And that's in parentheses in the New King James, which means, again, a parentheses means this is important. It's not, you know, something that, oh, by the way, is a little detail. No, it's important.
That's why it's there. Of his loftiness and arrogance and pride and of the haughtiness of his heart. Again, in Jeremiah 48, verse 42, and Moab shall be destroyed as a people because he exalted himself against Yahweh. And yet, the land of Moab plays into the refuge of God's people. 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, let's open our Bibles to the book of Isaiah chapter 16 and join Pastor Rick for today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Verse 3, take counsel, execute judgment, make your shadow like the night in the middle of the day. Hide the outcasts.
Do not betray him who escapes. Keep a low profile to escape the coming judgment to the refugees seeking asylum. Again, will not go to Judah for it. They will be thinned out as a people greatly by the time the Babylonians come out.
They will be completely absorbed, but that's later in Jeremiah's day. If they did come into Judah, this is a big point about these kind of studies in the Old Testament when you come across these ancient peoples being slaughtered because of their evil and God saying, well, come to Judah. Well, he certainly doesn't mean come to Judah with all your idols and your bags in your heart. Bring them into Judah and leaven Judah.
He doesn't mean that. He wants them to submit to the prophet of Yahweh, to Yahweh as God of creation. What they would have done is, if they could, was they would have come in as they were and spread their ideology. Well, that did not happen, but it is an interesting point that God makes the offer, but we know that it is all about truth with God and not a green light to remain as you are. And that's one of our messages to the lost. Listen, we can go say to a lost person that doesn't know Christ. It is not God's will that you remain the way you are concerning Jesus Christ. That's what Moab did concerning Yahweh. They remained pagans and Chemosh, their God, that's who they worship, not Yahweh. And sort of the prophet saying, well, you've been offered. They would have gotten these prophecies to them. The words of these prophets were circulated. Verse 4, let my outcasts dwell with you, O Moab, be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, for the extortioner is at hand, devastation ceases, the oppressors are consumed out of the land, in mercy the throne will be established, and one will sit on it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness. Well, these two verses change everything, a very perplexing section.
Who's the speaker? Translations are a little different here. They take out the personal pronoun, let my outcast, and yet the meaning is the same.
Even if you do not insert that pronoun, it doesn't alter the meaning. This is an outburst of a far fulfillment of prophecy. This is something that goes into the millennial reign. And some of the commentators won't commit to it. I'm going to commit.
I'm not going to sit there, well, it could be. I know what this is, and I'll at least tell you why I'm sure of my opinion. And these are good commentators, again.
I don't read the bad ones, but I don't agree with all of them, as they don't agree with all of them. That's part of it. That comes with the territory. It's sort of like being buddies on the same baseball team, then you get traded to an opposing team. You're still buddies, but you're going to play hard against each other.
You're still going to try to get, you know, your team to win. It has nothing to do with the appreciation for one another. Anyway, the context comes to the rescue, which is the case throughout scripture. The context says, okay, this is what I'm talking about.
Because if your context out of the text is pretext, it's wrong, you can't do it that way. Verse 5 rescues verse 4 from confusion. Otherwise, it's just a random insertion. Verse 5 is just a random insertion about Messiah.
No, it's not a random insertion. It is a timestamp for verse 4. It is telling us verse 4 has to do with the end times. Verse 4 has to do with the Messiah and his kingdom. Verse 4 has to do with that child of David, that is, the Lord over David. The Lord said to my Lord. And so we know that, Psalm 110. And so the setting of verse 4 is last days because of verse 5. It's a millennial, messianic verse. Otherwise, again, that's just random.
Why would he bring up the Messiah? Well, I just said why. The only way it makes sense to me. And I'm, again, going to approach it that way.
This looks to the future relationship. You say, okay, well then tell me how does it connect Moab to the future? It connects it to the Jewish people.
That's how it does it. What's going to happen to the Jewish people before Messiah comes, and what does Moab have to do with it? And Petra and Edom's territory, and Amnon to the north. Well, I'm going to read the verses that tie all this in. Because antichrists will try to exterminate Christians and Jewish people when he comes into that three and a half year mark. And absolutely loses it, as we would say.
He just completely goes into darkness on just another level of darkness that opens to him. Now, Daniel 11, verse 31. We don't have time to go into all the verses, but I guess some of the primaries.
Daniel 11, 31. And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress. Then they shall take away the daily sacrifices and place there an abomination of desolation. Now, this is originally fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes, that Syrian ruler. But Jesus said, and long after, and over 150 years after Antiochus, he says, this is going to happen again.
