In fact, they were the tales being wagged by the demands of the people. This is the church at Laodicea. There's many churches today. They preach the Bible, but they don't seek the Lord. They do what the book get the people to come into church and stay and give them money and grow the church.
What else do you want us to do? Anyway, inadequate leadership is one of the signs of God's judgment at work, because when God is blessing, He raises up leaders. 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. Now here's Pastor Rick in Isaiah chapter 9 with his message called, An Astounding Prophecy. So if you want anything eternal, you must get it from Jesus Christ. This is how the Father has ordained it.
Many more verses that just continue to back this up and clarify it. He is the source of eternity. That's why He is the Son Eternal.
Eternity past, eternity forward. Not to be confounded with the Father, though He and the Father are one. John's Gospel chapter 10 verse 30, I and the Father, I and the Father are one.
So the Prince of Peace is next. Well at His first coming, He only brought peace to man with God. Paul boasts about that in Romans. We have peace with God, Romans 5. Luke writes that at His coming, the angels announced this. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men. This coming from God. These angels are messengers of God. And they're coming in and say, the coming of this child is a message of peace to mankind. Of course, not the physical peace.
That will come later. 1 John chapter 3. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. Okay, He did that, but now there's combat between the devil and all of his surrounding influences and the people of God. Matthew 10, 34, Jesus said, do not think I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.
Now He's talking about His first coming. When He comes a second time, He's also going to bring a sword, but then it's going to be down to peace and we go back to the earlier verses of chapter 9 where He talked about the sandals of soldiers being, you know, thrown into the fire. No more weapons of war is the idea. At His second coming, there will be global peace. Isaiah 2 verse 4, He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. 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. Even if you know all these things, it's still amazing to hear it. At least it is to me.
I mean, in preparing this, this is the best part, just talking about Jesus. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the Caesars, Napoleons, all of these guys wanted to bring the world under their control and have their vision of peace. Today, because you can go anywhere in the world, there's this idea of globalization. The thing couldn't work. You still have sinners. You're still stuck with evil people. These men failed and globalization under Antichrist will not work. Only the Prince of Peace will bring world peace, but not yet.
Right now it's a sword. Verse 7, Now here He is going future again, and of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. You know, after verse 7, the rest goes back to telling the Jews how they're going to be judged. So let's take our time before we get back to that, because there's nothing new there.
It's just a repeat. And again, it was meaningful and very meaningful in the days of Isaiah, so meaningful now to us. It's history of what God did with them. But anyway, coming back to verse 7, His kingdom is eternal because He is eternal.
You know, where are you going to be in a hundred years? It means everything. The purpose of your life is to get to heaven.
Now that includes a lot of other things. For example, if I'm trying to get to heaven, if that's the best thing that can happen to me, well it would say something about me if I want to bring others too. And it would say something very bad about me if I didn't care about others. Well, you can go to hell. I'm going to heaven. I mean, there's some of that when a person says, I don't want to hear it. Well, you can go to hell if that's your choice.
I'd rather you not. But, you know, everything about us is going towards heaven. That's the life of the believer.
Our concern is how bumpy is the ride going to be? I mean, how much pain are we going to have to suffer emotionally, physically, or any kind? But still, that is, that's it in a nutshell. That eternity that He offers, the same eternity that He has going forward, He's going to share with us. Now you either believe that by faith or your faith is dead. It's up to you. And if you say, well I don't really feel it. Well, you know, talk to, well, that's not, trusting it is more important than feeling it. But if you're having that struggle, you didn't tell God about it. Write out.
Talk to Him about it until you get an answer. And never let it go. I would be waiting every morning on His doorstep. Here I am Lord, let's talk about this. That's, you know, Jesus, didn't He not say that to the woman, the woman that just wouldn't let the issue go with the judge?
And He says your Father is more eager to respond to you than that judge. Anyway, there is no one this can apply to except the returning Christ. You cannot say of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. You can't even say that about David.
It replies to, in all of us, verse 9, if Jesus is not the Messiah, there will never be one. It's too late. The prophecies have sealed it. It's now impossible to prove your divinic lineage.
How are you going to do that now? Jerusalem's destruction has closed the window. Amalekai says he will suddenly come to his temple. There is no more temple. The next temple that will build will be too late. There are other parts of the prophecy that are left undone. The only way you could fulfill so many of the prophecies concerning Christ is to have lived in the days when the temple was there in Jerusalem and you could prove your line to David.
