have these people. It is incredible how vain this is. It's like this isn't even, this is a psychosis is the word that somebody's made up that I don't like that group, but I like that word.
So I just take it from them and I eat the meat spit out the bones. Isaiah's experience and estimation of these women is not flattering. He says they had wanton eyes. They were flirtatious, inviting, promiscuous you could say. Both actions indicate the desire to attract the attention of men, shameless and modesty. And then you also had, of course, I don't even have to say the men were just loving this, the shameful ones, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet.
And so he says the silly little prances that they had, altering their steps because they had the ankle bracelets and little charms on there, producing a tingling to draw attention to themselves. Oh look at me. Stop what you're doing.
Look at me. Look how many selfies I have. I mean, every five steps I take a selfie. So anyway, they had fallen in love with their own reflection.
And of course, that same group that gave us the word psychosis gives us the word narcissus. The self-attraction craze is something wrong. Could you imagine if you're a guy and you're dating a girl and she's sitting next to you in the car and you're driving maybe 10 minutes, but the whole time she's looking in the mirror.
The whole time. And there's nothing stuck in her tooth. She's just admiring herself. Like, boy, I am really good-looking. No, I mean, really. Wait a minute. Seconds have gone by.
I've gotten even better. I mean, what would you do? I'd U-turn. That'd be very simple. Oh, excuse me.
I just remember. I have an appointment to drop you off. Just, you know, somebody that vain because you have kids with them. It's like, hey, the kid needs to be changed. I'm sorry. I'm taking some selfies. Come on.
Have a little respect. Imagine if these women here had cosmetic surgeons or surgeries available and the vanity drugs, the different, you know, hormone injections and things. Imagine if that was available, the Frankenstein stuff was available to them.
Well, it's available today. I mean, there's nothing wrong. I mean, it's, you know, maybe just, you know, I need to get some alterations here. That's of course. But this is another class. And that's why he's itemizing this.
There's nothing wrong with a woman wanting to do her hair and look nice and nothing wrong with that. But when it gets us out of control, then that's what he's dealing with because the background is the cruelty that was being pushed on the poor people. And these are not the poor. Verse 17, therefore, the Lord will strike with a scab, the crown and the head of the daughters of Zion, on the head of the daughters of Zion, and Yahweh will uncover their secret parts.
And so, just, I'm not going to, we're running low on time. The Hebrew words are just very explicit, publicly shame, shaming them. And it will happen when they're taken into captivity. Verse 18, in that day, the Lord will take away the finery, the jingling anklets, the scarves, the crescents, the pennants, the bracelets, the veils, the headdresses, the leg ornaments, and their headbands, the perfume boxes, the charms, and the rings, and the nose jewels.
Yeah, get that one. The festal apparel, the mantels, the outer garments, this is all seasons. It's like, you know, your winter coats, your summer, everything's being covered here. The purses, verse 23, the mirrors, we talked about that one in the car, the fine linen, the turbans, and the robes.
There are 21 listed items. Tell me he's not, he's not thorough. He's serious about this.
This was a problem, it was out of control. Like today, with people in traffic, shutting down traffic, just to take selfies. I saw this video, this guy comments on it, I wouldn't recommend him. I could watch him because I'm a pastor, but you know, just some of the language, but anyway, he's showing you what these people are doing out there. I live out in the country, there's nobody like, laying in front of a cow, taking selfies that I know of, and interfering with the cow's meal, but they're laying down in front of buses, they're causing traffic jams, so they can get their two minute content to post, hit that like button.
Anyway, let's not review it. Some of these things, like the pendants, those are earrings that dangle down. The fashion crazed women. There's nothing wrong with admiring fashion, wanting to look decent, look nice, there's something wrong when the tail wags the dog, verse 24. And so it shall be, instead of the sweet smell, there will be a stench, instead of a sash, a rope, instead of well-set hair, baldness, instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth, and branding instead of beauty. Well, this goes along with being taken a prisoner of war in some cases, but he's also just holding up the utter contrast or antithesis, the opposite of what they admired was going to happen to them, verse 24. Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty men in war.
The men who want to protect these type of women, who allowed this to get out of hand, well, they're going to be dealt with, too. And everything is going to be different. No one's going to notice their clothes and their jewelry and their perfumes. You still notice those nose rings, but not in a good way.