It's going to happen in the last times. And it's going to be the devil's work. And then the apostles come along and just tie it all in for us. They splice it very nicely.
The splice is so smooth, you can't tell where the seams are. Believing Jews at the time that Antichrist defiles the rebuilt Jewish temple, the third Jewish temple. They have Solomon's temple, the ones Zerubbabel built and then Herod expanded.
And that was destroyed by the Romans. And then you're going to have that third temple of the Jews. And Christ, we know that because Christ tells us that there's going to be a temple, it's going to be defiled, and it's going to be the end in Matthew 24, which deals all with the end time.
That context of Matthew 24 says this is all end times, and I'm telling you. So the believing Jews, there will be Jews that will be converted because of the work of the two witnesses and the 144,000 Jews. They're going to be hard at work preaching Christ. The Jews are going to be coming to Christ.
They're going to be leading Gentiles to Christ. The church will be gone. There will be no more public worship in the true sense to Christ. All the public worship going on will be paganized and Antichrist will be honored. The apostate church will be live and well until Antichrist destroys it because they're going to hate.
That's the whole, the woman rides the beast of Revelation. Anyway, coming back to this, the believing Jews are going to heed the warning of Christ when they see that this abomination of desolation take place in that third temple. They're going to leave Jerusalem. They're going to leave Israel.
Where are they going to go? Let's look at what Jesus says because Jesus is the one applying Daniel, which is already prefulfilled and fully fulfilled in Antichrist, Matthew 24. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, hey, Daniel just said that, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.
Is it any more explicit than that? Standing in the holy place and then parenthesis, whoever reads, let him understand. That's Matthew inserting that because Christ wasn't writing it. He was speaking it. Matthew says, if you read this, we were paying attention.
You pay attention. He says, Jesus now speaking again, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Which ones? Israel is nonstop mountains. Which one is he talking about? Well, again, Jesus applies this to Antichrist. Antiochus, you know, he defiled the temple of the Jews in 167 years before Christ was born in the manger. Isaiah indicates where they're going to flee. Moab is one of the refuge places for them. Now, remember our verse, verse 4. Let my outcasts dwell with you, O Moab. Be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, for the executioner is at an end. Devastation ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. When is that going to happen?
It was going to happen. And then, of course, he kicks right into the mercy of Messiah's throne in the very next verse. So we come back to the scripture. We say, okay, they're fleeing to Moab's territory, which is modern-day Jordan.
Jordan fits the bill for this refuge. As I mentioned now, Edom, Moab, Ammon. Here we go, Daniel 11 41. He shall also enter the glorious land. He's still talking about this Antichrist and Antiochus. The glorious land is Israel. And many countries shall be overthrown. Remember that little horn rises to power, tramples the other ones?
I mean, he's a beast. He continues in Daniel 11 41. Many countries shall be overthrown, but these shall escape from his hand. Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon, the Jordanians.
You see how prophecy just comes? And Israel and Jordan right now enjoy a really good relationship with each other. You can take a bridge right from Israel right into Jordan.
It doesn't take much at all. This is quite remarkable considering the influence of Islam against Israel in that region of the world. Jeremiah rings in on it. He also prophesies about Moab. He's 100 years after Isaiah, so Moab is still on the chart. He says, yes, I will bring back the captives of Moab in latter days, says Yahweh.
Thus far is the judgment of Moab. Ethnically, this has nothing to do with the Moabites. It has everything to do with that territory.
Who is in that territory? That's why you get symbols in the book of Revelation and other prophecy because the symbols don't change. A hawk is a hawk. You know, a lion is a lion. A lamb is a lamb. But the imagery doesn't change with the culture and language and whatever else.
Well, the territories remain the same. And in the days these prophecies were spoken, the Moabites were there. In the end times, they will be the Arab people which the Moabites have been mixed in with. Revelation chapter 12. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
This is Satan. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. Well, that's Herod, the great wicked one. He, you know, slaughtered the innocent children of Bethlehem trying to kill the child.
It continues in Revelation chapter 12. She bore a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and his throne. Well, that's Christ. That's the crucifixion.
Also, his lordship ruling with a rod of iron which the millennial reign will be. Caught up to heaven is his ascension into heaven where he is on the throne. There's a 2,000 year gap between Revelation 12.5, 4 and 5, and Revelation 12.6, which is the next verse. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, Israel, where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1,260 days.