And as of 70 AD, that's all gone. If Jesus is not the Messiah, then there will never be one. The Jews don't want to hear that. And you just listen to the crazy things they come up with, how they excuse this, how they say, Isaiah 53 is a lamentation over Israel. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it, Jesus alone fulfilled the divinic criteria with judgment and justice. Now that's accountability without corruption. Who would feel comfortable going to court for your freedom, you know, in other words, on a criminal charge, and you knew you were innocent? How comfortable would you be in the hands of the courts? I wouldn't be comfortable. I would say, well, there's no way I'm going to lose.
I'm innocent. You know, not only is there corruption, there's incompetence, it's a system of men. You get a lawyer who just, you know, presents his case better than your lawyer. Or you get a judge that just doesn't like your face.
There's a lot of things that can go wrong. You go to a court looking for justice. Jesus said, listen, try not to go to court.
He just says it right out. Try to settle the issue out of court. And, of course, when it comes to criminal charges, we try not to be criminals. But it's easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble. Well, here, this judgment and justice, there will be accountability without corruption. And you get that in chapter 11. When we get to chapter 11, we'll go over his rule.
What I like about chapter 11 when he talks about his, as Messiah, is that he doesn't, he doesn't have to open up what the law books say and the precedents. He just simply knows. He knows you're guilty.
I don't care what she said. You're guilty. I know you are.
And that's that because I am God. No man can do that. He'll be able to do that. So we'll get to that in chapter 11.
Anyway, from that time forward, even forever. Well, that's largely the message of Gabriel to Mary. A message of his rule, Luke chapter 1. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. Now, when he said that, I don't think his tone was harsh or stoic, you know, like, you know, a drill instructor, just, you know, forceful. He was just very gentle because he had the benefit of just the Spirit of God moving through this whole thing where Mary was just like, you know, clay to receive it.
Just an incredible time. Anyway, because you have to factor in just how she would have been received by Zacharias, who was a priest, and why did he and Elizabeth view her as the actual, you know, just so many things the Holy Spirit was doing behind the scenes that are picked up in the writings a little bit, but just much of it is just beyond us. Anyway, Gabriel continues to Mary, he will be great and he will be called the son of the highest and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. Mary's like this, mouth open, what does she say to this? I mean, she's just a young girl, really. What does she know about life at this point?
Was anybody at her age know about life, right? And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Could you imagine?
It's just incredible. Mary is a special person. Who does not want to interview Mary? So tell me, what was it like on his fifth birthday?
You know? Anyway, we talk about, well, did you ever get angry with him? I think it probably would have been, I don't know, there's this thing about him, we'd all feel convicted if we did something wrong. And he wouldn't even say anything, I don't know, just your imagination, right?
Everything would be in his favor. Daniel, I love this from Daniel chapter 2, this is the Nebuchadnezzar statue, and in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. See this is the glory of Christianity. Christianity is not a religion, it's truth, it's reality.
It is the reality of the universe. We just call it Christianity because we're attaching it to the Savior, to the anointed one, the Christ. And then he says, in the bottom of verse 7, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. In other words, God's passionate about this.
There's nothing, there's no way he's going to be talked out of this. And that's just a seal that he puts, Isaiah puts a seal on the prophecy with that. Yeah, the zeal of the Lord is going to make this happen.
Nothing can stop it. And anyway, for now, the just should live by faith. We know where we're going, and it is our job to be part of the process of getting others to go there too.
Others who would otherwise not get there. Well verse 8, now we come back to the judgments, and we should be able to move through this quickly because there really is not anything we haven't heard in some form. Verse 8, Yahweh sent a word against Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel. This will run from verse 8 into chapter 10, the northern kingdom being invaded by the Assyrians, verse 9. All the people will know Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, who say in pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones.
The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars. A bunch of smart alecks is what Isaiah is dealing with here. He describes their attitude in this life. Even if they don't say that back to him about his prophecies, that's their attitude. You know, if a catastrophe happens because it's supposed to be a judgment of God, well, we'll just rebuild. And bricks are good, but hewn stones are better.
Sycamores, same thing, you know, they're good, but cedars are something better than sycamores. So, we see this attitude in man today, that we will rebuild and make it even better. Just living for the moment in this life, and Isaiah is telling them, you're pushing against God, you're going to be judged, you think you're going to survive.
That's exactly what happened to the northern kingdom. Isaiah is saying that you think that when the Assyrians come and they chop down trees to make siege engines and they destroy your walled cities, you think you're going to rebuild. You're not. You're going to be taken away. But on a grander scale, God is saying that to unbelieving man. You think you're going to survive judgment. You think you've made it this far without God, you're going to make it all the way.
That way is a way that seemed right to man, but it's way leads to death. So, again, life is about getting to heaven, and there's only one way there, and we know what it is. It's an irrational habit of scoffers to suppose that they can recover from catastrophes without spiritual truth. And before we were believers, we thought the same way.