I know. Listen, if you have nose rings, God still loves you and salvation is the only thing that's going to happen. God loves you and salvation is there. Sometimes it's just perplexing to some of us. Verse 26, her gates shall lament and mourn, and she, being desolate, shall sit on the ground.
And so, not a happy ending. Verse 1 now of Isaiah 4, yeah, we could do this. It's only just like 80 verses.
It's just a few. And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own food, wear our own apparel, only let us be called by your name to take away our approach. Well, therefore, polygamy, long as they're not embarrassed. I'm like, wait a minute.
By our standard, that's crazy. But to them, it was more important to have a child than to be without a husband. Even if you had a husband, you had to share him. Well, that's where all the men. Well, eligible husbands were severely reduced in the population because of the war.
It was a shortage. That's the point. But this is caricature again, because it's not likely that seven women will go up to one guy and say, hey, look, we'll pay for all the bills.
We just want to have kids. He's just caricature of the breakdown in society due to moral pollution. If you were to say, are you saying nobody did this? I'm not going that far, but I am saying the idea behind the prophet is to jar the people into saying to themselves when they read this, this is messed up.
How do we avoid this kind of stuff? We'll get right with God. Verse two, in that day, the branch of the Lord of Yahweh shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. Previously, in chapter three and in verse one of this fourth chapter, when Isaiah speaks of that day, it's the day of judgment. Here, it refers to the ultimate restoration.
The context tells us that. He's now going to talk about the Messiah, the messianic age, and a renewed Zion. So he's now discussing the future. The branch of Yahweh shall be beautiful and glorious. Well, this is Messiah in the millennial kingdom. And we know this because we're taught this in Isaiah 11, Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 33, Zechariah 6, Zechariah 3, and Zechariah 12, Zechariah 3 and 6.
There you go. That's how we know what's going on here. And so you have the failed leadership of reprobate man, but contrasted to Messiah's leadership, which exalts Jerusalem and not ruin it. The branch is really, in the Hebrew, a sprout or a shoot, the beginning of life in something that was once thought to be dead. And it parallels the fruit of the land, but also the fruit of Messiah. Isaiah 53, 10, he shall see his seed. And he's talking in the context of the crucifixion and the fruit that comes from the sufferings, which is the saved souls, the people that go to heaven because of the cross of Christ. And he's saying Israel has to be reborn.
It's too far gone. It will be cut down to a stump, but the sprout of Messiah will come out. And it is interesting when he says it will be beautiful and glorious.
So it was said of the robes of the priest, that they would be beautiful and glorious in Exodus 28, 2. Isaiah 28, 5, in that day Yahweh of hosts will be for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people. And this is the messianic age. Zechariah 13 tells us that almost all of Israel will be wiped out in the great tribulation, but a third will survive and they will enter into the millennial kingdom.
He says the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing, unlike what he just told us about people mincing things and grinding the poor and things like that. For those of Israel who have escaped, and again the survivors of this great tribulation, verse 3, and it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. Well this holiness is to be set apart to God because of a right relationship with him.
Be holy for your father in heaven is holy. This mention, we don't have time, but you can reference Malachi 3 16 where he talks about being your name in the book, being remembered. Of course we have it in Revelation. Revelation 21 7, but there shall by no means enter in anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie. That's holiness, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. And so you have those written that in the book of the Lamb to survive the great tribulation amongst the Jews, and then you have those of the saints in Revelation 21 also. So the purification, now verse 4, and the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, and by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.
The Old Testament picture of an altar is a picture of purification. He will baptize you with fire, with the Holy Spirit and with fire in the sense of purification in Matthew 3 11. Now fire symbolically, there's three dominant meanings to it. One is judgment, the judgment of God as is in Isaiah 1 25, purification, Malachi 3 verses 2 through 5, and then Yahweh's present as here in when we get to verse 5, but also you know the burning bush before Moses. So fire is a theological type of judgment, God's judgment, purification, and the presence of God, which is of course you could even say our communion is fire in that. Verse 5, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place to Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and a smoke by day and a shining of flaming fire by night for over all the glory will be a covering. This is the Shekinah, which is the presence of God, the Hebrew word, the root of Shekinah is the presence. That's our communion table. Our communion table brings that to the front, the presence of Christ. It's a very powerful connection. And then he goes on to verse 6, and there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat or a place of refuge and for a shelter from the storm and rain.
And this of course is God's presence in that day will provide care for his people and they will have no needs. 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.