Well, these numbers just tie everything off the chart. That's three and a half years. Jesus comes and sits on the throne and judges righteously at the end of that period of time. 1,290 days from the time Antichrist comes and defiles his temple.
That 30 day gap is the sort of fitting everything into place that is necessary to establish the details of his reign. Because there's a lot of people going to be here. There's going to be people not going to know that there's going to be people sleeping in their hut while this stuff is taking place. But they're going to be awakened.
They're going to all be dealt with. Daniel 12.11, and from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. That's 30 days more than what Revelation talked about. And it's not a discrepancy.
It's a little bit more information. David, King David, he placed his parents in Moab to safeguard them from Saul. And that was a typical foreshadowing of this end time refuge in Moab. Again, Moab's not the only place. The Jews are not all just going to be in that territory that was once Moab's.
They're going to be spread out a little bit. Some are going to be up in what was Ammon's territory, just where Moab's northern border ended, Ammon's southern border began. And where the southern border of Moab ended, Edom's northern border began.
So these three are connected geographically on a map, regardless of the people. The Edomites are gone, they're not coming back, but their territory, that's been permanently stamped onto the map. So when God says Edom's territory, or Edom, we know what he's talking about. When the Romans came along, they moved some of the Edomites across to the wilderness of Judah, and that's where it can get a little confusing.
But that's not how it originally was set up. So David, again, when Saul was chasing him, David was hiding in the wilderness, he got his parents to Moab to keep them safe from him. And so all this, again, explains verse 4, let my outcast dwell with you, O Moab, be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, or the devastator. That's anti-Christ.
I love how it comes together. Now do get a little annoyed why the commentators don't rush to agree with me. They should be writing, Rick is right.
Anyway. The idea of taking refuge in caves is not unprecedented in modern history. Maybe not in this technological age, but certainly in this modern age. In World War II, Jews hid for almost two years in the caves in the Ukraine, hiding from the Nazis.
I mean, that's a long time. One of the caves, the priest's grotto, is said to be 77 miles long. That's a cave. All it has to be is a hollow underground, or in the ground. So it's not, even in our lifetime, they were pulling it off.
We have no reason to doubt. Anti-Christ will be pretty busy with a lot of things. He probably is going to say, okay, they're in Jordan, I'll get to them. But he's not going to have the time. He's going to be so busy, preoccupied with other things. He thinks he's going to finish this other business and go get them, wipe out whatever Jews are over there. Christ won't give it to them.
It's very easy to see how this all works out. God is in control of everything, totally sovereign. And the fact that he is allowed evil to divide the sheep from the goats does not make him evil at all. Every right as sovereign creator, to create a condition that is fair and available. And when God says he is just, he means he is fair. And so if you have a question about the fairness of God, you better err on the side of him being, as Abraham said, the God of all the earth will do right of the universe. He'll do right.
You never have to worry about that just because you're getting hits in this life, unfairness in this life. Well, we've been warned about all that. Ergo, take up your cross. Verse 6 now, so I hope, well, let's do a little bit more. Verse 6, we have heard of the pride of Moab. He is very proud of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath, but his lies shall not be so. So now the prophet returns to his immediate time period. He's now talking about the Moabite people. It's common in scripture to have this sort of a pit stop, this little oasis of prophecy, and then return to the immediate things.
And the context is what saves us, so that it's not a free-for-all. But I do think, by faith, you've got to commit to certain verses. We do that with Messiah. We say, that's Messiah. When David said, the Lord said to minus the Lord, sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool, we all look at that and say, he's talking about Messiah.
We don't have to guess at that. Well, there are other sections of scripture, we have to apply the same approach, the same logic. Jeremiah, he talks about their pride, and of course, that's what turned an archangel into a devil. Pride, that is self-serving pride, the pride that exalts yourself above others, even unto God.
We have heard the pride of Moab, so a hundred years later, they're still at it. He is exceedingly proud, that's an emphatic insertion, and that's in parenthesis in the New King James, which means, again, a parenthesis means this is important. It's not, you know, something that, oh, by the way, is a little detail.
No, it's important, that's why it's there. Of his loftiness and arrogance and pride, and of the haughtiness of his heart. Again, in Jeremiah 48, verse 42. And Moab shall be destroyed as a people, because he exalted himself against Yahweh. And yet, the land of Moab plays into the refuge of God's people.