You know, we will rebuild, cannot save your soul. So Peter says the scoffers will come in the last days. They were around in Peter's day, walking according to their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. The people that were saying that to Peter, where are they now? They're dead and gone, and they've been dead and gone for 2,000 years. He's saying, Peter's saying, they're going to be in the future too.
But they were in that day. Verse 11, therefore Yahweh shall set up the adversaries of reason against him and spur his enemies on. So it was still in the historical setting. Then was the king of Syria. The Assyrians took him out first, and then they took out almost all the northern kingdom.
And about 12 years later, they took out the capital of the northern kingdom, Samaria. Verse 12, the Assyrians before the Philistines, yeah, did I read that? Verse 12, the Assyrians before and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with an open mouth. For all his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. So he's talking about the judgments that are coming to the northern kingdom. The hand stretched out, you know, sounds like, oh, it's just God offering. No, that's not what it is in this context. Isaiah uses it five times, and each time it's judgment.
His hand is still stretched out in judgment. The Assyrians and the Philistines will make incursions into that area, and the people will suffer. Verse 13, for the people do not turn to him who strikes them, nor do they seek Yahweh of hosts. Do you know there is a patron saint for drug smugglers?
I'm not kidding you. You see, this is a kind of madness that's out there. In Mexico, in a particular village city in Mexico, they have a shrine to this guy. Some Mexican version of Robin Hood from the 1800s, they have turned into a patron saint, and they put offerings to him, they pray to him, help us smuggle drugs into the country of, you know, these guys are killers.
Help us, you know, protect us as we go attack this police station. This is insane. And so, when we look at these judgments coming against the people in Israel, let's remember, this is real stuff. You don't have to go back in history to Israel to find madness. So, I mean, you can't even answer that kind of an argument. The only thing you can say to somebody that does that is, the Lord Jesus Christ rebuke you.
What else can you, can't you reason with anybody like that? I want God to bless me while I ruin lives on the other side of the border and make money for doing it. Anyhow, verse 14. Now, you can go fact check me on this, and if I'm right, you owe me $10.
No, no, we don't do that. Verse 14, therefore, Yahweh will cut off the head and the tail from Israel, the palm branch, the bulrush, and one day, verse 15, the elder and the honorable. He is the head, the prophet who teaches lies. He is the tail, verse 16, for the leaders of this people caused them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.
So, the false prophets, they played the upfront role of the head, but in fact, they were the tails being wagged by the demands of the people. This is the church at Laodicea. These are the main churches today. They preach the Bible, but they don't seek the Lord. They do what the, well, get the people to come into church and stay and give them money and grow the church.
You know, what else do you want us to do? Anyway, inadequate leadership is one of the signs of God's judgment at work, because when God is blessing, he raises up leaders. I mean, we read in Deborah's song, when leaders lead in Israel, the people are blessed.
I will give you shepherds. How many times will you hear Jeremiah present such a truth? The Lord will raise up shepherds. But the opposite of that is when there are no shepherds. When you have no leadership, and leadership by definition, it is not led by the people.
It can be certainly touched by the people, not insensitive, but its bottom line, it has to make its decisions. So that's what's happening here. These false prophets are really the tail being, just wagging around at the impulses of the people. Verse 17, therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows, for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly, for all his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. So the consequence, even the people that were the underdogs, were hypocrites and evildoers. Sodom and Gomorrah. Gosh, if you could find ten men, you know, God doesn't believe in luck, but we have a saying, good luck with that.
It's the idea that, you know, you're not going to work. And Lot, he couldn't find ten people, could he? Probably seemed like Abraham a good deal, and you know, alright then, there's got to be ten good people, and none of it doesn't. Where's it written that there has to be one? So, verse 17, therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their father. I read that, sorry.
You say, whoo, glad you caught that. Verse 18, for wickedness burns its fire, it shall devour the briars, the thorns, the kindle, the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like rising smoke. It's a good verse to memorize. Though the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, the land is burned, through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, the land is burned up, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire, no man shall spare his brother.
I think this is pretty intense. It's coming from God, and these things happen to the Northern Kingdom. Verse 20, and he shall snatch, and he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry, and he shall devour on the left hand, and not be satisfied. Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm. So, there's a nasty situation going on there. Verse 21, Manasseh shall devour Ephraim, and Ephraim and Manasseh together they shall be against Judah, for all this, his anger, is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. So, the house divided, the horrors of the siege, the pressures on them, the savagery comes out, and the bottom line is, and Nehemiah prayed, he mentions this in the ninth chapter, he talks about all this in his prayer. Anyway, and it's not only Nehemiah, the people at that time, they were turning on each other because they turned against God.
It's really what happened. 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 editions 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.