So, here's another interesting thing. We understand the pride of Babylon. God understood it, but he wasn't buying it. He said to Nebuchadnezzar, if I hear you one more time. And he did it one more time, and immediately he was driven from men. And Daniel said, told you.
No, he did not. But he warned him. He said, oh King, you know, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar had a connection. And Daniel wished it wasn't so, but he said, if you go mouthing off about this again, you're going to be punished.
This is the dream. And he did. Nebuchadnezzar mouthed off, you know, look, this is great Babylon that I built, and at that instant he was dealt with.
But he was restored. Well, you understand the hanging gardens of Babylon, this giant walls there, everything that they did is said it would take three days to walk through Babylon. But Moab had nothing to boast. Why is she boasting? Why is she arrogant? This is not hard to believe because we've all met people who have nothing and are arrogant. And they're like, man, what makes you think you're so much better than everybody?
You should jump to the line and we all should bow down to you. Anyhow, the Moab had nothing. Their arrogance kept them from going to Judah for refuge.
It was offered and it led to their defeat. Now, verses 7 and 8, Moab's grief is explained. And then 9 through 12, the grief, the Lord's grief again over Moab. We look at verse 7, therefore Moab shall wail, wail for Moab, everyone shall wail. And then bottom of verse 9, for battle cries have fallen over your summer fruits and your harvest. Well, the harvest is supposed to be a time of festivities. The summer fruits, these were supposed to be joyful things, but war was in the land and that all of its horror came with it. Unlike Judah, Moab will never be restored as a kingdom, though the people remain, they linger for a while after the Assyrians and once the Babylonians are done with the Moabites, they vanish from history.
So, as I mentioned, the Arab peoples, the mixture of those Arab peoples form what we call the kingdom of Jordan today. There were reasons to rejoice in Moab's judgments, but yet the prophets still, and as does Yahweh, weep over it or just grieves over this. Ezekiel 33, say to them, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his evil way. And then there's that thrice repeated, turn, turn, twice, not thrice, from your evil ways. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
So there's God appealing to the people to snap out of it. So we move on, verse 10, gladness is taken away and joy from the plentiful field and the vineyards. There will be no singing, nor will there be shouting, or treaders will, no treaders will tread out wine in the presses. I have made their shouting cease.
So there's not going to be any fun. Verse 11, therefore my heart shall resound like a heart for Moab and my inner being for hurries, and that's of course the places of Moab. Verse 12, and it shall come to pass when it is seen that Moab is weary on the high place, that he will come to his sanctuary to pray, but he will not prevail. And so their religion fails, their faith fails, their festivity, everything is just total breakdown, catastrophic. Imagine if you're living in the days of Isaiah and you're a Moabite hearing this, there are prophecies against Egypt today. Imagine if you're an Egyptian, you've got to reconcile that.
You have to say, am I more Egyptian than I am a believer? You've got to, you know, choose sides. What, you know, there are some people that act like America is beyond judgment. You know, Billy Graham said a long time ago, if God doesn't judge America, it's not meaning, it's, I guess, idiomatic. If God doesn't judge America, he'll owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. At the rate we're going, he was saying, there's going to be judgment. And if you were too patriotic to think that God could dare do that, then you don't know your Bible history. The Bible history is God is no respect of persons, flat out.
You're either with me or you're against me. Doesn't care, oh, I didn't know you were born there. I heard a comedian, a very clean comedian, one that I've never heard use any foul language or even topics.
I have to say that. So he said, they're from Nashville, Tennessee. And they were living in New York, I guess, when he was establishing himself as a comedian there.
And when his daughter was born, they were sure to have her born in Nashville. He said, I didn't want her growing up thinking she was better than us. Not that. The point is, that's not true with God. There's not like, well, you're born here, you're better than these people. It's not even true with us. Those may be perceived. I don't know if I told that right. Let me do it again. No mulligans in the pulpit.
Not many. Anyway, for those of you who don't know, a mulligan is in golf. You say, can I have a do-over shot? Sure, that's a mulligan. But some guys, you know, they act like they're on the PGA. No, we're playing with you.
I'm not playing with you anymore. Anyhow, verse 13, this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning Moab since that time. But now, verse 14, Yahweh has spoken saying, within three years, as the years of a hired man, the glory of Moab will be despised with all that great multitude, and the remnant will be very small and feeble. And again, they were small and feeble.
The Babylonians just didn't have a problem absorbing them. It's interesting, he says, within three years, according to a hired man, there's nothing spiritual about this. This is three years as 360-day cycles. 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.
